Update to SUSD: A Thousand Ways to be Dishonest:
A very shallow article in today’s Scottsdale Republic (“Scottsdale quashes rumors of food bank”), and some very ham-handed criticism of concerned Tonalea Elementary school neighbors by a city council member’s shills, seems to be not only short-selling the reals story, but also stoking a smoldering fire.
The Virginia Korte platform published anonymously as “Voice of Scottsdale” yesterday said the controversy is based on a “conspiracy theory.”
If this was ‘no big deal’ (like you might think hearing David Peterson and the City of Scottsdale try to patronize the neighbors), why all the secrecy? Can Peterson, Brown, Korte, et al, really be surprised that the taxpayers who live in the neighborhood (and whose hard-earned taxes fund the Scottsdale Unified School District) were upset when they found out about it?
There is much more to this story, including information to be revealed by pending public records requests. And contrary to the Republic headline, nothing has been “quashed.” If anything the story is much worse even than we all thought initially.
As Paul Harvey said, “Stand by for news.”
2 Comments
So let us ponder these facts – Denny Brown gets a lease for a single dollar a month ($ 1.00) for six months and that can be renewed in perpetuity. Now per ASBA (the rules for school board members) and ARS (our state laws) that is not allowable. Denny Brown got a discount, but he is NOT a 501c3, he is not a non-profit. So he should have paid the FULL rental price for the facility, it is more than a $ 1. The schedule is on the SUSD page.
Now the lease is signed by Denny Brown in DECEMBER, but the CFO gets him to sign the conflict of interest portion in JANUARY? Oh we can now say the lease is done, so all is well? NO. The donations were done for a short period of time, there should have been a RENTAL AGREEMENT NOT A LEASE. The food was given out from the same place, so again, why a LEASE? Christmas is OVER last I checked.
Nothing has been signed is a great line, but the LEASE is SIGNED! So Denny Brown got a lease (which should go before the school board – which he was an ACTIVE MEMBER at the time of lease) and nobody said nothing about it? It was found in January for the conflict of interest then? Oh this is just boilerplate language, yeah for a LEASE -NOT- a RENTAL. So the legal department of SUSD just missed that right? Watch the video of the board meeting, this is one hot potato.
Look Denny Brown spilled the beans on this to his church – he wants to setup a food bank, way before this lease was signed. He admits to other uses in the Scottsdale Independent, so he was looking LONG TERM. Who really thinks that this lease was a ‘mistake’?
Oh and for anyone who thinks there is a need for a ‘resource center’ by Tonalea, look up the Paiute Community Center. It does what Denny Brown was planning to do! It is down the street, you can get on the trolley and be there in under 5 minutes or walk to it. Come on now, Paiute is less than 2 miles away.
Also unless all my maps, Google, and Mapquest are wrong. Tonalea is NOT central to anything in Scottsdale for student or community use. So let us just throw away that ‘centralized’ word.
Sorry for the harsh tone, but come on now! We are not idiots, every news article brings more dirt to the foreground and none of it looks good.