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| Trustee Ortega |
Orange Unified Trustee John Ortega wants a blank check to hire a law firm to investigate OUSD high school student Voter Registration drives with connections to billionaire Tom Steyer
Orange Unified Trustee John Ortega placed an item on the Orange Unified School Board Agenda for May 24, 2018, requesting to hire a law firm to investigate student Voter registration drives at two OUSD high schools in April of this year.
Agenda Item 12 D (page 56) states "I [John Ortega] am recommending an attorney from the law firm of Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo (AALRR) to complete the investigation and provide a report back to the board". Ortega states in the agenda item that the investigation is to look into any "potential violation of the California
The total cost of the requested Ortega Investigation is listed as "To be determined".
The voter registration drives were organized by the Orange County Voter Information Project (OCVIP). The voter registration drives were held this year on April 11th at Richland H.S. and April 17th at El Modena H.S. April is a traditional month for student registration drives.
A post on April 11, 2018, on the OCVIP Facebook (the website for OCVIP does not work) has this message about the Richland
Orange County Voter Information Project - OCVIP
April 11 ·
Two back to back voter registration drives at two different high schools! First school, we registered 47 students. This was a success because only about 200+ students attend that school due to its status as a continuation high school. Next day, in Irvine America
#civicengagement #engage #inform #turnout
| Adult volunteers at the April 11, 2018 OCVIP student registration drive at Richland H.S. |
For more information click on OCVIP FACEBOOK
An April 17, 2018 OCVIP Facebook post about the El Modena registration drive reads:
Orange County Voter Information Project - OCVIP
April 17 ·
After a two-day visit, one day of civic engagement presentations followed up by a lunch time voter registration drive today, we registered a total of 190 new voters at a local Orange County
A special thanks to NextGen California
Message us if you would like to get involved with our quest to register young individuals throughout Orange County
#Engage #Inform #Turnout #youngvoters #futuredecisionmakers#womenforhumanity #190newvoters
| OCVIP Facebook post about El Modena voter registration drive |
The OCVIP Facebook page includes an April 17th "like" of a El Modena H.S. post about the event:
El Modena High School is at El Modena High School. Like Page
April 17 · Orange, CA ·
It's #CAVoterEducationWeek April 16-27 and community volunteers worked with the Orange County Voter Information Project - OCVIP to help @ElModenaHS with student voter registration!
For more information click on OCVIP FACEBOOK
The both OCVIP and El Modena HS postings on the April 17 event included photos of the event. The photos of adult registration drive volunteers included OUSD Trustee Andrea Yamasaki. Yamasaki is up for reelection in November 2018.
| OUSD Trustee Andrea Yamasaki (far right) at OCVIP Student Registration Drive on April 17, 2018 |
For more information click on OCVIP FACEBOOK
Both OCVIP April posts about the OUSD high school student registration drives also mention and thank NextGen California for helping with the voter registration drives:
"Thank you to our community partners and to NextGen America
-Excerpt from April 11, 2018, OCVIP Facebook post
NextGen was founded by California
For more information click on
NEXTGEN FOUNDER
STEYER IMPEACHMENT CAMPAIGN
Just this week news broke that Steyer had just funded NextGen California with $350,000 to work to unseat California Republican Congressional members and flip the seats of two retiring Republican congressmen. The Hill, a top national political website, reported this week:
"NextGen America is rolling out a campaign to urge 200,000 young voters to go to the polls on June 5 in four GOP-held districts: the seats held by Reps. Jeff Denham and Dana Rohrabacher as well as the seats being vacated by retiring Reps. Ed Royce and Darrell Issa. All four districts were carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and are part of Democrats’ planned path to taking back the House."
For more information click on THE HILL: STEYER OUTREACH
The NextGen website has a page that lists "partners". OCVIP is listed on the page with its name as a hyperlink. When you click on the Orange County Voter Information Project on the partners' page, it takes you to the Orange County Federation of Labor home page.
For more information click on NEXT GEN PARTNERS
On it's Facebook page, OCVIP states it is a non-partisan organization:
The Orange County Voter Information Project (OCVIP) is a non profit, non partisan, organization that aims to facilitate civic participation via voter registration and promotes civic engagement throughout Orange County
General Information
Nonprofit, non-partisan, organization
Much of the OCVIP website, however, is devoted to similar causes that NextGen advocates including attacking Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, immigration rights, and affordable healthcare. The NextGen website explains its mission on its webpage as:
Our story
NextGen America
Since our founding as NextGen Climate in 2013, we’ve worked to fight climate change by advancing the transition to a clean energy economy. We’ve supported candidates who support climate action. We’ve fought to halt the Keystone XL pipeline and registered more than 1 million voters nationwide.
Now, the same values that drive our work on climate are under unprecedented attack from all directions.
We’re proud to step up the fight for immigrant rights, affordable health care, prosperity, and equality.
Also appearing frequently on the OCVIP Facebook posts are connections to Swing So Cal Left. Their website describes Swing SoCal Left as:
Description
Swing SoCal Left works to connect progressive organizers and volunteers who want to help flip the California congressional swing districts CA-25, CA-39, CA-45, CA-48 and CA-49. We painstakingly maintain the regional district flipper's calendar of events at Swingsocalleft.org. We provide landing pages on the site for Action Council coalitions in each district and sundry other activities to help facilitate SoCal's incoming Blue Wave.
For more information click on: SWING SoCal LEFT
Ironically or perhaps coincidentally, also on the OUSD Agenda for May 24 is an item updating Board Policies. Information Item 13 B (Agenda page 59) includes a new addition regarding Student Voter Registration. The new Board Policy would have the OUSD Administration designating a staff contact at each high school to facilitate Student Registration on each campus.
The local watchdog group Greater Orange Community Group* sent out a community email about the student voter registration flap. The email praised Ortega for bringing the item to the attention of the public and took Yamasaki to task for her involvement. The group also urged that the Trustees move on and not waste tax money hiring legal experts for an "investigation":
The Greater Orange Community Group shares the concerns of Trustee John Ortega over political groups or organizations with political agendas on a public school campus under the guise of student voter registration. The Greater Orange Community Group is also concerned with the participation of Trustee Yamasaki in the OCVIP registration efforts at OUSD high schools.
At the same time, the Greater Orange Community Group understands how vital it is for our democracy to engage students early to both register to vote and to actually vote.
While we applaud Trustee Ortega for bringing the El Modena and Richland
If the majority of the OUSD Board feels an investigation is needed, we urge the OUSD Board to have the very capable OUSD Administration report back to the OUSD Board how the voter registration with the OCVIP group occurred and any possible legal violations.
The citizen's of Greater Orange support the goals of young people voting. However, we urge the OUSD Trustees to not waste educational tax dollars on lawyers, lawsuits, and litigation but instead learn from this event and move forward with a partisan-free plan to educate and engage students to register to vote.
OUSD Public Relations costs
In February 2018 OUSD Trustees voted $219,424 for a Public Relations contract (Click on):
OUSD VOTES $219,424 for PR
Here is what spending $219,424 of educational tax dollars on PR buys (For the latest in OUSD News on the web Click on):
OUSD in the NEWS
NEXT OUSD BOARD MEETING Thursday, May 24, 2018
Next OUSD Board Meeting -OUSD BOARD ROOM
Trustee Kathy Moffat will be teleconferencing from Hawaii requiring all votes to be by voice.
Trustee Kathy Moffat will be teleconferencing from Hawaii requiring all votes to be by voice.
CLOSED SESSION- 6:30 pm
OUSD Regular Session: 7:00 pm
For AGENDA-CLICK ON
For more information call the OUSD Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at 714-628-4015
ARCHIVAL Information and direct news can be found at:
the Greater Orange News Service http://greaterorange.blogspot.com/
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