Commentary and Opinion by Samuel Strait – March 19, 2022 It is not often that I can drum up the interest to attend the proceedings of the local justice system, generally dry and boring as a whole, but I could not resist the opportunity to observe just how justice is applied over a recent "Writ of Mandate" served on the local school district's Citizen's Oversight Committee (COC). Fortunately for me, the crushing boredom was limited to less than thirty minutes, as the board's COC of the 2008 school bond elected to play footsie with the justice system and seek to delay the proceedings for another thirty days. Of note in the experience was that justice is no longer served up face to face, but in a rather disconcerting almost robotic way where two thirds of those involved were not even in the courtroom. One of the missing was the judge himself, speaking from somewhere in Los Angeles. Nothing like the inability to face the opposition or the person in control of the decision to spoil any sense that justice was served. While the plaintiff elected to discontinue her effort to bring the out of compliance bond measure COC into some sort of recognition that this would be their only path to a reasonably painless resolution of their failings with a judges ruling, the COC, as was evidenced later in a scheduled COC meeting, was completely ignorant of the potential for even greater disaster waiting in their future. Somewhat like ignoring the sign warning of a mine field directly in their path. But Hey, can't say that they haven't had plenty of additional signs that this may not end well for them. Back to the judicial proceedings. It was with great relief that I escaped the judicial proceedings in under thirty minutes, but kind of felt let down by the ease with which the district's COC lawyer has led the hapless district bond COC straight into putting their collective heads in a very large noose. Certainly large enough to encompass them all. I wondered just who had selected the lawyer for the COC and was informed later in the day that it was the district's decision to follow the advice of their insurance company to retain the services and not the COC itself. Not being sure who is protecting who at that point from legal consequences, a query alerted me to the fact that the COC itself has no exclusive lawyer to protect itself, but depends on the school district to provide such services. Clearly not the best decision on the COC's part going further, as it is unlikely that the issue has been put to bed. No one has ever admitted that the district's COC has covered itself in proper operating mode, nor elected to admit that its activities have even met the audit reports of conditions out of compliance to operate properly. Yet it continues to operate as it everything is above board and in compliance. The recent issue of the writ of mandate was a rather benign message for the COC to straighten up their act before the "real" hammer comes down. Had the COC's legal team been more astute, they would have advised the COC to allow for a judicial ruling and cleaned up their act. No harm, no foul. But, No, the COC has elected to play stupid and invite all sorts of new scrutiny into the local school district's behavior. Not smart. It is pretty well been established at the very least, that rarely has the district's COC been in compliance over much of its existence. There has been considerable concern that in the course of its dealings that measurable fraud has been exhibited by the committee in covering years of being out of compliance as a starting point. Once an interest by State Officials become a reality, who knows what will tumble out of the years of noncompliance. I suspect the resulting exploration will not be particularly pleasant….particularly to some of the current membership of the Committee who seemed to be mired in their own ignorance…..