Public records requests are really so much fun. I don’t know why more people do not make a hobby out of them!
Though generally lacking in chutzpah, swiftness, or creativity, public officials never seem to run out of ways to cleverly restate one of their key concerns with the world: “How dare these peasants question my authority with inconvenient facts!”
Getting to see those many variations is one of the underrated joys of a public records request.
Here is an actual email from an actual elected official, sent to me in response to an actual public records request that I submitted.
I just had to ask for all of the emails about me. It really is some fun reading, especially the ones written by elected officials who have watched too many episodes of West Wing and who think their public email accounts are confidential simply because they add that word “CONFIDENTIAL,” to the subject line. Perhaps you are beginning to see why I started Project Accountability and how much fun it is gearing up to be.
My favorite new troll (mentioned in yesterday’s email) has reappeared in the public records requests.
In this email, my troll a.k.a. the former Teachers Union President is writing to the current School Board President to form an alliance against someone who he seems to consider the baddest of hombres — lil’ ole me.
*******
SUBJECT: Re: CONFIDENTIAL: Grading related to mask wearing
FROM: Timothy Gearhart
TO: Christopher Arend
DATE: 18/02/2022 15:58
Chris, have you had a chance to research this dude? He’s a paid troublemaker who writes books and gives lectures. Beware! (I’m behind you on this issues)
Tim
Timothy J. Gearhart
PRJUSD Trustee
*******
What, by the way, was this man’s actual complaint with me?
The subject line reveals that.
If you have an ounce of sense in you, you won’t like what you are about to hear.
Several public officeholders were frustrated with me because I caught a handful of teachers behaving dishonorably by assigning lower grades to brave high school students who dared to stand up to them by not wearing the face mask.
As shocking as that may sound, that is in fact what happened.
The students got their grades marked down for it — as much as 10% it looks like. They were not graded for their academic prowess, but for disobediently wearing masks. And the school board, to this day, has not fully addressed the issue of the “Masks for grades scandal” publicly.
Can you imagine what kind of a no-goodnik you have to be as a high school teacher to pick on a kid for something so petty as not wearing a mask correctly? And to then go so far as to vindictively take it out on his grades and affect his chances of getting into college? Those are more like stories I hear from old days of communist Czechoslovakia. Something told me that no-goodniks like these teachers needed to be outed. Someone had to stand up for those brave maskless high schoolers.
Right?
Well, it just so happens those brave maskless high schoolers and I crossed each other’s paths one day, and since then, I have had their back.
And in my true, over-the-top fashion (which some people who have come to know and love me refer to as “Classic Stevo Overkill”), I didn’t just mention it to a board member or two before dropping the issue, no, I took it further. I actually sent out press releases to perhaps 30 or 40 media sources about what had taken place.
I, then, made phone calls and did interviews.
I also authored three opinion pieces in local newspapers.
I called for the teachers to be fired.
And I called for the complacent board members involved to resign.
Oh yeah . . . And I posted the dodgy teachers’ salaries online too.
From Allan Stevo, here.