Orange Recall Committee Files FPPC Complaint

The group trying to recall three Orange Unified School District trustees filed a complaint Wednesday against board President Linda Davis, alleging she used district funds to distribute a letter boasting of her accomplishments.

Davis said the letter was merely to “communicate with the community.”

In the complaint, Orange Recall Committee members charged that Davis violated the state’s Fair Political Practices Act when she sent out a letter to 18,000 constituents on district stationery using district funds.

In the Dec. 7 letter, Davis, who served as school board president this year and was elected vice president for next year, listed “major accomplishments that I am most proud of” and detailed district programs she approves of.

“If you’re an incumbent, you can’t use public money to do a mailing that is self-aggrandizing,” said Thomas H. Wolfsen, lawyer for the recall movement.

Davis defended the letter and said it is one of many she has sent out this year. “I have been consistently communicating with parents and taxpayers,” she said. “As an elected official, that’s my responsibility.”

Davis said that “propaganda circulated by the recall committee” has compelled her to send out the letters to set the record straight.

A group of parents and teachers began the recall campaign in August to unseat three board members they say are mismanaging the district, which has been wracked with conflict and labor disputes with teachers in recent years.

Melinda Moore, chairman of the recall campaign, charged that the letter, sent to parents across the district in Orange, Villa Park and parts of Anaheim, Santa Ana and Garden Grove, violated both state law and local school board rules.

The FPPC act states that elected officials are prohibited from sending out anything that “features an elected officer affiliated with the agency” when “costs of distribution are paid for with public monies.”

Orange Unified’s board regulation “recognizes that state law prohibits mass mailings . . . which aggrandize elected officials” and urges instead that the superintendent communicate with parents.

John Symowick, spokesman for the FPPC, confirmed that his office had received the complaint but refused to comment on the investigation.

Recall volunteers have until Jan. 11 to collect 14,500 valid signatures to force a recall election. Campaign officials say they have more than 15,000 but will continue soliciting signatures until the deadline to make sure they have more than enough.