Kate Smith's Appeal Brief: Statement of Case

STATEMENT OF CASE

Defendant Kate Smith, (hereafter “Kate”) did not endear herself to high-ranking government administrators and elected officials, to whom she spoke frequently and critically at public meetings of the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors (BOS), SB City Council, Santa Barbara School District (SBSD) Board of Education and SB County Mental Health Commission.

In August, 2008, Kate filed papers for her third campaign for the SBSD Board of Education; her candidate’s statement “named names” and vowed to expose school and government corruption in a “hard-hitting,” “pull no punches” way:

There is deep-seated and wide-spread school and government corruption in Santa Barbara County. An Education-Political-Industrial Complex (EPIC) has established an unholy alliance between EducRat$, BureaucRat$, and tax-payer-paid lawyers who collude, conspire, and cover-up wrong-doing while they feed at the public-funding trough.

COE Superintendent Bill Cirone and His Cronies have lost sight of the Educational Mission. There are systemic and systematic violations of state and federal laws, abuse of power and process, rampant retaliation against whistleblowers, and malfeasance.

The School to Prison Pipeline (googleable) incarcerates our low-socio-economic-sector youth instead of educating them, causing irreparable damage to the children, family, and our society.

Democratic education is “engaged, relevant, and socially-conscious curriculum in a cooperative and supportive atmosphere, with an embrace of diversity, an accommodation of different learning styles, and a fair distribution of funds.” Visit www.sbschooltalk.com

“The schools of our dreams” are child-centered, teacher-directed, and parent-involved ; Open Alternative School and Cesar Chavez Charter are model school paradigms for our nation.

I am a credentialed teacher and non-profit administrator affiliated with the International Center for Educational Leadership and Social Change.org.

Two weeks before the election, (October 21, 2008), Kate was summarily disqualified from the ballot by the Voter Registrar, Joe Holland, and Billie Alvarez, Elections Manager, because although Kate’s address (3400 Gibraltar Road, Santa Barbara, 93105) is ten minutes away from SBSD schools, an ancient boundary line map places her in the Santa Ynez School District, an hour-and-a-half from her home.

The mistake on the map was discovered in 1998, when Kate submitted her first candidacy for school board. Kate was placed on the ballot because a school administrator wrote to Billie Alvarez on official stationery that “Kate’s residence is in the SBSD.” COE Superintendent Bill Cirone requested that she be disqualified with a promise to then-Voter Registrar Ken Peitit that the map would be corrected. The SB News-Press announced Kate’s candidacy on Augsust 12, 1998, and then published her disqualification the next day.

Civil lawsuits, compliance complaints, and a landmark and epic due process ensued (CT 132-136). Kate prevailed in what the Department of Justice (Office of Civil Rights) deemed “the most expensive, most complex, and most pathetic Special Education Administrative Hearing in the history of the United States.”

The California State Registrar of Voters (Debra Bowen) advised Kate to appeal the 2008 disqualification to the SB Board of Supervisors, which was dicey, since three supervisors were supported in their political careers by contributions from “Bill Cirone and His Cronies. “

On October 28, 2011, one week before the election, Kate submitted her complaint and explained her Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) disorders in an email to the Clerk of the BOS, Michael Allen. During a recess, BOS Chair Salud Carbajal and CEO Michael Brown conspired to deny Kate access to the public podium for remote testimony public comments and ordered her ejected from the county administration building, in violation of the Brown Act and ADA.

The 2008 disqualification was officially noticed in every newspaper, on television, radio, and online, by mail to every registered voter and at each polling place, and cost the tax-payer over $50,000.

The election took place on November 4, 2008; despite the disqualification, Kate received 17,500 votes. Kate filed a lawsuit against Joe Holland, Voter Registrar and Billie Alvarez, Elections Manager, and prevailed in Judge Denise de Bellefeuille’s court. It was a Pyrrhic victory; Kate won, but the disqualification cost her her good name, her husband's support, her father’s blessing and her community’s positive regard.

Kate met with County Counsel Dennis Marshall and Steve Underwood in an hour-long audio-taped meeting to discuss her allegations of wrong-doing against “Bill Cirone and His Cronies,” which includes several supervisors, elected officials, and appointed government administrators and to explain her rare and life-threatening disorder and Americans with Disabilities Act protections (December 8, 2008).

Kate's complaints fell on “deaf ears and she was given "the run around." Referrals to persons with authority went in circles; promises to meet were never kept; appeals for accommodations of American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California Public Records Act requests were ignored. Every interaction---even polite requests for complaint forms---was met with denials, dismissals, contempt, and misinformation. (CT 117-144. Maureen Graves, Esq./ Karolyn Renard/Motion to Dismiss)

When there is no due process, there is no democracy. Kate filed a sequentially-designed series of Small Claims Court cases to plead for justice and find vindication. When Kate submitted documents at a BOS meeting to Michael Brown (SB County CEO) she was “swatted away” by the CEO who was annoyed by this “gadfly.” (April 21, 2009)

Kate filed a lawsuit against CEO Michael Brown alleging assault and battery and served subpoenas duces tecum to supervisors and high-ranking government employees on “live” camera from the public podium. All efforts to serve subpoenas were met by a phalanx of opposing forces to quash, avoid, ignore, dismiss and even wrongfully deny her right to serve them.

Kate continued to publicly accuse the government of corruption, including malfeasance, fraud, conflict of interest, dereliction of duty, abuse of power and process. She accused several supervisors on camera of covering-up wrong doing and castigated CEO Michael Brown, who was embroiled in three high-profile civil lawsuits against him while, at the same time, he was undergoing a job performance evaluation that would lead to his resignation.

After months of adversarial interactions at the public comments podium, Kate pulled papers to run as a write-in candidate against 1st District Supervisor Wolf, and announced that her doctoral dissertation, “God’s AIE!,” was a video-documentation of her performances at the podium.

It was then that five employees filed declarations seeking Temporary Restraining Orders Against Workplace Violence (March 29, 2010). The employees’ names and faces were unknown to Kate, but their positions were suspiciously strategic: Araceli Velasco, receptionist for the Board of Supervisors and Chair Wolf; Eric Friedman, Supervisor Carbajal’s clerk; Stephanie Fodor, CEO Michael Brown’s secretary; Ethan Duffy, County Counsel’s lunch-time receptionist; and Lael Wageneck, video technician for Community Access Television.

By filing for the much more serious Workplace Violence injunction rather than filing as individuals seeking relief from Harassment, these five “gatekeepers” were huddled under the protection of their employer, Plaintiff Santa Barbara County Government, and were thereby provided the free legal services of SB County Counsel, County Office of Education (“Bill Cirone and His Cronies”--- Griffith and Thornburgh’s Craig Price) and the SB District Attorney.

A trial ensued and three-year restraining orders were issued August 2, 2010 (CT 246-248) prohibiting Kate access to the ENTIRE COUNTY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, 105 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara, CA, among other restrictions.

This is a stunning blow to a woman who frequently and fervently exercises her First Amendment Rights to “Speak Truth to Power.” Kate passionately plays “the role she has created and occupied of vocal, perpetual critic, and occasional school board candidate in Santa Barbara.” (CT 132) “She is not a danger to anyone, unless it is possible to TALK a person to death, in which case, we’re all in trouble.” “I am not a threat to their lives; I’m a very real threat to their livelihoods.”

“Truth comes as a conqueror only to those who have lost the art of welcoming it as a friend.” --- Rabindranath Tagore