Transparency in the San José Unified School District: Lessons to be Learned

The District repeatedly misrepresented [1] the lobbying activity that the housing entitlement consultant Schoennauer would perform [2] on its behalf. These misrepresentations undermined the integrity of the public contracting process and sowed mistrust in the District’s community relations.[3] District Response: The District disagrees wholly with this finding. 1. When District staff made comments at the March 2019 Board meeting regarding Mr. Schoennauer’s duties, Mr. Schoennauer was not lobbying on behalf of the District. There was no advocacy for a Project site yet; there was nothing to lobby for. There was no need to try to persuade the City to do anything; not yet. Mr. Schoennauer had meetings with the City to assist the District, but that was after the City provided information to the District regarding (1) where the City indicated where it would support (and not support) a District employee-housing project and (2) the City’s process for approving that type of project. 2. The Grand Jury is jumping ahead and admits as much by finding that Mr. Schoennauer “would perform” an action. At a time in the future when Mr. Schoennauer might SJUSD Responses to Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury Report – March 2021 1 have started lobbying for the District, the District could have included that scope as an amendment to his contract moving forward. Mr. Schoennauer’s practice of diligently logging his meetings at the City does not indicate that he is lobbying during every meeting. The City may broadly apply its sunshine laws – which is a laudable practice – but that is not indicative of the substance of every meeting. It certainly did not warrant the Grand Jury’s obsession with Mr. Schoennauer’s activities. 3. The Grand Jury’s conclusory and unfounded opinion is irrelevant. The District operates its contracting process with the utmost integrity and it is honored to have well-earned, and decades-long, trust from its community. Note: The Project raised the ire of specific individuals in a specific area within the District – the Almaden Valley area. Those residents are strongly motivated to not have the District’s Project in their neighborhood. (FYI: The District owns an unused 70-acre site in Almaden Valley, which was a potential location of the Project.) The Grand Jury interviewed all Board members and many District staff members and, except for perhaps one Board member, all District interviewees confided to their counsel that some of the Grand Jury members were fiery and appeared self-interested in reaching a specific outcome from the investigation. In other words, the conclusion was established at the beginning of the investigation and the Grand Jury process was abused to find facts to justify that conclusion. This is admittedly conjecture, but since none of these Board members or staff conferred prior to the Court issuing the Grand Jury report, it is astounding that virtually everyone came away with the same impression from at least some of the Grand Jury members’ actions. After one interview, one Grand Jury member walked one Board member to their car and apologized for the behavior of other Grand Jury members. During at least one interview, a couple of Grand Jury members suggested questioning of a particular interviewee should end, but instead had to leave disgusted when other Grand Jury members continued with redundant and increasingly bitter questions. To reiterate, after all the Grand Jury probing about the Project, the Grand Jury only found that the Board should have used the word “lobby” and there may be a potential conflict of interest. Grand Jury

The descriptions of the services provided under consultancy contracts awarded to Schoennauer and Ball/Frost failed to specify lobbying, and therefore the public and Board were not fully informed as to their purposes. District Response: The District disagrees wholly with this finding. As stated above, Mr. Schoennauer was not yet lobbying on behalf of the District. At a time that Mr. Schoennauer might have started lobbying for the District, the District could have amended his contract moving forward. The Grand Jury Report itself states that the District’s current contract with Ball/Frost “spells out more precisely the political and legislative services that the District is receiving” before the Report goes on to complain that it was a ratification of that contract. (Report, pg. 12) Note: It is disingenuous for the Grand Jury to imply that these contracts were not transparent or not clearly intended to be with consultants, regardless of their title, to assist the District in its relationships with other public entities. The Grand Jury spent a year investigating, demanding multiple interviews of every Board member and multiple staff members, to come to the conclusion that the District should have used the word “lobby” in the scope description of these contracts. First, this desire of the Grand Jury is not required in any statute or regulation. Second, we note that the initial “multiple complaints” the Grand Jury alleges it received were “about District efforts to build employee housing on Districtowned property.” (Report, pg. 3) It is extremely telling that after over a year of investigating that one Project, the Grand Jury found nothing to report related to the District’s actions, evaluations, assessments, etc., related to the actual Project. The Grand Jury only found that the Board should have used the word “lobby” and there may be a potential conflict of interest (see below). Grand Jury

The Board has no legislative advocacy plan [1] so state lobbying efforts are directed solely by District staff without appropriate Board oversight or public awareness. [2] District Response: The District disagrees wholly with this finding. The Grand Jury states an untrue conclusory opinion that, without a legislative advocacy plan, the District’s Board must not be overseeing lobbying efforts. That statement is untrue and a failure of logic. 1. The District does not engage in the amount of advocacy or lobbying insinuated by the Grand Jury, or as much as Los Angeles USD, Oakland USD, Palo Alto USD or San Francisco USD, which the Report references. (Report, pg. 15-16.) If the District becomes more involved in Sacramento politics, the District may choose to spend the time, money and energy to pull together a “legislative advocacy plan.” 2. Again, the Board approves or ratifies all contracts and those are on open session agenda items for the public's review. Without engaging the Grand Jury’s obsession with staff’s comments related to the actual scope of Mr. Schoennauer’s March 2019 agreement, the Grand Jury takes a specious leap and comes to the mistaken conclusion that District staff is somehow operating without the Board's oversight or without all those agreements coming to the Board for approval or ratification. Grand Jury

The District has no discernable method to analyze its hundreds of contracts to determine which contractors are consultants subject to financial disclosure laws. Therefore, the Board and the public may not have the information necessary to assess potential conflicts of interest. District Response: The District disagrees wholly with this finding. The District’s Business Department reviews contracts for potential conflicts of interest. In addition, virtually all contracts issued by the District’s Business Department have a requirement for consultants to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. Grand Jury