Peyton Wolcott - Conservative Commentary

Conservative Commentary - Arizona

P E Y T O N W O L C O T T

SPECIAL
NOTICE

Editorial published in
NOGALES INTERNAT'L
(Nov. 14, 2006)

NOGALES USD

IN MEMORIAM
Fred Rochlin
1923-2002

HOW MUCH ARE
ZAMUDIO'S TRIPS &
AWARDS COSTING
TAXPAYERS?
By Peyton Wolcott - Nov. 16, 2006

ATTENTION:
NOGALES &
SANTA CRUZ
COUNTY, ARIZONA

Please contact
me if you or your
children have
been molested or
abused by any
present or former
public school
employees.

Email Peyton

This notice
is posted at
the request
of citizens
who are
concerned
about the
safety of
children in
nogales and
santa cruz
county,
arizona.

A Nogales
'mickery'
By Peyton Wolcott

Nogales has long been on
my radar in a favorable
way because of my late
friend, Fred Rochlin.

So when then-SCC
Superintendent Robert
Canchola was under
investigation, I took notice
and reported the situation
on my Web site.

Afterwards, as often
happens, people Googled
his name and found my
site, then contacted me
with followup information;
these are civic-minded
individuals within the
community, from all walks
of life.

On Oct. 23, 2006, several
hours before that night's
school board meeting, I
sent some faxes to
Nogales USD
Superintendent Guillermo
Zamudio for distribu- tion
to NUSD school board
members and an
employee, and only
learned earlier this week
when I telephoned
Guillermo-- because he'd
not responded to some
questions--that he had not
distributed the faxes at the
meeting or thereafter,
because, he said, he did
not have my telephone
number.

What puzzles me is how a
portion of the then-
undistributed faxes made
its way into a flyer, which in
general appearance
resembled my Web site
and was circulated around
Nogales, "plastered
across local windshields"
as I understand it, the
night of Oct. 23rd or 24th,
according to the local
reporter who contacted
me. I had nothing to do
with this flyer and have no
idea how portions of the
undistributed faxes came
to appear on the flyer.
Perhaps, as my little
granddaughter says, "It's a
mickery."

I want to express my
gratitude to the good
citizens of Nogales and
Santa Cruz County who
are look- ing out for the
school children who are
our future, I hope to get to
Nogales this next year to
see the Nogales-Rochlin
Library.

Fred Rochlin
was an
American
original. Born in
Nogales, he was a
youngest son who
was expected to
become an engineer
like his brothers. As
Fred put it, he
became patriotic and
enlisted in the Army
after Pearl Harbor--it
kept him from flunk-
ing out of college.
After the war, Fred
studied architecture
at UC-Berkeley,
married Harriet
Rochlin and they
moved to Los
Angeles where he
started a thriving
architectural
practice. But Fred
never forgot his
World War II exper-
iences. In the
mid-90s he studied
with Spalding Gray in
Santa Monica; out of
that came his
critically acclaimed
one-man show, "Old
Man in a Baseball
Cap," with which he
toured the country
from San Francisco
to Manhattan, to rave
reviews; eventually
OMIABC became a
novel by the same
name and was
optioned by Disney.
Fred delighted in
telling friends,
"Leonardo DiCap-
rio's going to play
me!" After retiring
from architecture, he
contined to work,
designing a succes-
sion of "caves" for
wealthy Angeleno
males who'd taken
up drumming with
Robert Bly. With
Miriam he chronicled
Jewish pioneer
cemeteries through-
out the West--she
wrote, he photo-
graphed, restoring
several in Arizona in
the process. My last
letter from Fred was
a note on a water-
color from the desert
near Palm Springs
where he was
convalescing.
------------
It is to Fred's
memory that I
dedicate this work in
Arizona. He was a
good man, and
Nogales can be
proud to call him a
native son.

When Nogales USD
superintendent
Guillermo Zamudio
(above center) was named to
the Rural School Association
Hall of Fame, there was an
expectation that he'd travel to
the RSA annual conference to
collect his award. But did
NUSD taxpayers realize they'd
be paying likely between
$800 and $1000 for the trip?
Here's an approximation*:

RSA Membership
Conference Fee
Mileage (556 RT x
.405 mile**)
Hotel (2 nights @
$90)
Extra meals for
Mrs. Z?

GRAND TOTAL

$225.00
195.00

225.18

180.00

82.00

$907.18

If you think $90 is high for
a hotel room at RSA's
convention at the Prescott
Resort, you're right. The
Motel 6 just up the road offers
rooms for $50, for a savings
for the two nights of $80.
Mr. Zamudio's
taxpayers, the ones footing
the bill for his travels, say they
would themselves choose
budget lodging such as a
Motel 6; as one put it, "If I
stayed at the Prescott Resort, I
wouldn't be able to pay my
property taxes!" From another:
"Why should he be able to stay
in nicer places than me and
my family?" And a third:
"Aren't we paying him enough
that he can pay for his own
trips"? For the record, base
salary for Mr. Z. is $111,240.

STATEMENT RE
OCT. 25-26, 2006
NOGALES FLYER

DISCLAIMER
It is my
understanding that a
flyer purporting to be
a printout of my
website was
circulated around
Nogales, Arizona
earlier this week.
I have no knowledge
of such a flyer and in
fact while it may
appear to be from my
website, this flyer is
actually a pastiche of
various elements,
many of which do not
appear on my
website. A portion of
one paragraph
appears to have
been lifted from a fax
to Nogales USD, to
the superintendent's
office, and other
elements are of
unknown origin. I
will be contacting
superintendent
Guillermo Zamudio
in order to obtain
further information.

-- Peyton Wolcott

Here's the report to which
local residents responded
this past year; local
coverage and excerpts
from the Arizona Auditor
General's report follow.

INDICTED ARIZONA
SUPE KEEPS JOB
By Peyton Wolcott - February
5, 2006

But all work and no
food would not be fair.
"The Prescott Resort show-
cases the Southwest inspired
cuisine of its chefs [above]
who have won international
respect for creating dishes
with intriguing depths of flavor
using local, regional and
traditional ingredients to
create our memorable
signature dishes."
(SOURCE--Prescott Resort)

Despite 16 counts of
theft, one count of fraud,
three counts of misspent
public monies and 20
counts of conflicts of
interest, all of which he
pleaded not guilty to last
December, Santa Cruz
County school
superintendent Robert
Canchola (Democrat)
(below right) is still at work
at his job, a $56,400/year
elected position.

FOLLOW UP:
When I telephoned
Guillermo Zamudio
on Tuesday, Nov. 7,
2006,
while we had a
cordial conversation
he was unable to
offer any
suggestions as to
how the materials
faxed only to him
wound up on
Nogales wind-
shields the next day.
Another Nogales
'mickery.'

IN MEMORIAM
Willam Guillermo
Rodriguez
07/02/70 - 06/26/06

Whoopin' it up at RSA
convention in Prescott

We're sure there's a
perfectly reasonable
explanation for the
headdresses (above) at the
recent RSA convention--and
we also understand why these
folks' names are probably not
included with the photo- graph.
We're also wondering how
much their taxpayers paid for
them to whoop it up at the
Prescott Resort.

"Canchola was later
required to post a
$200,000 insurance bond
by the board of supervisors
after he refused to hand
over his accounting and
bookkeeping
information to the county's
finance department. In an
interview with the Nogales
International in December,
County Manager Greg
Lucero said, 'We have
asked the Auditor General
to come back and do a
more comprehensive
audit.' Lucero added, 'Our
goal is to move all of his
non-school district
accounts under finance
(department) so we can
monitor them.' "
(SOURCE--Gabriel R.
Romero/NogalesInternational.co
m)   "The Arizona auditor
general said Canchola
misused, stole or had a
conflict of interest in
awarding money to others,
including his parents'
Canchola Group Inc. and
McDonald's franchises.
Owner Jose Canchola is a
community icon who
worked his way from the
fields to running a holding
group that owns fast-food
restaurants in Tucson and
Nogales. The audit also
charges that Robert
Canchola used the money
to pay wedding expenses,
make car payments, repair
his Jeep and contract with
his wife's consulting
company.   Robert
Canchola won re-election a
year ago in an unopposed
race. Neither Canchola
returned calls Tuesday."
(SOURCE--Daniel
Scarpinato/Arizona Daily Star)

The "whoopin' it up in
Prescott" convention isn't the only
one Guillermo Zamudio attended
this year.

He also serves on at least two
American Association of
School Administrators boards:
(1) Meetings and Conferences
Advisory Committee, which
according to AASA "will focus on
AASA meetings, conference,
seminars and publications,
including the AASA Annual
Conference and Exposition."
(2) Full Governing Board
Roster (Jan. 1, 2004 - June 30,
2007)

NUSD supe Guillermo
Zamudio's hobbies:
to "leer" and to "pescar"
Guillermo's salary, according to
information provided by him to the
Arizona Star, is "$111 mil 240
dólares" per year, which translates
to $111,240.00 American dollars.

More from the Star:   "Puestos
anteriores:   Fue profesor en 13
diferentes escuelas en Arizona y
tiene 15 años como
superintendente."   Using my rusty
Spanish, this sounds like
Guillermo's worked in 13 different
schools in Arizona (how do you
translate "move around a lot"?) and
has had 15 years as a
superintendent.   The report also
states that he is 50 years old,
which translates to about one new
school every 2 to 2 1/2 years. The
article concludes with his
pastimes, which include "Leer,
pescar y jardinería." Thank you,
Guillermo and the Arizona Star, for
this interesting profile!

We will close with an
interesting statement, from
Guillermo himself, in the district's
Spring 2006 newsletter: "Although
board established goals have not
been achieved; we are optimistic
that we are progressing on the
right track."   Didn't our mothers tell
us we couldn't go outside and play
until we'd finished our homework?
Would this also apply to
superintendents who like to travel?
  Maybe first stay home, achieve
those goals, then take those trips?

According to Alexis
Huicochea in the
Arizona Daily Star, "a
35-year-old man was
shot to death early
Monday morning
[June 26, 2006]
during a home
invasion in the
Midvale Park
neighborhood on the
Southwest Side,
police said. Police
went to the 6300
block of South
Beardslee Drive,
near West Valencia
and South Mission
roads, after a woman
called 911 at 4:44
a.m. to report that her
husband had been
shot, said Sgt. Decio
Hopffer, a Tucson
Police Department
spokesman. When
police arrived at the
two-story home two
minutes later, they
found Martin
Guillermo Rodriguez
suffering from at
least one gunshot
wound, Hopffer said.
Police were told that
several men forced
their way into
Rodriguez's home
and began demand-
ing money, Hopffer
said. Shots were
fired, and Rodriguez
was hit. At 4:59 a.m.,
Rodriguez was
pronounced dead at
his home, Hopffer
said. Two other
adults, including the
victim's wife, and
three children were
in the house at the
time, but none was
injured. It was not
known if the invaders
targeted the right
home or if it was a
case of mistaken
identity, Hopffer said.
However, police
determined that the
killing was not
drug-related.

Canchola Case
Conflicts Nogales
By Lourdes Medrano, AZ Daily
Star
Tucson, AZ - NOGALES,
Ariz. — The criminal case
against the Santa Cruz
County schools
superintendent has
become a big conflict in
this small border town. A
judge on Monday recused
himself from the case
involving Robert Canchola,
the 49-year-old son of a
prominent family who has
pleaded not guilty to
embezzlement charges. He
is expected to appear at a
10:30 a.m. pretrial hearing
Feb. 6. In withdrawing
himself from court
proceedings, Presiding
Superior Court Judge
James Soto followed the
lead of the Santa Cruz
County Attorney's Office,
which earlier turned over
the investigation to the
Arizona Attorney
General's Office. Soto will
assign the case to an out-
of-town judge. "It's a small
community; when we have
a department head
meeting, we all interact,"
said County Attorney
George Silva, whose office
is in the same building as
Canchola's and Soto's.

* SOURCE: USFR Memorandum No. 217
(Oct. 4, 2005).
** This is an approximation based on
information provided by the Rural Schools
Ass'n because Guillermo declined to respond
to a faxed inquiry.

RAISING QUESTIONS
IN ARIZONA

Just-elected County supe Alfredo
Velasquez (left), Nogales USD supe
Guillermo Zamudio (right)

QUESTIONS FOR AZ SUPE
By Peyton Wolcott - Oct. 22, 2006/11 pm

Throughout our great republic,
there are concerned and caring
citizens, and sometimes they
contact me. I'm nicknaming the
ones in Nogales, Arizona the
"Santa Cruz County Super
Sleuths." These people are
amazing. Have forwarded the
following questions on their
behalf tonight to Nogales USD
supe Guillermo Zamudio:

"It's very difficult to get away
from that." Roberto Montiel,
an attorney who
represented Canchola at
Monday's hearing, is a
retired Santa Cruz County
Superior Court judge. He
did not return calls for
comment. Canchola, who
took office in January 1993,
still reports to his
$56,400-a-year post. He is
not required to resign
because he is an elected
official, although state
Superintendent of Public
Instruction Tom Horne
said he is conducting his
own investigation into the
matter. The charges
against the schools
superintendent say he
misused, stole or had a
conflict of interest in
awarding money to others,
including his parents'
Canchola Group Inc. and
McDonald's franchises.
Court documents also
state he spent at least
$25,000 on wedding
expenses, car payments,
car repairs and on a
contract with his wife's
business.

Hortencia Rodriguez,
a former accounting
specialist at Canchola's
office, in September was
sentenced to a month in jail
after pleading guilty to theft.
She was ordered to pay
$8,500 in restitution.

The accusations against
Canchola, the son of
community icon Jose
Canchola, have sent
ripples through Nogales, a
place where residents still
know their neighbors by
name and the Canchola
family at least by reputation.
"The community has been
in shock over this," Silva
said. "The Cancholas have
done a lot for the
community in many ways."
Several longtime residents
said they feel conflicted
about the case because
whether or not Canchola is
convicted, the allegations
are a big blow to a family
that is synonymous with
generosity. One after
another, residents recalled
how Canchola's father,
Jose, each Christmas
serves a free hot meal to
needy children at his two
restaurants.

ARIZONA'S SANTA CRUZ
COUNTY'S NEW EDU-SUPE
ALFREDO VELASQUEZ
By Peyton Wolcott - Oct. 16, 2006/10 am

There are 5 questions
Nogales-area voters might
want to ask--and get answers
to--before Velasquez takes
office on January 1, 2007.
More here

Question #1: Is someone who
was arrested for alleged
indecent exposure in 1997 a likely
candidate to run a county school district?
(Note Velasquez's campaign sign at
base of truck stop signage, above.)

(See Question #3 below) (See also letter
to editor below.)

OFFICE OF THE
ARIZONA AUDITOR
GENERAL
Special
Investigation:
Santa Cruz
County School
Superintendent
Theft of Public
Monies
November 2005

FINDING #1:
Employee embezzled
public monies
From July 1998 through April
2004, Mr. Robert Canchola,
Santa Cruz County School
Superintendent, and Ms.
Hortencia Rodriguez, former
Accounting Specialist,
embezzled at least $25,049
from the Santa Cruz County
School Superintendent’s
Office by improperly
authorizing checks for their
own personal purposes. See
Exhibit 1. During a 6-year
period, these individuals
may have repeatedly
violated state laws related to
theft, fraudulent schemes,
and misuse of public monies.

Finding #2:
Superintendent engaged
in conflicts of interest
As illustrated in Exhibit 3,
Mr. Canchola may have
violated conflict-of-interest
laws by repeatedly
authorizing payments from
January 1999 through March
2003 totaling $10,175 to his
wife’s business and a family-
owned business along with
failing to properly disclose
his interest and relationship.
To help ensure that public
officials do not improperly
use their position for their
own benefit, Arizona law
requires that public officials
make known their substantial
interest in any decision as
well as refrain from voting on
or participating in that
decision. This disclosure
must be made available to
the public.
   Mr. Canchola needed to
simply describe his and his
family members’ financial
relationships with these
businesses on a standard
county form and then abstain
from contributing to county
decisions that involved those
businesses.

Finding #3:
Superintendent misused
public money
From June 1998 through
June 2004, Mr. Canchola
may have misused at least
$21,254 of public monies.
Although these expenditures
were not charged as
embezzlement due to the
nature of the records
involved with the
transactions, at a minimum
they appear to represent
misuse of public monies as
they are for various
purposes inconsistent with
serving the needs of the
students, teachers and
parents of Santa Cruz
County. (See Exhibit 4.)

Finding #4:
County School’s Office
failed to ensure adequate
controls
The Santa Cruz County
School Superintendent’s
Office failed to implement an
adequate system of internal
controls for their
disbursements. In fact, the
superintendent established a
business climate that did not
encourage the prudent use of
public money or promote the
expectation that expenditures
of public money should have
a public purpose. As a
result, Mr. Canchola and
Ms. Rodriguez were able to
embezzle public money for
nearly 6 years.   As the
Superintendent, Mr.
Canchola was able to
instruct his employees to
issue payments to vendors
without any additional
supervisory approval and
without providing any
supporting documentation
such as a receipt or invoice.
Therefore, because of his
management position, Mr.
Canchola was able to carry
out his misappropriations
without detection.
   In addition, because the
County School’s Office
allows checks to be printed
directly from their computer
system with the
Superintendent’s signature,
checks could be issued
without any written
supervisory approval.
Therefore, Ms. Rodriguez
was basically able to enter
payee and amount
information into the computer
system and print out a check
containing the authorized
signature without any
additional oversight control.
Furthermore, no one
performed an independent
reconciliation between
records of the County School’
s Office and the Treasurer’s
Office for the accounts for
which Ms. Rodriguez was
responsible. If this had been
done, the improper payments
could have been discovered
and deterred.

Campaign sign (at arrow) near motel

Question #2: Is someone who was
arrested for alleged sexual assault in
1998 at a motel a likely candidate to run
a county school district? (Note
Velasquez's campaign billboard to the
right of the Arroyo Motel signage, above.)

Alfredo Velasquez's empty chair (see
arrow) at September 2006 candidates'
forum; candidates Lizzie Zamora-Menefee
and Eduardo Bernal attended both.

Question #3: Why did Alfredo
Velasquez avoid appearing at
candidate forums in September?
According to Jesse Froehling in the
Nogales International, ques- tions the
candidates were going to be asked
"ranged from the generic, 'Why will you
be the best candidate for the position?' to
the specific, 'What role will you play in
improving student performance in Santa
Cruz County?' to the potentially
devastating, 'Have you ever been
arrested and if so, what were the
charges and the disposition?' "
Reports Froehling, "Velasquez would
have had to answer affirmatively to
that question, stemming from an
arrest in 1997 on an
indecent-exposure charge that was
subsequently dismissed." Also,
according to that same report,
"Velasquez made an appointment to be
interviewed by a reporter for the Nogales
International regarding the arrest and the
reason for not attending the forums on
Thursday morning but also no-showed."

Two images of Suzanne Sainz, Alfredo
Velasquez's cousin--and Santa Cruz
County Recorder for 12 years; (right)
official portrait, (left) more recent photo

Question #4: Does the possible
recall Suzanne Sainz, Alfredo
Velasquez's cousin and Santa Cruz
County Recorder, is facing throw a
shadow on Velas- quez's election?
Among Suzanne Sainz's official duties as
Santa Cruz County Recorder for the past
12 years, she "supplies and retains voter
registration forms. As well as, assigning
registration records to its proper precinct,
pre- paring the voter list for candidates
and political parties, and preparing voter
rosters for the voting polls."
(SOURCE-SCC Recorder's Office)
Recall petitioner Adriana Covarru- bias
alleges, among other charges, that Sainz
insisted that her staff focus "strictly on
updating voter registration rolls" at the
expense of other Recorder's Office
duties. NOTE: Alfredo Velasquez won
his election by 427 votes.

Question #5: How relevant is a
degree in "Fashion Merchandising"
to running a county school district?
While such a degree might be useful in
marketing "We love SCC schools"
T-shirts, wondering about its usefulness
in administering a $1.5 million general
fund?

NOTE: The above questions were
faxed to Mr. Velasquez Oct. 23, 2006;
to date there has been no reply.

A local resident speaks up
Sept. 22, 2006 letter to the editor
(Nogales International)

Hard to believe
I cannot believe a town like Nogales
can vote a man in for Superintendent (of
schools) for Santa Cruz County when
he cared not to debate with either of the
two worthy candidates, because he was
afraid or ashamed to be asked about his
indecent exposure arrest, which was
dismissed.

If you have nothing to hide you have
nothing to be embarrassed with.

If I were in the states governing board I
would look into this as our kids are
involved.

Jack H. Skolnick
Rio Rico, Arizona

NOTE: Skolnick has long served
Santa Cruz County as a volunteer;
among his philanthropies is Feed
American Children Today which focuses
on putting as many books as possible in
the hands of American schoolchildren,
especially in poor school districts with
few resources.

How we take back our children's education:
one person, one question, one school at a time.

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ATTENTION EDUCATORS AND ADMINISTRATORS:
Every attempt possible has been made to verify all sources and information. In the event you feel an error has been made, please contact us immediately. Thank you.

Nogales USD (William "Guillermo" Zamudio)
Santa Cruz County Schools (Alfredo I. Velasquez)

Maricopa County Schools
(Sandra Dowling)

Maricopa
County's
5-term supe in
hot water
By Peyton Wolcott -
Copyright 2007
Sunday, April 1,
2007/1:00 am

Jack Skolnick's new website
for parents of Down Syndrome children:
www.po-ds.com

HOME

Pima County Schools
(Linda Arzoumanian)

Sandra Dowling
must give up
district position
Don Stapley
The Arizona Republic
My Turn
Nov. 30, 2006 12:00 AM

Recent media
coverage of the
Maricopa County
Regional School
District's financial
woes has been
especially confusing to
the public. This is true
for a variety of reasons.

First, the issue is
complicated.

Second, the district has
fed a lot of
misinformation to the
press and the public.

Let me clear up a few
things.

The Regional School
District and the Pappas
schools receive their
money from the state of
Arizona, like any other
public school. The
Pappas schools
actually receive a
per-pupil amount that
is slightly higher than
average.

In the past, the county's
Board of Supervisors
has added to the
school's budget at the
request of
Superintendent Sandra
Dowling, but it has
never been
responsible for
supporting the daily
operations of the
schools.

So why the budget
shortfall? To put it
simply, they have spent
more money than they
have.

When the county was
approached by the
district last year for
money, the Board of
Supervisors asked a
simple question: Why
do you need money,
and what are you
spending it on? Much
to our surprise, we
were not given any
answers.

Nevertheless, the
board has made many
efforts to try to help the
district solve its
problems and to get
expenses in line.
These efforts have
been met with
stonewalling and
rejection by Sandra
Dowling.

So, how can this be
resolved? The Board of
Supervisors is asking
Superior Court Judge
Kenneth Fields, who
has been hearing this
dispute in his court, to
appoint a "receiver"
who would take the
place of Dowling in her
role of managing the
district.

The board believes that
with different
management, the
district would have
sufficient funds to
operate. Both the
Phoenix Elementary
School District and the
Tempe Elementary
School District have
offered to run the
schools. In short, both
the students and the
teachers can and will
be taken care of, if
Sandra Dowling would
do what is right for the
children.

It is very unfortunate
that state law allows for
these regional school
districts to be governed
by only one board
member. I am
convinced that many of
the district's financial
woes are caused by
the fact that there is
only one elected official
overseeing the
taxpayers' money for
these special districts.

Therefore, I am calling
on the Legislature and
the governor to change
state statutes so that
these types of districts
are governed by more
than just one
individual. The
taxpayers deserve no
less.

I am also calling on
Sandra Dowling to step
down and let qualified
educators with
financial expertise
clean up the mess she
has created. She
needs to stop blaming
others for her
misdeeds.

The writer is chairman
of the Maricopa County
Board of Supervisors.

www.schools.pima.gov

MAR. 7, 2004 BORDER
ENTRY UPDATE:
"LUKEVILLE--Just before
dawn, a steady line of
cars passes
through this remote
outpost on the
U.S.-Mexico border,
pausing at a bus stop to
drop off children....In a
community this small,
there are few secrets.
Nearly everyone knows
the kids are coming
across from Sonoyta,
Mexico, to go to school
in the United States.
Lukeville's
official population is 65,
but
according to Ajo Unified
School
District records, 97
students
board the buses here.
'The
school district is looking
the
other way out of
convenience
because they get (an
allotment)
from the state,' said Grant
Peterson, 54, a
resident of Ajo, a town
some 40
miles north where the
children
are bused to school. 'I
hate to
see kids deprived of an
education, but I also hate
that
it's on taxpayers' backs.
Their
parents aren't paying
property
taxes.'...The estimated
annual cost to the
state, at roughly $4,500 to
$5,000
per child, is about
$500,000,
including transporta- tion.
Ajo
Unified School District
Superin-tendent Robert
Dooley
did not dispute that the
students
are costing Arizona
taxpayers.
But, he said, 'I could not
exclude
those kids even if I
wanted to.
My moral and legal
obligation is
to educate every child that
comes to my door and
meets
the residency
requirement.'
Educators said the
problem
affects all school districts
along
the U.S.-Mexico border."
(SOURCE--Susan Carroll
/Republic
Nogales Bureau )

FOLLOW THE MONEY:
$500,000
= cost to AZ taxpayers
= income to Ajo USD

APR. 30, 2005 UPDATE
--AZ ED
HEAD TOM HORNE
WEIGHS IN:
"State schools chief Tom
Horne
acknowledged Friday that
officials still haven't
checked to
see where the kids
actually live.
'The investigation is
proceeding,'
Horne said. 'If there is
abuse of
taxpayer money, we will
seek
disciplinary action."...
Regarding
the possible loss of
funding,
Robert Dooley,
superintendent
of the Ajo School District,
said,
"It would mean layoffs of
staff.'... .Linda
Arzoumanian,
Pima County schools
superintendent, insisted
that
each of the children has
provided proof [of
residency]
but denied a request by
The
Republic for the list of
student
addresses....Children are
required to prove they live
within
a school district's
boundaries to
attend school in Arizona.
But
since a U.S. Supreme
Court
decision in 1982, officials
have
been prohibited from
asking
their citizenship. The
children
bused from Lukeville pass
through the port of entry
and are
allowed into the country by
U.S.
immigration inspectors.
Once
the children are bused by
Pima
County to Ajo, the school
district
is required by law to
provide an
education, said Dooley,
the Ajo
superintendent. 'There's
no
law...that allows us to turn
students away if we have
room,
which we do,' he said. 'The
benefit, in my opinion, is
that
these (students) are
citizens of
the United States, and the
better
their education, the more
they
are going to contribute to
our
culture.' Susan Segal,
chief of
the attorney general's
public
advocacy division, said her
office was told to analyze
the
state residency law but not
to
verify the students'
addresses.
The results of the legal
analysis,
which are protected by
attorney-client privilege,
were
forwarded to Horne, Segal
said.
(SOURCE--Susan Carroll/
Republic
Tucson Bureau)

County schools office is recipe for disaster
Feb. 6, 2006 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Even if the charges against Sandra Dowling,
Maricopa County's school superintendent,
prove false - and they include accusations of
nepotism, bid-rigging and mishandling of
district money - the situation remains what it
is.

That would be . . . a near-perfect example of
the hazards of elected officials operating with
virtually no oversight.

The Dowling mess is a classic "lost in the
sea of bureaucracy" government scandal. It
closely follows the ages-old recipe for
frittering away taxpayer dollars in just a few
easy steps.

The cliché-hobbled script is so well worn we
could recite it in our sleep:

Elected official operating in near-total
obscurity but with huge budgetary
responsibilities that garner virtually no
outside oversight starts playing easy at the
edges of her "ethical" responsibility.

Is anyone truly shocked that an official who
has run a taxpayer-financed fiefdom for 18
years might start believing that whatever she
does is right?

Yes, the charges against Dowling are
complicated. And lengthy. And Dowling may
yet serve up legitimate-sounding
explanations for many of them. After
reviewing the budget deficit under which
Dowling's Regional School District has
operated since at least 1999, state
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom
Horne found "justifiable reasons" for the
losses.

But there is nothing inherently complicated
about the concept of open government
operating with adequate oversight. And that
is at the base of the stew of accusations in
which Sandra Dowling now boils. Nobody
was looking over her shoulder.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
now reports that Dowling's operating deficit
may exceed $3.5 million, a figure equal to
almost half her total annual budget. Total
over-budget spending since 1999, we are
told now, might reach $10 million.

Why were the supervisors not alerted to
Dowling's red ink before now?

On the surface there are two likely
explanations. One is that Dowling's county
schools operation - she oversees five
traditional schools and seven alternative
schools, including the Thomas J. Pappas
schools for homeless children, for a total of
2,500 students - is handled financially as
just another department by the county
treasurer. When county departments exceed
their budgets, the bills still must be paid, and
Dowling's were.

But since Dowling is an elected official
running her own shop, no one questioned
why the red ink flowed, which is the other,
bigger explanation for the Dowling mess.
Indeed, when the supervisors finally started
sensing trouble last summer and sent their
own auditors to examine Dowling's books,
she refused access. Her fiefdom, after all.

Like we said, obscurity plus unquestioned
autonomy equals, eventually, disaster for
elected officials.

Other Arizona counties, Coconino County, for
example, have arranged for their county
supervisors to approve the budgets of their
county school districts.

Had such a system been in place in
Maricopa County, it is conceivable that
someone might have asked about all those
cozy contracts and payroll jobs that went to
Dowling family members.

Someone might have asked about all those
Diners Club charges and the $300,000
shelled out over three years to a
Washington, D.C., lobbying firm. Or the
$167,000 in legal fees paid to a county
department that has county attorneys at its
service free of charge.

For that matter, the supervisors might have
known about the proposed sale of a $2
million district property and the utterly
outrageous 8 percent real estate
commission that was to have been paid to
Dan Schwartz Reality . . . for whom Dowling
is a licensed Realtor.

They might have asked why the
superintendent's part-time (full-time?)
employer was the sole bidder to sell the
property. For that matter, they might have
asked why an official supposedly directing
an office with an annual budget of $300
million is moonlighting selling real estate in
the first place.

If Sandra Dowling is in as big a mess as
she appears, a major reason for her plight is
to be found in the office she occupies. It is
archaic, ill-defined and almost completely
lacking independent oversight.

It is a recipe for disaster, which pretty much
defines Dowling's condition right now.

Money Shot
If Maricopa County
supervisors wanted to go
after Sheriff Joe Arpaio, they
could. They could focus on
his office's finances
By Sarah Fenske
Phoenix New Times
Published: December 27,
2007

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has long
maintained that he's
accountable to the people —
but the people's accountants
are a different story. ... But the
supervisors manage Arpaio's
money. And with Arpaio's
budget problems in the news,
it's worth remembering what
happened to Sandra Dowling.

County officials will tell you
that Arpaio doesn't answer to
them. (Remember those
bubbles.) They may quietly
express distaste over his
abuses of power and the
millions he costs taxpayers,
but they say it's not their job to
hold him accountable. He's
elected by the people.

But Dowling was also a
bubble on the county
organizational chart. As
Superintendent of the
Maricopa County Schools,
Dowling also, supposedly,
answered only to the people.

Like Arpaio,

only a few short years ago,
Dowling seemed
unstoppable. She had been
elected to five consecutive
terms without any real
competition. Her big
innovation, the Thomas J.
Pappas Schools for
Homeless Children, had
been celebrated by everyone
from Oprah to 60 Minutes.
The much-lauded schools
were actually failing badly, but
the media didn't seem to care
and neither did the voters.
Dowling was flying so high,
she actually asked the
district's lobbyists to see
whether George W. Bush was
interested in her services.

That was then.

In 2005, Sandra Dowling's
school district went over
budget. She asked the county
supervisors for an extra $2
million.

That's when Dowling's
charmed political life came to
an abrupt end. The
supervisors demanded the
district's financial records,
and when Dowling didn't
produce the detailed
documentation they wanted,
the board obtained a
subpoena and sent officers to
force her to turn it over. Even
though Dowling had just been
audited a few years before, in
2004, county auditors were
again assigned to look at her
books. By May 2006, they
completed a 118-page report
detailing a host of problems:
misspending, faulty bid
processes, nepotism. The
supervisors then hired three
educational consultants to
help close the Pappas
Schools — an idea Dowling
bitterly contested.

In November 2006, Dowling
was indicted on 25 felony
counts. (Ironically, it was the
Sheriff's Office that did the
investigation.)

It's unclear what will ultimately
happen with the criminal
case. The U.S. Attorney, who's
prosecuting, recently dropped
a number of the charges;
Dowling still awaits trial on
the others.

What is clear is this: When
the county supervisors chose
to take on Sandra Dowling,
Dowling was finished.

Tom Horne:
Arzounmanian responsible for
verifying student residency

Horne said the responsibility for verifying the
students' residency claims falls to the
Pima County superintendent's office, which
provides transportation to the Ajo School
District because Lukeville is an
unincorporated area with no school. He said
he wants the county to visit addresses
provided by students to verify they live there.
But Linda L. Arzoumanian, superintendent
for Pima County, said the county already has
proof of legal residency for the students on
file. Physically verifying their addresses
raises legal questions, she said, citing a
1980 state attorney general's opinion that
prohibits applying residency requirements
in a way that results in 'discrimination
based on race or national origin.' 'I would
have to do it for all 135,000 students in Pima
County,' she said. 'You can't apply one
criteria for one group of students.' Horne
also said that on Tuesday he asked Ajo
superintendent Robert Dooley to verify the
students' residency claims. Dooley told him
he needed to consult with an attorney,
Horne said." (SOURCE--Susan Carroll/ Arizona
Republic)

A blogger weighs in
MAY 26, 2005:

ARZOUMANIAN: "I'm not sure that any
(students from Mexico) are attending....
There's no way to know."

BLOGGER: "Other than the videotape and
the investigation, of course."

(SOURCE--The Lonewacko Blog)

MAY 26, 2005 UPDATE: "Tom
Horne....said the allegations first raised a
year ago in news reports were confirmed by
a private investigator he sent to the border.
The investigator videotaped students
walking across the Lukeville border and
boarding a nearby school bus. Horne also
said a Lukeville trailer-park employee
admitted giving utility receipts to Mexican
students - who were not residents - that the
Pima County School Superintendent's Office
accepted as proof of residency. While
federal law mandates a public education for
all students regardless of their legal status,
school districts require evidence that they
live within its boundaries. Horne said Pima
County Schools Superintendent Linda
Arzoumanian declined to investigate further,
and Ajo Unified School District
Superintendent Robert Dooley has yet to
respond. Should Arzoumanian or Dooley
fail to take action, Horne said he may
challenge schools' requests for per-pupil
funding, an annual allotment which is
currently set at $5,000 per student."

According to the Arizona attorney general's
office, "It is the responsibility of the Pima
County Superintendent's Office and the
Ajo school district to determine if students
are ineligible to attend school."...

2001: Yuma and Nogales supes
looking out for taxpayers,
registered students

Other Arizona educators said border
schools have been grappling with the
problem for years. Superintendent Kelt
Cooper of the Nogales Unified School
District said that after Sept. 11, 2001,
hundreds of students were noticeably
absent for days. Increased border
enforcement had kept them from crossing.
A red flag went up, Cooper said, and
administrators determined that most of
them lived in Nogales, Sonora. They were
withdrawn from the district.   'That's a reality
on the border,' he said. 'Do I think it's going
to stop? No.' Cooper said many school
administrators turn a blind eye because
cracking down on the students would
mean lost revenue. That's not the case in
Nogales. Cooper said his district has
various mechanisms in place to verify
students' addresses regularly, including
knocking on doors.   Cooper said he
personally has gone to students' homes
and asked to see their rooms. 'If you don't
live in my district, then you have to pay
tuition,' he said, referring to Sonoran
students.   The Yuma Union High School
District also takes extra precautions to keep
students who live south of the border from
illegally enrolling. Gerrick Monroe,
assistant superintendent for the district,
said a full-time attendance monitor
each morning stands at the border to jot
down the names of students crossing the
border. Later in the day, the monitor verifies
addresses and makes home visits.
Monroe said the border crossers include
students who pay more than $5,000 in
tuition to attend district schools, as well as
others who have legitimate reasons for
going back and forth across the border. But
as the school year wears on, he said, the
number of students on the monitor's list
decreases significantly. Monroe said the
practice has been in place several years
and has garnered much public support
from district taxpayers. 'It's important that
we do everything we can legally do to
ensure that tax dollars are being used by
people who have a right to use them,' he
said."(SOURCE-Lourdes Medrano/
ARIZONA DAILY STAR)

Tom Horne and AG Terry
Goddard view Ajo/Lukeville film
footage on TV--on the record
MAY 31, 2005 ARIZONA ATT'Y
GENERAL UPDATE: From an
in-studio viewing of the film
footage showing students
walking across the border from
Mexico and getting on Arizona
school buses bound for Ajo; with
interviewees Arizona Attorney
General Terry Goddard and
Arizona Superintendent of
Public Instruction Tom Horne:
HORNE: "I'm the public official
charged with distributing state
aid. I'm not going to distribute
state aid to students who are not
residents of Arizona. We went to
addresses of a trailer park,
investigators saw the spaces
were empty and they had used
utility receipts which the county
superintendent accepted as
evidence of residence and the
trailer park admitted they give the
receipts....Citizenship is not the
issue, the issue is [residence].
People who reside in Phoenix but
are not citizens, children of
people who are not here legally
get an education under federal
law. If they're residents of Mexico,
they're not entitled to have an
education paid for by Arizona
taxpayers."
GODDARD: "We've been talking
about the film and other
investigative activities, what
they are going to require of
[Linda Arzoumanian]. She is the
one who certifies these
students that they're out of
district. They are not in the Ajo
district if they're in the Lukeville
area. She certifies if they can
come in. She did an initial, as
superintendent Horne said, she
checked rent receipts, and they
sent mail to the address,
whatever it was, that was given. If
that mail doesn't return there's a
presumption that the kids live at
that address. What I think we
saw in the film was a rebutting
of that presumption. That may
be what they told you but it
doesn't look like that is true. So
she is now, I'm told, in the
process of increasing the
investigation. They now have
reasonable suspicion to
increase their investigative
requests. That I believe is, what I
was told today they were going to
initiate."
HORNE: "I asked [Arzoumanian]
to do home visits to see if
people were living at the
addresses that were given. She
initially refused, but she said if
the attorney general says it's
okay, she would do it, so she's
coming around."
GODDARD: I'm relying on my
client here and then the right
steps will be taken. Other
counties have a similar problem
and have done a very
aggressive job of investigating
the home addresses. If students
do come from Mexico to this
country, they exercise their right to
charge.
(SOURCE--Transcripts/HORIZON)

PW follow up with Tom Horne
and Linda Arzoumanian

JAN. 9, 2005 (PW) UPDATE:
In response to my queries last month, have
received the following information.
According to Arzoumanian, the number of
students boarding the buses at Lukeville
currently number "around 40."

PW comment to Horne:
"Although this number is well down from
the 97 previously reported, unless that
trailer park at Lukeville is suddenly
populated by warm bodies rather than
ghosts, the 40 reported by your
superintendent would still seem to be
about 40 non-residents too many attending
Arizona schools--at a cost of $200,000 per
year to taxpayers. Will you let this number
stand or will you further pursue and if so
how?

RESPONSE TO DATE: NONE

CREDENTIALS UPDATE:
Source of the "Dr." in
"Dr. Linda Arzoumanian"

Arzoumanian's Ed.D. is from Nova
Southeastern University (Florida) which
"did not follow the requirement for a
dissertation but rather required students to
be employed in the field of their course of
study and they were required to do two
practicum's [sic]....The material is written in
the style of a dissertation and was
published as such."

Practica Titles:
"Improving the Skills and Confidence of
Early Childhood Public School Teachers in
Their Use of Observation Techniques
ED 352 127"
and
"Increasing Community College Child
Development Associate (CDA) Advisor
Skills in Recording Observations as a
Component of a Competency-Based
Assessment ED 367 506."
(SOURCE--L.L. Arzoumanian)

Fri 19 Oct 2007
Judge: Close Pappas
Posted by Pat under Education
, County Government
No Comments

Maricopa County Superior
Court Judge, John Buttrick, has
probably had the final say on
the outcome of the Thomas J.
Pappas schools. They will
close by June 30, 2008,
according to the Arizona
Republic.

This likely brings to an end one
battlefront between the
Maricopa County
Superintendent of Schools on
one side and Board of
Supervisors, Treasurer and
court-appointed
board/receivership on the other
side. Several other legal
battlefronts continue as a
judge considers outstanding
charges and the personal
lawsuit against Sandra
Dowling awaits trial.

Nearly 80 teachers and
administrative staff will lose
their jobs although the Board
of Supervisors have provided
for employment preference in
other county jobs. Homeless
students however, will now
have to be integrated into other
school districts or may end up
dropping out of school
altogether.

Thus, a 17-year legacy of
serving and teaching
homeless children comes to
an end. For a fairly objective
background of this school and
its history and founders see
Wikipedia.

(Top left) Linda Arzoumanian, Pima County;
Parody of comic book printed by Mexican
government for illegal immigrants to U.S.;
(inset) Mexican citizens crossing border to
attend Linda's schools (SOURCE--John C. Dvorak)

Pima County School
Superintendent’s
Office
130 West Congress
Street
4th Floor
Tucson, Arizona
85701-1332

(520) 740-8451
Fax (520) 623-9308

linda.
arzoumanian@school
s.pima.gov.

schools@schools.
pima.gov
<schools@schools.
pima.gov>
For more information

Following the money: Why else
would an elected Republican county
supe be allowing illegal students?
By Peyton Wolcott
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - 11:08 p.m.

FROM ARIZONA
ATTORNEY
GENERAL TERRY
GODDARD:

Maricopa County
Schools
Superintendent
Indicted on 25
charges
(Phoenix, Ariz. – Nov. 20,
2006)
Attorney General Terry
Goddard and Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe
Arpaio today announced
that Maricopa County
Superintendent of
Schools Sandra E.
Dowling, 50, has
been indicted on 25
felony charges. They
include two counts of
theft, 10 counts of
misuse of public
monies, four counts of
procurement code fraud,
five counts of conflict of
interest and four counts
of
prohibition against
acquisition of certain
interest by public officials.
The grand jury also
indicted four other people
on related charges.
The allegations against
Dowling all relate to her
operation of the Maricopa
County Regional School
District (MCRSD), a
special school district
which is also known as
an accommodation
district. State
law allows the
establishment of an
accommodation district
for homeless children and
other students
who reside outside of the
public school district
boundaries.
MCRSD this year included
12 schools with a total
attendance of about
1,600 students. Roughly
half of
those students were
homeless children
attending one of three
schools named for
Thomas J. Pappas.
According to state law,
the county
superintendent sits as the
one-person governing
board for the
accommodation school
district.
The charges focus on
Dowling’s alleged corrupt
use of public funds in five
areas:

(1) Theft and misuse of
$1,859,000 from the
Indirect Cost Fund she
controlled as County
School
Superintendent.

(2) Bid-rigging and
spending $207,000 in
MCRSD funds on federal
lobbyists, in part to further
Dowling’s political
interests.

(3) Bid-rigging and
awarding a $2 million real
estate sales contract (for
sale of MCRSD-owned
vacant land) to a real
estate firm that employed
Dowling.

(4) Bid-rigging and
awarding about $81,000
in MCRSD landscape
maintenance contracts to
Dowling’s son, Dennis.

(5) Theft and misuse of
about $163,000 by
diverting funds that had
been donated to MCRSD
into a private foundation
controlled by Dowling and
by using MCRSD funds to
pay the salary of a fund-
raiser for that private
foundation.

The indictment also states
that a school district is
prohibited by state law
from incurring obligations
or
awarding contracts if
sufficient funds are not
available for budgeting.
The indictment says that
beginning in fiscal year
2000, Dowling operated
MCRSD at an ever-
increasing accumulated
cash
deficit that rose to about
$3.75 million in FY2005.

Sandra Dowling

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY
Instructor-adult ed, special
ed/early childhood
advocate (West Virginia,
Maryland, New York and
Wisconsin). To
teacher/administrator-nurs
ery school and preschool
(Arizona). Consultant/early
childhood ed-Tucson
USD.
Coordinator/ community
based services to
director/child and family
svcs. then
director-MIS/CODAC.
Supe, Pima County
Schools (appointed 1999,
elected to present)
(135,000 students).
Duties include:   Administer

approximately $750 million
to sixteen school districts,
distribute Arizona Attorney
General opinions to 16
school districts, record all
teaching certificates in
Pima County for teachers
substitute teachers and
administrators, manage
regional support center,
and support and oversee
Pima County Spelling Bee.
  NOTE: "Arzoumanian
sees the office as a 'bully
pulpit' to speak in favor of
children." (SOURCE--
Endorsement/ Arizona
Daily Star)

May. 25, 2005
BOGUS LUKEVILLE, AZ
RESIDENCIES
"More than a year after calling for an
investigation, Horne said state school
officials now have a videotape that shows
children crossing from Sonoyta, Sonora,
through the port of entry and boarding
buses to attend school in the United States.
The state also found that trailer-park
spaces in the U.S. border town of Lukeville
listed as proof of residency for many
children are empty.... Overall, Horne said,
the investigation found 'overwhelming
evidence'
of fraud.

Developing . . .

Why is Nogales' retired-rehired
double-dipping superintendent
William "Guillermo" Zamudio
smiling?
By Peyton Wolcott
Sunday, February 10, 2008 - 2:03 a.m.
Updated Sunday, February 10, 2008 - 6:04 p.m.

W