The number of highly respected community leaders who have expressed the notion that “We.Have.Had.Enough” of the Judy Manouchehri-led dysfunctional trio of Board of Education members is astonishing to me and, in my memory, unprecedented.

Ten City elected officials including seven former BHUSD Board of Education Presidents, three former City Mayors and a former three term City Treasurer, have published an open letter to all City residents. The letter sets forth in detail the reasons that they have had enough of the dysfunctional trio and advocated the election of Jackie Kruger and Kimberly Lifschitz.

The letter is signed by Myra Demeter, PhD, Mark Egerman, Eliot Finkel, Nancy Krasne, Myra Lurie, Virginia Maas, Noah Margo, John Millan, Lillian Raffel, Alissa Roston, and Bob Wunderlich.

These leaders observe: “This election is critical for the future of both BHUSD and our entire community…our schools need leadership focused on education, transparency, and fiscal responsibility rather than bullying, blatantly breaking the rules and the political agendas of the current board majority.

“Under current leadership, district governance has deteriorated into litigation, closed-session rule changes, and toxic culture.”

It goes on to explain the impact of the work of the dysfunctional trio as “academic decline”, “fiscal mismanagement”, and allegations of unequal treatment of minority students, and harassment, assaults and insults of students, teachers and staff leading to multiple lawsuits.

The ten community leaders further observe that:

“This election is critical for the future of both BHUSD and our entire community. Two open seats are up for grabs, and our schools need leadership focused on education, transparency, and fiscal responsibility rather than bullying, blatantly breaking the rules and the political agendas of the current board majority.”

Accordingly, they recommend:

“Jackie Kruger and Kim Lifschitz are the leaders we need now!!”

I recommend that you read the entire letter and carefully consider the factual analysis that they have presented.

Former Mayor Julian Gold has expressed similar views.

“The current school board is appalling. Their lack of civility to each other and to the public is disgusting and it reflects very poorly on the District and our community. It is hardly the example that we want to set for our kids.

“We need change. There are three candidates who could effect that change: Jared Gonzales, Jackie Kruger and Kimberly Lifschitz. My pick is Jared and either of the other two. I encourage you to pick two of these three candidates.”

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Then there are the views of the current members of the City Council.

They have been extremely circumspect.

Certainly not one of them to my knowledge supports Ms. Manouchehri’s quest for re-election. For example, I asked Councilmember Sharona Nazarian whether she supported or endorsed any candidate. Her unambiguous answer: “NO”.

However, in the public sector, actions often speak more clearly and eloquently than words. So, let’s have a quick look at Council’s actions

Historically, through the Joint Powers Agreement (JPA), the City funds in excess of 10% of the District’s budget. Over the years payments by the City to the District have increased. There have been no material decreases in recent decades as far as I could tell.

Until now.

For the most recently completed fiscal year, 2025-26, the JPA payment was $14,500,000. The recently negotiated JPA for the next three years provides for reductions of $750,000 per year to $13,750,000 in 2026-27, to $13,000,000 in 2027-28 and to $12,250,000 in 2028-29.

Over three years, the JPA will provide cumulatively $4,500,000 less ($750,000 + $1,500,000 + $2,250,000) than had these reductions not been imposed.

In what I regard as a face-saving claim, the District leadership has pointed out that it is taking over the City’s pre-school operations but there is no reason to believe that these will prove sufficiently profitable to offset the unprecedented $4,500,000 in reductions.

While the Council has not expressed specifically that these reductions are due to dissatisfaction with BHUSD’s management and direction, it is fair to infer that the reductions are NOT a ringing endorsement.

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I have previously explained that I do not support the re-election of Ms. Manouchehri. I was sufficiently troubled by Ms. Manouchehri’s disregard for the Board’s Bylaws requiring rotation of board officers that I served as counsel, on a pro bono basis, for Board Member Dr. Amanda Stern and Lisa Rubel when the four sets of lawyers representing the District and three Board members, including Ms. Manouchehri, took their depositions.

Next week I will express my own opinions about who I intend to vote for and why.