As a resident of Anaheim for more than 30 years, I don't ever recall a time where I had an opportunity to witness members of the Board of Trustees engage in a witchhunt against the students they're entrusted with the reponsibility of educating. For approximately four months, I have observed this body spend a tremendous amount of time and energy trying to lay blame for the Anaheim Union High School District's financial woes on the backs of students who are of the wrong race, ethnicity, or immigration status. With perhaps the exception of Mr. Terrell, one Board member after the other eagerly jumped up on the bandwagon claiming that every single ill our schools were facing today -- everything from overcrowded classrooms to limited supplies of textbooks -- were due to the presence of "illegal aliens" in our midst.

Now the Board members here vehemently deny that racism motivated them to behave in the manner that they did. They claim that the reason why they were compelled to support a resolution of the kind they voted in favor of on August 19th was because it was a desperate plea to obtain the funds they need to assist our financially strapped School District. It's all about money, you say.

Interesting how we hear public officials like yourself bemoan the fact that we don't have enough money to pay for the cost of educating our children; Yet, when the Walt Disney Company and other corporate interests within Anaheim come begging for hundreds of millions of dollars in handouts and subsidies from the taxpayers, we find officials like yourself either raiding the public treasury to give them whatever they want;
or merely turning a blind eye to this looting and pretend it's not happening.

Mr Martin, where were you when Ex-California Governor Pete Wilson gave $65 million in taxpayer money to the Walt Disney Company to help fund improvements in the surrounding area -- including a $10.9 million freeway overpass that allows tourists to drive into Disneyland's parking lot? That money could have been used to build more schools.

Mr. Stewart, where were you when the Anaheim City Council voted in 1996 to give $30 million in cash from the General Fund, and divert upwards of $500,000 a year in property tax revenue into the pockets of the Walt Disney Company in a sweetheart deal to transform the Anaheim Stadium into the Edison International Field? That money could have been used to buy more textbooks.

Ms. Coronado, where were you when earlier this year when the Anaheim City Council approved of an agreement between the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency and the developers of Gotcha Glacier, part of the proposed Sportstown Project, which allows the Agency to give upwards of $2 million in property tax revenue back into the pockets of the billionaire investors behind this plan? That money could have been used to hire more teachers.

If you're actually serious about helping the schools funding problems, why don't you draft a resolution to send a bill to Walt Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Office Michael Eisner. He earned about $575 millions in compensation in 1997. It's about time that he and other developers pay back the hundreds of millions of dollars in "Corporate Welfare" they stole from our schools and community.

In closing, I'd like to say that we have a real problem facing the Anaheim Union High School District -- but it has nothing to do with students, undocumented workers, or "illegal aliens." The real problem is that we have an inept and incompetent Board of Trustees that has nothing better to do but blame the fiscal woes of the Anaheim Union High School District on the children it has a legal and moral obligation to educate and does nothing to stop millions of dollars in tax money diverted away from the schools and into the pockets of millionaires and billionaires.

I look forward to doing everything I possibly can to insure that all of your who voted in favor of that resolution will never be elected to any other public office ever again.

ORGANIZING MEETING for the PROTEST Tue. Aug. 8 7pm
UNITARIAN CHURCH OF ORANGE COUNTY 511 South Harbor Blvd Anaheim
Corner of Santa Ana St. and Harbor Blvd info 714.563.9364

The Board of Trustees argued that they passed the resolution because "illegal immigration" was a tremendous financial burden on the Anaheim Union High School District. But what has not been addressed is that hundreds of millions of dollars in public money that could have been utilized to buy more textbooks, hire more teachers, and build new school buildings instead ended up in the pockets of the Walt Disney Company & other big developers here locally.

Activists want to recall Anaheim Union High School District Board President Harald G. Martin, the author of the original plan, and Trustees Robert Stewart and Alexandria Coronado, who drafted the amended resolution the board passed. They also intend to organize a districtwide boycott.

"Those three are the majority," said Seferino Garcia, executive director of Solevar Community Development Corp., an Anaheim-based nonprofit social service agency. "This school district is not doing anything for our people. They say the schools are overcrowded and the kids aren't getting an education, but they don't care about the community.
We'll have to work to get them out of there. They do not represent us."
The resolution demands that the Immigration and Naturalization Service count the district's illegal immigrant students and determine their countries of origin. The trustees also are asking the federal government to reimburse the district for the costs of educating those students and to negotiate with other countries to recover the costs. If the government were to pick up the tab, the district would be able to spend $5,125 a year per student, instead of the $4,025 it spends now, according to Stewart.

"What [opponents are] failing to realize is that the resolution will provide money to improve the situations they were talking about," Martin said in an interview Friday. "They don't realize that, again because they are so narrowly focused on the race issue. They can't see out of that very narrow box. All we're asking for is the truth, the facts."
An Anaheim police officer for nearly 20 years, Martin says he knows his credibility in the community will help him defend himself in a recall process.
"I'd be more than happy to try to defend myself and what the board is trying to do," he said. "I guess the choice boils down to: Who are you going to believe? I've lived in this community since I was 2 years old and I intend to stay here. I believe in the law. I'm a law enforcement officer. The people who are in these groups … depend on communism and socialism for their ideas."

Of the 50 speakers who signed up to address the board at Thursday's meeting, nearly 20 support the resolution, Martin said. The board, however, heard from only 10 opponents because of time constraints, he said. Martin's supporters include the Christian Coalition and Barbara Coe's Coalition for Immigration Reform, which sponsored Proposition 187.
Residents from other cities in Orange County have favored the plan at previous meetings. "I just called the names in the order I received" their request to speak, Martin said. "We've dealt with this issue four separate, distinct times. We weren't going to get any different opinions from either side. There are plenty of people who support this and will support it when they can learn the truth."

The truth, 1997 Anaheim High School graduate Gustavo Ariano told the board, is that the trustees "are phonies . . . and if you continue these actions, we will get all of you out of here." The son of a former illegal immigrant, Ariano was one of a dozen students or graduates of the school district who attended Thursday's meeting to ask the board to vote against the resolution.
"The problem is not in the influx of illegal immigrants," he said. "There is no amount of money in the world that can make people care for us. You can give us all the technology you want, but if you don't care about us, you don't give us anything. … Who cares if my taxpayer money goes to the education of an illegal immigrant? I am helping a fellow human being."

The board's action drew the ire Friday of Orange County Board of Education President Felix Rocha Jr. "I'm so mad right now I can't believe it," he said. "This is really about racism. They are not acting in good faith against good case law. What do they want? They're not inspiring the kids toward education. They're just promoting themselves in a very mean-spirited way. And the little children are expected to go to school and feel like they're a part of something? That is so wrong."

Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved

Harald Martin