Ed Honowitz has managed to avert censure, though we have been
vocal in asking for it for quite some time. This became our strategy
when we realized that not only would Honowitz never apologize for what
he had done to our family both individually and collectively, he would
also continue to behave as if he was above the very rules he was obliged
to uphold. And apparently we were not the first people to request a
censure of
Board Comrade Honowitz.
That came back in 2006 from
Steven S. Lamb, who at that time was an
Altadena Town Council Member, and did so in a letter to the
Pasadena Weekly (
click here).
Interestingly, the statements supporting Mr. Lamb’s claims of cities
being disenfranchised by Pasadena in 2006 were strikingly similar to the
end result of 2013's PUSD redistricting (!) where
Sierra Madre completely lost its vote!
Keep in mind that
Honowitz, who had up until the present been
Sierra Madre’s
representative, believed the people of our city were too stupid to be
effective Board members. And therefore too stupid to serve on the
Pasadena Board of Education with such as himself. After all, it takes great minds to run a major school district into the ground in 12 short years.
Apology Demanded (letter from 2006)
… Ed Honowitz, present PUSD Board of Education member
and past Board President ... stated that election by geographical
district was undesirable because some geographic zones would not, in Mr.
Honowitz's view, have qualified able candidates ... Mr. Honowitz's
comments are tragic. For a person who grew up in Pasadena and prides
himself on his intellect, Honowitz is shockingly devoid of local
historic knowledge, present conditions and respect for American
philosophy and values ...
As a citizen of Altadena who is one of those disenfranchised persons,
I must assume that my fellow Altadena citizens, along with the citizens
of Sierra Madre, are those persons who Mr. Honowitz believes should be
disenfranchised because he does not believe we are capable of democratic
self-governance and that there is no one in our geographic area who is a
high enough quality candidate to serve with the likes of him.
This is an unbelievable insult to our communities and to general
American beliefs and values. It is shocking that a person with such
elitist, classist and racist views would consider himself, and be
considered by others, as fit for any office in our country.
I am writing to request that your body censure Mr. Honowitz for these
classist, racist, insulting, undemocratic and untoward remarks made in a
hostile public manner against the whole of my community ...
STEVEN S. LAMB
Ah, well. Had I known then what I know now, I would never have asked for, let alone demanded - an apology from
Mr. Ed. I’m sure
Mr. Lamb learned the same.
It is below Mr. Ed’s station to apologize to a person outside of his
caste. Back in 2009 I actually thought he believed in all that equity
and equal opportunity crap he was spouting off. Now I realize that his
often proclaimed care for the world's unfortunate was little more than a
smooth career move.
Cortinowitz
We continue to seek a censure of
Honowitz (
click here) and we know that
PUSD President Renatta Cooper knows how it’s done. So do
Tom “Honowitz Lite” Selinske and
Elizabeth “I didn’t Know that I was part of the Machine” Pomeroy. They pulled one off on
Scott Phelps a while back. You may recall Honowitz went so far as to refer to the “
Gestapo Tactics” as suggested by
Honopal Ramon ”Ray” Cortines (
click here).
Honowitz warned that letting Phelps’ actions go unpunished might send
a bad message to students. He quoted a characterization of Phelps’
actions made by Ray Cortines, a prominent California educator, who
described those actions as “Gestapo tactics.”
Clearly
Honowitz failed to understand what confidentiality actually meant at the time. Though he accused
Phelps of
violating confidentiality, it turned out that just months earlier
Honowitz violated my son’s confidentiality rights. In December, 2010
through February, 2011 Honowitz shared confidential information through
email and in meetings with parents of the
Sierra Madre Elementary School community about my autistic child, and then spent two years and countless thousands of
PUSD dollars covering it up.
Honowitz didn’t know the difference between censure and censor at the time he pushed for a censure of
Phelps, by the way. That is just funny. And pathetic.
But apparently
Honowitz also has limited understanding of what the
Gestapo actually did, and that is simply inexcusable. The “Gestapo tactics” that
Honowitz and
Cortines
referred to certainly sounded nothing at all like the Gestapo I learned
about. But then my degrees are in History and Education, not in art and
photography. Apparently photographers make better board members than
scientist/educators in the Cortinowitz world, with the bumpkin
historians of
Sierra Madre not worthy of qualifying at all.
If I didn’t know any better, I would think
Honowitz and
Cortines
were making a veiled accusation of anti-semitism in the name of self
serving politics, but with no clear understanding of how, or why it was
inappropriate.
Nah. Not Ed Honowitz. He’d never do something so crass to cover his ...
but I digress. But even more interesting was that Honowitz even went
with the whole
Ramon “Ray” Cortines angle at all.
Listen.
Ray Cortines, former Superintendent of both
Los Angeles Unified School District and
San Francisco Unified School District
is a Pasadena resident. Maybe even a neighbor of Ed The Historian
Honowitz. Maybe even a friend, or at least someone Honowitz respected
enough to quote for support back in October, 2011. There’s always room
for one more agreeable chump in the sheep pen, right Eddy?
This, of course, is the same
Ray Cortines who was pushing
Scholastic Book Publishers to provide supplemental materials for
Los Angeles Unified School District while simultaneously receiving money from Scholastic (
click here).
This is also the same
Ramon Cortines named as an educational consultant by
Anthony Villaraigosa.
And of course, the same Ray Cortines that was the focus of that messy business with the sex scandal (
click here) a couple years back. Apparently there was enough concern there to warrant a payout by
LAUSD of $200,000 to
Scott Graham (
click here), the facilities executive who made the allegations against Cortines.
Correct me if I am wrong
Mr. Cortines and
Mr. Honowitz,
but I believe sexual harassment and advances against a subordinate
colleague are much closer to “Gestapo Tactics” than anything that led to
the attempted censure and subsequent reprimand of
Board Member Phelps.
I Spent $44 Million and All I Got Was This Lousy Award
In just a couple of weeks our solon of the
Pasadena Community Schools Scam, Mr. Ed, will be honored along with
Molly Munger and some other important dignitaries for all the groovy things they have done to promote the interests of something or other (
click here).
Ed Honowitz, who is retiring from the
PUSD Board of Education after
12 years, is a PUSD parent who went from being an involved parent
supporting his own student to becoming a parent leader working on behalf
of all students in PUSD.
This would be a wine fueled event to raise money for kids, with the
entertainment to be provided by our children. Amazing. Is it ok to serve
alcohol at an event where children are present, or is this something I
should ask the nice people at
Child Welfare?
Maybe they can invite
Medical Marijuana advocates, tobacco lobbyists, and hey, how about
Needle Exchange fans, too? Why pander to just one drug if we include other potential fly contributors and get funding from them all?
So dear Molly, as you may recall, was the funding behind that
Proposition 38 train wreck that didn’t pass in the last election. The Pasadena area millionaire, civil rights attorney (
click here) and former board member at
Occidental College
(can you say Petey IiPK Community Schools Dreier?), is getting props
for her latest interest - securing site spaces for disadvantaged
preschoolers (
click here).
Say, isn’t
Renatta Cooper involved in
Early Childhood Education, too? Never mind, I am sure it’s just ships passing in the night.
You may or may not recall that
Ed Honowitz was supportive not only of
Proposition 30, but also of Munger’s
Prop 38. That’s a pretty safe bet; play both sides.
Proposition 38 was
a $44,500,000 failure to hike taxes in the name of education. It was
flatly rejected by a whopping 71% of California’s voters. In the
vernacular of the kids, it was an epic fail.
Honowitz’s support of the propositions may or may not come as a surprise (
click here)
to anyone who pays attention. Honowitz is all about scarfing up money
from the taxpayers to promote his vision of education, but never all
that into that tedious first rule of business - fiscal accountability.
Of course not. When what you borrowed and steal from taxpayers runs out,
you can simply ask for more.
Or maybe Molly could have gifted it to
PUSD and watched it get pissed away.
PEN, Community Schools and the Future of Honovision
That he is getting an award from
PEN, along with
Molly, certainly shouldn’t surprise anyone since there is a nagging connection that hasn’t been disclosed. That it came from
Pasadena Education Network (PEN), and not the usual
Honowitz team at
Pasadena Educational Foundation (PEF) is an interesting twist. In any event, awards of this type are just reminders of how truly ridiculous the system is.
Is it just another coincidence that the
Pasadena Education Network (PEN), who are giving an award (pay attention please) to
Ed Honowitz
as a parent leader according to a blurb from the PEN propaganda
headquarters mailed out to Pasadena Now are giving one to Molly the same
day?
Why is it that this “networking” so resembles cronyism, that anyone with
half a sense and 15 minutes can find the connections between “
Nancy over at PEN” (Executive Director Nancy Dufford) and her past roles as a Consultant for PUSD from 2007-2010 (
click here)? A role which included managing their Open Enrollment/Student Admissions - and that she envisioned “
PEN developing more community and business partnerships.” Color me surprised.
Just like
Elizabeth Bucking Blanco, Nancy first worked under
Edwin “Say Cheese” Diaz and then gave him an award (
click here). Lookee here. Hey, don’t it figure? Nancy was on the
Redistricting Task Force (
click here). Hey, there’s
Petey Dreier, too.
OK. I get it, work under someone, you give them an award. How nice.
Thank their mediocrity with an award from the ineffective. Spend lots of
that money for kids on a ceremony. Gave an award to the idiot Diaz. Ok,
fine. Give one to the idiot
Honowhatever. OK, fine. But if you
are going to give one to Honowitz, don’t do it because he is some great
parent leader. He’s not. To do so is to insult every family with
autistic members in this district.
Isn’t this really another exercise in social cronyism? Won’t this award
be used in a future resume? Will it support Honowitz as an educational
expert? As a great liaison to parents and the community? Will it be part
of his
Community Schools proof of expertise?
Is it a coincidence that
Ed Honowitz brought
Comrade Judy Chu to a
Pasadena City Council meeting to promote
Community Schools and that
Mayor Bogaard, and the Pasadena City Council, and the PUSD BOE fell over themselves to support Chu, and later Comrade Dreier?
Is it a coincidence that
Senator Carol Lookee Liu, who is clearly connected to
Chris Holden (
click here) and
Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard has now brought
Honowitz along as an educational consultant?
Is it a coincidence that Honowitz was deeply involved in discussions with
Nate Holden, and facilities chief
David Azcarraga? That he may have arranged the meeting or had knowledge it was being conducted- on company time- about the use of
PUSD properties and networking to bring in low yoyo construction giants the
Bigley Brothers?
Is it a coincidence that improprieties may exist regarding the padding of staff hours, consultant hours, and the misuse of
Measure TT funds?
Meanwhile, Back at the Soon to be Muir East Ranch ...
A couple of emailed bot responses to questions about disability
awareness activities from the two top people in special education. Good
thing they get all that money. Hate for them to take a vacation in the
middle of the instructional school year, just weeks before the
California State Testing. Especially a vacation they couldn’t afford.
From: Michael Jason
Date: Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 11:42 AM
Subject: Out of Office Re: Disability awareness/inclusion
I will be out of the office from Monday, March 18, 2013 and return on
Monday, April 1, 2013. If you need to speak with someone please
contact XXXXXX at (626) xxx-xxxx x88605 and she will be able to direct
you to someone who can assist with your question.
From: Leonard McLaren Jr
Date: Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 11:41 AM
Subject: Out of the Office Re: Disability awareness/inclusion
Sorry, I will be out of the office and will be returning on Monday,
April 8, 2013. If you need immediate attention, please contact Special
Education Department at 626-xxx-xxxx extension 88600. Thank you.
Oh wow, sorry dudes. Didn’t mean to interrupt the, uh, party with
questions about your, um, job, and my um, kid’s education that you are
supposed to be supervising. Please let me know when you are done having a
good time so that we can have those meeting about my kid’s education
that we scheduled in the middle of my vacation. Oh, I guess they won’t
be happening since you’ll be gone.
Howler of the Week
I grew up in poverty and was disenfranchised. Being poor sucked. I worked hard, and now I am just disenfranchised.
I wonder if I could get Molly to help with all my legal stuff. I watched
PUSD stomp my kids’ civil rights to dust. Maybe I should ask
Slick Eddy Honowitz to help set up a meeting between she and I while I am at work. I know he’s really good at setting up that sort of thing.
After all, it’s not his money.