Flip the Light Switch
We recently discussed, in a Practical Guide To Reading School Board Agendas, how to delve into board agendas to see what they are really up to. A recent occurrence at a Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) board meeting, highlights the need to know who your school board trustees are. The best way to vet your trustees is to turn the lights on.
The good news is that there are many ways to flip the light switch. Attend meetings, listen to what school board trustees say and how they vote. Another option is to find the streaming channel and watch the meeting online, or reading through the minutes, though minutes are usually not accessible until the next meeting. In any case, it is just as important to know how board members vote and their views, as it is to know what is it on the agenda. The bad news is that there is a lot of work to do to ensure your neighbor’s light switch gets flipped on as well. Everyone awake with their TVs off is the only way to get rid of these extremists.
CVUSD held a board meeting last Thursday that is the epitome of liberal privilege and illustrates how school boards have been operating in the darkness for far too long. The meeting, or rather a trustee’s lack of decorum, also demonstrates why pointing out idiotic policies the last few years did no good–these people truly hate you.
The Comment
John Parker, a concerned citizen that lives within CVUSD, opted to attend the board meeting and give a public comment. This is a Constitutional right of every American citizen and the public involvement should be encouraged. Indeed, California does have a atrocious curriculum for that very thing–the State Seal of Civic Engagement. However, the State Seal model curriculum is based upon fake news and BLM style activism, so only those views are encouraged. But, as we know from the Trump indictments (a new one every time a new Biden crime is revealed), America has a two-tiered justice system which trickles down to two-tiered everything, including what acceptable speak is at school board meetings.
Parker did not say anything incendiary or extremist, unless you consider saying their are only two genders radical. Parker even empathized with the boards position of being the anvil for the State of California’s hammer. See Parker’s comment below.
Those were fighting words for at least one trustee, Joey Acuna Jr. who represents Area 1 of the CVUSD. Unfortunately, the video of the meeting is not available. It could be weeks before the CVUSD gets around to posting the meeting recording, judging by their video posting consistency, or lack thereof. This article will be updated when the video becomes available. Parker described the situation as Acuna taking the “opportunity to launch into a a reflexive diatribe of woke talking points misrepresenting my intentions and positions“.
The Vetting of School Board Trustees
Acuna clearly believes he is in a position to dictate what acceptable speech is, a clear sign that someone has totalitarian tendencies and should be ridiculed out of public office for good. But, it is incumbent upon us to undertake proper vetting procedures to determine if Acuna was just having a bad day, or if he truly is an ideologue. Ready to find out? Shovels at the ready, and if you have an airline barf-bag you might want to bring it along.
The first step is just a basic google search. Be aware though, that internet search engines are curated results and you may have to go back a few pages to get good results. This is especially true with google, though it is useful to see what google throws at you. It is also useful to run the same searches in an engine like freespoke.com, results can vary widely sometimes.
Basic information can be gleaned from a site like Ballotpedia, just don’t expect anything earth shattering from that site. For instance, we learn that Acuna was first elected in 2014, which informs us that he has run three successful campaigns for his trustee position and probably feels pretty powerful by this time. Big fish, little pond. We also learn who Acuna’s major contributors and endorsers are, which informs us as to whose bidding he performs for. Also keep in mind that school board trustees are considered “non-partisan”. So what is in Acuna’s wallet?
Sources
Interesting. Always check the sources because there might be something in the source material that the site did not deem useful and failed to mention. For instance footnote 4 is for the factoid that Acuna “After he lost the 2002 election, he worked for Assembly Speaker Herb J. Wesson Jr.’s Office of Member Services in Coachella, California“. That footnote leads to an LA Times article that gives more details.
The article is from 2003 and informs us that Acuna got a cushy political operative job with the democrat party after losing an election for State Assembly. The job was controversial due to the tight financial situation at the time, but does go to show us that Acuna has a history of leftist political activism. In fact, as we will see, it is difficult to determine what Acuna actually does for a living these days, beyond the vague stated “self-employed grant writer“. Maybe political activism pays well, because school board trustees do not pay all that much. Or, perhaps Acuna gets his employees that sit on the boards of neighboring districts to hire him as a consultant. Why not, it works for his fellow board member (Arrendondo) that teaches children in neighboring districts “what love is“. Absolutely creepy.
Note: Many past and present trustees in neighboring Desert Sands school district are teachers in CVUSD. But the teacher’s union does not control our school boards. Nope, not at all.
Wesson himself is a controversial figure–in the State Assembly back in the early 2000s, but recently has been wrecking havoc in Los Angeles on the City Council. Wesson is about as extreme Marxist-left as you can get, and Acuna used to work for him.
Save Your Work
This is a good place to point something out. If you clicked any of the LA Times links, you may have noticed it went to an internet archive page. Screen grabs are fine to prove your point, but if you ever need to prove something was on the internet screen grabs are not accepted in court while archived pages are. So, always save any interesting pages you find on an archive like archive.ph or web.archive.com (wayback machine). The same is true for dead links, simply copy and paste the link into an archive to determine if it has been previously saved.
Donors
So now we know some of Acuna’s friends–the democrat party, and the extreme leftists at the teacher’s union and Planned Parenthood. But, thus far we only know what others have chosen to tell us. Luckily, there is a tool that will allow us to find more–campaign disclosure statements. For that, head over to the Riverside Registrar of Voters website. Hoover over the “Candidate Resources” menu item and choose “electronic campaign disclosure” from the pop-up menu. Do a name search for “Acuna” and you are taken to a page that lists all of his filings. This is where your shovel comes in handy.
My shovel first hit the filing period of 7/1/2022-12/31/2022 filing. Whoa Boy! From this filing it appears that Acuna supporters are mostly other far-left democrat office holders and labor unions. There are a few individuals listed, but those also work in politics and mostly live outside of Coachella. Take a look.
In fact, out of that entire filing, only three donations came from people that lived within the CVUSD boundaries, and all three were either educators or county workers (labor unions). But politicians, such as Edwin Gomez, Manny Perez, and Eduardo Garcia, and a few other local politicians gave generously. Including a former board member Bianca Torres Hall. Hall is currently the scholarship chair for the Democratic Women Of The Desert. Oh well, I’m sure the kids won’t miss the money spent on Acuna.
Take the time to peruse as many documents as you can, you never know when you’ll find a nugget of information. For instance, in a 10/20/2018 filing we learn that Acuna’s employment is as a self-employed grant writer. It is unknown where Acuna does his grant writing as nothing shows up in internet searches, nor does his name produce any hits from Secretary of State pages for businesses.
Social Media
Next stop is Social Media, that corner of the internet where communist voices are amplified, conservative voices are banned, and ugly trolls reside. Get the hazmat suit for this one.
Luckily for us, Acuna maintains a Facebook page, and has been telling us exactly who he is for years. The problem is, few have been listening. Let’s fix that by listening now. Do tell us, trustee Acuna, what do you think of us plebes that do not hold communism so dear?
Wow, this is from a school board trustee, from his official page, a page that school children could easily view and find. Nice non-partisan office you have there, Acuna. Is there more?
So many false narratives, in two violent memes. First, Kyle Rittenhouse was found not-guilty, because he was defending himself from violent Antifa/BLM terrorists that were trying to kill him. All of whom had previous convictions for either pedophilia or sexual assaults on women by the way. Secondly, the New Mexico man was simply trying to get through an Antifa/BLM caused traffic stoppage when a terrorist pointed a weapon at him and he defended himself. But Acuna, prefers to call conservatives “terrorists” so don’t you dare disagree with him. Anything else?
First, is Acuna saying minorities are animals with the bear meme? That makes no sense, but then the left can’t meme. Secondly, “silence and complicity is no longer an option“? Seriously? Seemingly, that is how Acuna’s constituency feels about district policies that place children on the pharma train to chemical castration and surgical mutilation. Yet, when conservative break their silence, Acuna attacks them with a fake-news filled, hateful diatribe. But what does Acuna care? Acuna doesn’t get his campaign money from his voters, he gets his from extremists outside of his community.
Compare and Contrast
If a teacher in a neighboring district can be labeled a racist, set-up and then disciplined for merely posting memes like below, then surely Acuna’s posts should also be considered inappropriate.
The California Globe recently published an article entitled “Who Are The Real Extremists In Our School Board Struggles“. CVUSD trustee Joey Acuna, Jr. graciously answered that for us.
Truly, the two-tiered justice system that begins with the Biden crime family charging Trump with a felony for asking people to tune into OAN and RSBN, trickles down to our local school boards as well. We know because we have been ridiculed for going on three years now simply for pointing out facts, while school districts continue to cling to fictitious propaganda.