Vanguard News See various position papers and comments in school issues
9-21-05 AAD News response to their questionnaire.
7-18-05 Announcement to run for School Board
QUALIFICATIONS Charles Brink who has a nearly 60 year interest in the community and has spent the last 30 years professionally involved in complex accounting and dealing with the IRS on an advanced basis, managing a 20 year tax problem that at one time had more cases filed before the US Tax Court than any other person.
Charles has served on the 7-11 Committee and the Facilities Committee for the schools and attended numerous school board meetings since the early 1990’s and has archived on his website the agendas and minutes since 1996. He was also an original signer of the unification petitions and worked for its passage to keep the high school kids at home.
Charles, as an avocation, managed the financial aspects of the break-up of the Valley and the Harbor cities from Los Angeles, which won the local vote but lost the oppressors vote.
Charles has been active in placing information online, particularly for the Acton Agua Dulce school district. He takes a position that if people cannot readily access the information and rules, they are denied the necessary tools to preserve their rights.
This is to announce that I am running for school board of the Acton-Agua Dulce School District.
There are many in our communities that recognize that our school district has dropped from “distinguished district” to disgusting district. It is now time to act before it becomes a deceased district.
Over one-half of the students have been removed from the district by their parents for a better education. The communities have formally supported education and have now rejected the district in three bond elections with the majority voting NO.
The superintendent and, until recently, the board members have adopted a bunker mentality and hidden everything from the community by operating in secret and refusing to provide public documents to the public as required by law. Many people, including me, have fought these actions from the audience at board meetings. Their continuing efforts have prodded the board to listen and act and in some cases, rejecting the superintendent's plans for our schools.
The watershed of the more independent board began at the resignation of Marty Barofsky, who had been on the board through all the disasters, where the board voted 5 to zero for whatever action the superintendents proposed. His appointed replacement, Max Duran, brought independence and his knowledge of school facilities to the board. His questions, along my questions and community input, have stopped the unanimous votes for whatever the superintendent demanded.
Now lets look forward. Here is some of my platform. I am a long-term community resident and a graduate of Acton Elementary School in 1953. I was one of the original proponents for unification to keep our high school kids in our community. I have published the Vanguard News, an adjudicated newspaper, since 1993, in hard copy from 1993 to 1997 and continuing on-line to the present, with special editions being printed.
I fought for and won developer funding (not property taxes) for the high school, which funding was cancelled by the Duzick board's actions. Duzick instead issued $400,000 in non-voter approved debt to build the temporary high school at Vasquez. This is still negatively impacting the district.
I have made hundreds of written proposals of which many are posted on line over the last 10 years. These show millions of dollars of waste and miscalculations, exposed that the district has violated the Field Act, which protects the students from earthquake unsafe buildings by failing to apply to the Department of State Architecture (DSA) for approval of the entire Vasquez campus, including the gym, and the modulars at Meadowlark School.
I have railed against the hiring of out-of-town “consultants” and a Palmdale superintendent telling us what type of schools we want for our community. I think our community should plan our local schools.
I served on the school Surplus Property Committee, whose final report opposed the closing of the Acton School. I am now serving on the current Facilities Committee and the new Facilities Master Plan Committee. These committees' actions and minutes have been posted on-line for all the community to see. I am an acknowledged expert on “The Brown Act” and if you search for “The Brown Act” on Google you will see that my site is number 1 in the world.
These are some of the actions I am working toward.
These changes should bring back the students who have left the district. If these changes do not work, then establish a charter school within the district that would more closely meet the parent's requirements. A charter school would be totally isolated from the existing school staff, educational policies and even the school board. This may be necessary to lure back the parents and their trust, which have been so severely harmed over the last 10 years.
Charles Brink 800-773-5228