The blame game

Math is hard, right? Multiplication, percentages, pie charts—it’s all so hard, even school districts have a hard time with it.

Lucia Mar Unified School District seems to believe that giving the same percentage wage increase to every teacher, staff member, and administrator means everyone is being treated equitably. District administrators are so pleased with themselves that they’ve apparently been calling Lucia Mar the “me too district” (really?!) for years, because of those across-the-board salary spikes.

Sounds like the district has a hard time with words, too. And Lucia Mar’s the largest school district in the county. Go public education!

Hey, guys? “Me too” is about acknowledging rape, sexual harassment, and sexual discrimination. It just might be time to coin a different phrase to describe those inequitable pay raises you’re patting yourselves on the backs for. It also just might be time to use a dictionary! Look up the word “equity”—which, in this case, would mean the district understands that someone working at the library does not make the same amount of money as someone who is the district superintendent.

Equity is hard!

“They all got the same amount of the pot,” math whiz and district board member Colleen Martin said at the March 21 board meeting.

Actually, Colleen, they didn’t get the same amount of the pot. Not only did they get a different amount of the pot, they even got a different percentage of the pot. Let me explain some basic math to you.

A 10.7 percent pay raise—which is what everyone got—means $4,000 more a year for the library tech and $25,000 more for Superintendent Paul Fawcett. Lucky Fawcett! He’s sitting pretty, skimming a little off the top of the pot whenever someone who works for him gets a raise, because he gets one, too!

Got it?

Even parents understand the math—and that’s saying something, these days (I’m talking to all you Paso Robles Joint Unified School District parents/chemistry “experts” who would love to re-write the AP Chemistry curriculum because the recently approved textbook mentioned the United Nations on a couple of its more than 400 pages).

Lucia Mar parent Sandra Bocchicchio said, “I’m all for raises for teachers and the staff, but the fat cats in the district shouldn’t be part of the same package.” Paul “the fat cat” Fawcett didn’t want to comment on the disparity, instead saying the district hopes the raise will incentivize more teachers to join in on all the fun!

You know who else is having a ton of fun? SLO County 1st District Supervisor John Peschong and his conservative buddy 5th District Supervisor Debbie Arnold, who are watching their carefully constructed empire crumble to pieces before their eyes.

First, they had to say goodbye to increased water pumping allowances from the overdrafted Paso Robles Groundwater Basin. Then, they waved goodbye to a stalwart alliance to maintain PG&E‘s electricity monopoly in the unincorporated areas of the county. Now, they’re whimpering as they whisper bon voyage to the Patten redistricting map, which screwed thousands of voters. And next, they’ll watch helplessly as the new liberal majority reforms campaign finance rules.

It’s quite a sight to behold. The new liberal majority of the SLO County Board of Supervisors is slashing through those poorly-constructed, ideologically-driven conservative policies like Walmart slashes prices.

But there’s a bright side for our poor little Republicans. They won’t be committing a Brown Act violation when they speak together at the upcoming fundraising dinner for their favorite “government watchdog,” the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture, and Business (COLAB) because they’re only a minority of the Board of Supervisors! Woo!

You, too, can pay $125 to listen to the conservative minority speak about “family, freedom, and heritage” while chomping on filet mignon, drinking wine, and hoping you won the gun raffle. Feel free to take notes and send me the “for dummies” version.

I’ll give you one guess as to who the subject of that crybaby, bitch-fest will be: the county’s “radical left regime,” according to the weekly COLAB newsletter. What you won’t hear about is why the Republicans lost their stranglehold over the county, even when they designed the deck of cards to collapse in their favor. Bummer.

I’d pay for a steak dinner to hear more about that.

The chaos the old conservative majority unleashed on the county will be felt well into the future. The county’s recent settlement with SLO County Citizens for Good Government and the League of Women Voters of SLO County in the redistricting lawsuit won’t actually re-enfranchise many of the voters the Patten map disenfranchised.

Luckily for liberal supervisors, all they have to do is blame the “old board majority,” which is exactly what 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson is doing. Lame.

“There’s no easy and immediate remedy,” Gibson said. “The path we are on is the best possible path we have.”

As the county’s liberal majority attempts to right past wrongs, some voters will continue to be collateral damage. Those who were unable to vote in 2022, will now likely be unable to vote in 2024—leaving some people without the chance to vote on their county representative for another four years.

And that sucks. Just a word to the libs: If you’ve got the power, you can’t blame conservatives for the county’s inequality anymore. It’s your turn. Δ

The Shredder accepts notes for dummies at shredder@newtimesslo.com.

This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 9, 2023.