Fairfax announces new board president during contentious board meeting

Jul. 9—During a raucous meeting Thursday night, the board of the Fairfax School District voted to reorganize.

Trustee Alma Rios will helm the board while Palmer Moland will step down from the presidency into the board clerk position.

Rios, Moland and Jose Luis Tapia, who typically vote in a majority bloc, voted for these changes, while trustees Virginia Lawson and Victoria Coronel dissented. During public comment, employees and community members spoke in favor of Lawson and Coronel leading the board and against Rios or Tapia.

The motivation for the reorganization was a recommendation by a Kern County grand jury in May that Moland step down before June 30.

"This will eliminate a major contributor to the dysfunction of the Board," the report stated.

However, the board remained divided as it addressed two other issues recommended by the grand jury report, and the community voiced its frustration throughout the evening.

The board again considered a censure motion first brought against Moland in December. Once again, it failed in a 2-2 vote with Rios and Tapia voting against it.

The censure motion stated that Moland harassed and bullied district employees, including classified staff and administrators. The censure is based on an independent investigation by the frim Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, but the grand jury report said that it confirmed the claims with its own witness statements.

Before Moland left the room for the board to consider the motion, Moland said his family had been victimized. This riled the audience.

"I'd like to remind the community this is not a time for a shouting match," said Lloyd Pilchen, an attorney with the district's interim counsel Olivarez Madruga Lemieux O'Neill. "Please allow the board to do its business. Please be respectful of the meeting."

"It's hard to be respectful when it's a joke," someone in the audience retorted.

The agenda also asked the board to justify the district's need for multiple law firms. During Thursday's meeting, interim superintendent Lora Brown read a breakdown of the legal spending from the three law firms the district had hired during the previous fiscal year plus money for Liebert Cassidy Whitmore. Incoming board president Rios invited no discussion on the item.

The district has spent $203,722.82 on legal services in the 2020-21 fiscal year. The previous year the board spent $44,715 on legal services.

The district owes Schools Legal Service a retainer of $47,723 as of July 1 for the 2021-22 school year, but the board has signaled it has no intention of using its services. At its last board meeting, Moland and Rios voted against allowing Schools Legal Service to finish cases, which transferred them to Olivarez Madruga Lemieux O'Neill. On Thursday, Moland, Rios and Tapia also voted to put out a request for proposals for a new law firm.