Infighting at the PUSD Board

The Pasadena Star-News reported Friday that the Pasadena Unified School Board voted this week to start censure proceedings against board member Scott Phelps for making derogatory remarks about a potential superintendent candidate on Facebook and newspaper sites.

The censure complaints says that comments made by Phelps caused the candidate to withdraw from the race, according to the article.

The vote was sharply divided between two factions of the board, according to the Star-News, and Phelps, Ramon Miramontes, and Kim Kenne struck back with a counter measure to censure Board president Renatta Cooper for allegedly violating the Brown Act.

That alleged violation came during the search for a new superintendent in June - at the time that they had serious concerns about Cooper telling the Pasadena Weekly details of a closed meeting where they were discussing the board candidacy of current superintendent Jon Gundry.

We wrote at the time:

The issue of whether Gundry was a choice endorsed by all members of the school board came up in the Pasadena Weekly, where reporter Andre Coleman quoted board member Renatta Cooper as saying that in a Saturday closed session of the board, members Ramon Miramontes, Kim Kenne and Scott Phelps voted against selecting Gundry.

Both Kenne and Miramontes told Altadena Patch on Thursday that no vote actually occured.  They said they were unwilling to select Gundry on the spot and wanted to conduct further interviews.  Miramontes acknowledged that if Cooper had actually called for a formal vote, all three likely would have voted against selecting him at that point.

The board voted on Wednesday unanimously to hire him after further interviews.

Kenne said Thursday that she is "dismayed" the details of the closed session were discussed in the media.