The Seattle school district is saying that the Seattle Times will not give them access to a “full, unedited” version of a taped interview of the district’s lawyer Ron English, which English wants to use to counter what he calls factual inaccuracies in an article.

But the Times says that’s not the case. The Times Managing Editor Kathy best says English and the district are welcome to come to the Times office Monday and talk about their concerns, as well as listen to the tape.

The Times reported Monday that the state Auditor’s Office is investigating whether the district violated any of its own policies or procedures or state law when it sold the vacant MLK school property to First AME Church last year. Although the district received a higher bid from the private Bush School and a similar bid from the non-profit CCC@MLK, it decided to sell to First AME instead because a new policy allows it to sell a property to a low bidder if it used 50 percent of the space for educational and social services.

English, who was looking after the bidding process, was interviewed by the Times about the process used to evaluate proposals for the sale, but called the article misleading after it was published. In a letter to the Times Monday, English requested a retraction and a correction, and also asked for a copy of the interview tape.

Best says that reporters and editors did not find any inaccuracies in the article after reviewing all the points in English’s complaint. The Times also informed English Monday that they would be happy to sit down with him next week to go over his concerns, and have the recorded interview on hand for playback.

When I asked the school district if they were going to take the Times up on their offer, the district’s chief communications officer Lesley Rogers says “we asked the Seattle Times for a copy of the tape of the May 16 interview, or to go into their office and listen to the tape in its entirety, but that request was denied.”

Rogers forwarded me her response to the Times reporter who interviewed English and a Times editor:

Thank you both for your time on the phone yesterday. I am disappointed that The Seattle Times will not allow Seattle Public Schools to listen to the full tape of Ron English’s interview on May 16.

While we appreciate your offer to meet and discuss the story, we feel that an important first step is to hear the recording of the interview. Mr. English stands by his version of the interview and you, Susan, stand by your version. We are concerned about the inaccuracies pointed out by Mr. English.

Please let me know if you reconsider.

Sincerely,
Lesley

“The editor who handled the story is currently out of town, so we have reaffirmed our request to the district, that they can meet with us Monday,” Best says. “We are still waiting to hear specifically from them what was wrong. We haven’t heard anything from any school board member or district official. We only have English’s letter.”

When I asked Best whether the Times had denied the district access to the full tape, Best says, “what we have said to them is if you want to listen to the tape, come on over, we are happy to have you listen to the tape on Monday.”

Best says the Times spent weeks working on the story, going over hundreds of documents and thousands of emails that it obtained from the district through public-records requests.

9 replies on “Seattle Schools Says Times Denied Request to Listen to “Full, Unedited” Taped Interview, Times Says “Come on Over””

  2. @1 Because the city will be handling the funding, there is a proven track record of how/where the money has been used in the past and the successes, and because the kids shouldn’t suffer because Seattle School District administrators are idiots.

  4. Not sure if this has been reported on SLOG, but within a week of the purchase of the property, the First AME (FAME) sold the property for a ten-dollar quitclaim to the “MLK Family Arts Mentoring Enrichment Community Center” — so FAME sold it to MLK FAME CC.

    I’m guessing this has something to do with tax burdens and doesn’t have any sinister component to it, but geez, you’d think the Times story (and the defenders from SPS) would have pointed this out at some point, right?

  6. Yes, the Save Seattle Schools blog first reported the sale (really a quit claim for $10) by First AME to a new (and somewhat mysterious) non-profit also with the initials FAME.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with what First AME has done but that so little has happened in the 7 months since the sale in terms of youth programs at MLK (including cutting off use of the playground to the community because of liability issues), you have to wonder.

    What is also interesting is that Mr. English said in the Times’ article that the district doesn’t do enforcement of the contract. The district has a covenant with First AME about what they need to do and Board members DeBell and Maier say it will be enforced.

    The question is – by who?

  7. One of the fundamental dysfunctions of Seattle Public Schools is that nothing is ever enforced.

    The District Policies are never enforced.
    The State laws are never enforced.
    Federal laws are not enforced.
    Collective bargaining agreements are not enforced.

    Nothing is enforced.

    Enforcement is the Board’s job. The current Board doesn’t do its job and the four Board Directors up for re-election this fall should all be voted out of office – for just not doing the work (aside from any other reason).

  8. I was until very recently a teacher at FAME. We were told at the time of the bidding process ( A time in which we were, as now, deeply in debt) that the building would become a new school for FAME, and several sites would move their classrooms and children to the site when it was ready. This was a time in which FAME was firing special-needs specialists and canceling field trips due to lack of funds, so teachers needed to be convinced that this was needed. We were told the new school would be larger, have a playground (which several FAME sites do not have) and that the Feds would feel more comfortable when the FAME site that was in the basement of the FAME church itself was locating outside the church. We were very surprised when the new executive director (who arrived after the bidding process) told us,while delivering info about the new school, in response to a question about when classes would start moving to the site, that “Children will never be at the new building. It is for management”. When we told him that we were informed it would be a school, he very firmly repeated several times that “It was never going to be a school. It was never going to have children.” He repeated this several times, as though it was very important for us to remember this. As teachers, we all felt something fishy had happened. He described the building as only being used by FAME, and only one wing. The rest would be kept empty and “might be used by the community, in exchange for rent”. When a teacher asked if she could being her class over to use the playground, he told her no, as it was an insurance liability.
    I am in no way surprised that individuals on both sides of the bidding process were members of FAME church. You could not get into many positions in management if there was another person in the company who went to FAME church who wanted it. They would privately be given the position, then the position would be posted. If you asked about applying for the position, you would find out it had already been filled by a church member. Over time they stopped even informing people positions were open. Middle-management at FAME is filled with old-school teachers who are FAME Church members, who, when they become incompetent as teachers and unable to manage a class of pre-schoolers, are promoted to management and tasked with managing teachers. It has created an atmosphere of stress and tension between the older, less-educated African-American managers who are FAME Church members, and the better educated, largely East-Asian and Hispanic teachers who are not. I quit after a teacher who had been there for years (seriously, almost 30) was repeatedly reported to CPS for emotionally and physically abusing special needs children was simply removed from the school where she was reported and moved to another school. FAME protected an abusive teacher because she was part of the old-school Fame Church network. The incompetent and abusive protect each other, at the expense of the children, teachers, and now, apparently, tax-payer money.

  9. CRIMINAL SCHOOL DISTRICT ATTORNEY RON ENGLISH IS AT THE CENTER OF THE FRAUDULENT SALES OF ML KING AND COLMAN SCHOOLS TO NORM RICE’S / KERRY KILLINGERS ORGANIZED CRIME RICO RACKETEERING NETWORK THAT INCLUDES THE JAMES ‘GUNSLINGER’ KELLY’S “URBAN LEAGUE VILLAGE” AND FIRST “FRED STEPHENS” AME /BREAKFAST CLUB MOBSTERS. THE KEY “HITMEN” ARE RON ENGLISH, NORM RICE AND FRED STEPHENS. KEY SUPPORT DEMOPUBLICANS ARE STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL wannabe govenor ROB ‘GARY IKEDA’ McKENNA, GARY ‘FRED STEPHENS’ LOCKE, 7th district CONGESTEDMAN JIM McDERMOTT AND OF COURSE THE DRAGON LADY WORN OUT GOVENOR CHRIST GREGORY. THESE OLD SCHOOL BUILDINGS ARE THE MOBSTERS PRIVATE AND PUBLIC “MONEY CATCHERS”. THE FRAUDULENT SALE OF COLMAN SCHOOL FROM UNDER THE YOUTH ANTI-CRIME FULL EMPLOYMENT ORIENTED AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE MUSEUM AND CULTURE CENTER ANTI-GENTRIFICATION “AFRICATOWN” POSITIVE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT TO NORM RICE’S CRIMNAL PRO-GENTRIFICATION ANTI-YOUTH URBAN LEAGUE CRIME FAMILY NETTED OVER $23,000,000. NOW THAT NORM RICE’S URBAN LEAGUE HAS BEEN PUBLICLY EXPOSED AS CORRUPT AND BANKRUPT, HE SHIFTS HIS RACKETEERING OPERATIONS TO HIS COMBINED CHURCH STATE ORGANIZED CRIME FAMILY TO SNARE ML KING SCHOOL TO STILL HOW MANY MILLIONS MORE IN THE NAME OF A “BLACK YOUTH ORIENTED COMMUNITY CENTER” IN THE VIRTUALLY ALL WHITE VALLEY WHILE THE AWARD WINNING BUSH SCHOOL IS LAND LOCKED PREVENTING EXPANSION? NO THE “BLACK YOUTH ANTI-CRIME COMMUNITY CENTER SHOULD BE IN THE FORMER COLMAN SCHOOL BUILDING AND NOT 36 CONDOS /AFFORDABLE APARTMENTS. RON “OLD BOY NETWORK” ENGLISH, NORM “SCANDAL” RICE, JAMES “GUNSLINGER” KELLY, FRED “STATECHURCH” STEPHENS,AND OTHER CRIMINAL PARTICIPANTS NEED TO BE FEDERALLY PROSECUTED AND EXECUTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE COMMUNITY!!!
    Omari Tahrir Founder/Vice President of AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE MUSEUM AND CULTURE CENTER AT THE COLMAN SCHOOL SITE (omariAfrinet@yahoo.com)

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