Dale Fritchen has the perfect way to prevent and deter the Manteca Unified Board of Education from violating California’s open meetings law.

Record their closed session discussions.

And that’s exactly what they’re going to do.

On Tuesday Fritchen delivered yet another notice that the board had violated the Brown Act – the 1953 law that mandates that the public’s business be conducted in public – when they retreated to closed session in February to discuss the approval of a contract with an anti-gang educator recommended for the position by Trustee Ashley Drain.

The board ultimately reconvened and announced that they had approved the contract with James French – the decision to do so, and the comments made during the process, were both included in the damning Grand Jury report that the board accepted in whole earlier in Tuesday’s meeting.

Fritchen, a former board member and Stockton City Councilman, said that taking steps towards ensuring transparency could begin with the recording of closed session meetings even though those tapes will never become public – providing a record to other members of the board for review in case an incident were ever to arise.

Trustee Sam Fant said that he felt it was prudent to look at having district legal representation present at all meetings to properly advise those on the board of what is legal and what isn’t – something he felt was lacking tremendously.

“I want to look at other districts and how they do things because a lot of these mistakes may or may not be occurring because we do not have legal counsel here at all of our meetings,” Fant said. “I know that a lot of things have happened where we’ve gotten some bad advice and I think that – and we’ve gotten more bad advice to correct the bad advice that we had originally taken. At some point I would want to look at having legal counsel here at our meetings and I know that we’ve talked about the cost and that’s something that would need to be discussed, but I just want to look at that option because we’re a pretty decent sized district and if we’re going to have folks that are good stewards for the public holding us accountable obviously we don’t want to have any discrepancies or lawsuits or whatever the case may be.

“If it protects the district by having someone here who understands that this is their job – right now we’re lay people trying to understand the law in a nutshell. A whole bunch of law. And it changes.”

It was new trustee Stephen Schluer who noted that the recordings would be a good idea since they’re exempt from public records requests and the board could be assured that the conversations would be kept private amongst themselves yet give an accurate recounting of what took place during closed door negotiations.

Board President Deborah Romero, who was reminded by Fritchen that she was the one tasked with making sure that the law isn’t broken or circumvented while she holds the gavel, took her comments a step further by giving the rest of the board copies of information that was distributed when they were first elected.

“I truly don’t want to be breaking the Brown Act – I want to follow it,” Romero said. “A long time ago all of us were given a call to order blueprint for great board meetings but you’re given it the week you become a board member and it can become a little bit overwhelming. So I decided to copy mine and I made folders for all of the board members and as we go through these policies we’re going to be reviewing everything.

“I think that it’s great to go through this and reread what our role is and why we are board members. I can lead a horse to water but I cannot make that horse drink so I hope you guys will read it and be educated as we attack policies that we’ll be attacking in the near future.”

The hiring of French – a Stockton pastor – on a $6,000 gang diversion contract became controversial when it became public that he served 23-years in prison for gang-related offenses and didn’t undergo a California background check that could have prevented his hiring. According to the Grand Jury report, French was supposed to, because of his past, be supervised at all times while working on campuses – chiefly Weston Ranch High School where the gang problem initially prompted his hiring. That ultimately didn’t end up happening, and it later became public that he was the pastor that married Drain four years ago. That information was also not initially made public.