ENCINITAS — The San Dieguito Union High School District board is scheduled to discuss a proposed resolution to censure Trustee Julie Bronstein at its Thursday meeting after claims the first-term school board official failed to turn over emails requested for legal discovery and lied about them.
Resident Garvin Walsh wrote the resolution and submitted it to the board for consideration in September. The resolution was added to the agenda for the board’s Thursday meeting.
A censure is a formal reprimand by the board stating their disapproval of a trustee they believe has acted in a way that does not meet the board’s standards. Generally, censure does not affect the responsibilities of someone who is part of a publicly elected body or remove them from their position.
Bronstein, the trustee representing Area 5, has not responded to requests for comment regarding the resolution.
The resolution states that Bronstein withheld emails solicited as part of legal discovery in an ongoing lawsuit against the district regarding their original redistricting map.
It goes on to say that when she later found respondent emails in her private inbox and turned them over to a lawyer representing the district in the case, she falsely stated that she had never opened or read them.
“Trustee Bronstein lied in writing. It doesn’t matter why she did that,” Walsh said in a statement to The Coast News. “The minimum expectation we should have from our trustees is that they should be truthful when conducting public business, especially in a legal proceeding. By voting for censure, the board will make it clear that such breaches of the public trust are unacceptable.”
However, a correspondence provided to the board by Walsh as proof of Bronstein’s alleged misconduct does not confirm that Bronstein failed to turn over anything for discovery. Walsh declined to share where he learned this had occurred.
The district’s attorney in the map case who gathered items for discovery, Randy Winet, declined to comment on whether this occurred.
The exchange provided by Walsh is a correspondence between Bronstein and Winet from April, in which Bronstein wrote she is supplying Winet with copies of two email messages sent to her back in February regarding the district’s map selection process in response to a public records request “by or on behalf of” Trustee Michael Allman.
Bronstein states in the email to Winet that she found the messages in her private inbox but never read or opened them and that she turned them over “in an effort to be fully transparent and compliant.”
The message does not mention anything about legal discovery and does not include a response from Winet.
Walsh alleges that Bronstein lied about never having opened the emails in question, noting that she appeared to read portions of one of the emails word-for-word during the board’s Feb. 17 meeting.
The San Dieguito Union High School District’s meeting will take place Thursday evening at San Dieguito High School Academy in the Mustang Commons. The meeting begins at 5 p.m., with the board in closed session until 6 p.m.
The board will also consider five other resolutions submitted by members of the public, focused on supporting LGBTQIA+ students in schools, affirming the rights of LGBTQIA+ individuals, student decorum at meetings, educational priorities and the district’s college program.
CLARIFICATION: The Coast News has reviewed the school district’s public records request logs and determined that Trustee Michael Allman did not make the request as alleged by Trustee Julie Bronstein in her email. At this time, The Coast News was unable to determine the name of the individual who made the public records request for Bronstein’s emails.
