Julie Delegal: Ralph Arza’s revenge and Duval’s debacle

Last December, I reported that Miami attorney Robert H. Fernandez had singled out three Duval County School Board members for public records requests.

I warned that those members should prepare for political hardball, given the threats that charter school lobbyist Ralph Arza made on South Florida TV in the wake of an anti-charter school vote there.

Both Arza, a former member of the Florida House of Representatives, and Fernandez, former deputy general counsel to Gov. Jeb Bush, were lieutenants in the Bush-brand education reform push.

And now Arza, who left the House of Representatives in disgrace in 2006, can enjoy being the accuser instead of the accused.

In response to Fernandez’s public-records mining, texts from last September from one of those targeted three board members, Connie Hall, emerged last Thursday.

Venting to her friend in the district’s internal auditing office, Hall texted, “I vote, fire him now,” followed by 15 exclamation points.

The “him” is unmistakably Duval Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. And his contentious relationship with Hall is nothing new.

But that’s not all.  In what can generously be described as a profound lapse in professional judgment, Hall texted, “Wow, and he thinks he can do that? Special Ed in action,” responding to Vitti’s desire to attend a public school leadership event.

It’s hard to see how referring to the superintendent as “Special Ed,” in any context, would not constitute a slur.

Perceived name-calling never sits well with the public or the target. The Harvard-educated Vitti has been open about his struggles with dyslexia, he said in a statement, in order to inspire students.

Vitti’s declaration of a “hostile work environment,” however, is disappointing. His use of that legal term of art smacks of an intent to bail out of his contract, with a fat severance settlement. That would be bad for a district in the middle of a proposed transition plan that Vitti just started.

Let’s hope his posturing was an urge to sue Hall for libel. And let’s hope that urge passes so we can get back to business.

In the game of political hardball, Hall — who should know better — made what looks like an unforced error that weakens the whole team.

To her credit, Hall has issued an apology. Not to her credit, she tried to explain away her words before she apologized. And the timing couldn’t been worse.

The Duval County Public School Board is grappling with proposed boundary changes that are intended to save a number of public schools from the chopping block.

And instead of focusing on the work at hand, the board is once again beset by brouhaha.

It must be déjà vu all over again for Arza. But this time, he’s in the catbird seat.

Arza ‘s own ethics scandal — one that also involved name-calling — culminated in 2006. He was accused of using a racial slur to describe a schools superintendent. He later used the same racial slur when he tried to intimidate a witness who was set to testify in the resulting ethics proceedings. Arza pled guilty to criminal charges in the intimidation case, and declined to run again for the House.

Hall’s troubling text appeared on the front page of Saturday’s Times Union, on local public radio WJCT, on FloridaPolitics.com, and on TV on First Coast News.

Is this media frenzy merely the revenge-gone-wild of a convicted former house member? Or is it the result of a terrible misstep by an elected official who should know better?

It’s both. And it’s very distracting.

Vitti’s sweeping — and at places, painful — boundary-change plan is intended to consolidate money and talent in many low-performing, under-enrolled schools. The board approved a portion of that plan on Feb. 2.

Board members and citizens should know that the proposed reorganization may be the only way to keep many of Duval’s struggling schools open, given the punitive state policies that favor privatization.

Sure, those anti-public school policies might well be unconstitutional. Barring further delays, plaintiffs will finally have their day in court in Leon County on March 16.

Meanwhile, lots of damage has already been done to Jacksonville’s public schools, and we stand to incur more, unless we act. The move to make public schools more efficient and effective should occur no matter what’s going on in Tallahassee.

In the war on public education, the Battleship Duval has already been hit hard. Privateers like Arza must be squealing with glee as they witness our internal, self-imposed destruction.

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Julie Delegal, a University of Florida alumna, is a contributor for Folio Weekly, Jacksonville’s alternative weekly, and writes for the family business, Delegal Law Offices. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida. Column courtesy of Context Florida.