When questions began to arise about former San Diego Unified board trustee Marne Foster after a series of reports by VOSD education reporter Mario Koran, the rest of the board opened an investigation into them. They capped the probe at $40,000 and said they’d provide a public report within 30 days of the investigation’s launch.
Neither of those things happened, though, and as Koran uncovered, the cost ballooned to $228,000 and the district says there’s no report.
Koran joined the podcast this week to walk hosts Scott Lewis and Andrew Keatts through all the wacky details he unraveled in his reporting.
“There’s a lot of stuff going on in this story,” Koran said. “But there are three issues that I see that are really kind of weird. They made promises they didn’t keep to … There were some questions about the way the contract was approved … and then you have to take a step back and say, what was this all for? Why did we pay $228,000 and we have nothing? The public has absolutely nothing to show for that.”
Also on this week’s podcast, Lewis explained that a beard-trimming snafu forced him to shave the whole thing off, which made him unrecognizable and freaked out his kids and pretty much everyone else who has to look at his rarely seen jaw and chin.
Hero of the Week
The attorneys at the San Diego law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP get the honor this week for waiving their attorney fees in the fraud lawsuits against Trump University. President-elect Donald Trump agreed to settle the lawsuit for $25 million. Lawyers don’t often waive their fees, but when they do it means the millions of settlement dollars go directly toward the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuits rather than paying legal costs.
Goat of the Week
FM 94.9 morning show host Chris Cantore called in to name the goat this week. Long story short, he caught a team of vandals who stole about $12 from a tip jar at a busy frozen yogurt shop in Mission Valley. The thieves ultimately got away, but at least they’ll be feeling the wrath of getting publicly goated on the VOSD podcast.