From the archives

Schwarzenegger pledged $1.3 billion for road and bridge projects, $1.4 billion in reserves, $252 million in new education money and $53 million in housing and homelessness initiatives. The governor tried to quiet critics by proposing higher pay for teachers in troubled school districts, shrinking some class sizes and providing healthier menus in school, but Peninsula leaders called those initiatives a "smoke and mirrors” tactic to deflect attention from unpaid Proposition 98 dollars.

Schwarzenegger’s proposed education budget is $3 billion more than this fiscal year, though educators said the state owes it $2 billion more.

Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, applauded the governor’s proposal to plug holes in the state’s roads, but said he neglected education funding. The governor said the state has about $2 billion in unanticipated tax revenue, but Yee said another $3 billion is being saved and hidden unnecessarily.

Consultant to face fraud trial

Daly City political consultant Margaret "Peg” Collier was set to face a trial for submitting false invoices to the South County Fire Protection Authority, Superior Court Judge John Runde ruled the week of May 15, 2005.

Runde found sufficient evidence to hold Collier for the felony of presenting a false claim. Collier submitted the invoices totaling $13,320 for "personnel consulting” work, claiming she helped several firefighters find new jobs in the fall of 2003. The Fire Protection Authority laid the firefighters off after voters rejected Measure I, a proposed per-square-foot parcel tax to fund firefighters, in November 2003.

However, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Collier submitted phony invoices in order to be reimbursed for her political work on the failed Measure I campaign.

Teachers rally for funding

Teachers, parents and administrators celebrated the normally staid Day of the Teacher the week of May 15, 2005 by picketing along El Camino Real throughout the county, urging drivers to honk in support and chanting "Fund our schools.”

Hundreds rallied on El Camino Real from Daly City to Sunnyvale hoping to persuade Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to add more school funding to his proposed budget, some holding signs reading "Nice governors keep their promises,” above the former bodybuilder’s face.

Teachers flee Laurel

At least six teachers at Laurel Elementary School in San Mateo were trying to leave the school, apparently because of communication problems with the principal, and about 70 parents packed a meeting in its library the week of May 15, 2005 with questions about the school’s future.

Pendery Clark, the San Mateo-Foster City School District superintendent, said she would meet individually with parents but refused to address the parents beyond a statement she read, largely culled from the school’s May newsletter. She confirmed six of 21 teachers were leaving — three to retire and three to transfer to other schools — but parents and teachers believed five others have also made requests to transfer.

Neither Clark nor Associate Superintendent Susan Silver confirmed or denied whether more teachers are trying to leave, and Silver said personnel matters are confidential.

From the archives highlights stories originally printed five years ago this week. It appears in the Thursday edition of the Daily Journal.