Editorial The way I see it…

Raymond Sandoval, Editor

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The French Camp Journal

Ray Sandoval, Editor / Publisher

Phone: (209) 982-1363

Fax: (209) 982-9007

editor@thefrenchcampjournal.com

History and experience has demonstrated time and again, that what is legal (according to mammon’s law), is not necessarily right, and by the same token, what is morally right is not always legal.

This truism is all to often becoming the argument for and premise upon which today’s so-called ’grey area’ of ethics is rooted. 

I began to think long and hard about this issue after having heard and read about how the Assistant District Superintendent for the Manteca Unified School District (MUSD), Michael Dodge, has been carrying on an enterprise through which he provides consulting services for other school districts on a fee basis.  This has nothing to do with the Manteca Unified School District or the taxpayers he was hired to work for mind you, this is, from what I am given to understand, his own private business concern that he and another MUSD administrator have undertaken to profit from. 

While I am not privy to all the details concerning this matter, suffice it to say that the Board of Trustees of the Manteca Unified School District have seen fit, and rightfully so, to call his actions into question and determine whether Mr. Dodge may legally undertake and or participate in such a venture while a full time Administrator for OUR school district, whose interests he is supposed to be focused on.  

An attorney group has been called in to look into the legalities involved and based on that report the Board of Trustees proceed on to whatever steps are open to them. 

Irregardless of the outcome, I still say that what is legal is not necessarily right, and vice versa.  Mr. Dodge was hired to effectuate the mission, goals and objects of the district and the parents it has been organized to represent.  Our tax dollars go to pay for his salary as well as those of the other hundreds of other employees and administrators who focus their time and energy into carrying out their job description.  What employees do on their own time is their business, what they do on the districts/taxpayers time and dime is the districts/taxpayers business. 

Black and white right?  Well...maybe and maybe not.  Let’s see how this all plays out...it will be interesting to see how attorneys and the law define the right of one individual to engage in and enterprise while he or she is supposed to be engaged in an enterprise they have already been hired for.  And, it will be interesting to see how the law and the attorney’s meditate the question of conflict of interest when the enterprise in question benefits from the position the administrator holds with his employer. 

All I know is what I have been taught at home, church and school...one cannot serve two masters...render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and so on…

Well...anyway...that’s the way I see it...Let me know how you see it...◘

Editorial