By Jon Chown
After a tense meeting on July 16, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District approved contracts with the Watsonville Police Department to provide resource officers at Watsonville High and Pajaro Valley High, and for a Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Deputy to be at Aptos High.
The contracts pay for a full or part-time officer at Watsonville, Pajaro Valley and Aptos High Schools. The district will pay the Watsonville Police Department $291,630 for the officers’ time and $146,000 to the Sheriff’s department for the deputy’s time.
Gabriel Medina
The meeting was fraught with tension and anger. Trustee Gabriel Medina’s opening comments were fiery, and he chastised his fellow board members and called for them to resign. After that, Board President Olivia Flores read a message from Trustee Joy Flynn, which said she was not attending, not even by remote, because she feared for her safety and didn’t want to risk revealing her location.
It was not made clear why Flynn was in fear, though police were present outside the meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting, during discussion of the night’s agenda, Medina sought to stop all discussion of the resource officer contracts, Items 9.1 and 9.2, and have them removed from the agenda. His motion failed in 3-3 tie, with Trustees Turley and Jessica Corrasco in support. Flores then made a motion for the meeting to move forward with the agenda as it was and that passed 4-2, with Turley switching sides.
Flores Calls Medina ‘Crazy’
As the meeting progressed, Medina visibly seethed with anger, leaning back in his chair, a scowl on his face and his arms folded. He often interjected or tried to interject, interrupting his fellow trustees and insulting them. As item 9.1 was being introduced, regarding the Watsonville Police contract with Watsonville High, Medina tried to reintroduce his already failed motion to table the item. When Flores denied the attempt, Medina interrupted “don’t break the Brown Act again!”
Olivia Flores
It’s unclear how Flores was breaking the Brown Act, which deals with public notice and open meetings law, and has nothing to do with parliamentary procedure. The PVUSD’s bylaws do require the board to use a version of Robert’s Rules of Order, which prevents a board member from reintroducing a failed motion they originally introduced. This rule is to prevent stalling a meeting by forcing a vote on the same failed motion.
Medina then tried twisting some logic to get a vote on the failed motion. “If you’re going to deny my motion, I’d like to put that before the board to vote on,” he said.
PVUSD Superintendent Heather Contreras, in attendance and sitting with the board, looked confused. “Didn’t we already vote on that?”
“Yes we did, at the start of the meeting,” Flores replied, and she then tried to grab control of the meeting back while Medina angrily talked over here, loudly proclaiming that “if she was going to break Robert’s Rules of Order … I’m sorry you don’t know Robert’s Rules!”
Flores broke down in tears. “Trustee Medina, this is exactly why we have council here, because you bully me every meeting,” she cried.
“This isn’t about feelings, it’s about violating the bylaws,” said Medina, while attempting to violate them. “My motion is on the table!”
Contreras looked at Flores and told her, “We already voted on that.” Flores denied the motion again.
“You can’t deny it, because I’m challenging you on that and you have to follow our rules,” Medina said.
“No, our board policy follows Robert’s Rules … so we are going to proceed with Item 9.1,” Flores responded.
As discussion on the item began, Medina tried to talk over it, but eventually gave up for the time being. Then, minutes later, he bitterly objected to the idea of combining public comment on items 9.1 and 9.2, threatening lawsuits. Within a few minutes after that, however, he demanded public comment be combined or he would sue for that. During the ensuing confusion he had just created, he tried to shut down discussion again.
“OK, this meeting is going sideways, so I make a motion to adjourn now,” he shouted.
Flores looked stunned by the audacity.
“He’s crazy,” Flores whispered over the mic to Contreras, which Medina heard and he howled out, “Put that over the mic!” After a quick, quiet discussion Flores allowed the motion, which failed due to a second.
Medina Called Out
During public comment, an audience member spoke to Medina directly and Medina quickly turned his head to look the other way. “Young man, the way you speak to people is disrespectful,” he said. Another member of the public was even more forceful. “When a man must use aggression and not reason to get his point across, that man is a bully — and Gabriel Medina, you are that bully,” he said.
As discussion ensued, Daniel Dodge Jr. made a compelling speech in favor of the resource offers at Watsonville and Pajaro. He said the majority of his constituents want a resource officer at the school. “We are choosing to prepare and protect,” he said, and made a motion to approve, which passed with trustees Flores, Turley and Misty Navarro in favor.
During discussion of the Aptos resource officer, Medina and Contreras got into an open, heated argument, with Medina complaining about being lied to and not given information. For instance, he said he asked for a report on the Moss Landing battery fire. The superintendent explained that some of what he was asking for would require her to hire people for, such as an investigation into the Moss Landing fire, and would take months. Navarro took the mic to apologize for the board for Medina’s bullying behavior to PVUSD staff.
“Our job up here is not push our political agenda,” she said, and as she continued, Medina began to talk over her.
“You’re out of order,” she said, but Medina continued to speak over her.
“Stop acting like a child,” she demanded.
Eventually, the board would vote on the Aptos officers and it passed 4-2 as the vote before did.
The meeting would last more than four hours, much of the first 2 1/2 hours spent on Medina’s antics.
However, after making such a scene early on, Medina was absent for much of the meeting. He missed votes on whether to allow the district to move forward with the issuance and sale of bonds related to Measure M’s passage in 2024; giving certain members of staff time to complete administrative credential work; a quarterly report on Williams Settlement complaints, which included an HVAC issue at Aptos High; and a vote on whether to convert a Special Board Meeting planned for July 30 to a regular meeting.
Perhaps most importantly, Medina missed a report on Special Education services in the district, and the Consent Agenda, which had items regarding changes to course programs, student internships, budgetary items, and more.