There’s a Bonanza of Intrigue at Capistrano School District

Think of the Capistrano Unified School District as the Ponderosa. And of Supt. James Fleming as Ben Cartwright.

My apologies to younger readers who aren’t familiar with TV’s long-running “Bonanza” series of a generation ago, set on the sprawling Ponderosa ranch with Ben as the patriarch and wise ruler of the spread. The Ponderosa was a beautiful patch of land; God’s country, you might say.

Only thing was, there always seemed to be something going on that brewed some drama. A controversy here, an accusation there.

The Capo school district also sits on a beautiful patch of land here in Orange County, and, man, does it sprawl -- roughly 200 square miles.

It also seems to always have something cooking -- not an unusual situation for a school district whose enrollment has doubled to 50,000 students in the 15 years since Fleming came from Miami to run it.

And make no mistake, Jim Fleming runs the Capo district like Ben Cartwright ran the Ponderosa.

The juicy story line that emerged this week, however, would have done any TV writer proud.

At its simplest, it’s a story of a recall effort that flopped. Unhappy parents wanted to oust the entire seven-member school board but were told they didn’t have enough valid signatures.

But that was hardly the end of the story.

The Orange County registrar conceded that he had let two Capo district officials view the names of petition signers, which they apparently then wrote down. For reasons easy to grasp, that’s illegal. However, a spokesman in the registrar’s office has said the office didn’t know that.

One of the Capo officials was the district’s spokesman, David Smollar, who later resigned and now is at odds with Fleming over whether he quit or was asked to leave.

Smollar said he went to the registrar’s office with an assistant superintendent -- at Fleming’s request -- then returned with a list of a couple dozen names. Fleming disputes sanctioning the trip, telling The Times that he took a quick look at the list, told Smollar it was improper to have it, and handed it back.

Smollar also said that Fleming had seen another list of about 150 names of recall supporters, some of whom might have been teachers. Fleming also has denied having seen that list, which recall supporters suspect may have been sent by a “mole” in their midst after one of their leaders inadvertently sent it out in a wide e-mail distribution.

Fleming is a bright man. He and I have disagreed on various matters over the years, but he’s also written a number of thoughtful op-ed essays for the paper. Nor is it easy being a superintendent nowadays. You don’t run a district the size of Capo with potentially dueling constituencies of parents, teachers, staffers and school board members without creating opponents.

So, when a large group of parents wants to oust a school board that guarantees a superintendent his or her employment, you can bet that superintendent has a stake in the fight.

I find it hard to believe that Smollar and a Fleming underling decided -- on their own -- to go to the registrar’s office and peruse petition signatures.

Is it possible? Sure.

But, then, would a superintendent -- any superintendent -- not want to know who was on the opposing side? Fleming says he quickly handed the list back, not wanting to see it.

It’s human nature to want to know. That’s what gives the allegation enough logical underpinning to give me pause. I wouldn’t blame Fleming for wanting to see such a list, but if he ordered a mission to get it, that’s what stinks.

I have no problem taking Fleming at his word. But if he’s not telling the truth, it’s time to end his tenure.

I asked recall supporter Tom Russell if the ongoing dispute is a matter of reasonable people differing over district policy. He says no. “Having worked the recall table for six months and talking to thousands of people,” Russell says, “I can tell you quite confidently people have been burnt one way or another by this district and believe there’s a fundamental ethical problem at the upper end of this district.”

Anecdotal stories abound, he says, of parents or students being “singled out” by school district officials if they’re seen as troublemakers.

He realizes that sounds conspiratorial and paranoid. That’s why, Russell says, “we were always looking for the smoking gun.”

Maybe they have it, maybe not. Russell says he’d love a definitive answer on the registrar matter but that it isn’t the end game. That now has shifted to this year’s elections, in which the administration’s opponents will run a slate of candidates.

The truth has a way of emerging in situations like this.

Every so often on “Bonanza,” Ben Cartwright was accused of one thing or another. It took an hour to find out the truth, and Ben always emerged unscathed.

This may take a bit longer.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at [email protected]. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.