Sam Fant is either brilliant or his peers on the Manteca Unified School District board are not in his league.

Fant is still standing today and is doing so without being “censured” for supposedly not following the rules.

The majority of the board was confronted with an issue of a trustee not only publicly rebuking a district employee but pouring salt  on the wound big time in an action that had violation of due process written all over it.

So instead of attempting to address whether Debbie McLarty’s rights as an employee were compromised by one of seven members of the board that sets policies after she as a classified representative came to the defense of a janitor that board member Ashley Drain had berated, they decided to try and censure Fant for simply getting up in the middle of a board meeting and talk to TV reporter.

Not only did they sidestep the bigger and more serious issues, but they managed to put a nice fat lob ball in the air that Fant — or his supporters— were able to knock out of the park using intimidating heavy hitters n the form of the ACLU and NAACP.

His fellow board members nicely put aside issues regarding the order of how things happened from a trustee making a scene at Weston Ranch, to McLarty defending her fellow employee, to her Facebook become ground zero in a witch hunt for racists. In doing so they also starting laying the foundation for Fant’s political martyrdom. It shouldn’t have required a letter from the ACLU to the board explaining if chastising Fant for stepping outside during a public meeting to talk to the media was the only thing they were willing to slap his hand for doing, they were in a more precarious situation than an ice cube on a 120-degree day in Death Valley.

The entire concept of censoring is a cop-out at best and politically motivated at worst. Censuring has no bite to it except to say that fellow board members don’t like what a trustee did. It does carry a stigma of sorts but is a worthless as a $3 bill.

And to make matters even better for Fant, individual trustees publicly said they had issues with a photo of  confederate flag at McLarty’s Dukes of Hazard birthday theme party for her grandson that had being posted on her Facebook page.

Not only did they avoid the only real issue of whether a trustee violated an employee’s due process rights under district policy or previous practice as defined by the courts, but they also helped sharpen the racism dagger that Fant could weld.

So now all Fant has to dispose of is the grand jury report Drain calls “garbage” and the prospect of facing a recall election. The grand jury document paints at the very least an unflattering picture of the two.

Let’s be clear on one point. The only possible criminal action referenced in the grand jury report is one that they didn’t expand upon — whether Drain and resigned trustee Alexander Bronson committed an election fraud felony by using  invalid addresses to run for the school board.

Whether the rest of the document is garbage has everything to do with the judgment of the five other board members and how they intend to respond to the grand jury report. It’s not that the opinion of Drain or Fant doesn’t matter. It’s just that they made it clear that they believe the report is bogus.

Give Fant his due.

Fant has either on his own or with a concerted effort has managed to check the board at every move. Some of his colleagues dismiss Fant as a politician. They do so under a secondary definition of “politician” as referencing someone who is acting in a manipulative and devious way to take advantage of an organization. But that is not the primary definition of a politician. It is someone involved primarily in politics as their profession, usually an elected official. The working synonyms are “public servant” and “statesman.”

It does without saying there are a good number of people - particularly in the Weston Ranch are that he represents — that believe Fant is a public servant and not a manipulative politician.

Which brings us to the recall election: If you think it is going to be easy to recall Fant, dream on.

It is why the recall group is pushing for the recall to be an at-large vote as to how he was elected and not by area as the voters decided that all future new terms of trustees by in the 2014 election. It would be progressively easier in terms of signatures needed to do the recall in Fant’s specific area. But those pushing the recall know that it would be far form a slam dunk for the recall to pass if only Weston Ranch was voting.

Toss in the fact that Fant has enemies in high places in Stockton who view his plans to run for the City Council of that city as an act against the power structure and you have the dominos all lined up.

The problem is Fant isn’t going to let his political ambitions be short-circuited by a recall. It is why he will treat any recall election as a primary race of sorts to represent South Stockton on that city’s council.

A recall election as such will be like using a hiking pole to irritate a bear. You are gambling that the bear isn’t going to destroy everything in front of him in order to save his life.

Disclaimer

This column is the opinion of executive editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA.  He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209.249.3519.