Hi, first, although I know that the CEO sent a mass email to the NAACP using public resources with accusations against me, I still have not seen that email. Folks today said things like "I have never heard such racist comments in my whole life!" and "She is the most racist person ever in history!" but the report -- as biased against me as it was -- sustained ZERO claims of racism. Not. One.
As to the comment that I allegedly made to Nai, the executive summary intentionally mispresented the exchange: At the June 30, 2023 Board Policy and Planning Committee, which I sit on along with Nai (chair) and Estremera (vice chair), Nai took control of drafting a SPEECH CODE detailing what things Directors were and were not allowed to say. (Nevermind the first amendment etc). In doing so, Nai said she was using speech codes on similar boards as a guide. All of those codes used the word AD HOMINEM to deliniate what kinds of criticisms are appropriate — criticisms of ideas and proposals — and what kinds of criticisms are inappropriate — ad hominem attacks that go against a person rather than against ideas (like the criticisms of me today; you may have noticed a large absence of any examples of “offensive” things I said).
Nai loves to criticize and correct me, whether she is right or not, and that day, she criticized me again, scolding me for using the word AD HOMINEM, claiming it was not a normal word to use, even though most other codes used it. I was rightfully displeased, because shouldn’t a person drafting a speech code know the word AD HOMINEM, especially when all the model codes use it? But Nai turned this on me, and said “Rebecca, use better words. English is not my first language, so how am I supposed to know that word?” And then later (because she never lets me respond to her) when I finally had another chance to talk, I responded, "Well Nai, I realize that English is not your first language, but don't you think that knowing the meaning of AD HOMINEM is important to the job of writing a code about which kinds of criticisms are appropriate and which are not?” And then I gave alternate words.
Is that a little different than the way it was presented? I think so.
But the report removed entirely the part of the exchange where NAI used those words against me, and focussed on my response.
Then, to add insult to injury the CEO/Staff actually EDITED the video of the meeting, so a person cannot look online to see the exchange for themselves. (Per below, I did get my hands on the full file, however.)
Perhaps the worst part of this is that if you look at Nai’s interview testimony contained in that 2000 pages of evidence they still unrelentingly demand back — testimony that actual is public record, as it is the testimony of an elected official and not of any employee — Nai does not say that I spit her words back to her. In fact, her testimony suggests that she did not hear what I said, which is entirely believable because she rarely listens to me. In her testimony, when asked about the comment about “English not being your first language,” she acted very defensive, claiming that She (NAI) should not have made that comment about English being her first language, and that NAI was just kidding when she said that. Why would Nai apologize for saying that? It is because when she said it, she was mocking me and trying to make fun of me and make me look bad. Today she happily embraced a false version of the story that she knows is a lie. She needs to be replaced in November’s election.
But really, you can judge all this for yourself by looking at the video file.
You won’t find it in the edited version that Valley Water posted to its website, which is only 1 hour 30 minutes long:
https://fta.valleywater.org/dl/TMSBKUpOme
But — unless the CEO chops up this video file too — you should find it on this one, the full meeting, which is more than 3 hours and 16 minutes. Personally, I think that this meeting demonstrates a lot of things, like what Nai believes her job is (to be loyal to the water district’s executives) and what I think our job is (to be loyal to the residents of Santa Clara County) (we are an OVERSIGHT board), and it also demonstrates the way I have been bullied by Nai Hsueh and Tony Estremera for 16 months.
I invite you to watch it and decide for yourself.
