Posted by Hmmmmm, a resident of another community, on Jun 26, 2012 at 10:24 pm

This is poor journalism, which is surprising, since I have been accustomed to a high standard of reporting from the Almanac and this reporter.

If it is deemed newsworthy that the Portola Valley school board didn't have proper oversight over T. Hanretty, why is it not newsworthy that Stephen Wagstaffe, San Mateo District Attorney, didn't have proper oversight over these employees who embezzled trust funds?

At least in Portola Valley's caee, the fraud was hard to detect. This article also doesn't mention that the fraud of these two employees was detected almost immediately after a different department, health services, took over management of them from Wagstaffe. As in days.

It's more newsworthy to report on this flagrant lapse in judgment and management by Stephen Wagstaffe, who continues to serve in San Mateo County at a high level, than some petty thefts by these two employees.

Posted by Dave Boyce, Almanac staff writer, on Jun 27, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Dave Boyce is a member (registered user) of Almanac Online

This original story, written on a tight deadline, has been updated and is on the home page.

Web Link

Posted by Lurker, a resident of another community, on Jun 28, 2012 at 12:27 pm

Thanks for the update, Dave.

From the Mercury News:

Web Link

"Wagstaffe said the district attorney's office itself didn't have anything to do with the Public Administrator program, but he plans to investigate how the alleged crimes occurred."

Huh? The DA's office oversaw the program! It's hard to know whether no one was minding the store over at the DA's office, or whether they were, and failed to catch the crimes.

Wagstaffe's office should have been investigating the crimes AS they occurred, not investigating HOW they had occurred after the fact.

And now Wagstaffe is hiding out from reporters.

As he has done in the past, when Wagstaffe cannot control the media narrative on an issuethat makes him look bad, he hides like a baby from the press.