THIS IS WAR! — Do you remember how last month Inglewood school board member Trina Williams made that ignorant and erroneous announcement that only $4 million is left of the $145 million Measure K bond money for which residents voted to improve the city’s schools? Remember how she made a splashy call for a “forensic audit” to find out what happened to the rest of the money? Do you remember how I wrote in the Jan. 15 Soulvine that Julie Avnit, the Measure K financial bond accounting consultant, gave a full report of the money to the board on Nov. 12, 2008? Do you remember how Avnit said $28.8 million in Measure K money is left and that Williams had misunderstood the reports she distributed to the school board? Remember all of that? Well, Avnit was fired by the school board on Jan. 28 for telling the truth and making Williams look like the idiot she is.

That diabolical trio — Arnold Butler, Johnny Young and Williams — did to Avnit exactly what it’s been doing since those three formed a majority on the school board: They’ve fired honest, professional, hard-working school officials who do not buy into their scams and do not lie to promote their assorted misdeeds. The school district’s former legal counsel detailed this very tactic in the $3 million lawsuit she filed against them when they fired her last year. The former superintendent, whom they also fired last year, reports incidents of pressure from the trio to do wrong in her multimillion dollar lawsuit against them, and former chief of the school district’s police force complained in writing of this tactic, and other acts just as devious, to the district attorney. Nobody who works for the district will speak on the record about anything amiss in the district lest Butler, Young and Williams fire them.

So, comes now Avnit, the professional accountant the district hired to keep tabs on the Measure K funds, was fired because she did her job and reported to the board, to Inglewood citizens, to me and to you the truth about the Measure K money. She, too, has a lawsuit and I suppose I’ll get another (my fourth relating to IUSD actions) Superior Court subpoena to deliver to the court myself, my column and my notes on this latest bit of skullduggery.

This demonic troika did something else last week: They e-mailed me a letter, dated Jan. 30, addressed to “to whom it may concern,” and written on official Inglewood Unified School District letterhead in which they endorsed Butler and Williams for re-election and Alena Cindy Giardina for election to the school board. They endorsed themselves and this other woman on school district letterhead! They used public resources for political purposes and sent a copy to me! Are they taunting me?

That’s against the law and I’m certain somebody over there tried to tell them they couldn’t do that, but, as has been proven, these three can do anything they damned well please — that is until the April 7 election when this evil cabal is replaced by the people’s candidates: Joyce Randall, Mary Bueno and Renee Dorn.

But I tell you what, since many people working for the district have reason to fear for their jobs, I invite them to join the growing list of “anonymous sources” who inform me of everything this trio does and I promise to never, ever write or mention their names in public because I want to avoid creating anymore Julie Avnits. Times are hard and I know they need their jobs, but this is all-out war and we have two months to defeat these demons. I have already been contacted by parents of students attending City Honors School who are angry and upset about the constant presence on that campus of a reputed adult female drug dealer and their attempts to keep her off the campus and what they say is Butler’s role in ensuring her constant presence thereon. I’m already working this issue. If you know something about this that I ought to know, then let me know. This is war. We’re fighting against the workers of iniquity.

ON THE COUNCIL FRONT — Inglewood City Councilwoman Judy Dunlap, who’s running for re-election, is really beating the redevelopment drum loudly these days, considering she’s been the primary impediment to any and all redevelopment in the city for years and has stood on the border of her 2nd District gunning down drum liners if they even thought about developing anything in her territory. At her Jan. 28 town hall meeting, she tried to incite her constituents with claims that the city has $200 million in a redevelopment fund which has been unspent and is subject to be returned to the state of California. She fingered her fellow City Council members as being the culprits for this dastardly situation, when in fact, it is she.

Just in the three years I’ve been hanging in Inglewood, Dunlap single-handedly stopped the development of several townhouses in her district designated for first-time homebuyers, caused actress Marla Gibbs to lose $1 million by downgrading her planned homeownership complex into a series of rental properties, and pared a 10-unit housing development down to six units and finally to zero units before she blocked it entirely.

Dunlap refused to allow Fatburger, which lost its lease in the shopping center, to relocate across the street into her district and which, ultimately, moved to Manchester and Crenshaw, and she killed an Asian group’s multiscreen theater complex slated for LaBrea and Market by filing one of her notorious lawsuits against it, thus holding it up in court until the Asian group lost its funding and couldn’t build it. Those are just some manifestations of Dunlap’s anti-development obsession that immediately come to mind, but the redevelopment funds that concern her so much can be properly put to use once she is removed from office and replaced by the people’s candidate, the forthright Austin Williams.

A TRAGIC JUXTAPOSITION — While we and the world were celebrating and congratulating ourselves for having reached a point in our humanity where we could abandon overt racism and embrace individuals’ characters, ideals and ideas and elect the nation’s first African-American president, we had another racially motivated murder in the city of Los Angeles and it has gone completely ignored. James Shamp, a Black 48-year-old husband and father of two who had been working at the Canoga Park Bowl for seven years, was gunned down by Latino gangsters on Dec. 23 as he was emptying trash into the bowling alley’s dumpster out back. Canoga Park is a hotbed of Latino-on-Black violence and harassment and police and prosecutors admit that Latinos killed Shamp simply because he was Black. In fact, they arrested and charged three Latinos last week with one count of murder and conspiracy to commit a crime because of race.

Questions: Why is it that nobody knew about this except West Valley residents? Where was the mayor, who’s usually Antonio-on-the-spot of tragic breaking news all over the city? Where was Police Chief William Bratton, who’s usually on the spot testily telling us “this was not racially motivated?” The only significant city official I saw on the scene was Councilman Dennis Zine, in whose district the racial murder occurred, and he acquitted himself to the situation adequately. Where were the press conferences, protests, vigils and public outrage? Oh, that’s right, Najee Ali is in prison.

AND FINALLY — Why is there all this concern about the Republicans’ participation in or approval of a national economic stimulus package? If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t need one. If we gave a hoot about what they think, we would have elected them. But we didn’t. We repudiated them and they need to go sit in their caucus, wring their hands and shut the ----- up!