Why isn’t LAUSD school Superintendent Ramon Cortines under arrest? Why is Cortines’ prolonged, blatant and lucrative conflict of interest activity being ignored? Where is the district attorney when you need one? My friend Howard Blume reported in last Friday’s Times that Cortines, head of the second largest school district in the U.S., was paid $150,000 last year for serving on the board of Scholastic Inc., the country’s leading educational publishing company which sells its books to LAUSD. It seems Cortines has been on Scholastic’s board for several years and Scholastic has sold LAUSD $16 million worth of educational reading material over the past five years.

Why is nobody except my next door neighbor and I outraged by this textbook example of a conflict of interest? Cortines is paid $250,000 a year to head the school district and he’s paid $150,000 a year by the company that sells the school district its books! Cortines works for two masters and that is in direct violation of sections 1090 and 87100 of the Government Code. Any other public official would be under the jail for this kind of operation. So why not Cortines?

The superintendent maintains that he recuses himself from any school district business relating to Scholastic. That’s unacceptable. He cannot recuse himself from being the superintendent of schools, as he is responsible for everything that goes on in it, including the acquisition of textbooks and toilet paper. He also he says he works for Scholastic after his school district working hours, on the weekends and on his vacation time. What planet is he on?! He’s the head of the school district all the time, 24/7. We’re not paying him by the hour, and being LAUSD superintendent is not “day work.” Both of his excuses for his conflict of interest are ridiculous.

What bothers me is that the school board members and district officials don’t see anything wrong with what Cortines is doing either. They must all be crooks! But I’ll tell you one thing, if Cortines’ predecessor, David Brewer, had done such a thing, his Black butt would have been out of there faster than it ultimately was. Yes, I’m playing the race card because it’s a high trump in this game. District Attorney Steve Cooley went to some extraordinary lengths to remove Roosevelt Dorn from his mayor’s job in Inglewood on a conflict of interest charge for having committed an act the state Supreme Court ruled was not a conflict of interest at all. Cooley et al. have made their bones ruining Black public (and private) citizens on trumped-up charges and here he is letting Cortines walk around unindicted and trying to raise my property tax. Why? I suspect it’s because Cortines is a high-profile Latino and Cooley wants to be California’s next attorney general and he believes that if he bags the highly respected Cortines, he’ll lose Latino votes. Cooley figures he’ll gain votes by doing Dorn, but will lose votes if he did Cortines. I told you Cooley is a bad piece of work, and evidently, so is Cortines.

AT PLAY ON THE FIELD OF POLITICS — I heard that Rep. Maxine Waters is trying to pull together something that would pit Councilman Herb Wesson in the race against Assembly Speaker Karen Bass to replace Rep. Diane Watson in Congress. I am not surprised. Waters has never liked Bass or anybody else close to Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, for that matter. Waters would be loathe to have Bass in Congress with her because the younger, more progressive, more cerebral, more amiable, more collegial Bass is the yin to the Barack Obama yang. The queen bee factor is at work here, as is always the case when Waters‘ “power” is threatened by the rise of a youthful mover and shaker with an agenda of his/her own — and the ability to achieve it without her.

Despite the fact that the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald wanted her daughter, Valerie McDonald, to succeed her in Congress, Waters got all out of her own 35th District and went into Millender-McDonald’s and disrespected her memory by heavily supporting Laura Richardson for her seat. With Waters’ aggressive push, Richardson won that race for the 37th District and has turned out to be the worst piece of trash we ever sent to Congress. Richardson is closely aligned to Waters and has bragged about wanting to be just like Waters. Both women have been featured in the CREW Project’s ‘Most Corrupt Members of Congress” annual reports. Richardson calls herself “Little Mama” to Waters’ “Big Mama” and both mamas are currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

Now I hear this week that Waters is coming all the way across the county to meddle in Watson’s business and orchestrate the defeat of her chosen successor in the 33rd District. It’s another blatant act of disrespect! Wesson should not be involved in such a thing. After all, Obama said he wanted Bass in Congress, not Wesson. And besides, the vulnerabilities that kept Wesson from running for the Board of Supervisors seat of his former boss and best friend, Yvonne Burke, are vulnerabilities that will come very much into play if Waters cons him into running against Bass. You know what they say about love and war and politics and stuff. Personally, I want Wesson to remain on the City Council because I need to like at least one Black council member!

And speaking of Wesson, I offer my condolences to him and his staff for the sudden death of his chief of staff, Charmette Bonqua, who died Sunday evening of a brain aneurysm while on a family vacation in Las Vegas. She was 44 years old. … Andrew Westall, Wesson’s senior deputy, was so deeply affected by the death of Bonqua, with whom he’d worked closely for seven years, that Monday he dropped out of the race for the 43rd Assembly District.

The really big political fight is expected to occur for the race to fill Bass’ 47th Assembly seat. People are going to fall out with one another like they’ve never fallen out before. Marriages are going to break up. Children are going to leave home. Lifelong friends are going to stop speaking. The battle is going to be between Holly Mitchell, the executive director of Crystal Stairs, who has the support of Watson, Bass, Ridley-Thomas and a whole lot of important and powerful progressives, and Reggie Smith-Sawyer, secretary of the California Democratic Party and chairman of the board of SCLC, who is extremely active in the community. This is a matchup that will pit labor against labor and it is going to be brutal. I’m going to get a ringside seat.

Check this out: A good ‘n is poised to enter the Inglewood mayoral race: Jim Butts, a former Inglewood police chief, who also served 15 years as Santa Monica’s police chief and who has just retired after four years as chief of security for the Los Angeles International Airport. This is a man of impeccable character and an abundance of administrative ability. This is a heavyweight. And unlike most of the long list of candidates running for office, Butts won’t need to steal any money or take any bribes because he’s not hard up for money because we know he’s receiving at least three government pensions and has all the money he needs. That, alone, makes him the man.

AND FINALLY — I heard that Danny Bakewell Sr. has replaced his son, Danny Bakewell Jr., as president of the Sentinel and put Brenda and her daughter in his place!