OPINION
Scott Harden and Kim Kenne at the PUSD Board of Education Special Meeting, May 14, 2026 (File Photo – Special to Colorado Boulevard Newspaper)
Accountability is easiest to demand when the person being held accountable is your political opponent. The harder test is whether we apply the same standard to people whose politics we generally share.
By Walt Beckett
There is something deeply troubling about watching a handful of Pasadena progressives respond to political accountability in ways that increasingly resemble the very MAGA tactics they regularly condemn: deny, minimize, sanitize, and move on.
Since taking office, Scott Harden has taken positions and joined with other PUSD Board members on actions that have raised questions about whether he remains aligned with the priorities he once championed. Before his election, he was active in the PTA and spoke out against school closures. Since taking office, however, some of his positions and actions have appeared at odds with the record that led many voters to support him.
Critics also have raised questions about his relationship with Kim Kenne, a wealthy trustee, who supports school closures while providing financial support to charter and private education. Scott’s conduct came under scrutiny alongside hers and that of two other PUSD Board members.
Then came the response from some of his supporters. Rather than confront the substance of the criticism, some have essentially argued: They made a mistake. Lessons were learned. Now let them govern.
That is not accountability.
The question was never simply whether someone is entitled to have an opinion. Of course they are. The concern is what happened behind the scenes, whether proper procedures were followed, whether the communications raised potential Brown Act issues, and whether the public was given an accurate and honest account of what occurred. Those are legitimate questions for elected officials and the public to examine.
Secret discussions, combined with behind-the-scenes communications with a company that was later hired to conduct an ostensibly unbiased discussion about school closures, undermine public confidence in the credibility of any current or future decisions made by these PUSD Board members.
And it should not take a Public Records Act request to make government officials accountable. Transparency should be the starting point, not something the public has to fight for after the fact.
Every Board of Education member—whether in PUSD or another school district—has a responsibility to serve students and the broader school community, including families and educators, and to protect the integrity of public education. They are not elected to advance a personal political agenda.
That is why the influence of the wealthy PUSD Board member deserves scrutiny, particularly when her educational agenda may differ from the interests of public-school families. If Board members choose to support charter or private schools, whether privately or publicly, and send their own children to those schools while serving on the Board, voters deserve to know where their allegiances lie and whether those interests could influence their decisions. If other Board members align themselves with them, voters deserve to know that as well. Voters can then make their own judgments about whether the interests and allegiances of Board members align with those of the public-school families they represent. These relationships and potential conflicts should be discussed openly, particularly when Board members are making decisions that affect the future of our children.
New candidates for the PUSD Board should be open with voters about whether they support closing public schools or strengthening existing public schools so the community can make an informed decision at the ballot box.
The same principle applies to the three Board members whose conduct has drawn criticism. They should consider doing what Yarma Velázquez did: accept responsibility, resign, or decline to seek another term. Accountability is not punishment. It is part of public service.
That brings us back to the larger issue: consistency matters.
It is easy to condemn Donald Trump and MAGA supporters for excusing misconduct because they believe there is a “bigger picture.” But progressives cannot use the same logic when it is politically convenient. You cannot demand accountability from one side while asking your own side to overlook conduct that would be unacceptable if committed by political opponents.
If transparency, ethics, and accountability matter, they have to matter regardless of who is involved.
Scott Harden’s supporters may believe he deserves another chance. Others may believe he has betrayed the constituency and principles that brought him into office. Those are political judgments for voters to make.
But the public should not be told to simply “move on” when legitimate questions about transparency, governance, and accountability remain unanswered.
Finally, Harden has recently suggested that the recall is motivated by a vendetta against him. If Scott believes there is one, he should consider whether his own record, actions, and choices have contributed to the perception he is now confronting.
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When people say, “They made a mistake. Lessons were learned. …”
I take issue. I don’t see that they learned. Their public “apologies” all pointed fingers back at those uncovering the problems. Claiming that your messages were “taken out of context” when you yourself hand selected what got sent in response to the public records request is the mindset of someone who is determined to cast blame on others instead of really accepting responsibility.
The SCAC rejected every closure scenario presented, but at the 8/13 meeting the “study session” was clearly just an effort to get a timeline to approve the very same scenarios without any input from the community about what our vision really is.
The replacement resolution was supposed to salvage the study session but the board president turned it into a special meeting with action items including establishing a date to vote on closures.
The replacement resolution talked about student input – but the four trustees who passed it did so against the recommendation of the student representatives.
We just had a community wide committee that met for hours and hours and months – it said no to closures at this time.
The trustees facing recalls just don’t want to accept no for an answer, and everything they keep publishing and saying about the recall and the brown act and their ongoing push for consolidations demonstrates that they have definitely not learned any lessons.
They want to close specific schools for specific reasons that they will not truthfully share with the public, the reasons are not based on research, or financial. When I asked Pat Cahalan to help me understand why trustees would target Marshall for closure when it is the highest performing school – he said, “It has a racist past.” I said “But is it racist today?” He repeated himself again.
Punishing kids at title one schools who have been through covid, fires, ice, whose parents are still rebuilding – over things that happened before these kids were born. Before their parents were even born, is not what being a trustee is about.
So no, they have learned nothing about what it takes to do their jobs. They learned nothing about transparency.
THIS!
As a mom with very young kids who is only a year into PUSD, I want to share why I took the step to bring forward the recall regarding Board Member Scott Harden.
I want to be clear: I have zero personal vendetta against Scott. My involvement in school advocacy comes purely from a place of love for our community and wanting to build strong, lasting ties for my children’s education. Both my husband and I were raised in private schools, but we intentionally chose PUSD because we truly believe in public education and the vital role neighborhood schools play in bringing families together.
When we look at school closures, it affects the very fabric of the neighborhoods and families our board members are elected to serve. Closing schools disrupts daily commutes, splits tight-knit communities, and creates hurdles for working parents.
Looking at the board’s financial decisions over the last few years, the current closure strategy just doesn’t align with the goals they set out to achieve. We saw school consolidations in 2020, and the data shows they didn’t actually deliver the structural budget relief that was promised. Doubling down on this approach doesn’t fix our long-term budget—it risks driving even more families away to charter or private options when we should be working to keep them.
We need sustainable, creative financial solutions that protect our kids’ neighborhood schools and strengthen our district. Let’s work together to build the strong, supportive PUSD community our children deserve!
Marisol, you seem like a caring person who wants to do the right thing. So I hope you’ll take the following words in that spirit- doing the right thing.
I’m wondering if you had a chance to meet with Scott directly to share your concerns.
Im asking because in my 15 years of involvement at all levels of PUSD (classroom parent, ELAC, School Site Council, Annual Fund, PTA, DELAC, DAC, CAC, and LCAP), I had plenty of opportunities to be proud and joyful but also angry, frustrated, confused, disappointed, at policies, decisions, and actions at all levels, including those at the State and Federal levels.
But never in all that time did I feel like the answer was an action that went against the public will especially if it cost as much as 2 million dollars.
I DID often find that I could make things more fair, more equitable, or at least more tolerable by having a meeting with folks and trying to understand the basis or context for their actions,choices, or perspectives.
I encourage you, especially as someone so new to the district, to meet with Scott. You may still feel like a $2 million dollar recall is the only solution. But you’ll be able to look people in the eyes and explain why, despite the gigantic price tag, we’ll be better off with an appointed board member instead of this particular elected one.
We have elections every 4 years. That’s when we decide whether to re-elect incumbents based on what they did in office.
A recall in this case is a waste of time and money. If you don’t like what the board is doing, run for office and make your case.
Each district has upwards of 20,000 registered voters. Fewer than 100 signatures are needed to start a recall petition.
Less than half a percent of voters can paralyze the board for 4 months as the community spends more time arguing about a recall drive rather than looking for and backing candidates and platforms for the 2028 races. And at worse, a recall election, than even if successful, just gives the remaining board members, not voters, to pick a replacement.
None of this is thought out. None of this is helpful.
Recalls are for fraud, indecency, and criminal behavior, not for policy disagreements. Who exactly is acting like MAGA here?
Recalls are for when our representatives stop representing us – “we the people”. It’s part of democracy. If we wait 2 years, these trustees will destroy schools, communities (see Ms Tansey’s comment) and PUSD. 14 years of Kenne is enough – 2 more years of Scott Harden and Tina Fredericks is too much.
Not surprising. It’s the horseshoe theory in action.