LETTERS -- Stop Suing Us

January 31, 2019

Dear Editor,

Apparently, Oscar de la Torre and his wife Maria Loya are supporting a discrimination lawsuit against our school district filed by their attorney Kevin Shenkman.

Mr. Shenkman has recently filed multiple lawsuits against our city and school district.

In the newest lawsuit, Shenkman is claiming our school district is discriminating because occasionally some teachers might have mistakenly requested fees for materials or extracurricular activities from students that could not afford them ("School District to Release Student Contact Information Under Court Order," January 18, 2019).

Falsely claiming discrimination is bad enough but perhaps more troubling is Mr. de la Torre’s ignorance of his own school board’s regulations where he currently holds an elected seat.

All this plaintiff or anyone who feels that fees are being requested inappropriately has to do is walk into the principal’s office at his or her school and drop off a note or fill out a one-page form that would trigger a review as to whether the fees are or are not appropriate.

Instead of helping this plaintiff fill out that form, someone from Mr. de la Torre’s family referred the plaintiff, coincidentally, to de la Torre and Loya’s lawyer who is now demanding hundreds of thousands from the district plus attorney fees.

Their morally challenged attorney is also trying to make this a class action lawsuit to increase his bounty by demanding that the school district share our personal information so he can have access to every parent to try and have us join his lawsuit.

If you do not want you and your child’s private, personal information handed over to de la Torre and Loya’s lawyer -- you should opt out as soon as possible by emailing a short message saying you opt out, with your and your child’s information to optout@smmusd.org. The current deadline is February 4, 2019.

Every dollar spent on lawyers is one less dollar that will be spent on educating our kids.

There is not much anyone can do short of surgically implanting a conscience into the litigious and parasitic attorney Shenkman but we do have the political power to do something about Mr. de la Torre.

My preference is for school board members that are more concerned with educating our kids than enriching their lawyer.

Joel Koury

Joel Koury is a Former Rent Control Chairperson and an attorney and business owner and father of a child in the Santa Monica School District.