Until 2020, I had no idea who our local school board trustees were. It was only when the policies threatened my way of parenting and personal decisions that I became involved. In August of 2021, I met on Zoom with the former Superintendent. At the time, he seemed to agree with me, "The universal mask mandate was ridiculous." I said to him, "You are the Superintendent. Why can't you lift the mandate?" I then presented him with the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors Resolution on Healthy Children. He said he would give it to the Board. He said something I will never forget because it was my first lesson in American Civics. Until then, I humbly admit I slept during History and Political Science classes.
("Those who do not remember History were probably sleeping." - EOD)
The Superintendent said,
"I work for the Board."
Then he explained, "The Board has to approve the policies."
Confused, I asked,
"Who does the Board work for?" He said, "You. The people elect the Board."
I have shared at length what happened next. I was naive and thought we could convince the Board to understand our point of view, adopt the resolution, and create a win-win situation for all. People who want to wear masks - can. People who don't believe masks prevent disease can take the risk and unmask. The meeting turned out differently than we had hoped, with all members of the Board, but one, violating their Oath of Office, and Board Member Linda Reid putting us on a Police Watchlist.
Four years later, the trending topic amongst many talking heads, is Censorship. The potential future director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) so eloquently said,
There is no time in history where the people who were censoring speech were the good guys." - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (PVPUSD) Board Member Julie Hamill always posts about the grave danger of Government censorship. Pinned to the top of her X account is a "tweet," from the future Vice President of The United States, J.D. Vance, "I believe we actually do have a threat to Democracy in this country. Unfortunately, it's not the threat to Democracy that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to talk about. It is the threat of censorship. It's Americans casting aside lifelong friendships because of disagreements over politics. It's big technology companies silencing their fellow citizens. It's Kamala Harris saying that rather than debating and persuading fellow Americans, she would like to censor people who engage in misinformation. That's a bigger threat to Democracy than anything we've seen in the last 40 years." Hamill filed a lawsuit vs. Los Angeles County based on, according to the organization she works for, California Policy Center, "Citizens' First Amendment right to challenge government action in the public forum, and the abuse of authority by local government officials who shut down public comment features on government websites and bullied social media companies to suppress unfavorable content."
Until recently, Save P.V. Schools was a huge fan of PVPUSD School Board Trustee, Julie Hamill. She has spoken publicly and at length about what the Government did to moms, dads, and children during the lockdowns. When she spoke, I felt as if she was representing all of us who were physically and emotionally harmed by the abusive policies set in motion by Barbara Ferrer, the Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, and all of the Government Agencies. Everything Hamill wrote about "Free Speech," the dangers of Masking, and the responsibility of the people to fight back resonated deeply with me because we had a shared experience. Not only that, but lifelong friends cast me aside when they realized they could not convince me to see the Pandemic through their perceptual filters.
Before it was popular to do so, as in the second week of the lockdowns, I posted the shutdown was a planned operation by The World Economic Forum, The United Nations, Johns Hopkins, Bill Gates, and others to change the culture and create a One World Government with digital I.D.s. I linked my claims to Event 201. And, then sarcastically wrote, "I am sure it's just a coincidence." I guess that was too much to handle for my neighbors on Facebook as they scrolled social media while taking their morning dump.
A lifelong friend of mine, at first, tried to "help" me. She tried to explain, "People are dying! Don't you care?" I said, "I know people are dying! I do care and, millions could die if we continue the lockdowns." I said, "They will keep everyone locked down until everyone is vaccinated!" She said, "That's crazy! They won't do that!" And, then, I posted video after video of the trained operation hosted by The Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation and, clips from the World Economic Forum when Trump basically said to all world leaders, "F#$cK OFF!" I wrote, "This is all to control the outcome of the 2020 elections." To that, my friend responded, "You are bat shit crazy!" I had to protect my peace so I chose to cast them aside because who wants to be friends with people who think you are bat shit crazy.
Then I saw another friend who wrote on her Facebook page, "Let's call this what it is - Home Imprisonment." Immediately, friends began attacking her. And then, they tried to convince her, "We are safer at home." And others wrote from the comfort of their couch, "We are saving lives!" The keyboard warriors were out for blood, trying to shut her down and shut her up because she saw the dangers of locking people up at home, and her own childhood experiences of being in an abusive home led her to empathize with all of the children who were not safe. I reached out to her privately and said, "Hey can we hang out?" She invited me to go camping in Utah. I deleted my Facebook account and she and I have been great friends ever since.
I found camaraderie with those who believed the greatest threat to all of our lives was not COVID-19 but the abuse of power by The United States Government and the citizens who put their faith not in God but in the Government.
Friendships are forged in a collective shared experience. As for me every one of my new friends shared the same experiences:
Big Tech flagged our posts for review.
Big Tech erased our links and content.
Big Tech scrubbed our names from YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, and then when any of us dared to post again.
Big Tech deleted our accounts.
I guess we can say, "The Rest is History," - accept it is not - Big Tech and Government Officials are still censoring us. If you want to learn just how bad the censorship is please take the time to listen to this podcast, where in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. interviews Dr. Robert Epstein about digital manipulation and how Big Tech companies control public opinion through censorship and they even get into the nitty gritty of how Donald Trump thought Operation Warp Speed would win him the Presidency in 2020.
I often think about the disagreements over politics and the Pandemic. The lockdowns made sense for people afraid of COVID and following the orders gave them a feeling of safety. For people who were fearful of An Authoritarian Government dictating to her people how to live, the shutdowns were terrifying. The concept,
"We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are,"
is ancient wisdom. The phrase can be traced back to writings from the 4th century to the Talmud, the Hebrew Bible, and the primary source of Jewish religious law.
Many authors, inspired by ancient wisdom and the struggle to understand humanity and relationships have written at length on how we perceive reality. The prolific author, Stephen Covey, sold over 40 million copies in 50 different languages of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey's seven habits include
being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking win-win, seeking to understand before being understood, synergizing and sharpening the saw, empowering individuals to take control of their lives, align their actions with their values, and build meaningful high-trust relationships.
In my last blog, Momma Drama, I began with a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert's Book Big Magic, specifically to highlight I am only responsible for the words I write - I am not responsible for the emotional reactions and triggers of a reader.
I wrote, Momma Drama because one of my readers asked me, "Why don't you trust Julie Hamill?" I felt I owed it to those who have followed me since 2021 to tell them the truth and go back to the beginning of Save PV Schools. In the Blog, I explain mostly the origins of Save PV Schools, who we are and how we came together. Then, about midway through I talk about how and why we campaigned for Julie Hamill for PVPUSD School Board. Then, I emphasized how she took a complete 180-degree turn when she suggested a cell phone ban for students attending school at PVPUSD. And, then again when she voted Yes for the Bond. When she did that, she ruined the trust of the people who fought so hard to get her elected because she broke the promise she made when she campaigned to generate revenue, get endowments and grants and cut spending. We all realized, maybe if she spent less time on twitter getting in fights with people she wouldn't have felt as if the only way to save the schools was to place the burden on fixing facilities on the homeowners.
At the time, when she added a discussion of the Yondr Pouches to the School Board Agenda, that would cost $200,000 if purchased, at first, I could not believe it (so much for Fiscal Responsibility). But then I wanted to understand her rationale. I read through her posts on social media. I read the book she recommended, "The Anxious Generation," by Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan Haidt attributes the rise in anxiety in children and teens to cell phones. Hamill, has had a long-standing issue with PVPUSD employing additional therapists. I concluded, based on her posts, that she believes the root cause of the increased anxiety is cell phones, and by eliminating cell phones, the District will not have to spend close to a million dollars on SAGE therapists. Whatever her logic was, I vehemently disagreed.
My beliefs have never wavered.
I believe in informed consent.
From my experience as a Health and Wellness Coach and Parent Educator, plus my 18 years of parenting three very differently wired children, I know the dynamics of human behavior and anxiety are multi-faceted. Anxiety is never just about one thing. Disease is always multifaceted and multidimensional. If a child is suffering from a cell phone addiction, that's due to bad parenting. It's up to parents to monitor their kids' devices and if it becomes a vice, parents can do what I have done, stop paying for the phone, shut down the wifi and cancel the cellular data.
"We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are."
School Board Trustee, Julie Hamill has publicly spoken of her own cell phone addiction and struggles with anxiety. A quick scroll on Hamill's X feed highlights just how much times she spends tweeting (Xing)
In August when I mentioned Hamill's name on Save PV Schools Instagram, she texted me, "I hear you are name checking me. Please don't write things like that about me." I thought, "Who is she now? The Dark Lord - She who must not be named!"
Then, in September, after I posted on Save PV Schools, that Julie Hamill did not fulfill her campaign promises, she texted me, "Just fyi, if anyone wants to attack me, I encourage them to recall me. I don't want to do this. Instead of bitching about me people should get a recall petition together." I had no idea what she was referring to. I had to open up my account and then I saw she was using her Hamill4PV instagram account to tell me and other people on my page to, "Recall her." I thought, "There's no way any of us are going to recall her. We are all officially done doing her any favors." - If she's not happy on the Board, or as she told a packed house of Republican Women, "Being on the Board has ruined my life," if it's that bad, then she should save herself and resign.
When School Board members sit on the dais during a school board meeting, they are representatives of the district. Yet, Board Member Julie Hamill, continues to say, during meetings, "I speak for myself." She fails to understand she was not elected to speak for herself.
School Board Representatives are elected to represent us - all of us.
As many members of the public and even the Palos Verdes Faculty Association Leader, Tim Coleman, have submitted multiple complaints over Board Member Hamill's unprofessionalism on X and risks to student safety by appearing on Fox News, Hamill has defended herself claiming she has the right to say whatever she wants to say because she's a Free Speech Absolutist. And, we have stepped up on many occasions to back her up.
Hamill promised to improve community connections. However as the tides turned and her supporters criticized her for supporting the Bond, Hamill used her closing remarks to refer to the people she is supposed to represent as trolls and essentially, "misinformation spreaders."
A troll is a derogatory and dehumanizing term. Still, sometimes, it's to call a spade a spade and a troll a troll, and it is appropriate to use the term "troll," when someone is trolling someone's posts or comments online to 'bait' people, which means deliberately provoking an argument or emotional reaction.
School Board Member Julie Hamill proudly celebrates her skillful trolling capabilities, which is all fine and dandy until she refers to her constituents, the people she's supposed to represent, as trolls. In the last few months, Hamill has come under the spotlight because she failed to fulfill her campaign promises of community connectedness, amplifying parents' voices, transparency and not kicking the can down the road, as she referred to passing a bond.
School Board Member Hamill has claimed to be a Free Speech Absolutist, but recently, after she read the blog I wrote, called Momma Drama on Save PV Schools, she threatened to get a restraining order against me. She didn't tell me directly of her plans, but rather she reached out to my good friends to tell them. We were together on election night when they told me. At first, I laughed at the utter hypocrisy of the self-proclaimed Troll and free speech absolutists trying to get a restraining order for a blog called, Momma Drama, in which I refer to both of us as screenagers. I said, "I didn't make any threats or attacks. She has no grounds for a restraining order. That's insane!" But then it dawned on me,
Hamill is a practicing lawyer and a commentator with a huge audience on Fox News. She has many powerful political alliances. Our boys play on the same fields, and if a Judge were crazy enough to grant her a restraining order against me for writing a blog, there's a chance I would not be able to watch my son play football.
Perhaps Hamill was trying to intimidate me with unwarranted threats.
As a writer, I intend to be a messenger, to bring all dark secrets out into the open and bring them into the light so we can heal and move forward. Mrs. Hamill could have read my Momma Drama blog and taken ownership that she sows seeds of division rather than her campaign promise of community connectedness and kids' needs first. But she refused to do that, and instead, she told my friends how she would take revenge upon me with a restraining order for my Momma Drama blog. I feel it's best to let all of our friends know, in the spirit of transparency, Hamill's favorite word. In the meantime, let's give credit where credit is due, Julie Hamill is the Queen Bee of trolling and it would be best if she wants to build community connections to recognize, despite her claims, "She doesn't speak for the District," by nature of her assignment, she is a District Representative. Hamill is supposed to represent the District. That is what she was elected to do. Her constant Twitter wars and frequent appearances on Fox News do not reflect positively on the District, and they are putting a spotlight on a small private town, and it's not safe for our kids. As for Save PV Schools, we do not represent PVPUSD; our purpose is to take the suggestion of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who said, "Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant." Which means we all benefit from openness and transparency.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that a school board members can not censor particular speech at its board meetings. School board’s policies may not not impinge “upon the public’s First Amendment rights, which rights include the right to be passionate and even uninformed in the expression of one’s views.” (Baca v. Moreno Valley USD, 936 F.Supp.719 (1996). Nor can a school board member or board in its official capacity censor the public on social media or block the public from commenting on an elected officials social media account. (O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier). The Supreme Court recently ruled that public officials who post about topics relating to their work on their personal social media accounts are acting on behalf of the government, such as when Hamill comments from her Hamill4PV Instagram account, that says, "Elected Official." She can be held liable for violating the First Amendment of her constituents by attempting to silence criticisms and/or by blocking critics. If she were to attempt to get a restraining order against a journalist for simply writing with no threats of violence any reasonable Judge would reject it.
Amy Howe, Public officials can be held liable for blocking critics on social media, SCOTUSblog (Mar. 15, 2024, 11:42 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/03/public-officials-can-be-held-liable-for-blocking-critics-on-social-media
School board members and/or school officials have no jurisdiction of content posted on Nextdoor, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc and, she knows this or should we would have restraining orders against the PTA moms defending themselves from her malicious intent and constant provoking to get a visceral reaction for clicks and giggles. School Board Members should refrain from using their time on the dais to comment on social media content, even if they are mentioned in it, because it it appears as if they are trying to censor free speech on social media.
It seems, I was wrong about School Board Member Julie Hamill, and the Palos Verdes Faculty Association Leader, Tim Coleman was right when he addressed Hamill for her online behavior. Coleman said, "People in positions of power to run down hard working volunteers and 13 year old girls are the epitome of bullying."
I defended Board Member Hamill at the time, because I knew the context of her post. I knew who the bullies were but later I realized it was not fair or a sign of mature leadership to make such broad generalizations of all PTA Moms (I am one) and/or all Teenage girls. But, now that I have been on the receiving end of her taunts, I realize Tim Coleman was at least right about Hamill's divisive and toxic behavior.
Hamill wrote, "When the government imposes a political viewpoint in its public schools, cancel culture operates to turn the viewpoint into a government imposed orthodoxy, which in turn suppresses the speech of students who dare to digress from that orthodoxy." Perhaps Hamill needs a reminder, she is no longer just a Mom, and she's not just an attorney who gets to pick sides in a fight, she is a Government Official and with that, she should not attempt to impose her orthodoxy by mocking, attacking, and attempting to cancel a writer, by getting a restraining order. Hamill has two years left on the School Board, and in my opinion, she should spend a little less time online and more time doing what she was elected to do, "Represent all of us," and "speak for the District." And, if being on the Board truly has, "ruined her life," she should save herself and resign.
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