EDITORIAL - Starbird Should Resign - San Francisco Chronicle - April 19, 1999

EDITORIAL
Starbird Should Resign

Monday, April 19, 1999

AS IF the Sausalito School District doesn't have enough problems, now one of its elected trustees -- Cathomas Starbird -- is doing time in jail and refuses to resign from the school board.

Starbird surrendered to the Marin County Jail Friday to start serving 90 days for beating a woman in what authorities say was a menage a trois gone sour.

She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in November and was sentenced to 90 days in the slammer and three years probation. She is serving her sentence in 45 weekend installments.

Three of the other four trustees have asked her to resign, but Starbird refuses. She insists the assault was a private indiscretion and will not affect her work for the children.

``I did not go into this solely to be a role model,'' explains Starbird, who ran for the board last May on an anti-violence theme.

The troubled district, with about 265 students in two schools, has the lowest test scores in Marin though it spends $12,276 per student, three times the county average.

The district has vital work to do to improve education and must not be distracted by this lurid scandal. Disgraced and jailed for a violent crime, Starbird is an embarrassment and should resign promptly or face recall.


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