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| Since December 22, 2004 |
MEET YOUR BOARD OF TRUSTEES — AN UNRULY ADVOCATE OCCASSIONAL FEATURE. THIS MONTH: FRANK BIEHL
- Teachers without pencils, whiteboard markers, or chalk
- Students in overcrowded classrooms
- Sports teams scrambling to raise funds
- School janitors and office personnel facing the prospect of furlough days.
And the East Side Board of Trustees hired a private investigator to look into Bob Nunez’ missing Starbucks receipts.
As the 2010 race for City Council starts to shape up, The Unruly Advocate wants to give voters the opportunity to conduct a little research into the candidates that might be running their local school board or represent their local city council district.
This month, our featured board member is Frank Biehl, a parent and community activist from San Jose’s Evergreen Valley area. A retired businessman, the rather stoic Biehl prides himself on his business acumen and lack of any ties to the teacher’ s union. Biehl’s private sector background has guided his quest to reform the district’s accounting and business practices. He recently formed an ad hoc budget advisory committee — and used school district funds to hire the district’s former attorney to formalize the committee’s bylaws.
A critical reader might question why a cash-strapped district would incur the additional expense of an attorney for an ad hoc committee, nor should the irony of spending money in an effort to be fiscally responsible be lost on anyone. At a time when our district seeks to achieve financial solvency by racing rubber ducks in a swimming pool, a fresh approach to finding fiscally responsible budget practices would be a welcome change. Can Frank Biehl bring that change to a troubled East Side?
Once again, we’ll let Google tell the story and you can be the judge. Type in Biehl’s name and an interesting story pops up about his private sector past. Biehl was once a board member and employee of North Coast Medical, Inc., a company that also employs another Biehl, which suggests a family connection. Biehl was terminated from the company, and he sued for wrongful dismissal. The cause of his termination raises a whole bunch of unanswerable questions that only the two Mr. Biehls associated with North Coast Medical can divulge. The lawsuit was settled out of court. But the best part of the story came later, when Biehl claimed his legal fees as a business expense. But wasn’t Biehl out of a job, you ask?
He sure was. Biehl believed that since he was suing his former employer, he could write off the attorney expense as an employee of the company he sued. Does that make sense?
It didn’t to the tax board either. They sued Biehl, and the case eventually wound up on the Ninth Circuit docket. The court unanimously sided with the tax board, concluding that if you are claiming a corporate business expense, you actually have to be employed by the corporation. (
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RECENT ISSUES |
October 20, 2009 |
Meet Your Board of Trustees — An Unruly Advocate Occasional Feature. This Month: Frank Biehl |
UNRULY 1, MERC 0: One Month Back and the Unruly Advocate Scores a Critical Victory |
October 2009 |
An Unruly Advocate Whodunnit? SPECIAL REPORT
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Note to Dana Hull, Murky News |
KIKO AWARD
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The Sleeping Giant Awakes: The Return of the Unruly Advocate |
Did You Know? |