A lawyer for a civil rights organization recently requested travel and other expense documents from the Oxnard Union High School District.

An official with the League of United Latin American Citizens said his organization was forced earlier this month to have its Ventura law firm, Bamieh and Erickson, request three years’ worth of audits and expense documents, including travel claims and credit card purchases made by trustees from the high school district.

For about a year, the league has asked the school district for the documents but without success, said Jim Hensley, deputy director for the league’s Ventura County district.

The League of United Latin American Citizens is a nationwide civil rights nonprofit founded in 1929 to protect the rights of Hispanics. Ventura County is home to five league councils.

Oxnard Union stalled and then provided the league with reams of irrelevant documents, Hensley said.

“It’s taxpayers’ money, and it’s millions of dollars that’s being put out there,” Hensley said. “Something needs to be done.”

Hensley said the league also wants documents he believes may prove the high school district profited from a federally funded lunch program. He said Oxnard Union may have fraudulently applied for between $3 million and $10 million in funding through the National School Lunch Program for low-income students.

“Responsible people who should have known better within the school district let it roll,” Hensley said, referring to school district administrators whom he declined to name. “The school is not supposed to make a profit off of it.”

In a letter dated Aug. 10, attorney Ron Bamieh asked the high school district to release credit card purchases, conference and travel claims, all external audits and purchases made by lead administrators from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2010.

Bamieh said state law generally allows 10 days for a public agency to fulfill a records request, although more time could be given depending on the nature of the request. Both parties would decide how much additional time would be reasonable, he said.

On Monday, Bamieh said he had yet to receive the requested paperwork but expects to.

“I always assume people will follow the law,” Bamieh said.

Board President Robert Q. Valles said the district’s attorney, Jackson Parham, has turned over all documents the league has asked for except those involved in a three-year federal investigation into the district’s participation in the reduced-lunch program

Parham said Tuesday he handed over everything the league has asked for except documents related to attorney-client privilege or that are involved in the federal investigation.

“When do they stop grandstanding and actually participate in our democracy?” Parham said of the league. “Obviously they don’t like what they have, but why wouldn’t they tell us before hiring a lawyer?”

Although part of the league’s mission is to improve the economic conditions of Hispanics, Valles said the league wants him off the school board and is jealous of his accomplishments and perhaps those of his five children, who include two medical doctors.

“It’s an election year. Personally, I think they’re just trying to make an issue out of it,” said Valles, who’s Hispanic and has been an Oxnard Union trustee since 1994. “It’s the old story of Hispanic jealousy, and they call that the ‘crab syndrome.’”

Valles reference was to an analogy that people of the same ethnic group try to keep each another from economic advancement by behaving like crabs at the bottom of a bucket—when one tries to climb up, others pull it down.

Hensley disagreed.

“We want honesty. We want transparency. We want accountability,” he said. “It sounds just like another excuse.”

The league’s request for expense documents from Oxnard Union stemmed from the resignation earlier this year of Adrian Palazuelos, former principal of Hueneme High, who some say was forced to resign by the district.

Hensley said Palazuelos was an effective administrator who was popular with students and parents. Reportedly, some 400 parents signed a petition to keep him on as principal of Hueneme High, Hensley said.

He said residents have complained of malfeasance in Oxnard Union before. It was after the district refused Palazuelos’ request to rescind his resignation that Hensley was “all the more” motivated to investigate claims of wrongdoing in the district.

“There’s even more that I can’t talk about right now,” he said.

Hensley said the league has other issues with Valles and the Oxnard Union school board that include self-promotion and nepotism.

Hensley called it “self-aggrandizing” that the board named school buildings in honor of sitting trustees, such as the Robert Q. Valles Performing Arts Center at Pacifica High School in Oxnard.

It cost the district about $10,000 for the two signs on the building, according to a district official.

Hensley accused the district of showing favoritism in promoting Rocky Valles, Robert Valles’ son, to assistant superintendent. Obviously, the next step would be for the board to hire the younger Valles as superintendent when Bob Carter leaves, Hensley said.

Valles said he had nothing to do with his son’s ascension from principal of Channel Islands High School to assistant superintendent. Former superintendent Jody Dunlap made that decision, he said.

Valles also denied he had a hand in naming the Pacifica High building after himself. He said the principal and the school’s parent-teacher association chose the name for the building without any influence from him.

Trustee Socorro Lopez Hanson said she recalls a member of the public suggested the name to the board. The school board approved the name in 2007.

Valles said the league has not taken exception to the fact that two other sitting board members—both of whom are white—have school buildings named after them.

“Had I been an Anglo, it would have never been questioned,” Valles said.