 Good evening, this is what's going on. I'm John Lee our guest this evening is Mike Nolan Mike is the candidate for the Davis School Board that election is on the 4th of November Mike I want to thank you for being on our show. Well, thank you very much. Happy to be here good. So About 25 years ago You were on this track in your life and and you were bound and determined to fulfill all of your life goals And all of a sudden something changed Tell us how you met your wife. I Met my wife in my law office. We had a friend who said I know this young woman who was going to go to law school and she should talk to a new attorney and see what it's all about And so she came in and I was happy we went out to lunch and I did my best to talk her out of it and She did not take my advice and she's become a great lawyer and we fell in love and The rest has just gotten better So, okay, go back to be for them. Where'd you grow up? I was born in San Luis Obispo I grew up outside of town and on a small ranch and we had a big family My dad taught state and local government at Cal Poly my mom stayed at home and took care of the kids and the I went to school there and and then attended Cal Poly and Growing up in San Luis. I wanted to get the experience of living in a big city so I transferred and graduated from the University of San Francisco and from there I went to law school down in San Diego Western State University and I went back to San Luis to practice law. So why did you decide to become a lawyer? the best Explanation I can say is that law gives you an ability to help people it gives you an ability to Look at both sides of an issue that To be it to be an effective lawyer You really have to understand not only what your client wants done, but also understand why the opposing side is Is opposing you and try to balance both of those try to see the Good and bad on both sides of the argument. So The bottom line was I thought that I could help I thought I could I thought I could be a good lawyer And I'm my best friend had gone to law school down in San Diego and he had encouraged me to do so. So I followed him down there So what do you like about being a lawyer? The worst thing about being a lawyer, I'll start back. Okay, good. Did you deal with all these lawyers? It's a it can get into a very Alice and wonder like kind of world the the best part about it is when you're able to Listen to just an ordinary person who has a problem and you're able to help them either it could be anything from a traffic of violation or a Domestic matter or Anything that affects human beings in our system and maybe you can help them and make them Realize and often you often you see people when Life or fate has really hit them hard and they really need someone to talk to and and help them back up pull them back up and say no this we can get over these problems and push them on Help them get over that the obstacles of life and proceed with their life So what is your wife do now? My wife is a general counsel for covered, California That's the affordable under the the health benefit exchange for California under the Affordable Care Act. She Has been doing that for almost 18 months she works very hard if the Covered, California Has been successful. It's only because people like her have been working very very hard She leaves early early in the morning and comes in late at night and the before that she was a general counsel for the Department of Public Health and She did that for a couple of years and Before that she had been chief counsel for the Department of Corrections Before that she was a deputy County counsel and Solano County and she dealt with child protective services and Representative the Sheriff's Department the number of different departments there. So how long have you lived in Davis? since 1998 my father died in San Luis Obispo my We were living at the time in Fairfield and my mother Came up to live with us and besides that we needed a bigger house and we always liked Davis We'd always been a was a really nice town. So we found a place to move in so we had My wife my mother and our four kids Well, that's my second question. So Talk about your four kids My oldest is a Tom Nolan He is he studies at the Cosumnes River Junior College he plays soccer there. He's Was on the Davis High School soccer team and it's very very proud member of that team the He was I remember he started him at Davis parent nursery school and he went through and graduated in 2011 that of and Or 2012 from Davis High from Davis High We went to neighborhood schools his second son my second son is Daniel who is Two years younger than Tom, but one year younger in Grade and he graduated last year in 2013 and he grew he is in Woodland Community College and My daughter Emily is a senior now at the high school and she is Getting ready to make get her applications out to different universities and my youngest son is Kieran Nolan He's a ninth grader in them at Emerson junior high So what kind of things are they interested in soccer? They're very interested in all of them at play soccer ball football football Associated football Yeah, that's what soccer means is associated football That's a an Americanization of a British word. That's correct. So that's that's half of what I know about soccer Or a football as they call it around the world foosball foosball My kids were interested in little league. They played the oldest who played all the way through till they Couldn't play anymore. They were too old But the youngest two they they quit at a certain stage. They just they thought it was too boring So, what do you think they want to do when they grow up? My all four of them each of them. Yes, my son Tom wants to is He picked this up at elementary school at will it he is totally committed to understanding meteorology and weather patterns He constantly will turn on the weather channel And tape it for hours and hours just to see what's going on. That's great. Well, he has so he has this he This interest I could see it develop in elementary school and he got so Interested in it and the school was so good at getting him Robert will it would be excited to hear this story Go ahead. I got him so interested that he began to catalog every hurricane that landed in the United States and in the last 100 200 years and I wanted this we were driving someplace to a soccer game and I wanted to test him when he was in high school see if he understood and See if he really did this Because he had binders full so well Tom what category storm was hurricane Betsy and Because I remember Betsy from my grandparents had lived in the warlands and that had hit in the 19 early 1960s and The his response was very interesting. He said well dad. That's a trick question There are five hurricanes named Betsy. Which one are you talking about? So well, you should have named them all then So yeah, he's very committed and I it's funny by his mother and I look at him and There's certain aspects of your children where you see and you say where did he get that from not for me and not from you Well, no, no, I actually the the best part about being a we're going back the best part about being a lawyer for me it was going into the law library and just going through the cases back and back and back and when you had a issue or a problem and drilling down to where the idea where the concept came from and That's always the most exciting to me. That was always the most exciting part and Tom is that same way. He doesn't want to just understand hurricanes. He wants to understand every hurricane that ever hit so when he's He's become quite quite good at that my son Daniel is I Think he probably would like to go into government Politics in a way of or public administration kind of like his grandfather Yes, you know, I was looking up my great grandfather actually and Saw his obituary back in Wisconsin and how he was the town supervisor and had had Held a number of local public offices. So my son Daniel has this He has he has a gift or a knack for politics that again developed at that will it when he managed his best friend's campaign for Class president and they're in their sixth grade class Well, everybody that's good has a lot of people supporting them to make them become visible It's not something that you do alone That's true. It's true. So Emily Emily is She is I Think and I don't know she's because Because we live outside town outside of the city. We don't get public access television So I can actually tell you about this and be confident. They won't see this row Until I show it to them, but that's a different matter. So go ahead. But I think she has she has a Interesting background in the sense where she likes to look at both sides of an issue and she's very analytical and I would predict law school for her She may be as much as she might protest about it. She has it. She would be a very good lawyer I could see that happening. The protest part goes with it. Yeah protest part. I mean being I like to say, you know Descartes was not Cartesian Descartes thought outside of the box all the time. He was not rigid He had he had the ability to think about not thinking. I mean, I think they're 4 a.m He could not think and be I mean he understood being this a lot better than people assume and well, let me say the last last our last child Kieran is He is a very quiet and very Deep thinker type of kid very He plays soccer very good player, but he's always watching that there's some there's some players that just Play and then there's other players that are watching the game waiting to see how things develop So what position does he play he plays stopper? So goalie. No, no not goalie. So he's a defender. He's a defender. That's what makes sense that I would have guessed defender That's right. I mean that you know My daughter Emily she plays keeper and she's an excellent keeper, but she's also forward So she's been on teams where not only would she play half the game forward But then the other half as keeper and so and she would always want to keep track of how many goals She scored versus how many goals were scored against her? Well, you want to have zero in the second category you want to have a lot in the first category So there there are very different kinds of numbers. I mean if if there's 10 shots on goal And you stop six of them That's a lousy game if there are 20 shots on goal and you only let one goal score. That's a great game I mean, it's it's but the other thing is that you completely Psychologically attack the other team when you go from being the goalie to being on the aggressor and trying to score on the other side If you're if you're go ahead. Well, she understands the kid the opposing keepers Well, she understands the opposing team. I mean she's when you're I mean you're like the catcher on the basket on the Baseball game. I mean you've got to run the hole You've got to know what everybody else is doing on your team and what the other team is doing to try and screw them up And what I want to say is one reason why I'm running for the board is that I've been able to see my kids develop in such a great way from the school system and I can't imagine What they what how their lives would have been if they had gone to a different different school system a different district if we'd stayed in Fairfield this of the school system here really challenged them and allows allows them all to Blossom or find their areas of expertise and I think that's really important and that's what makes our district special because so often the education has been Limited or the other districts don't have music. They don't have drama. They've they've focused down to a very narrow a core of Subjects that can be that you know for standardized testing and Davis were very lucky very fortunate that we have this A school system that allows people to develop their full potential We're gonna get to money in a minute, but Davis pays for that Right. I mean Serrano Priest was just before prop 13 and it completely screwed up the financing for this the state school system And then prop 13 made everything screwy and then since then we've had a bunch of Different kinds of taxes. We'll get into that towards the end of the interview So Anything else you want to say in as a way of introduction? Your wife your kids the bill the ball the only other introduction is that of We made the decision About 20 years ago that I would stay home and take care of the kids And so I became the homemaker basically and I that was and I actually Ended up being a pretty good cook for certain circumstances I've got a killer recipe for chocolate chip cookies but the point is that we have a That allowed me to get involved in my Children school and that was the most rewarding and educational experience of my life is to see I had only had a vague idea. I just remembered going to school back in the in the 60s and 70s but the to be involved in our local schools and some of the finest people I've met of the parents who Really sacrificed for their kids and who volunteer on PTA or site council and I could see just really give a total effort for their kids and the teachers so many of them just Just outstanding That just worked and worked and worked to bring their not just for individual kids, but the whole class through I Really a my admiration is what is tremendous for that So talk about the difference between the site council and the PTA The PTA is a voluntary organization. It's open to any parents. You pay your dues the Primary function is you have a PTA board sort of everybody breaks up a different responsibilities the You have it your budget and you work in tandem with the principal and the teachers to support your school through fundraising or Other other activities that your teacher or principals need The important thing is it's a grassroots effort. The site council is a Committee made up of the principal a staff member teachers and parents that are elected by the other parents and the education code provides for the That the site council can develop a school improvement plan for every site once a year that has to be approved by the district and There are times Traditionally there was a money allocated for the site council that the site councils could then spend to Enhance the that particular school. So in other words, it was much more instead of being a one-size-fits-all This was an ability where the people in the school could say look we need something special here And every school and so it's a school site. Every every school can be different and makes a different choices Will it for instance always focused on a reading program and so that we could hire more reading specialists to help kids That was always considered when I was president of the site council. We also said well, we should do something about mathematics How can we focus our put in our site plan? How we want to help with the kids to raise your Instruction of mathematics and the important thing with the site plan was to draft it so that Because you never knew if money was going to be available, but you wanted to Broad enough that if resources came available you could say here. This is this we can spend these resources on this good so The first half of this interview has been about what you care about now. We're moving into why you're running for office, so For the last nine years, we've had a click on the school board. You know the high school click well Gina and Sheila and Richard and Tim who I like and Susan have pretty much run the school district for themselves so I'm not going to be any worse than that. I have more to say but I'll I'll hold it to that So what do you not like about how the school board works now? And how would you be different and how would the school board work different than I? Think I think your comments are a bit extreme on that. I don't know whether they've And let me put it this way that I like all the members of I do too and They're all they're good people and they do their best the my criticism of the board has been that the Too often it seems that there is a decision-making process That's not transparent that there is a that there is a focus to make a decision and then have a public hearing and it's just not that's just the way school boards tend to operate in the state and the In our in our school district, we need a more transparent Method of decision-making where we have the School board members hold off for making a final decision or any decision until they hear both sides of the story or and Ask for you know, what are the pros and cons of this decision? and when I was PTA president you could see that for instance, they had a Boundary change commission and they were working on changing boundaries And so as you followed it that went on and they had hearings and it went on and on and then just before Christmas a whole new proposal came out from nowhere that directly affected the school I was at and It was like where did this come from and all of a sudden it seemed like the decision had been made So then we were going to have a public hearing and the problem then is you don't you're not trying to convince an open mind You're trying to you're trying to talk to somebody who's Is leaning the other way and you have to talk them out of it And so it becomes and then it becomes much more. Oh, how can we compromise this? How can we make a split the baby in two and the The Too often the other example of course was if during the financial crisis we had We had fundraising activity the parents are all involved in that we had two parcel taxes Campaigns and we all the parents work really hard. We passed one and then we found out that the state pulled back funding We had to get another one for supplemental funding. So the parents really worked really hard this the budget was really in danger a lot of teachers a lot of programs and We all came through the Voters came through and the people donating money it came through and it was a great success and in that We felt all very good. We had been we were exhausted as parents And then the next item the school board decides is well maybe this is a good time to talk about closing one of the junior highs and sending all the ninth graders to the high school and This I mean what the parents and what the community needed was just a Stable just so we had been working so hard to realize okay The crisis has passed now. Let's gather and let's let's proceed but all of a sudden we had another crisis that just came out of left field and and it was So you had again parents turning out and to to say argue why that wasn't a good idea so quickly What are three issues you're running on? I think that we need to open a More open board. I think that the board has to adopt Policies that encourage public confidence The board our school district depends on a consensus of the community of To finance to finance our extra extra programs We're not like almost almost all the other school districts in the state or just a majority rule district because They can never pass a parcel tax in our community We can't afford that we need a consensus of two-thirds at the minimum to to keep our schools as As well as they're going so to get this consensus of community We have to hold our school board to a higher standard than other other places so I would say a stronger conflict of interest code which makes it explicit that that personal or financial Conflicts that a board member can't have anything to do with not just voting Abstaining from voting, but you can't participate. You can't influence in any way the decision of the board the other of The the important thing is to look at issues as they come up with an open mind and To let the people know that you are listening to the parents to the teachers to to the taxpayers To the people who don't have kids in the school that you listen that you're listening to the community and that Together we can find a consensus and move forward So there's a parcel tax Yes, there's coming up. Well, there's there's two that expire yet the in 2017 That will have to be renewed in the next two years. Yeah, what's your position on that? I think the They have to be renewed because the The state finance is so convoluted and complicated there's a thousand school districts in the state, but they're not treated equally and the Funding from the state is directed towards the urban districts and that's not directed to places like Davis and so we have to We need to we have to tax ourselves more sacrifice more in order to maintain a level of education so my my idea for the parcel taxes look at the What's being funded and Go to the community and say this is what we need Too often what's bothered me is the the the old board would run a poll and they would ask them what can we get right? And it reminded me of my kids. I at the end of the year I think one of them said dad you owe some money for the for for lunch And I said why I give every time you needed to buy lunch. I gave it to you What was the problem and he said well lunch cost to 25 you only gave me two dollars So, but why didn't you ask for 225 and when he said because I didn't think you'd give me anything more and So the he was asking me how much he thought I would give right without without trusting me to say 225 Yes, of course, that's what you need if that's what you need that's what you get and so I think that if we are honest with the and transparent with the community the community will step up and Give us what we need Okay, Mike. Let's talk about your campaign literature, you know This has got to be the most efficient thing. I've ever seen your whole campaign is on this business card So, let's just see is it effective? That's the question. I'm interested in results So the first thing it says is you're endorsed by the Davis teachers Then it's got your name and that you're running for Davis school trustee and it says you're qualified by experience your quote is We should expect as much from our school board as we do from our schools Okay, so then it's got your website and your phone number on the other side. You've got your experience so You're on the superintendent's parent advisory committee for five years You've been president of a school PTA You've been president of a site council You've been a school positive climate committee member for six years You've been a classroom reading MP parent volunteer. We need more of those You've been in on district and school hiring interview committees so it sounds like you really do know something about the Davis school district and You've gone from pre-kindergarten as a parent all the way through Davis High School graduation And you're a member of the public law section for the California State Bar That's right So I want to thank you for being on our show. Thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure well, I Hope you work hard. I'll try to I'll try to earn your trust So I'm voting for Mike Nolan, and I hope you do too. This is what's going on. Thanks for watching. Good evening