Board addresses complaints and Sobel investigation as public speakers press for transparency

The Burbank Unified School Board on Feb. 5 told the public it will rely on an ongoing third-party review by the Sobel Group into the district’s specialized services contract and related matters, while dozens of residents urged fuller disclosure and accountability.

With interim Superintendent Oscar Macias absent, the board read a prepared statement saying the district had reviewed complaints with legal counsel and determined they did not fall under the district’s Uniform Complaint Procedure. The statement said the Sobel Group investigation already covers “what staff and board members knew and when,” and that the district will evaluate the investigation’s findings and consider policy or personnel actions once the report is complete.

“We do plan to release the report publicly, with as few redactions as possible,” President Poncere Kamkar said, describing the investigation’s complexity and the need to protect privileges and legally exempt material while balancing transparency.

Public commenters disagreed that the process to date has been sufficient. Joel Schlossman urged trustees to read a published profile about Oscar Macias and said it raised questions about his suitability for the superintendent role. Linda Walmsley pressed the board to produce missing meeting minutes for several months, calling the lapse a statutory compliance issue and a threat to public accountability.

Kathy Stevens and others questioned the pace, scope and confidentiality of the Sobel contract and asked whether the district would waive attorney-client privilege to make the report public. “Do the promises made by members . . . mean that the board intends to waive the right to attorney-client privilege to provide the promised transparency?” Stevens asked.

Daniel Hacking and other community members cited newly surfaced emails and records they said had been withheld from public- records requests, and said those documents raise questions about who knew what and when. Les Cohen and Jim Festante expressed alarm at a reported settlement and other legal costs tied to personnel actions, urging the board to explain financial decisions.

Board members said the investigators have full access to board emails and documents and that investigators have begun interviewing trustees. Trustee Olsen said the board does not plan to withhold the report but that any release will respect legal redactions. “We do not plan to withhold,” Olsen said. “We are the client and we get to decide.”

The board also noted that the investigation is time-consuming and that Sobel has characterized the review as a tangled, interwoven set of issues that has expanded the scope and timeline. Trustees said they expect the firm to complete its work in coming months and indicated they will provide updates when legally permissible.

Next steps: trustees said the district will continue to cooperate with investigators, update cost reporting later in the meeting, and evaluate procedural or policy changes when the Sobel report is finished.