Letter to the Editor

Dear editor,

Regarding “Religion-politics fight flares over Bible study groups,” Capitol Weekly, July 28:

For the record, the Warren Pearson Technical Services report indicates that the staff member in question definitely lifted not only personal files from the Drollinger’s computers, but at least one Personnel file from the ministry HR files. He has testified in other correspondence to having done this. It is interesting that he would now change his representations in this article.

Sean Wallentine, who was in charge of the Capitol Ministries administrative functions during this period states on his www.totalcapitol.com resume that he never worked for Capitol Ministries. In fact he states that he worked for Capitol Commission from 2001-2009. In that when he left Capitol Ministries in the Spring of 2009 he went to work for Senator Dutton, he never worked for Capitol Commission. Capitol Commission was not formed until the Fall of 2009!

Jim Young alleges that the new Capitol Ministries board members never investigated these matters. In fact they did.

Ralph Drollinger,
President of Capitol Ministries

Dear Editor,

Your recent inaccurate article with the crude headline of “Jobs vs. brain damage” (Capitol Weekly, July 21) misrepresents my work as the California Teachers Association’s legislative advocate working to oppose SB 161 on student safety grounds. The pending bill would allow non-medical public school personnel to inject rectally the prescription drug Diastat to students having an epileptic seizure.

CTA and others rightfully argue that this is a flawed bill that could endanger students. Educators and others believe that trained school nurses should be hired to administer this kind of serious medication. Teachers are not medical staff. Even your article noted that the senior counsel for the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the state nursing board, ruled that giving Diastat to students “constitutes the practice of nursing.”

Your article referenced an October 2008 meeting conducted by the Epilepsy Foundation, which invited participants to discuss the drug Diastat.  Prior to the meeting, the Epilepsy Foundation provided information about Diastat, including that it was administered rectally. The Epilepsy Foundation characterized this drug as similar to other drugs already approved for administration to students with diabetes and students suffering allergic reactions.

Education representatives, including myself, were very clear the issues were completely different in that the other medications cited could do no harm, while that was not the case with Diastat. It was clear to me that no school teaching personnel would want to be volunteered to administer medication rectally to a student in the throes of an epileptic seizure.

In the brief conversation I had with the author of your article, my reference to “no stakeholders meetings since ” the 2008 meeting was made in reference to the demise of previous failed Diastat legislation, SB 1051 in 2010 , and the fact the author of that legislation had failed to reach out to stakeholders in search of a solution.

While your story accurately quotes the CTA president about all students needing access to trained medical staff, the fact that your reporter failed to provide me the opportunity to fully comment on false accusations that I was putting jobs ahead of student safety suggests his unfair intention was to make the opponents of SB 161 look bad.

Toni Trigueiro,
Sacramento