Op/Ed by Village News Publisher Julie Reeder

In order to work for the local school districts you have to have a criminal background check. However, we have someone running for elementary school board who was convicted of theft just last year.

William (Bill) Leach was originally charged with theft and more after turning over to the Village News handmade checks with other people’s information on them.

We were very impressed with Fallbrook Detective Steve Ashkar who put together a solid case to hand to the District Attorney’s office, but it appears what happened after it went to the DA was a court-entered judgment of just the theft charge.

In January last year he pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay restitution, which to my knowledge, hasn’t been paid either.

Everyone makes mistakes and maybe he learned his lesson and would never do anything like that again, but when I confronted him on what a bad situation this put us in as a victim of his crime and as the publisher of the local paper, he denied that we had a problem with him at all, despite our first-hand experience, the public record available to the contrary and our confirmation from the District Attorney’s office that he was guilty. He was not remorseful as his handwritten letter of apology suggested to us last year.

This is definitely not someone I want running our school district.

Julie Reeder

Publisher

Village News Inc.