A Marin County Superior Court judge on Thursday granted a restraining order against Tamalpais Union High School District trustee Kevin Saavedra, barring him from contacting or approaching a district parent who said he had harassed her for nearly a year.
Saavedra, a two-term incumbent seeking reelection in November, used his district-issued email last year to tell the woman, Ina Gotlieb, to “go f—- yourself you stupid old crone.” According to the restraining order, he continued the harassment, by emailing her that he was “asking your neighbors about you” and using his campaign email to tell her she was a “s—– person.”
Judge Mark A. Talamantes seemed incredulous that Saavedra had used his district email to send profane messages to Gotlieb.
“You used district email to send that to a parent whose child goes to the Tam schools?” the judge said. “You’re humiliating a parent whose child goes to your school? I don’t want a parent to be publicly shamed.”
Saavedra said he was responding to a critical email that Gotlieb had sent to board President Cynthia Roenisch, for which Gotlieb later apologized. Saavedra said during the 30-minute hearing that he was frustrated by what he described as public criticism and a lack of civility toward board members.
“Didn’t you sign up for that?” Talamantes said.
Saavedra left court without speaking to reporters. In an email, he said Gotlieb’s message to Roenisch was the “kind of behavior (that) will drive people away from running for public office. But he added that the judge “is the decider.”
Roesnisch, the board president, did not respond to an interview request. Neither did district Superintendent Courtney Goode. There is no record of the school board reprimanding Saavedra for the emails.
Gotlieb expressed relief over the judge’s order.
“The judge was really stunned, it seemed to me,” Gotlieb said Thursday outside a Marin County courtroom. Saavedra, she said, “had been trying to intimidate me. And he was not seeing any consequences to his actions until today.”
Troy Flint, spokesman for the California School Board Association, said although the group “doesn’t opine on individual circumstances, as a rule, directing profanity and ad hominem attacks against constituents, especially from an official district communications channel, is poor practice and beneath the code of conduct expected of school trustees.”
Keith J. Bybee, a Syracuse University law professor who studies civil discourse, said that the changes in public official conduct modeled by President Donald Trump has influenced how some local public officials conduct themselves. He added that Saavedra’s emails to Gotlieb show a “possibility that there’s a real change here in standards of behavior, and it’s filtering down from the top to the local level.”
The restraining order restricts Saavedra from emailing or contacting Gotlieb, and orders Saavedra to take down YouTube videos in which he criticized her. The order also requires Saavedra to stay away from Gotlieb and her child and in no way cause her emotional distress. He is also not allowed to possess firearms.
The judge did not appear to immediately place a time frame on the order.
Talamantes also verbally reprimanded Saaveda for taking a photo of Gotlieb in court. His voice rose as he told Saavedra that taking photos in court without a judge’s approval is illegal and ordered him to delete the picture from his phone.
Saaveda is one of two incumbents running in next month’s election against five challengers for three open seats on the district’s school board.
“I hope that our voters will look at Mr. Saavedra and see somebody who does not deserve to be reelected to his position,” Gotlieb said. “I believe that he has shown himself not to be someone who can be trusted.”