After Vowing to Cover Legal Costs for Preachy School Board, CA Church Won’t Pay
By Hemant Mehta, June 16, 2019

The Chino Valley Unified School District in California may have had the most irresponsible school board in the country.

For years, a majority of the board used their power to turn meetings into church services, full of explicitly Christian prayers and Bible verses and rants against gay marriage. Even after the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit over the matter, the board chose to defend themselves with a Christian legal group… apparently not realizing they would be on the hook for the other side’s legal fees if they lost the case.

Guess what? They lost the case. And then they appealed. And then they lost again. And then they appealed again. And then they lost again. And finally, after new board members were elected who knew they weren’t going to fare any better at the Supreme Court, they raised the white flag of surrender.

When all was said and done, the school board owed FFRF more than $200,000 for the lower court award and another $75,000+ for the appeal.

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Community members are now asking why the school board is left to pay the bills when the megachurch urged the board to fight this battle with the promise of covering the losses.

[Chino Hills resident Lisa] Greathouse told the board May 16 “Over and over we heard this lawsuit wasn’t going to cost the district a dime. We heard it from board members, church officials and we even heard it from Chino Hills council member Art Bennett. My question is where is this money that was promised?”

She also said: “It seems the height of irresponsibility that these two board members [James Na and Andrew Cruz] put us in a position of being sued, and the height of hypocrisy that the people who vowed to pay for the lawsuit are nowhere to be found.”