What if ever-present recording devices led to accountability, not hostility?

TWO SETS OF CIRCUMSTANCES, two communities divided. That’s what I am thinking about as a months-long saga concludes in Spreckels, and as a new social media explosion unfolds in Cachagua.

First, let’s go to Spreckels, where two teachers presented last October at a conference in Palm Springs, offering a session titled “How we run a GSA in conservative communities,” referring to a gay-straight alliance. They didn’t know they were being recorded, but they were.

The recording has never been released, but conservative writer Abigail Shrier obtained at least parts of the recording. She wrote about it on Substack, with a post titled “How Activist Teachers Recruit Kids.” Shrier quoted sensational and disturbing statements, such as the use of the word “stalking” to identify potential new members of Buena Vista Middle School’s You Be You club.

And suddenly, hundreds of parents attended a meeting of the normally sleepy Spreckels Union School District board to voice their anger. The board hired investigative law firm Van Dermyden Makus to find out what really happened and if teachers were really coaching children on changing their gender identities. The teachers, Kelly Baraki and Lori Caldeira, were placed on leave.

Seven months later, the investigation was completed, based upon review of more than 1,600 pages of documents and interviews with 21 witnesses.

“Their comments were harmful and disruptive,” the July 7 report states. But as to allegations that the teachers wrongly recruited kids, and the question of “Did the two teachers play ‘mind tricks’ on students to avoid parent complaints?” the answers are no, no and no.

The findings are an exoneration. But still, both teachers resigned from a district in which many parents view them as pariahs. Instead of resolution, we end with further entrenched tribalism.

ON SATURDAY, JULY 9, hundreds of people gathered at Cachagua Community Park for the Cachagua Country Fair. Local artists sold goods, firefighters sold tri-tip sandwiches, kids swam in the Carmel River and the mood was glorious – a celebration of community from cowboys to hippies and everyone in between.

The next day, a group of locals was back at the now-mostly-empty park and saw a vehicle driving around on the dirt soccer field. At least two people took out their phones and started filming the driver, who left behind a cloud of dust. You can hear but not see the videographer in this film.

As Barry Powell drives toward the videographer, windows down, he opens the conversation: “Why are you filming me?” The person with the camera sounds distraught: “It’s our soccer field.”

Instead of an apology, Powell is combative. “It’s my field, I live in Cachagua, how long have you lived here?” he responds.

The man behind the camera (who says he’s lived there 25 years, to Powell’s 30) seems to see an opportunity to make his appeal. “If you lived 30 years here, you think you can do this? We take care of that field.”

Then things go really off the rails. Powell says, “I didn’t know there was very many Mexicans around here.” It devolves further with an explicitly racist and xenophobic remark – “you guys moved into our country” – before Powell drives off with an insult.

The video was posted to the social media site Nextdoor, and a frenzy ensued. Commenters were either against Powell (for his racist remarks) or for him (he’s otherwise a good guy).

While the internet frenzy played out, in real life, he was fired from his job. (He declined an interview, on advice from his attorney.)

I am no apologist for Powell; his remarks were indefensible. But one thing that happens in real life, and not on the internet or in months-long legal investigations, is dialogue.

I wish there were an opportunity to end each of these stories not with outright hostility and opposing sides dug in, but instead restorative justice.

A reconciliation process does not mean forgiving people for wrongs, but holding them to account – and finding a way to continue coexisting with each other. Imagine if we ended these kinds of blow-ups with more understanding, rather than less. In this climate, unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be an option.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com