STEVE MARBLE -- Notebook

Stephen Wagner is dead. Still dead after all these years.

But his ghost, like the specter of Jacob Marley in locks and chains,

jangles on. It speaks of greed. It speaks of want. It speaks of the past

and the present and maybe even the future, too.

Five years after his death in a prison medical ward, Stephen Wagner -- in

name and in disgraced spirit -- continues to corrode the morale and

mental health of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

Why else, as the district prepares to ask voters to approve a

$110-million bond, does the conversation turn to a man five years in the

grave?

Why else, as the topic of financial accountability is debated, does the

name of this convicted felon renew itself, metastasizing like a cancer?

Why does Stephen Wagner still scare us?

On first glance, the local school district is little different than

districts across the state. It’s worn down. Broken. In need of repair.

Ceilings are collapsing. Bathrooms don’t work. Classrooms are in

disrepair.

This, in the face of a booming economy in the heartland of the good life,

is what we offer our students.

The easiest cure is a bond. As with dozens of school districts elsewhere,

a bond is seen -- by many, at least -- as a generational obligation, a

roll-up-your-sleeves covenant, a collective agreement that it’s time to

put our schools back together again.

If something’s broken, we fix it.

The estimate is that Newport-Mesa is broken to the tune of $163 million.

The bond would drum up most of that money and, with good luck, matching

state funds would supply the rest. With that money, experts contend, the

schools can be repaired, even upgraded. Voters will decide the fate of

the matter on June 6, in a special bond election.

But when it comes to money, there’s a strange undertow in Newport-Mesa.

Wagner, once a financial prodigy, was the district’s budget czar. He was

arrested in 1992 after it was discovered that he had embezzled more than

$4 million in school money.

He pleaded guilty before ever going to trial and was shipped to prison.

He never apologized. He never helped authorities track down any of the

money, though much of it he’d obviously lavished upon himself.

Wagner, along with his family, lived in a $1-million Dover Shores home.

He had a Rolls Royce. He had a mink-lined tuxedo. He had a gold-plated

piano. He had original Salvador Dali lithographs.

His excesses added to his sullied reputation. Not only had he stolen from

the students and from the teachers, he had flaunted it. He had worn it.

He had driven it. He had hung it on his walls.

Alone and sick from AIDS-driven illnesses, he died in 1995. Had he

survived, he would have been a free man a year later.

But his legacy lives on, a hot coal with those who contend the district

can’t be trusted to handle the fresh money that would flow from a bond.

Somehow, Wagner’s name had been paired up with the county’s bankruptcy

and the gnawing feeling among some that the district, if only they’d just

kept their eye on the ball, would not need a financial bailout to fix up

the schools.

The bankruptcy, of course, was not caused by the local school district.

And the millions in needed school repairs is a fate suffered by districts

everywhere, even those with the most sterling financial records. The

administration from that era is gone; the superintendent’s office twice

over. The school board, with one exception, is new -- people who were

elected in the name of change and reform.

But the past is mesmerizing, making it hard for some to look forward. The

bad is easy to fall back on, the good takes trust and faith.

How long will this community continue to cane itself for Wagner’s crimes?

* STEVE MARBLE is the managing editor of Times Community News. He can be

reached at o7 [email protected]

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