The full emails to Charter oak

Good evening, 

It is my understanding that the district maintains an anti discrimination policy both for students, and for groups that would rent district facilities. It has also my understanding that Boundless Church has been drawing attention that they will be start meeting at Charter Oak High School this weekend. 

I am sure non profit groups have the ability to rent district rooms at fair market rate. That is not in question. But groups should have to meet the districts rental policies. 

The Pastors of Boundless Church are well known for the hate they push on the LGBTQAI community, especially the trans members of the community. Up until now that has been focused more toward San Dimas, but now want to move to Charter Oak community.

The Church stopped uploading sermons about a year ago to Soundcloud. Previous sermons are still available, and you don’t have to get more than 20 min into their most recent published sermon before you run into an transphobic rant by Pastor Lou Martinez. Please follow the link at the end of the email for direct source. Spot checking older sermons the anti LGBTQAI themes repeat often. 

While a year ago the church was not vocalizing intent to move into school property, dots about public schools being too worldly from just a single sermon easily show intent to bring hate preaching to school grounds as a way to target the community.  

The church have lots of examples of hate and exclusion littered through their sermons. These gems are just in the last 25 min of posted material to their sound cloud. The ::barf:: sound toward transgendered people existing should be enough to show the church’s view on sex and gender are not compatible with the districts non discrimination policies for group rentals. If the district has any doubt on the church’s policy on sex and gender, the pastors seem to be upfront about it as ‘biblical teachings’.  

Just asking the church and pastors their stance on trans members of the Charter Oak community should give more than enough information to show their distance to the non discrimination policy of the rental agreement. 

Here is my best shot at transcribing starting at 21:08:
“… And I am not a conspiracy theorist. And every once in a while, there’s things that’s just so blatant and evident but the reality is this: the world is against the will of god. 
Today they are saying things, that we are supposed to accept that go completely against the will of god. But they don’t even go against the will of god they go against science itself. 
They cannot even define what a woman is. They are telling you men can get pregnant, no they CANNOT!

Now I don’t want to get political and I don’t want to get in that realm; and we can have a conversation offline if you want.  But the reason why I am telling you this is because now we are believing things that are completely fiction. Even forget the religious part.  Just illogical. And we are supposed to accept that. 

For those of you guys who speak Spanish. I was listening to this little video. And now they aren’t even calling in Spanish, ‘Chicken’ is gallina, and it has an 'a' so it is feminine.  They were calling them Gallines to be more inclusive to the chickens. 

I was like ::Barf sound:: What is this? madness?

The reason I am telling you this is because today we are so afraid of offending so that we don’t be canceled, that we start to acclimate the culture of the day.  We are so afraid of standing up and standing out cause we may be unpopular or canceled or looked upon in a negative way that we don’t stand for truth. And we don’t learn to stand for the truth of god, we are going to fall apart and fall away from god."

….. (22:57)
“And that is why our youth is so confused today. Because their told and they are being indoctrinated and the schools and the educational system to be um to follow ideology that go not only against the will of god but of logic themselves. Kay. 
One of the challenges we have is we are not preparing our youth so they can face those attacks. They should go to school.  But if they are not well grounded. If they don’t understand who they are, the world will tell them who they are. "

Please confirm if the group meets the districts requirements, and if not what will be done before the meeting this upcoming week

Thank you 

https://soundcloud.com/boundlesschurch/daniel-ptr-lou-martinez-04162023?in=boundlesschurch%2Fsets%2Ftalk-to-me

I am reaching out to request all available documentation and communications between the district, including its employees and representatives, and that of Boundless Church and/or its representatives.

This should include any communication about the churches rental of district property. Be it email, social media messages, text messages, phone calls etc. By California law, it should also include any documents or communication from private devices/accounts of people or representatives of the district doing work on the districts behalf.

Please also include the districts policy about room rentals. And any documentation from the past 24 months of any groups that have similarly rented rooms (and costs) from the district.

Note: Please note there is no email listed for the district online. that clicking the email link takes you to gmail, but no email is included.

Apologies. Fat fingered a key command and the email sent before it was complete. I will add on the missing sentences to the end

Thank you for the quick response. I have taken the time to review the documents and found them enlightening. It does confirm the event has to be open to the public. Something the church has made clear it won’t be.
While the main email thread appears from the church about the rental, unfortunately other portions of the request are not answered.

I would like to re-request documents on the districts policy about room rentals, beyond the rental contract itself. The request should include the rental price sheet the district uses to quote from, and any other groups who have used that same rental facility in question and the rates they paid. (Can’t compare without both sets of data). The church makes clear in the emails they wanted a discount. Unclear if one was given or if it was fair market rate to begin with.

The response does bring up new questions. In the documents provided, there are direct references to other communications with other district employees. The original request should clearly include these communication documents if they exist. But since they are referenced I would like to repeat the request for
documents including emails between the members of the church and any district representative or employee. Even outside this one email chain.

I also request that any intra-district documents (be it communication or otherwise) about the church, or their multiple rental requests. Even if the church itself is not directly sending or receiving the email.

In addition I would also like to request any information about groups who have previously been allowed to leave storage containers, or that the district provided other storage solutions for as part of the rental. Along with any district documents containing policies or communications around the topic of group rental privileges

Good morning 

Thank you for sending along the documents. I followed the link to each below and was able to review. I find them very scarce given other information came to light and completely miss the question of storage and groups leaving things on site. With no documents speaking to storage, I will assume it is not allowed and time used will be billed. 

I was at the Charter Oak campus yesterday (Saturday 1/25). Boundless Church had already taken over the campus.  They were clearing the cafeteria of chairs, blocking off walk ways to prep. And generally making sure others did not have access to the buildings or areas in question. They even declined me use of the open restroom. You can see in comparison a photo from this morning and see the extent of set up. Clearly this room was not available to anyone else yesterday, and they even took out subsequent rooms to move the chairs that were here. 

Pastor Jeannie Martinez was present. She was very enthusiastic to grab passerby’s to explain what they are doing, and invite to return to the sermon on Sunday. That sounds to very close to crossing the postalizing line. 

While they would denied me access to areas they were preparing, she did invite me and was very proud of what they were doing.  

Besides having full access to the building Saturday (that day), she also shared the church was on campus with access last Sunday 1/19 for ‘rehearsal’. I also heard from others they were on campus last Thursday in preparation as well. None of which appeared in documents in the information previous request or rental agreement 

I was talking my morning walk around the neighborhood this morning (Sunday) and noticed activity already going on. I walked up to find again Boundless church in full action at 6:15 am and looks like they had been there a while. Earlier than their 7 am paid time. 

I did manage to grab someone who identified themselves as a Charter Oak employee, Nick Sanchez.  He confirmed the church was on campus the day before, Saturday 1/25, in addition to the previous Sunday 1/19. He didn’t know anything about Thursday but said the church was allowed to set up again early today (1/26). When asking about why early since the rental didn’t start until 7 am, he called his boss. While Nick would not identify who that was (I should already know?), Nick handed me the phone to speak directly. The caller ID on the screen identified Bob Lind. 

I stated the rental times the documents provided by the public request. Bob reiterated that the early rental dares/times was asked for and agreed to, including both last week and yesterday. In back and forth he directly stated that the time was paid for and the proper paperwork (documents) exist. Good on Bob for picking up the phone at 630 am on a Sunday. 

I am not seeing any documents around the group using the facilities early, and don’t see any documents that they paid for this time in the response to the request. Some communication for this weekend could be after the original request, but it would seem additional rental time last Sunday would have had to been predating the request. 

As such, Bob’s account of what documents and payments exist the documents provided by previous requests leave a gap. 

So let’s try round three. 

I am requesting any documents, including communication and now security camera footage, of boundless church and the district. Including rental times, and additional requests (ie early, late, storage, additional cost etc). Starting with direct communication with reps of the church, but again includes any intra-district emails or other documents regarding the church, the rental etc. Nick Sanchez and Bob Lind would both appear to be employees of the district and may have documents including emails or text communications that would be responsive and should be included, 

I also request any new responsive documents to previous requests that have been generated through today 1/26.

If Boundless was using the grounds without a rental agreement in place for these times, I would also like to report a complaint. As you can see from photos attached, the church was driving vehicles onto campus Saturday with it diverting pedestrian access. They modified rooms and equipment outside of their rental hours, preventing others from using it on non rental days. You can see photos from this morning that heavily modified difference. Certainly the room was not available for anyone else to rent on Saturday day or evening. 

I ask the church be billed market rates for all the time they have used till now if they have not; including use rates for all of Saturday as the rooms were staged and not otherwise available to anyone else. I would also ask the church is reminded of the school rental policies around proselytizing and being open to the public. If they cannot abide by these, they do not belong on school grounds. 

Oh and one more thing. The district is not in compliance with the education code you sent. Specifically 38131 (3) that allows for “the conduct of religious services for temporary periods…”.

It is possible a year long contract is temporary and ongoing if say the group is working on a new long term building etc. By the churches account, this is the new permanent home. 

Long term permanent home of a church implies an endorsement in a way that temp renter does not. Even if that temp status goes on longer than planned. It would seem their self reported intention of the rental is against the policy only allowing for temporary church rentals.

(Image)
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Vs Sunday at 6:30 am (clearly neither room could have been used by others at any point Saturday) 
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Apologies for another round this morning.  After visiting the campus during the actual rented hours, I have a round of complaints that are ongoing urgent safety violations. 

Fire code violations. 

Being unfamiliar with the room, I first assumed the rigs and drapes were purely cosmetic. During the event when the lights were off, I caught a chance view of a red fire exit sign finding a break in the fabric. I compared to the photo of setup yesterday, and I am amazed the code violations all in one go.  I can see at least 3 sets of fire pulls & alarms blocked, and two fire exits that under no circumstances should be blocked off. They also covered and blocked off the AED, I don’t know if that is also a violation, but it is incredibly stupid. 

Please see the photos below for comparison. 

Gas generator operation by functional doors, improper gasoline storage. 

Outside the corner blocked off fire exit did have a gas generator with power cords tangled through the doorway (unsecured to the floor).

That creates both egress issues for the already blocked off fire exit, but also additional issues with gas fumes and a gas generator less than a meter from an ajar door. The can of gasoline being improperly stored next to the generator and building certainly doesn’t help the case. 

Occupant capacity. Initial set up seemed to match the posted occupancy limit.  But then at the start of the service the church as all chairs were filled, the staff added multiple additional rows in the back and in walkways.  Both going over posted capacity, and also blocking egress to the (limited) exits that were not blocked 

Lacking Food handler permits.  The church was very proud of the fact that it had donuts and other refreshments for everyone. As you can see from the attached photos, they were very keen on serving those, and not just putting them out for taking. 

I did not see any mention of food in the applications, but even food servers in CA need a food handler permit.  I asked if any of the food servers had a handlers permit, but no one was willing to affirm (they actually didn’t know what I was talking about).

Finally signage and use of grounds far beyond their rental agreement. 

Below you will find photos of both manned and unmanned sandwich boards, flags and banners around the school campus far from their rental. Even greeters at the parking lot entrance trying to divert other users of the school into church. These areas are outside of the rental agreement, and are being used to imply an endorsement of the school. If they are going to staff the parking lot and take complete control over it like they did, they should also be paying the hourly rate for the parking lot provided by the district. 

I didn’t notice until later that the classrooms are only rented 3 hours per day. They clearly have exclusive access to these starting Saturday. They were already being used at 6:15 am this morning (per photo) and still being used at 11 am. The three hours billed for each does not represent the 2 days the church is filling them. 

I again request there is a true up to have the church paid for what has already been used. Including all day Saturday and the additional hours Sunday. Then given these and other violations decline the group future access to the school grounds.  One would think just the fire violations would be enough 

Blocked fire exits, pulls, alarms, and AED before and after: 
(Image showing whats described above)

(Image showing whats described above)

(Image showing whats described above)

(Image showing whats described above)

Signage take over around campus and in the parking lot:
(Image showing whats described above)

(Image showing whats described above)

(Image showing whats described above)

Classrooms being used at 6:30 am (still dark in windows) and already set up from previous day. 3 hour rental does not cover it
(Image showing whats described above)

Using kitchen and serving food without food handlers permit:
(Image showing whats described above)
(Image showing whats described above)

Adding new row of chairs and blocking walkways 
(Image showing whats described above)

Wanted to follow up on these complaints from last weekend, along with inquire about any changes for the rental this week to come into compliance. 

Renters were still present and in all rental rooms (multi purpose room, classrooms etc), and still breaking down at 2:45. They would not share with me when they think they would finished, but one volunteer pointed out they were still breaking down and had yet to start resetting the rooms and returning the normal furniture to its place.  That volunteer did not expect to be finished before 5 pm.  

So in summary, they paid for 7 hours in the multi purpose room at cost (non profit rate).  But got all day Saturday, plus came in hours early and stayed hours late on Sunday.  All the same time applies to classrooms, but they only paid for 3 hours each of those. If the district is not paid in full to time used, they are subsidizing the church directly 

Neil Polzin

Good afternoon 

I wanted to reach back out on this thread, but I did go ahead and add Robert and Karyl from the new email thread that was started. 

Despite these well documented violations, I was able to return to the school during the rental period on Sunday 2/2 just to find similar safety violations still taking place. 

See attached photos. Again you will find the church taking over and branding areas of the school outside of the rental area.  Blocking and obscuring fire pulls, fire alarms, AEDs and even Fire Exits on the South end of the building. 

As you can see from the additional photo, they actually went further this time and completely blocked the fire exit from the outside, instead of just obscuring the egress. 

I hope these egregious and repetitive safety + policy violations will be addressed before the rental this weekend. 

I again have to point out what I tried to focus on last night at the school board meeting.  The district is not obligated to rent to a hate church that actively excludes and literally demonizes members of the LGBTQAI+ community.  Ending their rental contract will be the best way to ensure safety and inclusion on campus. 

Please, act to protect our communities and leave the church state violations to our northern neighbors at Glendora school district 

Neil Polzin 

(multiple images of violations)

Good morning 

I have not heard back yet from Bob, but the violations continue to mount. 

My morning stroll brought me back to Charter Oak this morning, as it often does on the weekends. I was surprised to find the gate already opened at 6:45 am.  I walked on campus and found the Boundless has already put in the hours of set up time before their rental started today.  With both the multi purpose room and classrooms transformed, with school equipment spending the night outside and damp as a result.

I previously requested contract times that Boundless has paid for the rental, and documents the district provided showed only Sundays. Documentation and photos show they are spending as much as double the paid for time on campus. This equates to the district subsidizing the church by providing additional unpaid time off contract (when they are paying the non profit cost to start with).  Violations that now go back weeks without a response from the district without any additional documents or justification even attempted. 

As you can see in the photos below, their set up is not appropriate for any others to use the facilities while in place. So their previous set up was not only unpaid, but also would prevent any other groups from using the space in the time between. On the topic the set up itself, I am sad to see they have already blocked off fire exits and equipment this morning. So that continues again unchanged. 

It surprises me the district continues to subsidize the hate church, but it shocks me you continue to let safety violations actively take place. Someone will be hurt by the churches actions on campus if the district continues to permit blatant fire and egress violations. I thought the district would be the best place for those concerns, but let me know if calling the fire department is more appropriate when over capacity with exits blocked later this morning 

Neil Polzin

(Previous phone number removed)

(multiple images of issues cited in email)

Good morning 

I was surprised once again to find Nick Sanchez opening up the school gates, multi purpose room and class rooms for Boundless Church again this morning starting about 9 am.  When I asked Nick if they had a rental today, he refused to address any questions and instead directed me to the district office Tuesday. Members of the church present are now actively hostile to me when I tried to ask them questions. 

Given that:

I have requested multiple times any rental agreement, and the district provided rental agreements that only cover Sunday.

Additional requests for information on communication that would include off rental time days have come back empty.

The group continues to use the space on Saturday. Preventing any others from renting or using the space all day.

I must conclude that the group is using the school district site unauthorized and unpaid on Saturdays. 

Either that or the district is purposefully and maliciously withholding documents that would show otherwise. 

So I am here either reporting trespassing, or misuse of district resources by employees who have gone out of their way to provide access to the campus without a rental agreement. 

Again, churches can temp rent spaces in schools. No argument from me. But they are getting the non profit at cost rate.  Providing double the time for the main room, and more like 5x the time on the 3 hour classroom rentals is subsidizing the church.  

Either the district is going out of its way to hide the fact it is doing so, or you have rouge employees misusing the district resources for personal faith mission.

Please see attached files provided by the district for reference. 

First Doxxing by the district. Documents provided show Zee Hernandez as early as January 29th forwarding my complaints directly to church staff. In itself, whatever; but in doing so they included my personal email address and phone number that I provided to the district for future follow up. At a minimum, personal contact information should have been redacted.

The district also clearly identified who was the person complaining, not leaving much to the imagination to connect the dot. No surprise then the timing correlates to a dramatic uptick of anonymous harassment calls I am now receiving.  

In other documents provided, Robert Lind makes very clear over and over that these are complaints from me. In doing so he reinforces that he has no real interest in solving any problems, just in checking the box for the complaint. Each time he cites me by name, correlates to time windows harassing phone calls increased. (I have removed both Bob and Zee from this email, I assume any communications to them will be directly forwarded to church). At no point does he make any attempt to verify any of the fixes or that the rental is in compliance. (Violation of Facility Use Agreement 12).

Luis Martinez in his response to the complaint about not being open to the public, admits the rental use is not open to the public. And this is in the final version after Bob agreed to give the response a once over.

Exclusionary practices make sense for a hate church, but this goes directly against the open to the public the district has for all rentals.  

If they are not following this basic rental policy, end their rental contract. (Violation of Facility Use Agreement 11)

(Screen shot of response admitting Church are not open to all members of the public)

For some reason if that admission is not enough, documents showed many other issues. 

Church still not paying for time used.  

In documents provided, you show the group now paying for a few hours on Saturday in the MPR or an extra hour running late on Sunday.  This may represent a loose representation of hours spent on campus, but documents further show the district directly subsidizing the church in all the things they are not getting billed for. 

In the documents provided, the church is not paying for any additional rooms on Saturday to set up. Despite having access and decorating classrooms as well during this time (see many photos in previous complaints). Presumably custodial time, restrooms etc should also be charged during this time like they are on Sunday.  These additional rooms or rental charges do not show up in the additional hours used Saturday or Sunday. 

Those few hours paid only represent a small fraction of the time they are occupying the room with their set up and preventing others from using it. As seen in photos provided to this board, the classrooms or MPR set up would not allow for any other group to use these rooms at any point Saturday.  If that is the case the group should either pay for it, or make sure it is available to others.  (Violation of Facility Use Agreement 10)

Either the rooms are available to rent Saturday, or they are not.

If they are available, I would expect them to be appropriate for public use

If they are not available or appropriate, then I would expect whoever is utilizing them to pay for that time. 

On that thread, I will repeat what I said at the board meeting that may have been rushed in my three minutes.  I am offering to sponsor and subsidize rental cost for LGBTQ inclusive groups actually open to the community to use the MPR or classrooms in question on Saturday nights.  I will reach out to some directly and have groups inquire with the school about the rentals. Please let me know if you have others you think would be interested. 

Other concerns the documents show were just dismissed, ignored or denied. In no case did the district verify any fix. 

Fire doors and pulls are still blocked. Churches response says there are too many fire doors and they are redundant. Does the district agree that’s the case with an auditorium packed? Response claims they labeled AED, photos since show this was not the case.  (Violation of Facility Use Agreement 1 and 5, unless the district as given written permission for altercations?)

Response admits to putting up banners and people across campus to advertise in areas they have not rented, but dismisses the complaint without addressing it.  (Violation of Facility Use Agreement 5 and 10)

Doesn’t even address the lack of food handlers permits. Those are required for a reason, given food handling practices I have witnessed someone will get sick.  (Violation of Facility Use Agreement 1)

Finally, the partial documents provided really emphasize all of the responsive documents that are missing. Texts between two employees would have responsive documents on both sides, but only provided one. Texts also reference additional communication to run by the person, but those communications are not included even though they would be responsive. 

Given all of these documented examples of preferred treatment in the documents the district provided, its is clear the end result is subsidizing this hate church. 

Requests:

TLDR version: follow your own adopted facility use agreement.

End the rental contract. Group is not open to all during rental times and violates use agreement half dozen other ways. End of story. 

If they continue renting or not, please true up the bill to what was actually used. Including all rooms and all times the areas were not accessible to others. 

Next, if for some reason you allow the hate church to continue to rent against district policies, please have someone actually follow up on the now month of complaints and violations to pull them into compliance with FUA. It is clear any actions taken to this point have been at best window dressing. 

Please address all of the outstanding public information requests. Responses have been scatter shot at best and leave large gaps unaddressed. 

Assuming the district has a policy against doxxing, Please have employees who providing my personal contact information trained on this policy. In addition please remove their access to my personal contact information or communications in fear they will again leak that information.

Finally, please let me know the best person to put local LBGTQ affirming groups in contact with to rent the MPR and/or classrooms on Saturday nights. 

(Image of Facility Use Agreement with violations circled)

(Image of text from group requesting coaching from employee on responses to questions)

(Image - rental hours from documents provided)

(Image - rental hours from documents provided)