ACOE email addresses have been shut down

[Jean Lusson]

I sent this email last night and noticed that Sheila Jordan, Rob Crose, and Joaquin Rivera have shut down their emails- all acoe.org addressed emails bounced back. 

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jean Lusson <je...@lusson.com>

Date: May 24, 2011 2:21:21 AM PDT

To: rcr...@acoe.org

Cc: lm...@cityofberkeley.info, jri...@acoe.org, she...@acoe.org, william...@berkeley.k12.ca.us, susan...@berkeley.k12.ca.us, Beatriz_Le...@berkeley.k12.ca.us, john_s...@berkeley.k12.ca.us, Leah_...@berkeley.k12.ca.us, karenh...@comcast.net, Josh_D...@berkeley.k12.ca.us

Subject: Please do NOT place the Community Day School at the Berkeley Adult School

To those of you in power who affect our lives,     

I beg of you to reconsider the appropriateness of placing the Community Day School at the Berkeley Adult School.

I watched the video of the school board meeting where it was discussed, and I was disappointed to see that security and neighborhood impact were not considered. It sounded like a very vague ever morphing loose plan for a dumping ground for an extremely problematic population. It was mentioned that "students who have not been in school for a long time and who are coming out of the court system- Juvenile Hall-" will be served here. So the CDS  could morph into a continuation of Juvenile Hall. The types of high risk antisocial teenagers with criminal behavior in their recent pasts (drug dealing, robbery/gang activity, pimping/prostituting, assaulting others so badly they must go to the hospital)--would be filtering in with their non-CDS attending friends ( possibly gang members/drug dealers) before and after the school hours down the BART corridor on Virginia Street through a residential neighborhood with many families with little kids.

Since the Adult School has been there, there have already been thuggish kids causing problems for neighbors who live on the perimeter of the Adult School. My neighbor who lives across from the side entrance to the parking lot on Virginia street has regularly had to walk through a group of students cussing at him to get into his house while they sit on the sidewalk smoking and blaring their music on his doorstep. His house has been robbed. The police suspected that the elevated Adult School classrooms across the street have students casing it and calling their robber friends when he goes out. He says he will move away if the Community Day School goes in. Apparently the guys who own Cafe Leila on San Pablo invited Mayor Tom Bates to come sit outside their cafe at a specific time when classes let out so he could witness the  predictable daily violent fights on the sidewalk in front of the Adult School parking lot. The Adult School has almost zero security staff. I've heard there is an illegal pot distribution place operating near the BAS. Before you vote on this, there needs to be a study of crime temptations in the area for the CDS students as well as the risk they pose after school hours when they are unsupervised in the neighborhood.

   We know there is already a  small population of tricky youth (at risk/high risk) there that a CDS class should not be allowed to mix with. I've heard there is already attrition from the traditional Adult School customers like the elderly and Asian and other immigrants coming to take ESL and other classes because they're fearful of these students exhibiting negative, antisocial behaviors. You would decimate the Adult School as an Adult School if you turned it into the continuation of Juvenile Hall.

I've taken a wide survey of neighbors in a three block radius of the Adult school and NO ONE thinks it is a good idea to put the CDS there. These are progressive minded social workers, special ed teachers, county workers, doulas, police officers, massage therapists, retired BUSD teachers, retired blue collar workers, professors, day care workers, nurses, people who work for philanthropy non-profits, self employed people working at home....

    When the Adult School went in, the neighborhood was given the raw ground at the Curtis St. entrance as a consolation prize. My neighbors have busted their backs to turn that into a park that is amazingly beautiful and is heavily used by families and nannies bringing little kids to play there in the sand box on the playground  at all hours of the day. This park has been a cornerstone of turning a transitional neighborhood into a much safer seeming place. Since we live a half  block from it, I let my child play with his friends there after school, but I will not if the CDS goes in. Our neighborhood is fragile due to it's relative proximity to the urban problems present at University and San Pablo. Putting the CDS in would permanently send it in a downward direction. There must be something in the Ed. Code that states that a CDS can't be right near a playground. Our park is essentially a community center and kid zone.

The Education Code does state that a Community Day School shall not be located where there are k-12 students or continuing education.   I'm not sure why an Adult School is not considered to be continuing education, but I assume this part of the code is intended to protect vulnerable populations from the high risk individuals in the CDS. Our park, neighborhood kids, and elderly and foreign Adult School students deserve just as much protection as a k-12 school does. I have a friend who works at the Adult School, a truly gentle soul who is incredibly idealistic and kind. At the beginning of this controversy, when the neighbors first got a whiff of what was being planned behind our backs, my friend said to me "Don't worry, Jean, your child will be safe- these students will come in a van and leave in a van."   I'd really like to know which bureaucrat gave my friend that line of misinformation. It shows me even more clearly that the plan for this is not at all thought out.

Community Day Schools can be located anywhere -  an abandoned retail space in a commercial strip on San Pablo would be just fine. On the bus line. Emeryville would be more central for the zones being served. How about the Administration building when it's done on University?  Much more appropriate and since there are only three expelled students currently complaining of having to commute to Hayward, I think it's worth the wait to avoid permanently endangering a whole entire residential neighborhood/BART commuter path  , and an already fragile Adult School.





Respectfully,  --Jean Lusson

[erikasmi...@gmail.com]

Fantastic letter, Jean! I will look into the email situation and respond to the group by next week (am out of town until june 1st) - Erika

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

---

From: Jean Lusson <je...@lusson.com>

Sender: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com

Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 11:00:44 -0700

To: <bas-acc...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com

Subject: ACOE email addresses have been shut down

[Brad Smith]

Jean, I forwarded your letter to Joaquin Rivera with a request that he respond when/if he received it.  He received my e-mail and reminded me that the county has a pretty aggressive span filter and that I had trouble getting through to him when I first attempted to contact him at ACOE.  It might be worth it to try sending it again.

  -- Brad

[Charis Kaskiris]

Bouncing e-mails have nothing to do with spam filters.

Charis

[Heather Wood]

That is a very good point, Charis.

[Charis Kaskiris]

Hello Jonathan,

My name is Charis Kaskiris and I am resident in Alameda County.  I am part of a group of county citizens who need to have email access to our elected representatives at ACOE. Early this morning one of our members tried to contact members of the ACOE however their email addresses have bounced. In particular JRIVERA, SHEILAJ and RCROSE ‘s ACOE.ORG accounts bounced.

 

In communication with another one of our  domain members Joaquin Rivera (JRivera) claims that the aggressive spam filters you have implemented can potentially be the cause:

 

> From: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:bas-acc...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Brad Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 2:48 PM
> To: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: ACOE email addresses have been shut down
>
>
>
> Jean, I forwarded your letter to Joaquin Rivera with a request that he
> respond when/if he received it. He received my e-mail and reminded me that
> the county has a pretty aggressive span filter and that I had trouble
> getting through to him when I first attempted to contact him at ACOE. It
> might be worth it to try sending it again.
>
> -- Brad

 

It is my experience that best practices for spam filtering policies is not to bounce e-mails but rather put them in quarantine for the recipients to release if deemed as a valid communication. Are there any best practices you can recommend to us so that our emails don’t get bounced when we contact the ACOE to ensure timely deliverability?

 

Regards,

Charis Kaskiris

PS: Jonathan Allen is the Executive Director of Information Technology for ACOE (http://www.acoe.org/acoe/Technology)

 

From: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:bas-acc...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Heather Wood
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 3:22 PM
To: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: RE: ACOE email addresses have been shut down

 

That is a very good point, Charis.

On May 24, 2011 3:17 PM, "Charis Kaskiris" <cha...@kaskiris.com> wrote:
> Bouncing e-mails have nothing to do with spam filters.
>
>
> Charis
>
>
>
>
>
> From: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:bas-acc...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Brad Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 2:48 PM
> To: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: ACOE email addresses have been shut down
>
>
>
> Jean, I forwarded your letter to Joaquin Rivera with a request that he
> respond when/if he received it. He received my e-mail and reminded me that
> the county has a pretty aggressive span filter and that I had trouble
> getting through to him when I first attempted to contact him at ACOE. It
> might be worth it to try sending it again.
>
> -- Brad
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Jean Lusson <je...@lusson.com> wrote:
>
> I sent this email last night and noticed that Sheila Jordan, Rob Crose, and
> Joaquin Rivera have shut down their emails- all acoe.org addressed emails
> bounced back.
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:

{REDUCTED}

[Jean Lusson]

Ok, so I just spoke to a nice admin guy there and it's true that their spam filter basically shuts out any email not from someone they have already approved getting a message from. Nobody purposefully shut down their emails, they've just never been reachable by the general public! When you email and it bounces back it will contain a message with this phone number to call: 510-670-7777. If you call it, he'll find your email, unblock it, and it will go through apparently.

[Heather Wood]

It is ludicrous that reaching elected or county officials should require jumping through such hoops. They must get a lot of "spam". Funny that other officials around here don't have the same filter.

[Caryn Graves]

Hi.  That is unfortunate that Jean encountered those problems with trying to send to the acoe.org addresses, so thanks to those who are pursuing this.  I also thought that Jean's letter was awesome, so I'd really like for all of those folks to see it!  I like that she cited specific, concrete cases (such as the neighbor whose house was burglarized, and the grievances of the proprietor of Cafe Leila), I think that really helps to strengthen our position.

I didn't happen to get any bounces from my e-mail to them, but that's not necessarily a guarantee that it went through, either (who knows- perhaps the transmission to them failed without any bounce messages generated.)  I have to wonder, because I have yet to receive a reply from _any_ of the recipients (those at the acoe.org addresses, those at the berkeley.k12.ca.us addresses, and Linda Maio- not a peep from any of them.) 

Thanks again, for everyone's diligence regarding this.
                                                                               -Caryn

[Charis Kaskiris]

Hello Jonathan,

 

Thank you for the quick response and for whitelisting our group’s address. Coming to think about it, I do like your approach with bouncing a suspect email but providing a phone number and a staff person who can unblock it – in a sense it is almost a way to ensure that the email is delivered (unless the mailbox is full).

 

During these times of critical fiscal responsibility demands the local, state, and federal level of government having access to community representatives is critical to voice what the community wants and expects.

 

Regards,

 

Charis

 

From: Jonathan Allen [mailto:jal...@acoe.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 8:59 AM
To: 'cha...@kaskiris.com'
Cc: bas-acc...@googlegroups.com; Joaquin J. Rivera; Sheila Jordan; Robert Crose
Subject: RE: ACOE email addresses have been shut down

 

Good Morning Charis;

 

Thank you for bringing to my attention the blockage of bas-acc...@googlegroups.com.  The address will be whitelisted by the end of today.

 

ACOE has a multi-tiered anti-spam system that handles from 250,000 to 500,000 spam messages a month.  Due to the volume, some messages will be blocked or quarantined.

 

In the case that the message is quarantined, the sender will receive an email message that states, “Your email was classified as spam and rejected by Lightspeed.  If you believe this is in error, please call the e-mail recipient or 510-670-7777 and provide them with your e-mail address.”  This is done to minimize false positives.

 

I apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused.  If you wish to further discuss this issue please email me or contact me at the phone number below.

 

Sincerely

 

Jonathan Allen

Executive Director, Information Technology

V:510-670-4290