This story sill make you scratch your head and ask how this lady ever made Captain in the first place. She can reason that the world should address as her as Captain because the “Senate” confirmed her as such before she retired, but she can’t reason that her County confers the title Trustee upon its Board Members and thus she is a Trustee.
Bottom line is that Noreen is who she is today. Captain Considine is who she was in uniform on Active Duty. Good day Noreen, good day.
By SANDRA STOKLEY
The Press-Enterprise
GLEN AVON – A retired U.S. Navy officer and recently elected school board member is threatening to sue her colleagues if they do not use the title “Captain” when addressing her at meetings.
Refusal to use her rank, which is conferred by an act of Congress, is defamation and “an act of colossal arrogance and profound ignorance of the law,” said Noreen Considine, reading from a letter at Tuesday’s meeting of the Jurupa Unified School District Board of Education.
“Those who believe they may act contrary to law with impunity — proceed at your own peril,” Considine said in her letter.
Considine, who in November ousted board President Carl Harris from his Area 4 seat on the board, said by phone Wednesday that the board president and superintendent are trying to have all the board members refer to each other by the title “Trustee” and their last name.
“It is not within their job description to assign a title to me,” she said. “That is a form of defamation — to tell someone their name is different than what it is. This is an effort, in my opinion, to put me at a lower level” than what she earned from her military service.
While she doesn’t want to sue, “it’s not an idle threat,” said Considine, who is 64, according to voter registration records.
Navy spokesman Lt. Commander John Daniels said retired officers can use their rank but people are not required to address Considine as captain.
Board President Dawn Brewer called Considine’s threat of a lawsuit “despicable,” particularly at a time when the district is looking at possibly laying off hundreds of employees due to the budget crisis in Sacramento.
“To think that during a budget crisis a trustee of this district would sue our children. That’s ultimately what a lawsuit does,” Brewer said. “It hurts the kids. “Brewer called Considine’s desire to be called captain “a ploy to elevate herself above other board members.”
“I can’t do that. It’s not fair to the other four board members,” she said.
In official voting materials during her election campaign, Considine was listed without her rank and was described as a “retired Navy officer.”
Navy records show that Considine served in the U.S. Navy Reserves from August 1973 to June 2004. Considine said she was in the regular Navy for three years, then the Navy Reserve and was recalled to active duty six times, for a total of 28 years of service.
Considine said all her campaign material referred to her as captain and people who voted for her might question whether she really was a captain if her board colleagues stopped addressing her that way.
No SET PROTOCOL
The issue was first raised at the Jan. 5 meeting when Considine repeatedly requested that Brewer refer to her as “Capt. Considine.”
In a Jan. 8 letter, district Superintendent Elliott Duchon expressed respect for Considine’s title as “hard-earned and well-deserved,” but said that “as superintendent, it is critical for me to address and refer to people in their school district role.”
Duchon said he will leave it up to board members to develop protocols on how to address one another.
Menifee City Councilman Scott Mann, who served 25 years in the U.S. Navy and retired as a lieutenant commander, said Considine’s colleagues should extend her the courtesy of calling her captain if that is what she wants.
That said, Mann said he does not insist that people use his title, including his council colleagues.
“They call me Scott,” he said.
During the public comment period at Tuesday’s school board meeting, a man who identified himself as a disabled veteran, William D. Fitzgerald, praised Considine for her military service and chastised anyone who would not call her captain.
“It is the duty of all Americans to give military personnel, active and retired, the respect they are due,” Fitzgerald said.
If she makes good on her threat, Considine would be the second Jurupa school board member to sue the district.
Trustee Michael Rodriguez filed a lawsuit in January 2008 against the district, Superintendent Duchon and Harris charging violations of his civil rights. The lawsuit was prompted, in part, by the board’s censure of Rodriguez after two independent investigations concluded that he had physically accosted and threatened a female district employee, which Rodriguez has consistently denied.
Portions of that lawsuit have been dismissed at the Superior Court level but are on appeal with the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
Coast Guard has been mostly silent on its much touted plans for a fourth star for the services Vice Commandant. The last update from the Coast Guards office of Governmental Affairs was in April 2008. Both the House and Senate versions of the bill failed. What’s not clear, and maybe our readers can provide insight is who this affects the Modernization effort. The four new 3 Star positions were dependent on this measure passing.
America has a long and 
On April 7, 1943, on his first combat mission, Swett both became an ace and acted with such “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty” that he would be awarded the Medal of Honor.
