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Thursday, February 02, 2006

A Local Election
Where You Have to
Choose Which Candidate's
Lies About Their Education
You Prefer


From The Desert Sun:

For the second time in as many weeks, a Rancho Mirage City Council candidate is being questioned for exaggerating her academic credentials.

Claudette R. Pais, 64, one of four candidates seeking a four-year term on the City Council in April, took several extension courses at UCLA but never graduated from the university. But she did not make that clear when she applied for a position on the city Planning Commission in 2002. Her application reads: "UCLA; graduate, extension courses."

Pais' opponents are scrutinizing her academic credentials one week after Mayor Alan Seman, 81, admitted in an interview with The Desert Sun that he had lied about his academic credentials by claiming on his resume that he had degrees from New York University and Northwestern University.

Pais says she has not misrepresented her education.

When I asked her Wednesday whether she graduated from UCLA, she said, "Well, extension courses, Cindy. It was business management. Property management. I'm not sure of the title. I took that and public speaking. I graduated from the extension courses. I didn't get a diploma. You take these extension courses and you fulfill whatever it is - the three months or two months - and then when you finish you are considered you graduate from that course. That's what that means to me. I didn't get a diploma. I didn't wear the black cap or anything. "

On her application, Pais also lists: "University of Toronto: major languages, Italian, French and Italian."

She now says she took only a "class" in French.

"Did you attend the University of Toronto?"

"No."

"Did not?"

"Oh, well I took some languages. I took Italian."

"Anything else?"

"No. Just Italian."

"Do you know when?"

"I think in the late '50s. That's the only time I attended that. "

Pais omitted any references to her secondary educational experience in her official campaign statement that is submitted to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, which is inserted in the voter guide for distribution to voters.

Pais and Seman are in contention for one of the four seats; Dana Hobart and Ron Meepos, both incumbents, are also vying for the spots.

Pais says her opponents are nitpicking by questioning her Planning Commission application.

"This is awful what they are trying to do but I've gotta have thick skin. If they want to nitpick, they better find something really good."

In an interview Monday, Pais told me she completed the 12th grade at Don Bosco Academy, "a convent run by Assumption nuns" in Timmins, Ontario, about 500 miles north of Toronto. By Wednesday, she said she had only finished 10th grade.