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Question 1

Good afternoon, Principal Saidi.

Answer 1

Good afternoon.

Question 2

What is your occupation?

Answer 2

I’m currently the principal of Trillium High School, but am in the running for a new job to serve on the Harmony City Council.

Question 3

Do you know the defendant?

Answer 3

Yes, Wyatt Latu was my student at Trillium High School.

Question 4

What was your first impression of Wyatt?

Answer 4

I thought Wyatt Latu was just a student that deserved the same respect as I would provide any other student.

Question 5

How did the relationship progress between 2021-2024?

Answer 5

Latu and I got along pretty well during the 2021-2023 school years; I thought Latu was a credible and honest student. However, at the beginning of 2023, his attitude began to change, with him creating several incidents in school, such as the vaping incident.

Question 6

Can you now describe the vaping incident?

Answer 6

As the mathletes team, including Latu, were on the bus home from a Mathletes tournament, the Mathlete advisor told me that they caught Latu vaping on the school bus. Now, I wanted to hear what happened from the other side of the story, so I called Latu into my office and asked him what happened. He confessed that he was vaping. Because the offense was strictly against school policy, I had to …discipline him.

Question 7

What was the disciplinary action?

Answer 7

Well, I had two options: I could suspend Latu during finals week (the week of December 16), or, I could just suspend him from our annual Snow Ball dance. I chose the latter, because I really didn’t think Latu would want to be suspended during his final exams.

Question 8

Thank you. Let’s bring it back to the Harmony City Council election. Why did you make the decision to give up your job as principal?

Answer 8

Yeah, so coming into the summer of 2024, I began to feel less fulfilled in education than when I started. I realized that teaching and overseeing teachers wasn’t as simple as it seemed. So in that summer, I concluded that I would not continue in education after the next school year, from 2024-2025, meaning, I would need a new career.

Question 9

And what caused the shift from principal of Trillium High School to running for the Harmony City Council?

Answer 9

I wanted to serve our city of Harmony in a more significant way than what I was already doing as principal. I wanted to make a real, tangible impact! And so I looked around and observed that our City Council was lacking, and needed someone who could create the impact I was visualizing.

Question 10

How did the campaign progress?

Answer 10

For the structure, I hired Theo Ngoma, a campaign manager who came with high recommendations from other Dennisians, and I spent a lot of resources on campaign posters, flyers, buttons, yard signs, and fundraising.

Question 11

Could you tell the court about some of the polls your team conducted?

Answer 11

Ngoma showed me polling data in the race between myself and O’Feek. I acquired 64% of the vote. I only needed a majority to win the race - and this majority was steadily increasing, from the month prior, to even the month before that. I knew then that people are ready for change, and, I knew I couldn’t stop - so I doubled my efforts in the campaign.

Question 12

How did you double efforts in the campaign?

Answer 12

I hit watering holes and gathering places, including a favorite of my campaign spots, Rossi’s bar, as they have a sprawling space for community functions that Rossi let me rent out for free, as well as doing some meet and greets in the bar. I went to local farmers markets and bonfires, attended community events, and town halls,… (pause so it seems like an afterthought) and I did miss out on one event at the senior center, which only houses a certain number of seniors anyway, so it wouldn’t have been a good use of my campaign time.

Question 13

Thank you Principal Saidi, let’s bring it back to the anuual Snow Ball Dance - when was it held this year?

Answer 13

It was held on December 20, 2024.

Question 14

Can you describe what occurred in the dance to the court?

Answer 14

Yes, I actually made a quick speech for the night before turning in for an early Friday

Question 15

And how did that speech go?

Answer 15

It went pretty well, except, as I always do, I messed up the pronunciation of a few names due to my poor eyesight, and not wearing glasses. However, this is my most affable flaw, and I remember everyone, including myself, laughing at my mistake. I didn’t really think much about the speech until the next week.

Question 16

What caused you to remember the speech the following week?

Answer 16

On the morning of January 3, 2025, I received a very panicked phone call from Ngoma, who told me that I couldn’t go out and make gaffes without telling them first. I initially laughed, because I thought Ngoma had heard about my name mistake, which I thought made me look approachable and human. Ngoma was not laughing, but sent me an email with a link to an Internet page.

Question 17

And what were the contents of the link?

Answer 17

Well, it was a TikTak video, and in the video, I saw - me, but it was not me. It was unmistakably, my exact face, build, stature, weight, eye color, hair color, the exact clothes I was wearing - all of it was the same. But I did not say the words present in the video, and none of them are true, except for my campaign slogan.

Question 18

Have you reviewed exhibit A as of yet, Principal Saidi?

Answer 18

Yes, I have, and I confirm that those are the exact words I said during my actual speech.

Question 19

Principal Saidi, can you briefly explain to the court the basic gist of the speech you actually delivered?

Answer 19

Yes, so it was fairly simple, I thanked all my students for being here that night. I congratulated the Queen of the Snow Court, Megan Lewis, then made a slight name mistake with the King of the snow court, Daniel Jenkins, as I pronounced his name as “danielle”, and finally, I wished them an enjoyable evening.

Question 20

Have you reviewed exhibit B as of yet, Principal Saidi?

Answer 20

Yes, I have, and I confirm that those are the exact words that the video made it look like I said.

Question 21

Does anything stand out to you here, Principal Saidi?

Answer 21

Yes, there are several places which stand out to me - first of all, I’m shown to be slurring my words, and saying that I “put a few back at Rossi’s” in the afternoon, which isn’t true at all, I didn’t even go to Rossi’s that day. The video also showed me stating that I’m a “big, popular kid”, and calling my own students “losers”! I think most seriously, though, the video portrays me admitting to committing a serious crime - evading that police - as it shows me saying “thankfully, harmony police don’t drive like they used to - they clean lost me on my way here from the bar”.

Question 22

What was your reaction to this?

Answer 22

I was aghast, because everything that this replica of me was saying - was a lie! I got nervous about the campaign, so my reaction was to do what I already had in my skillset - I started knocking on doors - I knocked on over 100 houses that day, and conducted a poll.

Question 23

And could you tell us about the qualitative results of the poll?

Answer 23

Yes, so one of the questions I asked constituents was whether their opinion of me had recently changed, for better or worse. Only 22 houses told me that their opinions changed for the better and 77 told me it changed for the worse, as well as a few people mentioned to me that they were disappointed that I would act as recklessly as I had at the Snow Ball. No one - and I repeat, no - one - even mentioned the missed Senior Center event.

Question 24

And what actions regarding the court did you take after you conducted the poll?

Answer 24

Within the next five hours, I was verifying a complaint against Wyatt Latu and suing Latu for defamation. I requested that the Court order Latu to take the video down. Because of the dismal poll, I hastened to get the real video up on the Trillium social media channels, and posted it to my campaign’s social media accounts, too.

Question 25

How has this video affected your political status, Principal Saidi?

Answer 25

I think that I will never regain my political status back if the video stays online, because the people of Harmony deserve to vote based on reality, not on a fake video, and if I lose the election because of this video, sure, I’ll be crushed, but the Dennisian party and the people of Harmony will suffer the most here. We have been working too hard for far too long to lose the election because of Latu’s video of something that never even happened.