…AND THERE THEY GO

By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor, The Los Angeles Wave

Updated: Sep 2, 2009 at 11:31 PM PDT  -- The Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa-controlled LAUSD board seems to be rushing head-long and willy-nilly into doing whatever it wants to do in any manner it chooses to do it. Latest case in point: They’re changing the rules of the board of education

Buoyed by her success last week in leading the board into giving away 50 new schools to private operators, board President Monica Garcia circulated a nine-page plan, entitled “Proposed Changes to Rules of the Board of Education,” and scheduled a discussion of her plan at Tuesday’s board meeting. Garcia’s proposals include changing the board’s meeting schedule to only four a month, with one of them being in closed session, two of them devoted to special business and only one set aside for “regular business.” Garcia also proposes to suspend board committees, revise public comment procedures and “streamline” board meeting agendas.

Marguerite LaMotte, the only African-American board member and the only one vehemently unaligned with the mayor’s bloc, is crying foul of this sudden rush to change the rules, which is primed to take effect with the opening of the 2009-10 school year this month. “Not only is the board abdicating some of its responsibilities to external operators,” LaMotte said. “Now the board wants to eliminate its committee structure, which is the only opportunity to ensure some degree of transparency and accountability to the takeover process and operations.” In a written request to Garcia to postpone Tuesday’s discussion of her proposed changes, LaMotte said, “This short notice gives constituents little time to plan to attend or craft a response. … Like special interests, our constituents deserve some consideration also.” (UPDATE: The board discussed the proposals during a lengthy closed-door session Tuesday, but no decision was reached.)

Given the nature of the board, Garcia’s proposals can be regarded as a fait accompli, and, like LaMotte, The Soulvine sees these rule changes as successful efforts to exclude stakeholders’ access, input and participation in LAUSD affairs and is a clear signal that the mayor and his court plan to do things in the school district they don’t want us to know about or interfere with.

SPEAKING OF WHICH — The school district is paying the legal fees incurred by board President Garcia in the federal investigation into Councilman Jose Huizar’s consulting work for a now defunct nonprofit group linked to organized labor. That investigation has ended and Huizar has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Huizar was a school board member during the period of the probe and Garcia was employed as his chief of staff. She, too, was investigated by the feds and incurred legal expenses pursuant to the probe. She hadn’t been elected by anybody to anything during the period under scrutiny, so she ought to pay her own damn legal fees.

Newly elected school board member Tamar Galatzan, who represents the Valley, is one of what looks like 100 people running for the 2nd District City Council seat. She is being excoriated by the other 99 for having sent out three mailers promoting her council candidacy by touting her work as a sitting school board member. Her mailers, which arrived in homes just as voters began casting absentee ballots for the council race, did not mention that she’s running for city council, they boasted that she’s a great school board member. Her handlers claimed there was nothing improper in those mailers, as she was merely trying to communicate with her constituents about school issues.

Here’s the rub: She didn’t communicate with me. As a West Valley resident, I am a constituent in Galatzan’s 3rd LAUSD District who would have been delighted to receive communication from her about school issues. I haven’t heard from her since she was running for the school board the other day. Back then, she wouldn’t shut up, seeing as how she had $2.2 million in campaign money from a Villaraigosa-controlled campaign committee to spend. But there was a reason I wasn’t on her mailing list last week: I’m not a resident of Council District 2 and I can’t vote for her for city council! Galatzan sent her “school issues” mailers only to her school board constituents who are also Council District 2 voters. That’s clever. (She’s a lawyer, you know.) That’s just what we need on the City Council: Another clever, self-serving, Villaraigosa bought-out, “anything-to-win” lawyer.