Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS. : COUNTY : A Grand Jury Speaks; School Board Listens

Heeding advice from the 1985-86 grand jury, the Orange County Board of Education voted 3 to 1 last week to create a blue-ribbon citizens commission to study whether the county superintendent of schools should be appointed instead of elected.

The seven-member commission will be named Nov. 20.

The board also authorized the blue-ribbon group to spend up to $15,000 for a professional public opinion poll. The poll, to be taken before the blue-ribbon panel’s first meeting in January, will assess how county voters regard a possible change in naming the county schools chief.

The board’s move set a precedent. Grand juries for 17 years have called for a change in how the superintendent of schools is chosen. But no action by education boards has ever followed such recommendations.

A consultant to the 1985-86 grand jury recommended that the superintendent be appointed by the elected five-member Board of Education. Incumbent county schools Supt. Robert D. Peterson was first elected in 1966 and has been reelected continuously for the past 20 years.

County Board of Education member Francis X. Hoffman cast the lone opposing vote against creating the blue-ribbon panel. “I think the scope of this thing is too narrow, and it costs too much,” he said.