Angry Residents Mobilize to Oust Dymally Daughter

A petition drive has been launched by angry residents to remove Lynn Dymally-Lee, daughter of U. S. Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), from the Compton Unified School District board.

Leaders of the petition drive are angry because the school board appointed Dymally-Lee without public notification. She was appointed earlier this month to fill the vacancy created when Trustee Bernice Woods resigned to take a seat on the City Council.

“By appointing Lynn Dymally-Lee, they’re making a statement to the citizens,” said Patricia A. Moore, the mother of two and a city employee who has filed to run in the November school board election. “They’re saying, ‘We don’t care what you think.’ ” (Moore is not related to the city councilwoman of the same name.)

Acquanetta Warren, another parent who is considering running for the board, said board members “have a responsibility to hear what other people have to say.”

John Taylor, former Compton High School mathematics teacher, said: “They agendized the swearing in. They did not agendize the appointment.”

Dymally-Lee was appointed at the July 11 meeting on a 4-2 vote. She was sworn in at the board meeting Tuesday night while backers of the petition drive were holding a press conference outside.

Manuel Correa, one of the four trustees who voted to appoint Dymally-Lee, said the district was “fortunate to have that talented person available” to fill the vacancy. The last time Dymally-Lee served on the board, Correa said, she was a “very competent board member, was a very thoughtful person who got along with all segments of the community.”

Correa said he did not know whether Dymally-Lee would run in the November election.

Dymally-Lee was elected to a four-year term on the board in 1983 but did not seek reelection. She could not be reached for comment.

“She elected not to come back,” said Margaret Moore, another candidate for the board, who has run before. Moore works for the school district as a community liaison but said she will resign if elected.

Earnest Spears, executive director of the Compton Chamber of Commerce, who is also running for election to the board, says politics was the deciding factor in the Dymally-Lee appointment.

When she served on the board, critics said Dymally-Lee was part of her father’s effort to build a political machine in the city.

The board “had an obligation to choose the most qualified person. What made her more qualified than anybody else?” Spears asked.

Spears also charged that Dymally-Lee does not live in the city but lives in Huntington Park on Seville Avenue. There is a telephone listing for William Lee, her husband, at that address and the voice on the telephone answering machine identifies herself as Lynn Dymally-Lee.

School district officials said they did not have a work number for her and did not know her home address or where she was registered to vote.

Under state law voters in the district have 30 days to gather about 870 signatures on petitions to force the board to rescind the appointment. The seat would then remain vacant until the November election when four other seats will also be contested.