Peninsula Voters Could Alter School Board’s Balance of Power

After two years of non-stop rancor between Palos Verdes school board members and their critics, peninsula voters on Tuesday will get their say on whether a new majority should rule the board.

The election is the first time in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District’s 28-year history that a slate of candidates has run in an effort to gain control of the five-member board. There are three open seats.

The election may also be the most acrimonious since the district was formed. Four weeks ago, Supt. Jack Price resigned, citing the antagonism between the district and its critics, as well as what he termed unfair, personal attacks on himself.

“I don’t remember a time ever when there have been the hard feelings and bitterness like this,” said Nell Mirels, mayor of Rolling Hills Estates and a substitute teacher in the district for the last 25 years.

The candidates who are running as a slate are Peter Gardiner, Barry Hildebrand and Marianne Kipper. All were former directors of the East Peninsula Educational Council, a parents’ group that has filed a lawsuit against the district to prevent it from closing Miraleste High School on the east side.

The three are running against incumbents Marlys Kinnel and Jeffrey Younggren, who are seeking second terms. In 1987, the two, citing the district’s declining enrollment, voted with the other three board members to close Miraleste as a high school. It would leave the 8,800-student district with two high schools, both west of Hawthorne Boulevard.

The other candidates are Brigitte Schuegraf, who favors keeping a high school open on the east side of the peninsula, and Brenton Goodrich, an attorney who has aligned himself with the incumbents and believes that Miraleste should be shut as a high school. Both have previously run unsuccessfully for the board.

Incumbent Sally Burrage did not seek reelection because she is moving out of the district.

The battle between the board and its critics has continued unabated despite a September ruling by the State Board of Education, which would not authorize an election on whether eastsiders could form a separate school district. The parents’ group had sought such an election.

In recent weeks, two screaming matches have broken out in board meetings between Trustee Jack Bagdasar and Dawn Henry, a Rancho Palos Verdes resident who has spent hundreds of hours researching district documents to prove her allegations that board members have been remiss in their duties.

Two weeks ago, a complaint was filed with the state Fair Political Practices Commission against Kinnel, a move Kinnel has labeled “dirty politics.” This week, Kinnel said that because of the continuing public outcry, she might reconsider her vote on whether Miraleste should be closed. And Saturday, a large number of district employees will take the unusual step of endorsing candidates in a local newspaper advertisement; in this case, the incumbents and Goodrich.

The two incumbents, as well as Goodrich, contend that the only reason the east side candidates are running is because they are angry over the board’s decision to close Miraleste.

“That is really what this election is all about when you cut through all the rhetoric,” said Goodrich, who for the last three years has served as a trustee of the Peninsula Education Foundation, a private group that raises money for the district.

Younggren said that despite the uproar the board’s decision has caused, he still believes that Miraleste should be closed as a high school. He cited recent district figures showing that 8,888 students were enrolled in the district this fall, down 400 from the previous year. In the early ‘70s, the district had nearly 18,000 students.

He added that he believes that Miraleste should be turned into an intermediate school, and the money saved used to enhance programs at the other high schools. District officials have estimated that $1 million could be saved if Miraleste High were closed.

“Are the residents going to vote for facilities or programs?” Younggren said, summing up the election as he sees it.

Although Kinnel had voted to close the high school, she said that the controversy has caused her to rethink her vote. She said she now believes that the decision should be reviewed by the board. The fate of the school should be determined after peninsula residents have the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process, she said.

“I want the decision made as a result of community involvement,” she said, describing a large public forum where residents from throughout the district can hash out the issue.

The slate candidates and Schuegraf deny that they are one-issue candidates. Besides the Miraleste issue, they contend that present board members and district officials have bungled the district’s business affairs.

Not only did the board and administrators fail to get top dollar for a school site that was developed as luxury houses, the entire practice of selling vacant school property is misguided because the land could be needed if enrollment increases, they contend.

“Who is to say the population of children in this district will never exceed what we had before?” Kipper asked.

The board and administration have defended the land sales. In recent years, the district has sold six parcels that had once been earmarked for school construction, and closed five elementary and two intermediate schools.

Schuegraf and the slate also contend that present board members cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars when in June, 1988, it retroactively approved fee exemptions to developers. The exemptions had been granted previously by top administrators even though the board had no policy that permitted them. The board has defended the exemptions.

The issue has not died and has been trumpeted by board antagonists on the eve of the election. Two weeks ago, Joanne Petow, a Rolling Hills Estates resident and supporter of the east side candidates, filed a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission alleging that Kinnel had a conflict of interest when she voted in favor of the fee exemptions.

Petow said her complaint was based on information supplied to her by Jan McAuley, a Palos Verdes Estates resident who is suing board members alleging waste in the sale of school property and favoritism in the granting of exemptions.

Specifically, the complaint alleges that Kinnel should have abstained from voting on the exemptions policy because it retroactively approved one for a developer who is part-owner of a mall where Kinnel works in promotions. Kinnel has said that the complaint is politically motivated and that she never spoke to the developer, Ron Florance, about the exemption. Florance has responded that he left management of the mall, including hiring or firing, to others.

Despite the decrease in students enrolled districtwide, Schuegraf and the slate candidates say the district can afford to continue to offer high school classes on the east side. And the slate maintains the classes should be held at Miraleste.

The three east side candidates say that it would be unfair to deprive either east side or west side residents of a high school in their neighborhood and force students to travel farther to attend school.

“We have been telling the district all along what we stand for is K-12 education on all the geographically distinct areas of the peninsula,” Kipper said.

The slate also argues that one reason for the district’s declining enrollment may be that parents who are tired of the turmoil have put their children in private schools. And they say if Miraleste is closed, more east side parents may do the same.

“When you close a school there is an assumption you make that everyone will simply move to the new (public) school,” Gardiner said. “We don’t think that is the case.”

Despite her shared concerns with the slate candidates, Schuegraf said that they are Johnny-come-latelies. She said she has been going to board meetings every Monday night for more than four years to learn about district affairs and speak out on property matters, school closings and other management issues that have now become major campaign themes.

“Suddenly, two years ago, everybody started sounding like me,” Schuegraf said.

This week, Kinnel, Younggren and Goodrich were endorsed by more than 300 district employees, most of them teachers, whose names will appear in a local newspaper on Saturday.

Jerry Gaines, a Rolling Hills High School teacher active in the employee petition drive, said the teachers believe that the three candidates have a better grasp of the problems declining enrollment has brought to the district.

Despite the publicity the protracted battle between the board and its detractors has attracted, most of the candidates say their greatest opponent Tuesday may be voter apathy on the peninsula, where fewer than 20% of the families have school-age children.

Even among parents with children in the district, it is not clear that the election has caught their attention, Hildebrand said, adding that the slate recently conducted a telephone survey and discovered many voters were unaware of who the candidates were.

“The biggest conclusion was (the election) was a big ho-hum,” Hildebrand said.

THE CANDIDATES