ORANGE : 3 Incumbents Lose School Board Seats

Change is coming to the Orange Unified School District in the form of five new school board members, who will be sworn in next month.

Voters Tuesday ousted three incumbents from the scandal-plagued board and elected most of the candidates backed by the teachers union.

“This is going to change the philosophy of the board, if nothing else by the fact that we do have new members,” said Russ Barrios, one of the two trustees who was not up for reelection. “I think that it will bring new energy.”

Eighteen people, including the three incumbents, vied for the five seats on the board. Two board members are retiring.

The election results, said winning challenger Barry P. Resnick, show that “the people are speaking and they’re saying if you don’t do your job, you won’t have a job. It’s great. It’s the democratic way. People can make a difference. No longer does the incumbent have a free ride.”

Nancy Moore, 47, another successful candidate, said, “I think our electorate has spoken and is interested in seeing us set a new more positive direction for our school district.”

Several new members said the first thing they must do is learn to work as a team.

“Five out of the seven members are new, and we all need to coordinate our own agendas,” said winner Lila Beavans, 59. “It’s important to have cohesion on the board.”

The other two winners are John Hurley and Alan E. Irish.

Resnick said the first priority should be a settlement with classified employees, whose contract negotiations are at an impasse. New members said they also hope to improve the district’s bilingual education program, decrease class size and improve financial management.

Hazel Stover, president of the Orange Unified Education Assn., said the teachers are pleased with the results.

“What we hope from this new board is that it will put an end to the politics and begin working for education in this district. We are in hopes that this board will be able to straighten out the mess that exists here.”

The defeated incumbents are Joe J. Cherry, Jane McCracken and Sandy Englander.

Cherry was one of three board members accused by the 1986-87 Orange County Grand Jury of “not minding the store” while thousands of dollars in kickback contracts were negotiated from the district’s headquarters. The other two trustees implicated in that scandal did not seek reelection.

But voters opted for a clean sweep.

Bill Lewis, chairman of Orange Political Action Committee, said, “We couldn’t get through to the current board and there were five members up for election, so we decided to get a new board.”