HUNTINGTON BEACH : Teachers’ Pact Fight Drags in Chamber

The Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting scheduled tonight has emerged as the latest battleground in the contract dispute between the Huntington Beach City School District and its teachers association.

Union leaders say a chamber committee has chosen the district’s superintendent, Diana Peters, to be among its candidates for its Citizen of the Year award, to be announced at the banquet.

That move prompted the association this week to address a letter to the chamber assailing her nomination.

“Although Dr. Peters may appear to the committee to be a good citizen, we’d like them to also be aware how demoralized we now are and that she is the main cause of that,” union president Sharon Boudreau said Thursday.

Joyce Riddell, the chamber’s executive vice president, declined to say whether Peters is in contention for the award. Nominees’ names traditionally are kept confidential to avoid influential business leaders lobbying in their behalf, she said.

“I don’t know how (union officials) got their information, but we haven’t told anyone who the winner is . . . or who is being considered,” Riddell said. “I’m amused at how involved they’ve become with this. It’s rather interesting.”

Peters did not return repeated phone calls to her office Thursday.

The chamber gives the award each year to a person living or working in Huntington Beach whose volunteer work the past year is considered to be heroic, humanist or charitable, Riddell said.

When asked what effect the district’s letter might have on the selection process, Riddell said, “Absolutely none.” The committee made its choice two weeks ago.

The district’s contract dispute centers on teachers’ demands for pay raises and a guarantee they will not be forced to shoulder the burden of future health-care cost hikes. The dispute has grown increasingly antagonistic since it formally reached an impasse in October. The union’s charges against the district have been directed largely at Peters, culminating last week when it formally issued a no-confidence vote against the superintendent to the school board.

The union had originally hoped to picket outside tonight’s banquet at the exclusive Seacliff Country Club but backed away from those plans because protesters legally could be dispersed for demonstrating on private property, Boudreau said.