Centinela Files Suit to Avert Paying Nash

Attorneys for the Centinela Valley Union High School District filed a lawsuit last week asking the Superior Court to rule that the district is not obligated to pay nearly $375,000 in salary and benefits to former Supt. McKinley Nash, who was fired in July.

Nash, who had been superintendent of the racially divided school district since 1984, has demanded that he be paid $327,562 for the three years remaining on his contract, as well as $46,000 in unrealized vacation benefits. The black administrator was fired by the Latino-majority board a few months after a two-day student walkout and in the middle of allegations of racial bias in the district.

Lawyers for the district contend that Nash had no valid contract with the district.

In a statement issued Friday, district lawyers contend that on July 1, 1989, in “apparent anticipation of defeat . . . in the fall elections,” former board President Aleta Collins extended Nash’s contract to June 30, 1993, without discussing it with other board members.

District lawyers also said they found two versions of Nash’s contract, one of which included a clause specifying that if Nash were terminated, he would be paid for the unexpired portion of his contract within 60 days. The other version had no such provision.

In November, 1989, the school board ratified the contract containing the severance pay clause, but district lawyers say the contract was invalid because two versions of it existed and neither had been properly reviewed.

Nash was not available for comment, and his attorney, George W. Shaeffer Jr., declined to talk.

Collins also was not available for comment.

Shortly after ratifying Nash’s contract, Collins and two other Nash supporters, Ann Birdsall and Herb Bartelt, were defeated in the November election.

In an interview Friday night, Birdsall, who has been a staunch critic of the current board, expressed shock over the district’s claims regarding Nash’s contract. She said that Nash had asked the board to include the severance pay clause and that she and her colleagues had voted unanimously in closed session to grant it to him.

“I think they’re just playing games because they don’t want to pay Dr. Nash his money,” Birdsall said.