HUNTINGTON BEACH : Proposal to Honor Late Supt. Rejected

The Ocean View School District board this week rejected a proposal to name the new district administrative offices after the late Supt. Dale Coogan.

At issue was a seemingly routine procedure of designating the renovated former school site as the Ocean View School District Dale Coogan Education Center, in honor of the district superintendent who died of a brain tumor in February, 1989.

But board President Charles Osterlund and Trustee Janet Garrick, although agreeing that Coogan’s accomplishments are worthy of recognition, declined to back the measure. They argued that fellow trustee Sheila Marcus, by prematurely announcing the facility name change at a March, 1989, memorial service for Coogan, had violated a state public meetings law.

Osterlund, who voted against the measure, and Garrick, who abstained, accused Marcus of privately polling two board colleagues on the matter before making the announcement.

Both said they were never informed that the center was to be named after Coogan until the formal proposal surfaced last month, so they refused to join Marcus and Trustee Carolyn Hunt in supporting the measure. The board’s fifth member, Elizabeth A. Spurlock, was absent.

“This amounts to a blatant violation of the Brown Act,” Osterlund said, referring to the state law that prevents a majority of any elected board or council from meeting or discussing an issue without first notifying the public.

Marcus said during the meeting that she had “informally asked board members” about the issue before announcing the name change at the memorial service. However, she said the action did not amount to a Brown Act violation.

Garrick, in an emotional speech, called Coogan a “respected educational leader” who “gave all that he had to give.”

But she said that she could not agree to name the district center in his memory “because it (would be) to say it is OK for one board member to speak for the entire board.” Garrick added that the move would also contradict the board’s “unwritten policy” that buildings not be named after any individual.

The site of the district offices, which opened this summer, is still officially named Lark View and Nueva View after the closed campuses that were converted to the administrative facility.

Osterlund, who along with Garrick and Spurlock will leave the board at its next meeting Dec. 11, recommended that new board members adopt a policy on naming district facilities.