YORBA LINDA : Trustees, Council to Hold Joint Meeting

For the first time in years, trustees of the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District will hold a joint meeting with the Yorba Linda City Council.

The special meeting Monday night was set up to discuss issues that affect both the schools and city, such as growth, school busing and child care. But public officials on both sides are hoping that the session will improve the sometimes chilly relations between the two bodies.

“There are some personalities that have just clashed,” Mayor Mark Schwing said. “I’m very optimistic something will come of” the meeting.

The joint meeting was proposed nine months ago, but it has taken until now to coordinate the session because of conflicting schedules and the school district’s 1991-92 budget problems.

“This is hoped to foster more open communications,” school board Trustee Karin M. Freeman said. “It may just be educational from both vantage points.”

Yorba Linda City Manager Art Simonian said that the last meeting of this kind, between the City Council and the old Yorba Linda School District, was eight to 10 years ago. No major decisions or proposals resulted, he added.

The City Council and the school board members, he said, “sit there and kind of look at each other and say: ‘You’re a nice guy and you’re a nice guy.’ It’s a PR kind of meeting.”

But Simonian said that while there have been disagreements, city and school staff members often work on joint projects, such as the Travis Ranch Activity Center and sports playing fields.

District officials also waited until now to hold the meeting because they were in the process of hiring a new facilities planner, Mike Bailey. Much of the meeting will center on growth, including Yorba Linda’s population projections, plans for new schools and capacity of existing facilities.

Also on the agenda will be several bus routes that were dropped as part of school district budget cuts, forcing some children to begin walking to school. Several parents complained that there were no crossing guards at some busy intersections and that some streets had no sidewalks.

The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at Yorba Linda Civic Center, 4845 Casa Loma Ave.