BUENA PARK : Longtime Trustee Menzies Resigns

Buena Park School District Trustee Charles M. Menzies resigned this week from his long-held position to devote more time to his job as superintendent of the Los Nietos School District in Whittier.

Menzies, 52, said he decided now was a good time to relinquish the board seat to allow interested candidates to gear up for the November election, in which two other positions also will be decided. Whoever succeeds him will serve the remaining two years of his four-year term. He was in his 13th year as trustee.

“Primarily it has to do with the time factor,” he explained. “I wasn’t giving enough time to the trustee position because of the responsibilities I have here” as superintendent.

Menzies also said his perspective as a trustee changed after he was appointed superintendent two years ago, even though the two districts are separate. He found himself holding back on questions he wanted to ask Supt. Jack Townsend because he understood firsthand how it feels to be in his position.

That conflict, he said, hurt his abilities as a trustee and did not sit well with him. “It’s a very subtle thing, something that no one can understand unless you’re in this situation,” he said. “In my mind, it was a problem.”

Menzies leaves the board as it is in the midst of reviewing a preliminary budget of $18 million, with anticipated shortfalls due to state cutbacks.

Other board members said Menzies’ superintendent position contributed to his perspective as a trustee, rather than detracting from it.

“We will truly miss him,” Trustee Barbara Fagins said. “Not only does he bring his board expertise but that of an administrator as well.”

“He lent a certain taste to the school board as an administrator,” Trustee B. Buck Levine said. “His input is a very big factor to the board.”

Menzies, who first ran for the trustee position when three of his children were enrolled in Buena Park schools, said he is most proud of the school district’s electives curriculum that has not been pared as much as other districts’ in recent years.

Another source of pride, he said, was overcoming the difficult time when the board decided to close one school and rename another to form Buena Park Junior High. The junior high has won recognition as a model school.