Redistricting Provides Twice the Service -- for Now : School board: Mark Slavkin’s district has moved far to the east, but that hasn’t stopped him from competing with Julie Korenstein. Until the April election, the Westside will have two representatives.

Will the real Westside school board representative please stand up?

Incumbent Mark Slavkin says he’s the one.

But so does San Fernando Valley board member Julie Korenstein.

The city schools’ month-old redistricting plan, drawn to add a second Latino seat, places Slavkin and Korenstein in what will be District 4, an area stretching from Los Angeles International Airport north to Porter Ranch.

What this means for the next nine months--until voters choose between the two in the April elections--is that Westside parents and teachers will find two board members responsive to their concerns and wooing their votes.

The unusual situation came about because, technically, board members are supposed to represent the districts that bear the same number of the seat to which they were elected, even though the boundaries were changed by redistricting.

When Korenstein was elected to the Valley seat, it was District 4. That district now encompasses most of the Westside. Slavkin was elected to District 2, but in the redistricting that seat represents parts of East Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Bell and South Gate.

Slavkin says there is no way he is going to impose himself on a district that used to belong to board President Leticia Quezada and is intentionally empty until the elections, “although if they want to call me, I’m happy to provide assistance.”

He still sees himself as the Westside’s representative.

“I think the people on the Westside who I’ve served for the past three years will continue to look to me for leadership and for support,” he said Wednesday. “I don’t think people here who know us both are going to be confused about who they want to turn to.”

Parent activists south of Mulholland Drive agree.

“Mark’s been very responsive,” said Pam Bruns, president of the Palisades Complex. “I think most people will continue to go to him to continue the dialogue and projects we’ve started with him.”

But Korenstein said, “I am the board member (in District 4.) If there are problems, they will be referred to my office. . . . Technically and legally, Mark should be representing District 2. It’s unfortunate if he doesn’t oversee what is happening there. There are lots of children who need someone to represent them.”

His stance “is not in their best interest--they and their parents deserve to have a spokesperson too,” she said.

Korenstein said she plans to meet informally with community activists on the Westside and to expand her Valley advisory committee to include some Westside parents and teachers.

Although she has portrayed herself as a champion of Valley interests--and supports a Valley move to secede from the Los Angeles Unified School District--Korenstein says the interests of the Valley and the Westside often mesh.

For example, she said, both areas want school autonomy, an expansion of the magnet schools, and a restructuring of the district; both opposed a recent lawsuit settlement that equalizes school funding throughout the district.

Slavkin says he thinks Korenstein is being somewhat hypocritical. “I find it interesting that she wants to be a candidate on the Westside,” he said, “when her platform is that the Valley should be set apart, that ‘the Valley wants out and I’m a Valley person.’ ” And she has said all along that the new District 4 is unworkable.”

Slavkin opposes secession, favoring a decentralization plan that would eliminate the central school board and shift authority and responsibility to local communities, building on each of the city’s 50 high school complexes.

Korenstein said a separate Valley school district is a long-term goal that could take years. “In the meantime, I will focus on representing children and parents in District 4.”

Slavkin, saying the unusual situation has taken on the flavor of “almost a campaign environment,” said he welcomes Korenstein’s visits to “my district.”

“Julie will likely want to make forays into West Los Angeles--just as I intend to spend more time in the Valley--but it’s silly to say that I have no right to be around,” Slavkin said. “It would be like my going into Huntington Park and saying, ‘I’m your leader.’ This is a unique situation, a quirk of the process.”

Slavkin points out that the school board is “unlike the City Council, where individual members have unilateral authority to, say, erect a stop sign. The Board of Education is a little different: The seven of us are not making local decisions but setting policy for the whole district.”

Making the new district lines effective last month was “a trade-off,” Slavkin said. “On the upside there will be a new election (almost) right away. But the downside is that communities will be disenfranchised during the interim.”

He plans no town hall meetings in Southeast Los Angeles, a regular Slavkin feature on the Westside, but would welcome calls or letters from residents there who have concerns.

“Some ‘shopping’ (for the attention of various board members) occurs now. But we all get too parochial,” Slavkin said. “I spend time at other schools. It’s helpful for me to understand the realities in other parts of the city because I vote on issues that affect them. In that way, this temporary overlapping of districts is positive.”

As the election nears, more campaign rhetoric and increased attention from both school board members can be expected. Korenstein faces an uphill battle: 60% of the population--and voters--within the new boundaries of District 4 live in Slavkin’s old district, with only 40% in the Valley. But as Korenstein points out, “I grew up in the city and only moved as a married adult to the Valley.”

She lost no time in noting that, unlike Slavkin, she has no field representative, preferring to use the money for a kindergarten intervention program for high-risk children in 66 schools and that she spends her travel allowance on field trips for youngsters.

If these early skirmishes are any indication, the fight to represent the Westside in education promises to be a bitter one.