Ruling Deals Blow to Eastview School Secession Effort : Rancho Palos Verdes: Judge bars certification of Proposition Z results because not all those with a stake in the issue will be allowed to vote. Supporters of the measure plan to appeal.

Supporters of a measure that would allow parents in the Eastview section of Rancho Palos Verdes to secede from the Los Angeles Unified School District suffered a blow Thursday when a Superior Court judge issued an order preventing authorities from validating the election results.

Superior Court Judge Stephen E. O’Neil ruled that it was too late to take the measure, known as Proposition Z, off the ballot next month. But he expressed concern that the election boundaries were drawn in such a way that only Eastview residents will be allowed to vote on the plan. He said others with a stake in the issue should be allowed to vote, including parents whose children attend Eastview schools but don’t live on the peninsula and residents of the peninsula. As a result, he barred the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office from certifying the results--a move that could turn the Nov. 3 election into an empty exercise.

“We are very happy,” said Michael Johnson, an attorney for the Los Angeles school district, which is fighting the secession plan. “It’s been a long road through the legal proceedings, and it’s nice to have the judge ultimately decide in our favor.”

Proposition Z advocates, who insist they are the only ones who have a legitimate interest in the issue, expressed disappointment with the judge’s ruling but asserted it was not a significant setback.

“We will continue to urge a major campaign,” said Kari Tapie, co-chair of Residents for Unified Local Education (RULE), a group lobbying for secession on behalf of Eastview parents. “People will still have a chance to go to the ballot, to vote yes, and we hope voters will take this as an opportunity to make their voices heard.”

Clayton Parker, an attorney for RULE, said he will seek to have the ruling overturned by an appellate court judge.

“In my opinion, under a long line of case law, the judge has no power to issue an order not to certify,” Parker said.

Thursday’s ruling is the first major obstacle faced by Eastview parents in their bid to secede from the Los Angeles school district.

Eastview parents have wanted to join the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District for nearly a decade--ever since the city of Rancho Palos Verdes annexed the Eastview community in 1983. Eastview parents claim their children are isolated from the rest of the Palos Verdes community because they attend school in a separate district.

But Los Angeles school district officials--who remained in possession of two Eastview area schools--have fought the proposal, saying it would spoil the racial balance of their district’s schools and expose the district to civil rights lawsuits. They also say the move would disrupt programs for hundreds of other students.

About 750 Eastview children attend six schools in the Los Angeles district. More than half of the children are enrolled at Crestwood Street Elementary and Dodson Junior High, both of which would become the property of the Palos Verdes school district if Eastview parents were allowed to secede from Los Angeles Unified.

For years, the battle between Eastview parents and the Los Angeles Unified School District was fought before the Los Angeles Committee on School District Organization and the state Board of Education. It wasn’t until both agencies approved the petition that the matter was finally put before voters.

But Los Angeles district officials continued to fight the proposal. They filed a lawsuit against both agencies in July to try to stop the election and have since been to court twice on the matter.

In the first instance, the judge agreed with Eastview parents that the school district had failed to name the county registrar-recorder, among others, in the lawsuit. School officials returned to court the following week with an amended lawsuit, but the judge once again denied their request to stop the election.

Three civil rights organizations--the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund Inc., the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Legal Aid Foundation--have since joined the Los Angeles school district in the fight to keep Eastview children in its schools.