Slavkin Talk First Salvo in Election Bid, Critics Charge : Education: The schools trustee denies he plans to run in newly drawn District 4. Incumbent Julie Korenstein expresses annoyance at his planned forum.

A Los Angeles School Board member from the Westside speaks to San Fernando Valley parents and school officials tonight, drawing charges from some parents that he is jumping the gun to campaign for next April’s school board election against a Valley-based opponent.

Board member Mark Slavkin scheduled a “community town hall meeting” at Columbus Junior High School in Canoga Park. That drew a rebuke from fellow Board of Education member Julie Korenstein--a potential election rival--who said he should not have scheduled an event in her district without informing her.

The meeting is Slavkin’s first formal sortie into the Valley after an acrimonious reapportionment battle this summer placed him and Korenstein in the newly drawn District 4, which stretches from Porter Ranch in the northern San Fernando Valley to Westchester.

Some parents called the forum an attempt by Slavkin to begin his reelection campaign early against Korenstein, who has a strong Valley base.

“It’s politicking,” Diana Dixon-Davis, a Chatsworth mother of three, said Monday. “That’s what it is--a campaign appearance. It’s inappropriate. . . .

“If he were a declared candidate, that’s one thing,” Dixon-Davis said.

But she said Slavkin had not filed candidate papers and is not the board member for the western San Fernando Valley.

Slavkin, however, denied that tonight’s forum represents the start of a reelection bid. He said that although he is leaning toward running again, he has not yet made a final decision.

“It’s not a campaign event and I’m not there to campaign for myself or against anybody,” Slavkin said.

However, he acknowledged that the recent redistricting created a more pressing reason to visit the Valley, which contains 40% of District 4’s registered voters in comparison to 60% on the Westside, where Slavkin has worked diligently to maintain a high profile and a strong measure of support from parents.

“Certainly in this new environment, where the new districts have been drawn . . . I don’t want to waste time in terms of meeting people who live in the Valley portion of the district and learning what’s on their minds,” Slavkin said.

But his move to meet Valley residents appeared to provoke Korenstein, a former Slavkin ally who is legally the current representative for District 4 under the remap plan, which was passed by the Los Angeles City Council in July.

Slavkin, who at 30 is the youngest of the seven board members, was elected to represent the Westside in 1989.

But according to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s attorney and a City Hall legislative analyst, until the April election Slavkin technically remains the board member for District 2, which after reapportionment covers parts of East Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Bell and South Gate.

Korenstein on Monday said she was surprised that Slavkin would sponsor a forum in her district without first informing her.

“Usually board members do not hold town hall meetings in other board member’s districts,” she said. “He did not notify me at all. My community notified me.”

She said she plans to attend tonight’s meeting and repeated her past accusations that Slavkin has set aside the “best interest” of children in District 2 in favor of shoring up support in the Westside.

“He’s the board member of District 2, so Mark should probably be doing town hall meetings for District 2,” she said.

Residents and students in that district “are going unrepresented for this school year, and I think that’s a travesty,” she said.

Slavkin said “there’s generally too much parochialism on our board--the sense of people saying, ‘This is my area and stay out,’ people believing they are representing one portion and not the others. . . . I think it’s important to broaden your horizons,” he said.

Slavkin said the forum will be one of several he intends to sponsor in the Valley as counterparts of the monthly community meetings he has held in the Westside since his election.

He also said he would continue to represent the Westside, despite the legal opinions that cast him as board member of District 2.

Officials of the Valley-based 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn. said their organization does not object to Slavkin’s calling a forum in the Valley.

But director of education Cecelia Mansfield expressed concern that tension between Slavkin and Korenstein might foster an atmosphere inimical to “the cooperation that . . . is so important between board members when addressing” the issues before the Los Angeles school district, which is grappling with a $400-million budget deficit and the threat of a possible strike by teachers.