School Board Veteran Poised to Take Reins : Newport-Mesa: Fellow members look favorably on Rod MacMillian, but many in the community want someone less identified with the district’s past.

He has business cards left over from the last time he served, and it looks as if school board veteran Roderick H. MacMillian is poised to be chosen president of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

MacMillian, a 65-year-old Costa Mesa resident, is the most experienced person on the seven-member panel in terms of age and length of service. He has pledged himself to openness and increased communication with the community.

But while he is favored by his fellow board members, some parents and teachers strongly oppose having MacMillian, who serves as vice president, succeed to the presidency.

Elected to the Costa Mesa school board in 1965, he was a founding member in 1966 of the combined Newport-Mesa district and is seen as the ultimate symbol of the embattled board’s old guard.

Because of that, some community members are critical of MacMillian’s ability to foster change. They argue that it would be better if one of the recently elected members took over as president, to restore the public faith that was lost along with more than $3.5 million embezzled by the district’s top financial officer.

Their first choice would be Edward H. Decker, who has called for Supt. John W. Nicoll’s resignation and for more openness on the school board.

But, says MacMillian, just because “I’ve been here 28 years, doesn’t mean I’m locked into the past.”

“I’m ready to look to the future,” said MacMillian, who has served as president three times before, most recently in 1989. “I’m very willing to listen to the community--I think that’s one reason I’ve been here so long.”

The board is scheduled to make its selection on Jan. 12.

In most years, leading the board is a largely ceremonial position that is typically rotated among board members according to seniority and geography. The board president runs meetings, signs official papers and acts as district spokesperson.

MacMillian, who was vice president in 1992, was not tapped for the top job in 1993 because retiring Board President Forrest K. Werner is also from Costa Mesa and board members wanted the post to move across the bay into Newport Beach. A second reason was that board members expected to begin looking for a new superintendent in 1993, and wanted MacMillian to be free of other duties so he could lead that effort.

But Jim de Boom, who was unanimously selected as president Dec. 8, stepped down only a week later because residents had raised concerns about financial management problems that plagued his leadership of the YMCA in the 1980s.

Upon De Boom’s surprise resignation last Tuesday, MacMillian, who had been named vice president again for 1993, stepped up to the president’s chair temporarily.

In the last week, MacMillian has spoken to each board member at length and has helped quell criticism of the board by announcing that beginning in January the board will hear public comments at the start of each regular meeting.

“Rod will provide us with some steady, sound leadership in the coming year,” said Martha Fluor, who was elected to the board in 1991. “Rod has listened (to other board members), and the community needs to see that that’s going to occur. There will be changes, and this is one with him at the helm.”

Werner, who just finished a year as president, said MacMillian would be a “stabilizing force” in the wake of the embezzlement scandal.

“Rod doesn’t lose his temper, he doesn’t come off the wall. He’s a good communicator with his fellow board members, he’s pretty good at thinking things through,” he said.

A 60-year resident of the Newport-Mesa district, MacMillian started the Harbor Area baseball program and was athletic director of the local Boys Club. He and his wife own Cafe Prego, a family restaurant on Santa Catalina Island, but he is now retired.

MacMillian’s six children all went to local public schools.

Even Decker, who along with Fluor is being touted by some community members as the kind of president who would represent change on the board, supports MacMillian.

“I have a lot of confidence in Rod that he can bring to the board the stabilizing influence that we need,” said Decker, who was elected for the first time in 1991. “He’s our most experienced member, and he has consistently shown to me that he has a strong desire to place the interests of the school district ahead of the interest of any person or any issue.”

Nevertheless, parents and teachers have criticized all the long-term board members, and are rallying behind the fresh faces of Decker and Fluor.

Even the local newspaper last week called on Decker to be president. For his part, Decker said he would take the job if his colleagues selected him.

“It’s high time for change and to my mind Ed Decker would represent that change,” said Karen Evarts, a Newport Beach mother of three who ran for the school board in 1989. Decker “represents a willingness to listen to the public and to the teachers,” Evarts said.

Greg Wohl, the leader of an informal coalition of parents that has formed in response to the embezzlement scandal, also called for Decker or Fluor to take the leadership role.

“Most of the remaining people have been there for so long, it’s difficult to see how they could have any vision of moving forward,” Wohl said. “They’re also lodged in their old way of thinking and their old philosophy, which clearly don’t work.”

But several board members, in interviews Friday, said Decker is too new on the panel to stand at its helm. Some have suggested that he be vice president and that he take charge of a national search for a new superintendent if Nicoll, who is recovering from heart surgery, decides to retire or the board does not renew his contract.

For many of the hundreds of people who have stormed recent school board meetings demanding the ouster of top administrators and massive change in the educational policies of the district, the selection of MacMillian as president would be a slap in the face. He is widely seen as Nicoll’s closest ally and is regarded as an architect of the board’s current policies.

“I would like to see one of the board members who has expressed a mind-set that promises a more open attitude,” said Maya Decker (no relation to Ed Decker), president of the Newport-Mesa Federation of Teachers. MacMillian “is the most senior member on the board,” she said, “and he might have the most difficulty among them in trying to approach the same job from a different perspective.”