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SAN FERNANDO VALLEY : Breakup Proponent Criticizes Board

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Two advocates for the movement to withdraw the San Fernando Valley from the Los Angeles Unified School District blasted the Board of Education on Tuesday for voting to oppose a breakup of the nation’s second-largest school system.

Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) criticized the school board for condemning the bill she wrote to break up the district. Boland said the condemnation did not give her a chance to support her case, and she disputed charges that she was fueling rancor and divisiveness among education leaders.

She has introduced legislation to establish a commission to create at least seven districts to replace the LAUSD. It would be charged with submitting a plan by July 1, 1994, which would be submitted to voters that November.

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In a scathing letter, Robert L. Scott, president of the Valley’s United Chambers of Commerce, accused the board of “tyrannical, deceptive and lopsided tactics” when it approved a motion to fight the breakup effort Monday. “Your failure to apprise the public in advance deprived supporters of the breakup of the opportunity to be represented in your decision-making process,” he wrote. “It is this very self-indulgent anti-democratic conduct that makes your constituents anxious to see you done away with as a governing body.”

Scott and other supporters of splitting the district complained that the board stacked the list of public speakers with detractors of the breakup drive.

The board passed the motion on a 5-2 vote. Members Julie Korenstein and Roberta Weintraub, who support a breakup, opposed the motion.

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