School Chiefs Absent for Miss Clinton’s Class

When Hillary Rodham Clinton made a stop last week at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, the little auditorium was packed.

City Councilman Richard Alarcon sat in the front row, along with Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City). Several school principals showed up, even some educators from Cal State Northridge.

Noticeably absent, however, was the Los Angeles Unified School District. Where was Supt. Sid Thompson when the first lady spent a couple of hours at the charter school? Where was Board of Education President Mark Slavkin? Not even a public information officer was in sight.

Only school board member David Tokofsky showed up, with his aides and a Slavkin deputy in tow.

The others were holed up downtown in a closed-door meeting with district lawyers, discussing a court settlement on school spending.

Was that more important than greeting the first lady?

Or was it the fact that Clinton chose to make her appearance at Vaughn, the little school run by Yvonne Chan, the sometimes-controversial administrator who never hesitates to call the district--and the media--for help? Some district insiders grumbled that Chan’s school continues to attract “all the attention” while other schools toil in obscurity.

Said district spokesman Brad Sales: “I think there are mixed emotions about Yvonne, but I don’t think they came into play here.” The timing of the visit, he explained “was just inconvenient.”

Sorry, Hillary. Maybe next time.

Don’t Be My Guest

Berman has joined forces with a Republican colleague to try to block an effort to allow more temporary guest workers to take jobs in America’s agricultural industry. The most permanent immigrant of all, Berman argues, is a temporary worker.

“Just as we’re getting dead serious about regaining control of our borders, the stealth campaign by agribusiness for a major immigration loophole has surfaced,” Berman and Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) said in a letter to colleagues.

Farmers fear that if Congress proceeds with an aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration next month, they will have a tough time finding workers for their fields, which will result in dying crops and higher prices. Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) will attempt to push a guest worker measure through the House Agriculture Committee.

Such a program would allow farmers to temporarily bring immigrants into the country to work in the fields. A portion of their salaries, roughly 25%, would be held by the government and returned to the workers only if they returned to their homeland at the end of the season.

Still, Berman argues there are more than enough farm workers already in the country legally.

“Make no mistake,” he said, “guest workers are one-way immigrants.”

Body Counts

The population of Washington may drop by one if Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) decides to leave town upon his retirement later this year. But it’s a demographic shift that won’t be cheered by folks who like to call themselves “population activists.”

Beilenson, a leader on the issue, will be honored by Californians for Population Stabilization tonight for addressing the world population explosion by trying to increase access to birth control and limit illegal immigration.

“We’re population activists and we focus on fertility and immigration,” said spokesman Royce Fincher, who is organizing the dinner at a Culver City hotel. “We want contraceptives available and think we need a breather on the immigration front.”

Beilenson, active in family planning issues since his days in the California Assembly and Senate in the 1960s and ‘70s, is co-chairman of the Congressional Coalition on Population and Development. He headed the congressional delegation that traveled to Cairo in 1994 for an international conference on the issue.

For Beilenson, this is clearly the issue for which he wants to be remembered.

“There is no more urgent problem facing humanity,” he testified last year in seeking more international family planning dollars, “than the rapid rate of growth of the human population--which underlies virtually every developmental, environmental and national security problem facing the world today.”

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Lacey reported from Washington and Shuster from Los Angeles.