Burbank School Board Fills Hooven Vacancy

The scandal-racked Burbank school board Thursday chose longtime PTA activist Connie Lackey to replace formerresigned board President Joe Hooven, who had resigned.

“Her experience is just above and beyond anyone else’s as far as knowing the school district,” said Denise Lioy Wilcox, one of three board members who selected Lackey on the first ballot.

“She is exactly what we need, someone who can just jump right in and doesn’t need time to get up to speed,” said Wilcox.

Board members said they hoped that adding Lackey as a member would help erase the cloud cast by the Salle Dumm sex scandal and other allegations that have dogged the Burbank Unified School District.

They said they wanted someone who, in addition to being familiar with the district and its issues, was also well regarded in the community to fill out the remainder of Hooven’s four-year term, which expires in April 1997.

Lackey, 49, a nursing supervisor at St. Joseph Medical Center, is a lifelong Burbank resident with two children in the public schools. She said after the election that her top priorities include improving district morale by emphasizing positive achievements by students and schools.

“I’ve worked with a lot of people in this district for a long time, and I know that the press coverage doesn’t really represent what is going on in the schools,” Lackey said in an interview. “There’s all this good news going on in the schools and the press is focusing on scandals, so we need to change that.”

Lackey has never held elective office before, but said she considered running for the school board in the past. She said she will run for election to retain the seat next February--a factor that several board members said they appreciated.

The only board member not to vote for Lackey was its president, Mike McDonald, who chose Anthony De Felicis, executive pastor of Emmanuel Evangelical Church in Burbank.

Hooven stepped down Feb. 13, shortly after admitting he had been informed of an alleged sexual encounter between the president of a school fund-raising group and a teen football player, but did not report it to authorities. The fund-raising official, Dumm, faces a possible prison term if convicted on statutory rape charges. Prosecutors allege that she lured the boy to her bed with promises of funding for his team.

Hooven was not required by law to report the matter, but later admitted that “ethically and morally,” he should have.

Burbank City Councilman Bob Kramer, a vocal critic of Hooven in the wake of the scandal, said he agreed with the board’s choice of Lackey.

“She’s not a politician. She just wants to help the district and she has a lot of integrity, and I think that’s what they wanted,” said Kramer.

In all, 15 people applied to fill Hooven’s slot. Other candidates included David A. Hermans, a retired teacher with 22 years at Burroughs High; Henry “Bud” Hunt, a former two-term Burbank school board member and the only candidate with prior experience in public office, and Vincent Yanniello, a staff attorney for the State Compensation Insurance Fund.