School Breakup Group in Valley Allowed to Gather Voter Signatures

After a delay of several months, the group trying to separate the San Fernando Valley from the Los Angeles Unified School District obtained county-level approval Thursday to begin gathering voter signatures.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education, which had blocked the breakup attempt by demanding costly engineering maps, acknowledged that the requirement was unnecessary by handing an 11-page petition to breakup organizers.

However, leaders of Finally Restoring Excellence to Education decided Thursday against immediately dispersing the petition, so they can confer with county education officials on how to package the complicated document when gathering signatures.

“This was our first view of it,” said the group’s co-chairwoman, Stephanie Carter, who picked up the document. “All of us were surprised it was so long.”

Carter said the document contained maps and boundary descriptions of the two districts the group proposes as well as its lengthy rationale for the breakup.

Carter said the group hopes to reduce its duplication costs as well as make the document more accessible to voters by combining some portions on single pages and possibly making two-sided copies.

“We have a couple or three questions we want totally answered,” Carter said. “We’re looking for ways to shorten it, fine-tuning.”

Carter said she expects no new obstacles and hopes to have a campaign kickoff Nov. 1.

Plans to qualify the proposal for the June 1998 ballot were dashed when the group declined to submit legal descriptions, which have been routinely required in school district reorganizations for 20 years.

After receiving an opinion from Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren last week that the law does not hold petitioners responsible for legal descriptions, the office of education dropped the requirement.