Departing Trustee Recalls Troubled Past

Angela Miller knew her time on the county Board of Education would be short.

“It was a temporary thing God led me into,” said Miller, who will be stepping down from her post at the end of the month after almost four years--with five months remaining in her term.

But no one can deny that Miller left her mark.

In 1995, she was one of three conservative Christian board members who voted to ban Planned Parenthood and AIDS Care speakers from sex-education workshops at county schools. Angry residents at the time packed board meetings waving signs, some that read, “Angela--you’re no sexologist!” and, “Angela, what do you know about sex?”

As it turns out, the primly dressed Christian says, she was once a “sex addict.”

“They made assumptions, like most people do,” Miller said. “That is an error in us human beings, because sometimes people do change.”

Until turning her life over to Christianity, her personal life was very different, she said.

“Premarital sex, homosexuality, bisexuality, whatever you want to call it,” she said. “Sexual immorality--I’m no stranger to any of it.”

Wearing a pageboy haircut and peering from purple cat-eye glasses, the 47-year-old Ventura resident said she believes her appearance contributed to her prudish reputation.

In an interview at her home last week, Miller tearfully recalled her tumultuous years experimenting with sex and drugs before becoming a Christian in 1985. Addicted to heroin, she had tried to commit suicide three times by taking an overdose of pills, she said.

She finally made the decision to change her life after she suffered hallucinations one day, grabbed a gun and cocked it, she said.

“Then I saw I was ready to shoot somebody,” Miller said. “I dropped the thing and I said, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t do this.’ ”

She was able to rebuild her life, she said, only with the help of her faith and her family.

Although she said she defied her parents and had sex at a young age, Miller believes she was not hypocritical in advocating that schoolchildren be encouraged to practice sexual abstinence. “The law says abstinence is supposed to be taught to the children, because that’s what’s best for everybody,” she said. “It’s very realistic. I used to be like that, too, and I believed then in my very deepest part of me that that was the way that God made me. But I changed.”

The move to censor Planned Parenthood and AIDS Care speakers was ultimately overruled by county schools Supt. Charles Weis, who has often sharply differed with the board’s conservative majority.

Weis said he considers Miller’s departure a possible turning point for the board, toward a more moderate majority.

“This is a great opportunity for the people of Ventura to get new representation,” Weis said.

Balance of Viewpoints

During the controversy over the sex education issue, he even considered stepping down from his elected post.

“It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears all for nothing,” Weis said. “It took a year to finally convince them the decision was beyond the scope of their authority.”

On June 26, the board will discuss whether to fill Miller’s position by appointing a new trustee or holding a special election. Or it may decide to keep the post open until the November election.

“The timing concerns me,” Weis said. “The election is five months away. I’d hate to see us spending too much time and money to replace her.”

He said he will recommend letting the voters choose a new trustee in November. Weis believes this time voters will choose a moderate candidate.

Even if trustees decide to appoint a candidate for the interim, Weis says he doubts they would pick a far-right conservative.

“My reelection sent a clear message to them,” said Weis, who garnered 70% of the vote in last Tuesday’s election. “People want moderation. They don’t want extremism.”

Board President Marty Bates said he will push to appoint a board member rather than spend the money on a special election or wait until November. In that case, board members would interview applicants.

“I’m sorry to see that she’s leaving the community,” Bates said of Miller, one of his allies on the board. “Angela Miller was truly and deeply concerned about the children.”

Although they often agreed on issues, Bates said Miller always brought her own opinions to the table.

“Angela Miller walks to a different drummer,” Bates said, adding that he could not predict the board’s future as a result of her departure.

“We don’t know who is going to replace her,” he said. “We may get her sister.”

At this point, he said, having a conservative board majority is not his priority.

“I do care that they bring to the board some knowledge that will give us another viewpoint,” Bates said. “I hope they don’t agree with everybody on everything. The only way to improve education is through a diversified board.”

Trustee Ron Matthews, another ally of Miller’s, said he will also vote to appoint a new board member.

Without Miller, the board will be split with two conservative trustees, Miller and Bates, and two moderates, Al Rosen and Janet Lindgren.

For this reason, Matthew said an appointed trustee would most likely be someone in between.

“I would not vote for someone extremely liberal,” he said. “And Al and Janet are not going to vote for someone extremely conservative.”

He said he will miss Miller’s contributions on the board.

“She was a fellow conservative, and I’m saddened about the fact that she’s leaving,” he said.

Both Rosen and Lindgren said they would push to keep the position empty until November. A 2-2 vote would mean no action and that the position would remain empty for now, officials said.

“I think it would be ridiculous to appoint someone,” Rosen said. “What’s the point? It’s so close. Between now and November there’s maybe three more meetings.”

Plans for Involvement

He also noted that an appointed trustee would become an incumbent during the coming election.

“It would give them an edge that’s not necessary,” said Rosen, who plans to run for a third term in November.

Although they often differed, he said Miller was “a fine person, basically.”

“She sat right next to me and it seemed we got along well,” he said. “Sometimes I wouldn’t agree with her, but sometimes she came to my defense.”

Lindgren said she will make her decision about a possible appointment after discussing the matter with other board members. But she tended to agree with Rosen. “Anybody in the public has the right to come forward at the same time in November,” she said. “Quite probably it would be better to go through the election process.”

She took Miller’s opposing votes in stride. “We come from different perspectives, that’s all. And it’s reflected in the way that we vote,” she said.

Miller, who represents Area 1--including parts of Ventura, Saticoy, El Rio, Nyeland Acres, the Channel Islands area and parts of Oxnard--will step down June 30. She and her family plan to move to Tullahoma, Tenn., where her husband, Herb, got a job as a software engineer and where Miller has relatives nearby.

Once she has arrived at her new home, Miller said, she plans to get involved in a national organization that advocates the separation of school and state.

But Miller, the stepmother of two young women, 24 and 18, said she will not run again for a seat on a school board.

“There’s a game that you have to play,” she said. “You’re never going to change the game.”