Shootout at L.A. Corral

In some governmental meetings, civility is checked at the door Coherence and civility are parts of good governance. That lesson needs to be learned by some members of the Los Angeles school board.

What follows is verbatim from a recent school board discussion over whether school police should be armed with shotguns.

Barbara Boudreaux: . . . I know guns. I know how deadly guns can be. I do not have guns around my children, my grandchildren. My husband when he found out I could shoot over 45 years ago . . . he decided no guns in the house for Barbara Boudreaux because he figured I would not miss . . .

Valerie Fields: Ms. Boudreaux, I’m sure you didn’t mean to say that you had a shotgun wedding. I know that’s not true.

Boudreaux: No, not a shotgun wedding. No, in our family we wait at least not nine months but more than nine months before we got pregnant, but I know how to use a shotgun.

Fields: May I start my time over? May I start my time? . . . Ms. Castro’s dream could turn into a nightmare, if we have kids locked down in an auditorium and there’s a shotgun brought onto campus because there’s an incident and one kid’s been in the bathroom and runs.

Victoria Castro: My experience has been the opposite.

Fields: Excuse me! Excuse me. . . .

Castro: Well, since you made reference to me. . .

Fields: Excuse me! Excuse me. . . .

Julie Korenstein, president of the board: Let her finish.

Fields: Excuse me for talking. . .

Castro: My dream . . . (unintelligible as board members talked over each other) turned into misery. . . .

Boudreaux: Don’t use your time to attack other board members, just. . . .

Fields: I’m not. I’m asking a question. I did not interrupt you, and I don’t expect to be interrupted. . . .

Castro: Well, I didn’t make reference to you either.

Korenstein: Let her finish.

Fields: May I have my time extended?. . .

Castro: My experiences are obviously very different from yours.

Korenstein: Go on. Go on. Go on.

Fields: Ms. Castro, excuse me for talking while you’re interrupting.

Korenstein: Go on. Go on. You have a minute left, so please go ahead.

Fields: Your dream could turn into a nightmare, if a child were killed by a shotgun. . .

Castro: And I’ve been there when a child’s been killed.

Fields: Excuse me! This is my time.

Korenstein: Go ahead, Valerie.

Castro: Well excuse me, if you continue to make me be used as a reference. . .

Korenstein: All right.

Castro: I want to give you clarity.

Fields: Why don’t you give it to me on your time?

Castro: I don’t understand what your beliefs are of my experiences.

Fields: Why don’t you give it to me on your time?

Castro: But I have been there when a student has been shot.

Korenstein: All right.

Castro: And a student has been killed. . .

Korenstein: Vicki. . .

Castro: So I don’t live in La-La Land.

Korenstein: Vicki, let me provide you another time, another round to respond.

Fields: Yes. That seems to me the polite way to do business.

David Tokofsky: If necessary, could the chair use the gavel?

Fields: I can imagine a situation where the kids are all locked down, they are in the auditorium except for one kid who is in the bathroom. . .

Korenstein: I need a shotgun, that’s what I need.

Fields: . . . Who runs out just as a shotgun is fired and the broadcast can hit that kid. It’s just as possible. I don’t think any of us would want to experience that because it would be our fault because we allowed the shotguns to be deployed. That would give me nightmares, and I don’t think I could ever overcome that. Today, there was a march to restore the dream, Ms. Boudreaux. . .

Boudreaux: Yes, I walked it, but you didn’t.

Fields: Excuse me, please.

Korenstein: Let her finish, please. You only have a few seconds left.

Fields: I would like to have marched in that, too. But Martin Luther King, whose dream it was, was a man of nonviolence, and certainly did not talk about rearming or arming people. He was a pacifist. That’s all I have to say.

Only it wasn’t. But enough of this bizarre snippet of an all too typical, several-hours-long school board meeting. Children: Don’t take a lesson in logic or in manners from the school board. Voters: Do find a lesson in these rantings that pass for public discussion and decide whether exchanges like this have anything to do with educating the children of Los Angeles.