4 L.A. School Board Members Take Oaths and Pledge Reforms

Four Los Angeles school board members took their oaths of office Thursday, pledging to reform a district they said is in crisis.

“I issue a warning to those individuals who, for their own selfish needs, hope to slow reform: For the self-serving, if you get in the way, we will run you over like a speed bump,” new board member Mike Lansing said after the ceremony.

Newcomers Caprice Young and Genethia Hayes and second-termer David Tokofsky were sworn in along with Lansing.

Running together with the backing of Mayor Richard Riordan, Hayes, Lansing and Young defeated three incumbents in a rancorous campaign that focused on widespread public discontent with the leadership of the 700,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District. Riordan backed Tokofsky as the fourth member of his reform slate.

In its first action, the new board unanimously elected Hayes as its president, as several members had predicted.

Hayes, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, lived up to her billing as a consensus-builder.

“I intend to bond with six other people,” Hayes told an outdoor audience of about 200 well-wishers and school district administrators during the swearing-in.

After accepting the presidency a few minutes later, Hayes made a not-very-veiled reference to the years of discordant debates and split votes that have led even board members to characterize their relationship as dysfunctional.

“If we cannot have civil discourse with one another, if we cannot respect one another’s opinions, then there is no way we can persuade the public we are the ones who ought to be in charge of their children’s futures,” Hayes said.

The consensus-building got off to a rocky start, though, when Hayes asked to delay several appointments, including chairman of the committee of the whole--essentially vice president--and committee assignments.

“It is my belief we need to spend time together as colleagues to make those decisions effectively,” she said.

Tokofsky cast a no vote without comment.

In its only other action Thursday, the board voted unanimously to hold a special meeting Tuesday to discuss environmental legislation now pending in Sacramento. The bills would create environmental safeguards at existing schools and those under construction.

Tokofsky had asked for the coming meeting to include a discussion about the Belmont Learning Complex, a $200-million downtown high school that is now threatened with abandonment because of environmental problems that were not taken into account when it was approved.

Supt. Ruben Zacarias said district staff would not be ready with specific options at that time but promised they would be available in several weeks.

District General Counsel Richard K. Mason said that he would brief the board in a closed session prior to that meeting on litigation relating to the project.

Belmont, which became a theme of the Riordan-backed campaigns this spring, came up only once in the inaugural speeches.

Most board members focused on revitalizing the district’s governing process.

Lansing, however, said Belmont illustrates the kind of hard choices that lie ahead. A vote for it, he said, could be perceived as indifferent to children’s safety, while a vote against could be called cavalier toward taxpayer money.

“Let’s make this perfectly clear,” Lansing said. “There need to be some tough decisions.”