Laguna Beach school district attorney says he would recuse himself if board member sues

Amid allegations that his advice prompted a school board member to threaten legal action against the Laguna Beach Unified School District, a longtime school district attorney said he would recuse himself if the trustee makes good on her threat to sue.

Supporters of trustee Dee Perry, who earlier this month announced her intention to sue the board over its treatment of her, blame attorney Mark Bresee for giving the school board what they call bad advice. Bresee, however, says his counsel was sound.

In June, Bresee recommended the board form a subcommittee on confidential matters that includes all board members except Perry.

Bresee — and the four board members who approved the subcommittee — said Perry could not be trusted with confidential information after she shared an attorney-client privileged email.

The move prompted an outcry from Perry supporters, who protested at school board meetings and sent letters to the editor in local newspapers.

Bresee’s suggestion also prompted Perry earlier this month to seek a restraining order blocking the board’s decision and announce her intention to sue the board for at least $25,000 in damages. Perry is also asking that the board reverse its December decision to pass her over for president.

The lawsuit has not been filed. The board has yet to publicly respond to Perry’s notice, though four of its members met with Bresee in closed session Tuesday to discuss it.

Perry’s lawyer, Kathleen Loyer, said she and her client have not made a final decision whether Bresee would be listed as a defendant because of his role in advising the school board.

“If a lawsuit is filed against the district by Ms. Perry, neither I nor my firm will represent the district, regardless of whether I’m named as a defendant,” Bresee said Friday.

The ongoing Laguna Beach scenario mirrors a 2010 situation in San Diego, where Bresee said he recommended the five-member school board exclude one of its members from a meeting, also because of a confidentiality breach.

“I think I had an ethical responsibility to do what I did in both circumstances, and I would do it again,” Bresee said.

Bresee said he recommended excluding San Diego Unified school board member John de Beck from a closed-door meeting about collective bargaining because of multiple confidentiality breaches.

“In this specific circumstance, I felt … I needed to get the feedback from the board without him in the room,” Bresee said.

The Voice of San Diego reported at the time that Bresee had excluded de Beck because of a conflict of interest involving his role on a health trust board; Bresee said those reports were incorrect.

In October 2010, a few weeks after the meeting took place, Bresee resigned from the school district to take a job with a law firm, where he still works. His firm has a contract to represent Laguna Unified.

De Beck, a 20-year board member in San Diego, lost his re-election in November 2010. Reached at his home on Thursday, de Beck, 89, said he thought the action to exclude him was illegal, though he never took Bresee to court.

“If I had challenged him, he probably would have lost,” de Beck said. “I’m pretty certain of it, but I just didn’t feel like hiring my own attorneys, going through all that garbage when it was already a 3-2 vote anyway.”

Like Perry, de Beck was known as an outspoken member of the district board who often voted in the minority.

At the heart of the scenarios in Laguna Beach and in San Diego is a question of the soundness of Bresee’s legal advice to exclude a board member.

“It’s not super common, but it’s not unusual or unprecedented,” Bresee said.

He cited the Ocean View School District’s 2008 decision to form a “litigation committee” to discuss legal issues involving a board member, John Briscoe.

Loyer said allowing the board to exclude Perry could result in a dangerous precedent.

“Whether it’s one meeting or completely excluded from a subcommittee like Dee is, there still fails to be any due process within the context of these boards,” she said.

Laguna Beach School Board president Jan Vickers declined to comment on Bresee’s history in San Diego.

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