After voting to increase class sizes and cut teachers, three members of a Vista, California school board met with teachers union leaders at a private residence sparking complaints of open government violations. -DB
North County Times
March 6, 2009
by Stacy Brandt
VISTA —- A complaint filed Friday accuses three Vista Unified School District trustees of violating state open meetings laws, then voting to reverse an earlier board decision to increase class sizes.
The accusation came to light Thursday when Trustee Jim Gibson questioned whether three of his fellow board members —- Carol Herrera, Elizabeth Jaka and Angela Chunka —- met privately a week earlier with teachers union leaders to discuss the issue.
Gibson said the private meeting took place just after the Vista school board held its public meeting Feb. 26 and voted the first time on the class-size proposal. The board’s approval of the plan meant that as many as 120 teachers would be laid off.
The three trustees said they were at Herrera’s home after the meeting, but did not discuss the vote. Herrera said that she left the room when the other two arrived, realizing it would be a violation of state law to talk about district business.
“I knew that it was inappropriate, if only by perception and appearance,” she said Friday.
Silvia Peters, a community activist who frequents Vista Unified meetings, filed the complaint Friday with the district board. She threatened to take the matter to court if the board didn’t resolve it within 30 days.
“This kind of stuff has got to stop,” Peters said Friday. “What they’re doing is limiting public participation.”
Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said the get-together wouldn’t violate the state’s open meeting law, known as the Ralph M. Brown Act, unless the three trustees discussed district matters.
And even if they did violate the act, he said, they may have remedied the situation by discussing the class-size issue publicly at Thursday’s meeting.
“The only remedies that the Brown Act provides for are curing your violation by going back and … doing it legally,” he said. “If they did get together and then had a legal meeting …. there’s not much that can happen.”
Gibson said he not only believes the trio violated the Brown Act with an “illegal, secret meeting,” but also that their action highlights the inappropriate relationship between the three trustees and the district’s teachers union. Gibson has long been a critic of the union and the candidates it backs.
Two union leaders also came by the house that night, Herrera said.
Herrera apologized Thursday for what she said had the appearance of “impropriety.”
“It’s with a sense of entire embarrassment that I say to you that we were together,” she said at Thursday’s meeting. “You deserve better than that.”
Chunka was the only trustee to vote last week against laying off the teachers and increasing class sizes. She said she asked to bring the issue back before the board this week because she thought school officials could find other ways to trim money from the budget.
“It was my decision and my decision alone to have this brought back,” she said Thursday.