Groups Press District to Rescind Zacarias Move

The Latino Legislative Caucus, the Black Legislative Caucus and key Latino civil rights organizations demanded Tuesday that the Los Angeles school board rescind what the group called an “illegal” order stripping Supt. Ruben Zacarias of effective authority over the district’s staff.

In response, school board President Genethia Hayes said the board would hold a public meeting Oct. 28 to reconsider last week’s appointment of Howard Miller as the district’s chief executive officer. But Hayes and two other board members said there was little chance the board would change its mind.

“We’re going to do this again next Thursday,” Hayes said, referring to Miller’s appointment.

Next time, “people will be able to make public comment,” she said. “After all, this is a democracy.”

But, she said, “I don’t anticipate anything will change.” Board members Valerie Fields and Caprice Young agreed. “I think the results at the next open meeting will be exactly as they were the last time,” Fields said.

“Howard Miller is here to stay as CEO. We don’t need a public hearing on a personnel appointment. We will hear the people. But I don’t think it will change anyone’s mind.”

The opponents of the board’s decision cast the issue in dramatic terms.

Antonio Gonzalez, speaking for an ad hoc group of Latino leaders that included the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), pointed an accusing finger at Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, declaring that the mayor had orchestrated Zacarias’ effective loss of power.

“We believe that the [Los Angeles school board] majority, orchestrated by the mayor and other city elites, are approaching a serious breach with the Latino community,” said Gonzalez, who is president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project civil rights organization.

Gonzalez’s group included state Sens. Richard Polanco, Martha Escutia and Richard Alarcon, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and MALDEF, which has threatened suit to overturn the board’s decision to strip Zacarias of his authority.

On Monday, Hayes met with members of the group and offered what participants in the meeting characterized as an apology. “I said I was very sorry about the way the process was conducted,” she said. But “there was a sense of urgency about it.”

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), meanwhile, has opted for the middle road, a tack that would benefit his recently announced mayoralty bid. Throughout the week, he has served as a mediator among the superintendent, board members and concerned community leaders and he was instrumental in persuading the board to reconsider Miller’s appointment.

“The truth is, this is not an issue of race,” Villaraigosa said Tuesday night. “We need calmer voices now. We do not need to throw oil on the fire.”

Though he does not necessarily support Miller’s appointment, Villaraigosa said, what’s important is that a dialogue continue.

“Finger-pointing is not productive,” he said. “There are a lot of gray areas here. We have to acknowledge that what’s in the best interest of the kids is paramount.”

Coalition May Be Forming

The impact of the new developments remained unclear. With school board members apparently still committed to Miller’s appointment, board members may be hoping that Hayes’ apology and the decision to hold a meeting and permit public comment could diffuse anger in the Latino community.

But the exchange of public statements--and the support that Latino leaders have received from some black political figures--indicates that a potent opposition coalition could be forming. Supporters of Zacarias expect about 800 people to attend a rally scheduled for Friday at district headquarters.

Gonzalez and other members of his group made their comments Tuesday in interviews after a meeting with Times Publisher Kathryn Downing and Times editors at which the group protested Times editorials that called on Zacarias to step down. The group also criticized two political cartoons that have appeared in the paper.

In response, Janet Clayton, editor of the editorial pages for The Times, said that cartoons and written commentary published by The Times “represent the views of the individuals” who are the authors. “They do not represent the official views of the paper, the editorials do,” Clayton said.

“That said, to those who were offended by the cartoon, we do apologize,” she said, referring to a drawing that appeared in Tuesday’s paper.

The illustration was drawn by Times cartoonist Michael Ramirez. It depicted a half-naked Polanco in tribal Meso-American dress, about to slaughter a child on the slab of racial politics. An earlier Ramirez cartoon, appearing last Friday, depicted Zacarias as a lifeguard who had fallen asleep while children were in danger.

Tuesday’s cartoon was meant as a satire on Polanco’s role in the controversy, Clayton said, adding that the drawing “was not meant to be taken literally.”

But Gonzalez said the drawing “pours gas over the fire” of racial resentment already burning in the Latino community over what is seen as a coup to oust the popular Zacarias.

CEO Choice Criticized

Gonzalez described Miller, a lawyer who served as school board president in the late 1970s before being ousted for his support of school integration, as “an unqualified shadow superintendent.”

The school board effectively replaced Zacarias last week with Miller “without notice, without proper consultation,” he said.

On behalf of the group, Gonzalez demanded that the board majority evaluate Zacarias’ performance with “public input [and] due process.”

Riordan led fund-raising efforts for the campaigns that resulted in the elections of three of the four members of the board majority that moved against Zacarias. But Riordan has said that he played no role in the board’s decision at a closed-door meeting to effectively replace the superintendent without public comment.

Sources close to the mayor said he welcomed the move against Zacarias--a sentiment that he indirectly echoed in a later interview, declaring, “My impression is that Howard Miller is extremely able.”

Gonzalez characterized the move against Zacarias as “elitist” and “arrogantly paternalistic” and said “it won’t work.”

Concerning such sentiments among the Latino officials, Hayes said: “We have no intention for this to be a personal affront to the Latino community. I’m positive we took a good step to help the superintendent do his job,” referring to having Miller report to Zacarias as CEO.

“We’ve taken some bold and decisive action because these children have been suffering and limping along for 30 years now,” Hayes said. “Direct and decisive action needed to be taken and we took it. Now, however, people are asking us for an open process.”

Zacarias said he warned the board of potential outrage among Latinos when Hayes and others first aired the idea of creating the CEO spot for Miller, which does not yet officially exist on the district’s budget.

“I said: ‘Let’s look at the political, legal, and educational implications of what you’re proposing so that, if you decide to go ahead with the plan it will be accepted by all parties,’ ” Zacarias said.

“I said: ‘If we don’t do this right, there’s going to be a backlash.’ Unfortunately, no one listened to me.”

Thomas Saenz, MALDEF’s regional counsel, said his organization is prepared to file a lawsuit alleging that the action against Zacarias was taken in closed session, in violation of the California public meetings law, if the school board does not follow through in reconsidering Miller’s appointment.

Escutia said the action represented “a disconnect between the school board” and parents of schoolchildren in the district--70% of whom, like Zacarias, are Latino.

“That disconnect astounds me,” she said, “because we’re not talking about people who are naive.”

Alarcon said the school board had violated public trust. “This is not just an issue for Latinos,” he said.

He said he has received calls of support from Jewish and African American community leaders, whom he would not identify, seeking to distance themselves from the school board’s action.

The list of political figures seeking to distance themselves from the school board includes City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district overlaps the school board district represented by Hayes.

The school board’s “declaration of war” on Zacarias “is not the answer” to the district’s problems, Ridley-Thomas said. “This is an unbelievably unfortunate set of circumstances.”

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Times staff writers Doug Smith, Louis Sahagun and Jim Newton contributed to this story.