D.A.: LAUSD BOARD VIOLATED OPEN-MEETING LAW BOARD SCOFFS AT WARNING, ORDERS BELMONT TO PROCEED.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

Los Angeles Unified School District board members violated the state open-meeting law when they voted behind closed doors Dec. 12 to seek bids to sell or complete the Belmont Learning Center project, District Attorney Steve Cooley's office said Friday.

Responding to a Daily News complaint, Cooley's office ordered the district to immediately cease all actions taken as a result of the vote, and to hold the meeting again in open session, with public input.

Board members, who had voted to abandon the $175 million scandal-plagued project a year ago, were warned they could face civil or criminal penalties if they don't comply.

But board President Genethia Hayes and Superintendent Roy Romer were unfazed by the district attorney's warning.

The district plans to ignore Cooley's order and move forward on the Belmont request for proposals because LAUSD general counsel Harold Kwalwasser disagrees with Cooley's opinion.

``We're continuing with the preparation of the (request for proposal) as it was outlined,'' said Stephanie Brady, spokeswoman for Romer.

Hayes, who supported Romer's plan despite opposing the completion of Belmont as a school, said she will follow Kwalwasser's advice.

``I think one of the mistakes that maybe boards in the past have made is to, in fact, not follow advice of counsel,'' Hayes said.

The board took the vote, she said, to indicate its support for Romer.

``We were wanting to make sure that people understood we were fully supportive of the superintendent,'' Hayes said. ``We, after all, did appoint this man. And he has, in fact, always felt there was a need for us to explore other possibilities.''

In a letter to Kwalwasser, Deputy District Attorney Susan Chasworth said the closed-door approval to reopen the Belmont issue was not properly posted as an agenda item and was not an issue on its face that justified secrecy.

``The public has a right of access to its local legislative bodies,'' Chasworth wrote. ``The Board of Education, by meeting in an unauthorized closed session and failing to provide notice of a critical, albeit controversial, subject matter thereof, has deprived the public of information to which it is lawfully entitled.''

The letter sent under Cooley's authority does not have the force of law but is the prelude to filing a lawsuit against the district and could lead to a criminal complaint, Chasworth said.

Intentionally violating the Brown Act - the state law which requires elected boards to conduct their business in public, with some exceptions - is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, she said.

The board voted 4-3 in closed session on Dec. 12 on Romer's plan to prepare a contract proposal with options for the private sector to buy the environmentally polluted property or finish building the high school.

The Daily News promptly filed a complaint with the District Attorney's Office, charging that the closed-session vote violated the Brown Act. A local labor union, Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local 11, later filed suit against the board on the same grounds.

Kwalwasser said in an interview that the decision belonged in closed session because it related to a lawsuit the district has filed against its former law firm, O'Melveny & Myers, and because it has to do with real estate negotiations - both grounds for exemption to the Brown Act. He added that Romer had the technical authority to prepare the proposal without the board's vote anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered whether the board had voted or not.

``The superintendent is entirely within his authority in unilaterally preparing and sending out these (requests for proposals),'' Kwalwasser said. ``So the board really is not in that loop as a matter of law.

``I firmly believe that we were in compliance, that this was a matter related to the pending litigation, in such a way that you could not have had a public discussion about it.''

Board member Julie Korenstein, however, disagreed.

The board, she noted, voted to kill the project in January 2000, and any actions to the contrary would require another board vote. She said she argued during the closed session that the issue should be discussed publicly but was outnumbered.

``I think there needed to be a public discussion on this,'' Korenstein said. ``Anything that is this controversial should certainly be discussed in the public so that people can speak to it.''

Board Vice President Valerie Fields said she had believed legal counsel's advice that the matter belonged in closed session.

``The issue of Belmont is so intertwined with the lawsuit, and I didn't think we had done anything illegal,'' Fields said. ``We had two lawyers present, and nobody said to stop the meeting, so I wasn't overly concerned we were doing anything that was not proper.''

Fields, who voted against the Belmont proposal, said Cooley's letter could open the door to changing the board's mind.

``My first reaction was, hooray, maybe we can change the outcome of the vote if we had to do it over again - which I doubt, but one never knows.''

Kwalwasser said the District Attorney's Office did not interview him or anyone else at the school district to get the reasoning behind the closed session or find out the details of what happened at the meeting.

He believes he can avoid a court fight by meeting with the D.A.'s staff and explaining his position.

Chasworth acknowledged that she didn't interview board members or Kwalwasser, but said she didn't need to in order to draw her conclusion. She said she reviewed the board's agenda and a written proposal from Romer as well as the complaint form filed by the Daily News.

If the District Attorney's Office decides to bring the school district to court, she added, a fuller investigation will be pursued.

She disagreed that the vote was related to ongoing litigation or real estate negotiations to the extent that it belonged in closed session.

David Koff, a senior research analyst with the union that filed the Brown Act lawsuit, was glad to hear of Cooley's letter, but said the suit will continue until the board holds a public meeting on the Belmont bid plan.

``Mr. Romer, the board and their attorneys arrogantly behave as if they're above the law, especially when it comes to Belmont,'' Koff said. ``It's great that the law has now come down on them.''