L.A. SCHOOL OFFICIALS TO MEET WITH MAYORS OF CITIES IN DISTRICT.

Byline: NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN Staff Writer

Los Angeles Unified School District leaders have quietly been planning a meeting with the mayors of cities served by the district, while Los Angeles' mayor steps up his push to take over public schools.

Superintendent Roy Romer and school board President Marlene Canter have sent invitations to 16 mayors from cities including Hawthorne, Inglewood and San Fernando for the May 18 meeting at a restaurant in Gardena.

District officials said they hope it will be the first of many.

The meeting, which is not open to the public, will also include city council members from those cities. School board members David Tokofsky and Mike Lansing are also planning to attend, officials said.

Villaraigosa has not received an invitation to the meeting, said a spokesman for the mayor, but officials in Canter's office insist he has been invited.

Romer could not be reached for comment, but his staff insisted the meeting has been in the works for months and the mayor's proposed takeover of the district did not prompt it. The purpose of the meeting is to brief the mayors on what the district is working on - including an independent audit to review the district's financial operation and administrative staffing, said Lucy Okumu, director of external affairs for LAUSD.

"They want to talk about when the mayors met with Villaraigosa and they didn't really agree they wanted any kind of mayoral takeover, but did want an audit of the school district," Okumu said. "We want to show them some of the audits that have been done. And the superintendent search is another big topic they want to talk about."

In March, Villaraigosa held a closed-door meeting with some of the mayors of the 27 cities that send children to LAUSD schools at which` he won support for his basic call for an independent financial and performance audit of the school system.

But city leaders stopped short of endorsing his bid to take over the district.

Melissa Milios, spokeswoman for Canter, said another topic of discussion will be the search for a new superintendent to replace Romer before his intended fall departure.

"This is the beginning of our community outreach phase for the superintendent search, and the opinion of the elected leaders in all of these cities is very important to us," she said.

Carson Mayor Jim Dear acknowledged that this is the first meeting of its kind to which he's been invited, and he believes it's directly tied to the mayor's push to take over LAUSD.

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com

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