(See pdf below)
Somehow, a one-person parade was gummed up at last night’s School Board meeting.
A slam dunk bounced awry.
The Board threatened to lose its way in a tiny empty room.
With President Karlo Silbiger traveling out of the country, the Board became bogged in a sea of gooey molasses when two of the four members confessed they had not done their homework, had not prepared for the meeting.
For two months, high-profile activists have been in a frenzy about fracking as a potentially harmful drilling method, particularly by PXP at the nearby Baldwin Hills Oil Field.
Demonstrations, hearings, an unbroken string of fears and complaints, enough news stories to keep a speedreader monopolized.
If much of the town was in a tizzy over fracking, two exceptions were Board members.
The centerpiece of the School Board agenda was, essentially, to rubber-stamp a resolution the City Council had passed a few days earlier – endorsing AB 972, which asks Gov. Brown to impose a moratorium on fracking until regulations are instituted.
But it devolved into something so meandering and twisted as to be nearly unrecognizable.
A meeting run tidily by Vice President Kathy Paspalis, with an uncomplicated agenda, playing out before a nearly invisible audience, began to unravel when Pat Siever made a confession:
She had not read “all of” bill, AB 972, at the heart of the brief resolution, she confessed.
Some Board colleagues appeared stunned.
Not Nancy Goldberg.
She admitted she, too, had not read the bill.
An intended rush job was ready to implode.
Since this was the final meeting of the summer – the next assembly is Tuesday, Sept. 11 – Ms. Paspalis previously had explained that it was urgent to take action on this night. The resolution needed to be on Gov. Brown’s desk by Aug. 31 if he was going to sign it.
Enhancing the unexpected melodrama was the strongly worded request read at the previous School Board meeting, Mr. Silbiger urgently imploring his colleagues to defer acting on the resolution until he got home.
Ms. Paspalis’s response: An even firmer no.
With those scenarios humming in the background, Dr. Suzanne DeBenedittis, a primary player in the anti-fracking campaign, specifically cited disagreeable portions of AB 972 and suggested the Board delay “until more thorough research has been done.” She said they should exercise “necessary caution.”
Neil Rubenstein questioned why the Board was “rushing” into the resolution.
An aide from the office of Assemblymember Betsy Butler (D-South Bay), author of 972, elevated the bill’s urgency by noting that it was due before its next legislative committee in less than two weeks.
The Board’s Turn
Ms. Siever led off the commentary by Board members, as she frequently does. After saying initially she had “not read all of the bill,” she said flatly several subsequent times she had not read any of the bill.
For emphasis, she added, “I don’t really know what’s in it.”
She also said:
“I don’t believe in getting on a bandwagon, unless I know all the pros and cons of the bandwagon.”
She added:
“We need to be more informed, to know more about, AB 972 (at the bottom of this story).”
Two Choices
Ms. Siever served up two options: Pass the resolution after stripping it of portions to which she objected “or delay it until our next meeting.”
She reminded her colleagues that postponing a vote would not be a bad idea because Mr. Silbiger, after all, had requested a delay.
Ms. Goldberg was next in line. “I am a little in the dark as Pat is,” she said before admitting that she, too, had not touched the bill.
It was up to Laura Chardiet, an ally of Ms. Paspalis, to walk in armed with a broom and sweep up the fast burgeoning mess.
“We are all against fracking,” Ms. Chardiet said, and a majority of heads nodded.
Melodrama was not surrendering, though.
Exasperated Ms.Paspalis, who had been leading the meeting with a purring sound, finally made a motion to pass the resolution.
Immediately, Ms. Siever objected, charging her leader with being out of order. She said the chair of the meeting could not make a motion.
Here Is Proof
“Yes I can, and I will show you where,” Ms. Paspalis snapped back.
Board Bylaw 9121(a) reads:
“The president shall have all the rights of any member of the Board, including the right to move, second, discuss, and vote on all questions before the Board.”
However, the motion to pass the original uncomplicated, uncontroversial resolution failed on a 2 to 2 vote, the objections coming from the two members who failed to prepare for the meeting.
Only when references to AB 972 were peeled away – at the behest of Ms. Siever – did a weakened version of the original resolution pass, two votes from members knowledgeable about the contents, two who were not.
Plainly fed up with Ms. Siever’s tactics and assertions, Ms. Paspalis said Ms. Siever, like other members, had been given two weeks’ notice on the resolution but had not done her homework.
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