Daily Breeze - By Ian Hanigan - November 12, 2004

The Centinela Valley Union High School District has filed a pair of lawsuits aimed at preventing one of its feeder districts from seceding as its own unified K-12 system -- and taking a large chunk of the area's tax base with it.

But Centinela Valley's suits aren't against the unification-minded Wiseburn School District, which serves the communities of Del Aire, Wiseburn and west Hawthorne. Instead, the legal salvos target the state Board of Education, which recently voted to put the question of secession on the March ballot, as well as other state and county agencies.

Attorneys for the Lawndale-based high school district say they are seeking a ruling that would either put a stop to the unification vote or, at least, expand it to include all of Hawthorne, Lawndale and Lennox.

John Peterson, a chief proponent of Wiseburn's split, believes Centinela officials are trying to "delay and discourage" the movement for all the wrong reasons.

"They are listening to attorneys who are only interested in billable hours," Peterson said Thursday.

A message left with the state Board of Education on Wednesday was not returned.

One of the lawsuits, filed Oct. 12 in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims the board improperly ruled that Wiseburn's reorganization would not pose any negative environmental impacts on surrounding neighborhoods, even though unification would likely bring about a new high school.

Named in that suit are the state board, the California Department of Education and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack, who would oversee the March election.

A second 52-page suit filed a week ago claims the state improperly authorized the agreement that would limit the March unification election to Wiseburn rather than the entire Centinela Valley district, which includes Lawndale, Hawthorne and Lennox.

Under the terms of that deal, Wiseburn agreed to keep paying its share of a $59 million facilities bond that Centinela passed in 2000, even though Wiseburn Unified School District wouldn't use any of Centinela's campuses.

Bonifacio Bonny Garcia, an attorney for CVUHSD, said that's not allowed under the state education code, as it would open the door for future legal challenges if Wiseburn residents ultimately decide they don't want to foot the bill for facilities they don't use.

Should that happen, Centinela's taxpayers would see their bond assessments jump 200 percent to about $75 per $100,000 of assessed valuation, said Garcia, who accused the state of overstepping its authority in cutting the deal.

"What we're saying is that, legally, they did something they didn't have a right to do," he said.

The same lawsuit also alleges that the state Board of Education was wrong in narrowing the scope of the election because the issue has sweeping implications for the Centinela Valley region.

While Wiseburn homes contribute just 3.5 percent of Centinela Valley's enrollment, the area accounts for nearly 50 percent of CVUHSD's tax base, according to the suit, because of several heavyweight corporate tenants including Boeing, Northrop, Lockheed-Martin and Xerox.

Wiseburn also accounts for 17 percent of "Centinela's dwindling white student enrollment," the lawsuit says.

In addition to state education officials and the county registrar-recorder, those named in the second suit include the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, county schools chief Darline Robles, the county tax collector and the county Committee on School District Organization, which is accused of not following the law in making its original recommendation.

Wiseburn Superintendent Don Brann, who is not named, said he expects Centinela to "fight to the finish," but was confident that the state will doggedly defend its unifications procedures in court.

"I'm disappointed by it," Brann said this week. "I'd like to see (Centinela Valley) spending their money on students and not on litigation."

Along with the Hawthorne, Lawndale and Lennox school systems, Wiseburn is one of four kindergarten-through-eighth-grade districts that feed into Centinela Valley, which administers three high schools, a continuation school and an adult school.

Proponents of unification, frustrated with the sagging test scores and crime associated with Centinela's campuses, have long pushed for the establishment of a high-performing secondary school under the Wiseburn flag.

After three years of petitions, committee rulings and reports, those proponents got their wish Sept. 9 when the state Board of Education voted 10-0 to grant permission for a special election to be held March 8. The board also decided that such an election should be limited to Wiseburn only, as long as Wiseburn's taxpayers agreed to continue paying their share of Centinela's $59 million school construction and modernization bond.

Peterson, the chief petitioner in the unification campaign, predicted in September that Centinela Valley would take legal action to halt the election.

"I just think that these are delay tactics," he said Thursday. "Hopefully the judge will realize that and allow the will of the people to vote."

In a show of solidarity, the Lennox and Hawthorne school systems have signed off as petitioning parties in the second suit.

Lennox Superintendent Bruce McDaniel said Wiseburn's departure could result in a heavier tax burden for the rest of Centinela's residents -- including those in Lennox -- should the high school district float another bond. That would effectively make it more difficult for the Lennox School District to pass its own facilities bond measure, McDaniel said.

Brann said he was not concerned about the stance taken by his fellow feeder districts.

"I don't see that it makes a lot of difference whether they support Centinela Valley's cause or they don't," he said. "To me, it's irrelevant."