Dissent provided by Charter Review Advisory Committee Chair Rolf Strutzenberg, who voted against not placing an item on ballot to amend City Charter under Article XVI regarding the School District/Board:
The City Council should advance the issue to ballot of removing the School Board from the City Charter.
There are multiple issues to consider and a long history in this area including extensive ballot measures to amend the Charter provisions of Article XVI. Over the last 50 years Article XVI has been amended more times than any other Article of the City Charter.
In 1973 the City Charter was amended to change Board member terms from 3 years to 4 years.
In 1975 a charter amendment to change residency requirements for School Board candidates from 2 years to 30 days failed, and another amendment to define filling of vacancies in compliance with Education Code passed. (A later amendment did pass to change residency from 2 years to 30 days) In 1996 the Redondo Beach Unified School District filed a lawsuit against the City of Redondo Beach in an effort to block the City from proposing School Board Member term limits being added to the City Charter. The lawsuit failed and a 1997 Charter amendment (Proposition A) limiting School Board members to two full terms was approved by the voters of Redondo Beach with 4,240 (66.25%)in favor and 2,160 (33.75%) opposed. Clearly the voters of Redondo Beach did not agree with the opinion of the School Board/District, and the City Council was absolutely correct in their position that the question should go to the voters as a ballot measure.
In 2014 another Charter Amendment, Measure BE, to increase School Board term limits from 2 to 3 was placed on ballot. This ballot measure failed with 9,927 (64.26%) opposed and 5,521 (35.74%) in favor, the voters overwhelmingly did not want term limits increased for School Board members.
This is just a sampling of amendments to the City Charter under Article XVI. Proposed amendments that passed occurred in 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1993, 1995, 1997 and 2023. A complete index of proposed amendments that failed has not been compiled. The clear finding here is that the City of Redondo Beach has been burdened with extensive charter amendment work for Article XVI, all of which would be unnecessary with the simple removal of these sections from the Charter.
In 2017 the RBUSD School Board sought to have the School District/Board removed from the City Charter, however this effort appears to have lost support and did not move forward. School Board meeting minutes are absolute minimal, recording only agenda item titles and the vote on each item, so there are no further supporting records readily available on what transpired.
In 2022 the initial discussion and recommendation by the Charter Review Advisory Committee to City Council on this subject in November proposed a Charter amendment to have the School Board member elections transition from at-large to by trustee area (5 areas similar to City Council). From this initial proposal it was the unanimous recommendation of the City Council (which included 2 former School Board members) that the School Board/District simply be removed from the City Charter.
The Charter Committee then explored this option and found that it was indeed overwhelmingly unusual to even have parameters of a School District/Board in a city charter, especially to the extent which is currently present in Redondo Beach City Charter (only 11 cities in the entire state including Redondo).
This confirmed that the initial position of all 5 City Council members was correct, that there is no requirement or defined need to even have the School Board/District as part of a city charter.
Within this study by the committee it was also determined that when the School Board/District section of the City Charter is removed that RBUSD as an entity would not cease to exist, and that all delineations currently found in the City Charter are covered by various California Education codes. As such it was then the position of the committee that the School Board should be removed from the City Charter with the exception of keeping the basic language of Article XVI Section 16 stating jurisdiction over the public schools of Redondo Beach. A summary of those findings as of July 2023 are included in Appendix A.
The Charter Committee concurrently solicited the input of the RBUSD School Board. The summary of that input from the School Board was that no change be made to the City Charter within Article XVI, by 4-1 vote with the author of this paper as a School Board member dissenting.
In light of this input by the School Board the Charter Committee did not seek to further its prior conclusions (as summarized in Appendix A) to the City Council at the November 2023 report.
In the timeframe of October 2023 it was revealed that the School District had been making monthly fixed payments to its Board members that were in violation of both the City Charter and California Education Code, as such at the November meeting the City Council once again referred the subject of the School Board/District back to the committee for further consideration. This matter was discussed by the Charter Committee without conclusion. It was later indicated that these illegal fixed payments had since been stopped, however other compensation to School Board members continues while the City Charter expressly states that they shall serve “without compensation”.
As long as parameters of School Board members remain defined by the City Charter the city is at risk to litigation that would otherwise be solely the domain of the School District/Board. Specifically with regard to the transition from at large elections to by trustee area under the auspices of the California Voters Rights Act (CVRA). There is ongoing wrangling with the city of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Malibu School District as co-parties in a similar nature of the School District/Board being included in their city charter. The Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization recently denied the initial petition to transition the District from at large to by trustee area, based largely on the legality of the proposed map. However the battle appears far from over with indications that it may now move into the realm of CRVA litigation, and is further complicated by the splitting of the SMMSD into two separate school districts of Santa Monica and Malibu that is in process. The city has expended considerable resources and money in this fight, and they are in that fight because of School District/Board parameters in their charter. School Districts across the state have faced lawsuits or other actions, with considerable associated monetary costs, that force them to transition from at large elections to by trustee area voting for Board members. There are no known cases of any School District finally prevailing in any of these, however it is noted that one School District is thought to have sufficiently resisted initially that no legal actual action has yet been taken against them. Whether you agree or disagree with how this is being done seems irrelevant, the fact is that it continues.
In conclusion: The School District/Board has a distinct history of suing, challenging and opposing the City and City Council on Charter related issues, present situation included. It is time for this to end and remove the liability that this poses to the city, let the people vote to remove the relevant sections from the City Charter as originally unanimously proposed by City Council and subsequently supported by the Charter Committee as summarized in Appendix A.
Appendix A
As discussed 7-27-23 at Charter Review Advisory Committee City Charter Article XVI. Redondo Beach Unified School District Section 16.1 Board Members Update on committee discussions subsequent to November 2022 report to Council:
1. Recommendation discussed to remove School Board from charter:
Summary of findings of other City Charters:
Redondo Beach is once again an outlier in the question of whether a school district is properly a part of a city’s charter.
There are 121 Charter Cities in California. 97 have school districts that have contiguous borders with their cities. Only 29 of those have any mention of the school district Of those, 18 have charter sections which state that the school district is independent, running under the Education Code. (10 other cities used to have their school districts in their charters but removed them.)
This leaves only 11 remaining with school districts in their charter. They are:
Albany, Arcadia, Culver City, Inglewood, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Piedmont, Redondo Beach, San Francisco, San Rafael, Santa Monica.
The school district sections of each charter vary widely. General discussion of this committee has thus far been that as noted by City Council there is no need to prescribe School Board member requirements or elections in the charter This committee requested input from current RBUSD School Board, discussions thus far by the School Board have not resulted in any recommendations and are ongoing This committee has indicated that it may be appropriate to retain basic charter language of Sec.16. with a minor revision to update from kindergarten to transitional kindergarten.
Sec. 16. Jurisdiction over Public Schools.*
The Redondo Beach Unified School District shall have
jurisdiction over the public schools, transitional kindergarten through twelfth grade, within the said City of Redondo Beach, as the same now exists, or may hereafter be changed and exist, as provided by law.
If all other sections were removed from the charter such requirements would revert to California Education Code
Term limits would need to be reinstated by the School Board with a ballot measure Elections would remain at large unless otherwise superseded Elections would no longer be required to be part of city municipal elections, most likely be moved to November of even years as with the vast majority of other school boards While within the city charter any changes are under the control of City Council (or by ballot initiative) rather than the School District/Board itself