Yorba Linda Charges Delay Tactics as School-Merger Spat Flares Anew

More verbal shots were fired Tuesday in a battle that has long engulfed three school districts in northern Orange County.

School officials in Yorba Linda accused those in Fullerton of trying to delay a long-proposed merger of the Placentia and Yorba Linda districts. Fullerton officials denied the accusation.

The charge arose after a lawyer for the Fullerton district on Monday night challenged how Yorba Linda and Placentia were proceeding with an environmental impact statement on the merger. The Yorba Linda and Placentia Unified school districts hope to merge into a single school system by September, 1989.

Clayton Parker, the lawyer for Fullerton Joint Union High School District, said he was only calling attention to how state law should be followed. But some Yorba Linda officials said Tuesday that they are exasperated at Fullerton’s unexpected move. They contended that Parker’s action is really aimed at delaying the merger.

The Fullerton high school district gets about 900 high school students a year from Yorba Linda. Fullerton has opposed Yorba Linda’s efforts to secede for more than 20 years, saying it would cause severe loss of state funds and the closure of at least one high school.

Yorba Linda residents contend that they want to become part of a district with a high school closer to them.

The Fullerton district, however, withdrew its opposition when a compromise state law was passed last fall allowing Fullerton to keep high school-age students who are from Yorba Linda, even if Yorba Linda and Placentia merge. That compromise law appeared to have ended the so-called civil war.

Bad Blood Resurfaces

But bad blood again surfaced after Fullerton on Monday night challenged how the merger’s environmental impact statement was being handled by Yorba Linda.

“I clearly believe it was a delaying action,” said Mary Ellen Blanton, Yorba Linda School District superintendent. “I see no reason why Fullerton is getting involved in Yorba Linda’s pie at this point. It is clearly a local issue,” she added.

Robert Martin, superintendent of the Fullerton district, denied the accusation. “We are not trying to halt the merger. But we want to make sure that the spirit, intent and letter of the law are complied with,” he said, referring to the legislation that allowed the merger.

One condition in that law is that the merger comply with environmental-quality laws. At a joint meeting of the Placentia and Yorba Linda school boards Monday, members approved a resolution declaring that a merger would cause no damage to the environment “because there would be no additional busing or any change to hurt the environment,” Yorba Linda trustee Karin Freeman said.

But Parker told the meeting that in his legal opinion, “compliance (with the law’s environmental requirement) has to be done by the state Board of Education,” not the Yorba Linda district.

Freeman and Blanton disagreed. They said they believed that Yorba Linda could and should be the agency declaring the merger’s environmental impact. Blanton added that if the state Board of Education later requires any additional information, it will be quickly provided.

Blanton said the proposed merger now goes to the Orange County Committee on School District Organization, an 11-member group composed of representatives of school boards throughout the county.

The committee makes its recommendation to the state Board of Education, Blanton said. If the state board approves, it will direct the county superintendent of schools to call an election.

The merger would require approval by a majority of those voting in the Yorba Linda and Placentia school districts. Blanton said the goal is to put the issue on the November ballot this year.

“I still think we can proceed on time,” she said Wednesday. “But I can see no reason for Fullerton’s becoming involved now.”

Freeman said she suspects that Fullerton officials still fear the loss of high school-age students. She referred to Martin’s statement last fall that the merger “would be the first bite out of the apple.” The second bite, he said, might be an effort by Yorba Linda to keep all the high school students in the newly merged system.

“I still have that concern,” Martin said Tuesday, “but I want to make it clear that we are not trying to delay the merger. We only want to make sure that the citizens are fully informed of what is going on and that the law is being complied with.”

Freeman said she still thinks that the merger will proceed smoothly “despite the 11th-hour action by Fullerton.” But, she said, “I’m worried because I know how Fullerton can operate and how successful it’s been in the past at halting us in Yorba Linda.”