Redistricting could paint PUSD into corner

PASADENA - Why are Latino activists, a Bay Area civil rights group and Mary Dee Romney all at the same meeting?

The Pasadena Unified School District board.

The push for geographic district boundaries as a mechanism to elect PUSD board members with the aim of putting more Latinos on the PUSD board, brought the parties together during the summer of 2010., according to district sources.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a San Francisco civil rights group notable for its lawsuits against school districts where Latinos are numerically significant but underrepresented on the school board, visited Pasadena that summer and issued a stern warning.

The Lawyers' committee said the PUSD was "vulnerable" to a lawsuit.

The League of United Latin American Citizens hosted the Pasadena meeting where the Lawyers' Committee. 

Romney attended the meeting, according to sources who attended the gathering. 

The dearth of Latino board members - presently Ramon Miramontes  is the lone Latino on the school board - had raised eyebrows among the right-fighting attorneys at the Lawyers' Committee, according to PUSD sources.

The warning from the Lawyers' Committee did not amount to an idle threat in the eyes of PUSD board members. 

The civil rights group successfully sued two school districts in Merced County and forced it to adopt geographic boundaries.

Who invited the Lawyers' Committee, is anyone's guess. But considering Miramontes' connection to LULAC, as both an organizer and regional membership director, it wouldn't seem unlikely that he made a phone call to the civil rights group.

However, Miramontes hedges on his support for redistricting. He claims the boundaries may not chalk up an extra seat for Latinos on the PUSD board. 

Pasadena Unified's Latino population is scattered about Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre, Miramontes said.

"The redistricting lines may not have the intended goal because you will have some voting districts that don't send many children to PUSD schools (Sierra Madre, East Pasadena, West Pasadena)," he said.

Enter Romney, the oft critic of the PUSD board especially board member Ed Honowitz and the school board race bridesmaid, who fell short in her 2001 and 2005 PUSD board bids.

District lines could create a path to the school board for Romney, and scare the you know what out of the Pasadena Educational Foundation.

Romney has been a consistent critic of the PEF and other non profits in the Crown City.

Imagine efforts to approve consulting contracts for former PEF members and school board allies.

Imagine the fights between Romney and Honowitz.

But even more concerning would be the election of school board members with loose or nonexistent ties to the PUSD and those who don't send their children to public schools.

Redistricting, according to many board members and PUSD supporters has unintended consequences.

The process should be interesting to watch.