Poway Unified School District board hires special counsel at Sunday meeting

The Poway Unified School District held a special board meeting Sunday afternoon where they interviewed and approved of hiring special legal counsel for the board.

The special counsel will only be representing the board and not the school district itself.

Through the interviews, there were several questions regarding the applicant’s experience and knowledge of representing a school board in contract negotiations with a superintendent, and specifically, their experience in negotiating a disassociation of a superintendent from the district.

“All I can say is that (the special counsel) is for contract negotiations,” said Board President Kimberley Beatty.

The start of the meeting was delayed by several minutes by arguments between the board and Superintendent John Collins over whether the meeting would be held in the Community Room, where it was announced to be held and where it would be both audio and video recorded, or in another room without recording devices. It was eventually agreed upon by board majority that the meeting would be held in the Community Room.

The meeting was attended by only one member of the public, Steve McMillan, who spoke in public comment against the board holding the meeting, specifically it being held on a Sunday afternoon and not as a regular board meeting. “(This meeting) may pass legal muster, but it fails the smell test,” said McMillan.

“The purpose of our meeting was for the Board of Education to choose independent special counsel. This is a unique circumstance not faced by PUSD in quite some time and never by this particular Board. The Board felt very strongly the need for objective legal advice from someone completely independent of both the District and Superintendent. The Board has a fiduciary obligation to protect the resources of the District and ensure full compliance with the law, including the Brown Act. The timing of our meeting was driven by requests from the superintendent beginning prior to the Thanksgiving Break,” said Beatty in an email following the meeting.

The board held short interviews with four different lawyers who were applying for the position of personal counsel to the board, then held a brief discussion before near-unanimously voting to hire Maribel Medina (Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff voted for Medina but also another applicant, saying they were both excellent choices and she couldn’t decide).

Medina, who is not representing a law firm, has extensive experience working in education law and has previously worked in-house for school districts in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The board agreed that their next step, after Medina signs a contract, will be to meet with her to discuss their options moving forward.

“The current situation is that the board and the superintendent have agreed that their relationship is not working well and we need to discuss our options going forward in the best interests of the district,” said Collins.

Collins declined to say whether those options might include his leaving the district.

Collins said the question of whether the board should hire its own attorney was the subject of a Nov. 6 closed session, which extended for several hours. He said he told the board that his personal attorney would be unavailable for two-week period starting this past Monday. In all likelihood, he said, talks between the two lawyers will begin after the holidays.

The next regular meeting of the school board will be 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 15 at the district office, 15250 Avenue of Science in Carmel Mountain Ranch.