The School Board —two new members and three holdovers —may be finding out that Steve Gourley, brash and flamboyant as ever, takes some getting used to.
After one of his predicted — and feared — out-of-the-culture observations at his second School Board meeting last night, new member Mr. Gourley said all three veteran colleagues “looked at me as if I were from outer space.”
He was merely fulfilling his most anticipated campaign pledge — to rattle the bones of what Mr. Gourley believes to be a mordant, hidebound School Board culture that sometimes passively veers into irrelevancy.
With Mr. Gourley steadily shifting into higher gear, decorum at School District headquarters every other Tuesday night could be about to undergo a shellacking.
“Nobody was used to anyone raising his voice,” the former City Councilman said later.
“My attitude is, ‘Let’s get on to the real work of this organization. Let’s decide how are going to make a difference by speaking up at the right time.’”
Target Practice
In the course of the meeting, he uncorked several acerbic, glass-breaking riffs.
He whaled away at length on “the stupid governor,” on Indian gaming casinos, on ineffective education lobbyists, and on one of those voluminous documents from Sacramento that requires lockstep adherence and hours’ long discussion.
He is known for lambasting off-the-track correspondence that he regards as sometimes mindless, always distracting and perhaps unnecessary.
Mr. Gourley also pointedly chided a colleague for tardiness in delivering to him background information that he was promised months ago.
A Whiff of New Air
Senior members of the Board — Dr. Dana Russell, Saundra Davis and Jessica Beagles-Roos — are not used to this kind of feather-ruffling, although they are not strangers to fighting each other. Scott Zeidman, the other newcomer, alone seemed to relish the bursts.
Virulently opposed to the four Indian gaming casino propositions on Tuesday’s ballot that are supposed to bring fresh revenues to California schools, Mr. Gourley ripped the Indians “for pulling the wool over the governor’s eyes” and the governor for acquiescing.
Mr. Gourley’s criticism of Gov. Schwarzenegger was unsurprising. When he took office almost five years ago, Mr. Schwarzenegger made it a priority to fire Mr. Gourley as state director of the Dept. of Motor Vehicles.
Who Is at Fault?
At least verbally writhing in frustration over shrinking education funding streaming out of Sacramento, Mr. Gourley spread his bullseyes around. “If somebody as stupid as the governor gets the best of every school in the state,” he said, “we must be asking for it.”
Educators and their allies did not escape his wrath. He criticized the state teachers union for failing to get education-oriented bills passed by the Legislature. Noisy but ineffective, he concluded.
Protocol was his next target.
Too Much, Too Late
A central segment of last night’s School Board meeting was supposed to be devoted — with undeserved reverence and fealty, he sniffed — to a lengthy set of arcane, technical directions for creating a smoother-running School Board.
Not, however, in Mr. Gourley’s view.
“I will tell you what the whole message was from the state (School Board Assn.),” he said:
“Don’t rock the boat.
“Work as a team.
“In other words, don’t get anything done.
“Let me tell you. I am not going to be a sheep. I am not going to be fleeced by people in Sacramento, or by an organization that intends to make sheep out of all of us.”
A Sprinkle of Merit?
Mr. Gourley conceded that there may have been meritorious directions or suggestions within the document, but “mostly it was minutiae.”
He was sternly annoyed that the richly detailed paper was not made available to him until last Friday, too close to the meeting date to thoroughly absorb its meanings and nuances. “I don’t appreciate being given things on Friday that we are expected to adopt on Tuesday,” he said, forthrightly.
Mr. Gourley succeeded in getting the item dropped into postponement limbo.