Have You Heard? No, Have You?

Even though the upper-six-grades Academy is little — 43 students last semester — communication is dreadful. I heard that the Principal, the chief education officer, was not even informed about Monday night’s meeting in Council Chambers. I don’t know the gentleman. But it is a cinch that unless he had executed a swan dive off the dais, his performance easily would have surpassed that of the attorney Chris Jones and the architect Richard Wilken. After dealing — or rather, not dealing — with a year’s worth of headaches from City Hall, one would have thought that when the Academy was summoned to its first public forum and its very existence was at stake, this would be a warning signal. A strong, precise, hard-hitting, fact-filled defense undeniably was needed. Wrong. To be kind, both Mr. Jones and Mr. Wilken were vague, imprecise, borderline inarticulate and passionately unmotivated. Communication, I would have hoped, is not what the two of them do for a living. I have heard more plausible explanations from the boy who is supposed to mow our lawn. Given the Academy’s documented history of foot-dragging, you would have thought that Mr. Wilken and Mr. Jones would be trying to impress the Redevelopment Agency with their fervor, their commitment, their dedication, their efficiency and their confidence in completing the required tasks. Wrong again. They sounded like 99-cent divorce rent-a-lawyers I have had occasion to hire in my checkered past. I have seen more passion spent at Von’s between two housewives battling over the last ripe grape. Even a ditzy Democrat would recognize this was an emergency circumstance calling for crystallized precision of language. When discussing important missing documentation, Mr. Wilken, striking a disarmingly casual stance, said, “I have been on vacation until the last week or two.” Suddenly, I sat up straight. I thought a bolt of lightning had ripped through me. Was he serious? The Academy was supposed to be emphasizing how industriously it was pursuing remedies. But along comes a hired gun who stifles a yawn and talks about his vacation. Obviously, the gentleman treated the situation as a joke. Instead of even trying to put up a respectable façade, Mr. Wilken airily announced he was on vacation “until the last week or two.” Week or two? He doesn’t know when he came back? Is he some unlettered minimum-wage worker? Now, dear reader, perhaps you will understand why even the Donald Duck of American mayors, Mayor Wrong of Los Angeles, is haughtily crossing the picket lines of the boob architects who belong to the Engineers and Architects Assn., which is on strike today. Since the Bozzi family’s collective livelihood was threatened, I had assumed they took the meeting soberly. Mr. Jones and Mr. Wilken damaged rather than helped the Academy’s ebbing cause.

Righting a Wrong the Wrong Way

Everyone in Council Chambers acknowledged that the non-profit private school was far in arrears on compliance measures. For a year, City Hall has been willing to forgive and forget — if only the Star Prep Academy people would make an itsy-bitsy effort to complete a few documents. Imagine a marble being placed one inch from the edge of a table. The city says, “Take your index finger and push the marble onto the floor.” For inexplicable reasons, you say no. Hence, an irrational stalemate.

The Academy went into Monday night’s meeting with an excellent chance of prevailing. Vice Mayor Alan Corlin was the swing vote on a 3-to-2 evening. He was leaning toward cease-and-desist, but he made it clear beforehand that he was persuadable in the other direction. If Mr. Jones and Mr. Wilken — the only voices who spoke for the Academy — had been interested enough to assemble a focused, fact-based defense and poured just a wee amount of themselves into their presentations, the Academy could be breathing normally this morning instead of gasping on life support.