No end yet for school board, council fight

CITY HALL — Accusations of political posturing over a proposed $8.7-million state funding cut to Glendale Unified School District ricocheted between City Council members Tuesday after Mayor Ara Najarian said he would not allow continuous comments from school board President Greg Krikorian to be “glossed over.”

“It’s my job to stand up when the city is attacked and get the facts out,” Najarian said before calling on most of the city’s chief executives to give an accounting of what services their respective departments provide to the school district free of charge.

This was a response to Krikorian’s March 11 appearance before the City Council in which he called for greater communication and collaboration and a 20% reduction in utility charges to the district to address the impending impacts of deep state funding cuts to the district’s budget next fiscal year.

Several on the council have said the three-minute address was an accusation that the city was not doing enough to protect the district from the financial turbulence, and pointed to dozens of public benefit programs, hundreds of thousands worth of grant funding, park facility use, public safety services and other expenditures as proof that the city has a long-established working relationship with the school district.

Krikorian has since said his request was misinterpreted, and that after repeated calls for private meetings went unanswered, he felt compelled to go down and address the council publicly.

“I truly apologize if I ruffled some people’s feathers,” Krikorian said on Wednesday.

“All I wanted to do is open the communication door, and that’s where we’re at.”

Councilman John Drayman and Najarian referred to a Community Commentary Krikorian wrote that published in the Glendale News-Press on Wednesday, but that had reached the two men via e-mail on Tuesday, as an attempt to back peddle from his original accusatory tone, writing that it was “in the spirit of collaboration that I stood before the council” to request help.

Neither Drayman nor Najarian accepted the explanation.

“Let’s pick up the phone and handle this professionally through the proper channels, not the media,” Drayman said.

Najarian took it a step further, vowing “no press release can gloss over the continuous comments against the City Council . . . and then make it disappear.”