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L.A. takeover update

Villaraigosa is making some concessions:

Bowing to pressure from neighboring cities, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has amended his takeover plan for Los Angeles area public schools to grant their mayors veto power on all decisions except the budget.

Villaraigosa originally hoped to get a bill before the Legislature that would grant the Los Angeles mayor 80 percent voting power on all major decisions, with 27 other cities in the Los Angeles Unified School District sharing the remaining 20 percent.

He recently amended his plan, however, to grant veto authority to the other mayors if a majority of them disapprove of his actions, including hiring or firing a superintendent. Villaraigosa would still retain 80 percent voting power on budget issues.

"We wanted to be responsive to the other mayors, and they were concerned about the proportional vote and that they would have no influence," said Thomas Saenz, counsel to the mayor. 

L.A. Times take here, which mentions this:

Five cities in the school district’s southeast corner — South Gate, Huntington Park, Bell, Cudahy and Maywood — have been working to form a joint-powers authority that would allow them to govern schools within their boundaries, an idea that Villaraigosa supports.

Under the terms of that proposed agreement, the cities would hire a local superintendent and take control of a portion of the district’s $6.8-billion budget.

It remains unclear whether the cities could legally form such a coalition or whether the move would require state legislation. Also uncertain is what role the five cities would play on Villaraigosa’s proposed council.

So could the LAUSD leviathan finally be broken down just a bit?  And would that necessarily be a bad thing?  It depends on who you ask: School Me, saying Villaraigosa has emboldened the opposition, lowered its ultra-calibrated Predict-O-Meter^TM.