The Los Alamitos Unified School District Board of Education’s Jan. 25 meeting was delayed for around 40 minutes after one attendee refused to comply with the California Department of Public Health’s current indoor mask requirement, which is set to expire on Feb. 15.
The man, Ian Jameson, an activist from Los Angeles, refused to put on a mask and said he was engaging in an act of “civil disobedience.” Jameson said he did not have any children in the school district but that it was his intention to shut down the meeting to protest California’s current Covid-19 safety protocols which he said were unlawful.
There were around 20 people in the audience of the meeting and most were wearing face coverings.
After Jameson refused several times to comply or offer a reason for an exemption, the board took two recesses. Board President Diana Hill eventually announced that the public would have to clear the meeting room because of Jameson’s refusal to abide by the rules.
“We had hoped that this meeting would be conducted in a manner that allowed the public to participate and allowed the board to conduct necessary business,” Hill said. “However, because of willful defiance … by attendees… we believe the orderly conduct of this meeting has been rendered infeasible,” she added.
The meeting was moved into the board’s conference room where essential district administrators were allowed along with two members of the press. Audio of the meeting was live streamed on YouTube. The five people who filled out a public comment card were able to address the board in-person in the conference room.
According to Los Alamitos USD Superintendent Dr. Andrew Pulver, the Los Alamitos Police Department was called only to make them aware of the situation. “We didn’t want to have a confrontation,” Pulver said in a phone interview a few days after the meeting. “This wasn’t a safety situation. There was no sense of giving him the attention that he wanted,” he added.
Officers did end up coming to the district headquarters, but everyone left the building without incident, according to Pulver.
Here’s what else happened at the meeting;
- Deputy Superintendent Ondrea Reed gave an overview of the Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) program which will be offered district wide next school year. Enrollment for UTK and kindergarten for the 2022-23 school year closes on Feb. 4 for district residents.
- Board members heard a presentation on potential changes to the fees the district charges outside groups to use its facilities including sports fields and indoor venues.
- Pulver shared that the district’s fifth grade students are attending Outdoor Science School at the Pali Institute near Lake Arrowhead during the end of January and early February. Dr. Pulver said that some Covid-19 relief money was used to offset costs to families associated with moving the OSS to a camp that offered more robust health and safety measures.
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