Now the only incumbent not running for re-election has turned on his colleagues, endorsing three challengers in the Nov. 8 election.

Harbeson said Larry Layton, Deborah Jauregui-Rocha and Leona Sexton are “the only candidates that I feel really care about the children of our district.”

Harbeson said he now notes when in the board meeting trustees first discuss students.

“Today it was 9:58 (p.m.),” he said after the meeting. Open session began at 7:30 p.m.

“This is the worst board we”ve had since I”ve become involved.”

Harbeson did not publicly state his endorsements, instead passing a note to a reporter before the school board meeting Thursday, so the news caught some by surprise, especially Sexton.

Sexton tried to remove Harbeson from office earlier this year and has become one of the school board’s fiercest critics. But that follows years of close involvement with the district, especially at Vasquez High School.

“That’s very nice to hear,” she said when told by a reporter of the endorsement. “I never had anything personal against him. It was just things happening in district. Actually, he’s a close friend of mine.”

The recall started after the district reassigned Vasquez Principal Steve Pinkston to a teaching post. Pinkston had been serving as an assistant football coach at the time, and many of his critics said he was spending too much time on the field and not enough in the school office.

“She was upset over a personnel decision,” Harbeson said. “Had I shared her view, I would have agreed with her. I think she’s the best candidate there is.”

Board President Fred Heslep, another incumbent who is seeking another term, also was targeted by the recall effort. He changed his tone, however, and proponents admitted he was no longer the problem.

After the recall effort fizzled, Harbeson and Heslep started finding themselves on opposing sides of many votes.

“We’ve had a lot of different viewpoints on way things should be done,” Heslep said. “It’s not a spiteful thing, but I can understand him not supporting us.”

Trustee Max Duran, the other incumbent not getting Harbeson’s backing, shrugged off the endorsements, chalking them up to the ongoing divisiveness on the board.

“He’s entitled to his own opinion, I guess,” Duran said. “It’s unfortunate that we have fallen out of grace with one another. I still like Steve. He’s a caring person and I think the recall took a lot out of him.”

Harbeson was board president in 2004 and usually carried a majority of the five trustees with him. This year, however, he has found himself more often in the minority.

On July 16, Harbeson cast the only vote against canceling a restroom installation project at Meadowlark Elementary and High Desert Middle schools. Underlying the vote was a sentiment that Meadowlark would close and the district would reopen Acton Elementary School, which it shut down in June 2004 to save money.

Harbeson left the meeting early.

The most recent board meeting, on Thursday, saw tempers flare between Harbeson and the two incumbents seeking re-election.

He clashed openly with Duran over a teacher’s plan to restructure the master schedule at Vasquez. The two interrupted and spoke over each other throughout the meeting.

At one point, Duran asked that Harbeson be recused on a vote to call a special meeting on the alternative plan.

Heslep and Harbeson found themselves at odds Thursday night over the new lights at the Vasquez High football field.

Vasquez Athletic Director Tim Jorgensen bought the stadium lights from Georgia Tech in an eBay online auction, then drove to Atlanta to pick them up.

Jorgensen has given trustees updates on the project, either directly or through administrators, but the school board has never voted to endorse the lights. Heslep said he worries about liability.

While Thursday’s meeting ended around 11 p.m. — early for Acton-Agua Dulce Unified, which has had recent meetings go past midnight — Harbeson and Heslep stood outside arguing for another half-hour.

The two said they have been friends for years and don’t let disagreements become personal. Heslep did say things have been more heated lately.

“Everybody is trying to do the best they can for the kids. The direction the board’s been going in, he’s been unhappy with, so maybe he wants to change it,” Heslep said.

“We parted friends as we always do, but he was being pretty hostile about some issues.”

Trustees for the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District voted 4-1 to cancel a restroom installation project at Meadowlark Elementary and High Desert Middle School on Thursday night. Part of the reasoning, aside from fiscal considerations, was a lingering discontent over Acton School’s closure.

“There’s a strong feeling in my mind that we’re going back to Acton,” said Trustee Melissa Harnett, who voted with the majority.

Board President Fred Heslep said the budget and Acton School factored into his decision.

“Primarily, it’s a budgetary issue,” he said. “A week or two ago, we were in dire straights financially.”

But he added, “I don’t want to put restrooms at Meadowlark if we’re going to reconfigure and dramatically change the size of the school.”

The Division of the State Architect, which oversees school construction, told Acton-Agua Dulce Unified to install restrooms at both campuses months ago. Meadowlark did not have enough toilets and High Desert’s restrooms were too far from some classrooms.

The move will free up $196,000 in initial savings. Part of the deal requires the district to pay a $9,450 settlement to a contractor who already started work on the project. The district will now try to sell two modular restrooms it purchased months ago for $53,115 each.

Part of the money released will go to debt service, with any remainder going to campuses for instructional materials.

The move follows two weeks of nervousness over the district’s budget. A draft presented to the board on June 23 projected a $600,000 deficit, an alarming figure to trustees who voted to close Acton School in order to save $400,000 in February 2004.

The $600,000 shortfall assumed the state would take the district’s developer fee revenue upon awarding a hardship grant, for which Acton-Agua Dulce Unified is applying.

Acton-Agua Dulce Unified does not technically qualify for hardship, except on appeal, but the district is running out of options if it wants a permanent high school since the last three bond measures failed.

If the district gets a hardship grant, it would have to trade in some of its developer fees, which currently pay for leases on portable classrooms.

Jennifer Noga, the district’s director of business affairs, recently learned that the state will let Acton-Agua Dulce Unified keep one year’s worth of loan and lease payments.

“The bottom line is, because we have so much debt, which exceeds our expected income (in developer fees), the state allows us to pay our debts first,” Superintendent Linda Wagner explained.

At the board meeting Wagner lined up a soda can with a larger McDonald’s cup to illustrate the difference between what the district could keep (the cup), and what it took in from developer fees (the can).

“We’re expecting to get $380,000 in developer fees every year,” she said. “When you can keep that in there, it makes a huge difference.”

The superintendent added, “Our hardship application doesn’t hurt the budget.”

While trustees expressed concern over the budget, which is now barely in the black, uncertainty over the district’s configuration weighed just as heavily on some votes.

Harnett said the community was still split 50-50 over whether Acton was the right school to close. Harnett is waiting for a district needs assessment and enrollment figures to come in September, but she believes those numbers will vindicate Acton.

“We have time,” she said. Given that, it wouldn’t make any sense if we make decision now if we can wait three months and have more information.”

She added, “We’re being diligent, I think.”

The school board addressed a plan in June to swap Acton and Meadowlark Schools, moving every student and teacher to Acton, then leasing Meadowlark. Trustees failed to reach a consensus and delayed a final decision until after elections in November.

Trustees Heslep, Max Duran and Steve Harbeson are up for reelection, but all three have said they don’t plan to run.

Wagner, the superintendent, lamented another plan reversal by the board.

“In the short term, it relieves the general fund,” she said. “In the long term, I still believe the consolidation into four schools and the leasing of the closed school makes more long-term sense.

“In my perspective, the restroom installation would have been one step closer to the consolidation that needs to take place.”

Wagner added, “Once we’ve made a decision, it seems best to stick to it.”

Heslep admitted the board might appear to be flip-flopping.

“I’m concerned about that, but on the other hand, two weeks ago we were half a million dollars in the hole,” he said.

“If our budget were more stable, these decisions would be easier.”

Harnett said the board itself was changing, and recent decisions reflect that change.

“The board is comprised of five different individuals, and I think there has been a shift among the board,” she said.

“You can definitely see over the course of the past year that there’s been a shift.”

Millen, interviewed Thursday evening, said she is pressing charges in the May 4 incident, in which she said the parent shoved her and slammed her against a wall. She said a restraining order has also been filed.

“I am pressing it to the full extent of the law, for all the school’s benefit,” she said.

It was not immediately clear, at press time, what action was in progress resulting from Millen’s decision to make a formal complaint to law enforcement.

Millen said the encounter formed her decision to end her school career at Vasquez.

“When I told my family, they were very, very concerned.”

“‘Please don’t go back,’ ” she said members of her family told her. “So I listened to my family, my God, my heart, and I walked away.”

The parent, identified by other witnesses as Charles Bang, denied any wrongdoing in a telephone interview with the Valley Press on Thursday evening.

“I don’t wish her any harm at all,” he said. “I think she’s a nice lady. If she’s coming after me, I don’t know why.”

Bang said he had not been arrested and that, to his knowledge, there was no restraining order against him.

According to Millen, Bang’s son was suspended for three days last week. The student, whose name was not released, should not have been on campus for three days, but “when I arrived in my office, the father and the son were in my office,” Millen said.

The father demanded that his son’s suspension be lifted, according to Millen. Millen said she refused to comply with the demand. Then, she said, he demanded to see student testimonials regarding the suspension. That was a demand Millen also refused.

On the way out of the meeting, Millen said the son pointed to a stack of papers on the school secretary’s desk, telling his father the student statements were there.

Bang, according to Millen, grabbed for the papers.

“He said, ‘I’m taking these,’ ” Millen recalled, and she put her hand down over the stack of papers.

“He grabbed me by both shoulders and threw me against the wall,” she said. “I slid all the way to the floor.”

She said she recalled someone in the office shouting “to call 911.” A senior student, an athlete, came from around the corner and stepped between Millen and Bang, Millen said. Millen was just getting off the floor, she said.

“Don’t you touch her again,” Millen remembers the student shouting.

“On penalty of perjury, that’s what happened,” Millen told the Valley Press.

Bang gave a different account.

“I didn’t do anything to her,” he said. “She actually pushed me and ripped some papers out of my hand.”

Millen finished the week, but chose to step down. Martin Young took over as the school’s principal on Monday. The school board had already named him to head the campus starting July 1, and Young had started filling in for Millen on some days and making decisions about next year’s staff and programs.

“The time has come for Mr. Young to transition,” said Dr. Linda Wagner, superintendent of the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District. Millen also expressed confidence that the new principal was ready to step in.

Young will be the third principal to lead Vasquez High during this school year. Steve Pinkston began the year, but was re-assigned to a teaching position in December. Millen took over in January after winter break, but said she would only stay until June.

The board put Young in place less than two months ago.

Millen called her half-year at Vasquez a “very positive experience,” despite the altercation.

“It closed the loop on my career,” said Millen, who has been a principal at elementary, middle and high school levels. “I’ve seen them cry when they started kindergarten. I’m sad that I won’t see them cry when they graduate.”

She plans to stay in education, working as a consultant for the Association of California School Administrators.

The once-again-retired principal added, “I will not return to the campus. It is not worth the discomfort and the anxiety.”

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department began receiving calls about a makeshift roadblock behind the Oasis trailer park and campground on Friday.

Rick Helton, a Briggs Road resident, was one of the first to encounter the hastily erected roadblock. On Tuesday, the barrier took the form of a dirt berm and a wrecked car.

“I came home Friday and everything was locked up. I couldn’t get home,” he said Tuesday, standing just outside the boundary of Oasis with other disgruntled residents. “My wife and children are in Canyon Country right now because we can’t get to our home.”

Oasis park manager Manny Fernandez equated granting passage to residents with seizing property from the new owner of the park, a company identified as Agua Dulce Ranch. Basically, Fernandez said he felt legally entitled to block traffic.

“They want to go through, which we think is basically stealing property,” he said.

Parties on both sides of the right-of-way dispute contend threats about gunplay figured in the arguments. Sheriff’s officials say they received no complaints about threats involving guns.

In order to block access to the 15 homes hidden in the rocky hills, workers at Oasis erected a 4-foot-high dirt barrier across the road, which is little more than a flattened dirt path. For added insurance, a wrecked car was left blocking the road.

Fernandez pointed out these ad hoc security measures with a hint of pride. He watched a silver truck lumber down the path, doubtful that emergency vehicles could make the trip any easier.

“I doubt very much that the Fire Department can get there in time to save anybody,” Fernandez said. “It’s no more a road than this part of the hill.”

At least one other road that could provide access to the homes on Briggs Road exists, but the county has ruled it unusable. Fernandez said that road is privately owned by the Briggs homeowners association, which failed to maintain it.

“These people neglected their own road, and it’s in shambles,” he said. “The Fire Department feels they cannot get through. The county will undertake the expense to make the road usable. That should have been taken care of by the homeowners association.”

Fernandez contends residents only want to pass through the park as a matter of convenience.

Norm Hickling, a deputy to 5th District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, disagrees with Fernandez’s assessment. Antonovich represents the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys.

“The only thing the county is worried about right now is the public safety so we can get emergency access for fire and the police department,” Hickling said.

“Any other routes are all unusable right now. I personally inspected one of those routes and it’s not passable by car. It’s not a convenience issue. It’s a public health and safety issue.”

Just who owns the alternate route up to Briggs Road — the county or a private owner — has yet to be determined. “The next couple weeks are going to be very busy while people figure out what rules apply,” Hickling said.

As Fernandez noted the features of his barrier, a blue pickup truck drove up the embankment, over the railroad tracks, past the remains of the dirt barrier and slowly began making its way up the winding road.

Fernandez recognized the driver.

“Today he’s in good form ’cause the cops are here and you’re here,” he said to a reporter.

“Usually he races through here at 50 or 60 miles per hour at 2 a.m.,” Fernandez said.

The road residents are fighting so desperately to keep open is barely passable in a small car. Light trucks bounce on the rocks and depressions all the way up to the summit. No one can call it an easy road.

Agua Dulce Ranch has owned the property for 10 days but has been in negotiation for eight months, according to Fernandez.

“We’re just going to leave the road open,” he said. “In the meantime, we’re going to comply with the Fire Department requirements and make sure the road is clear. These people here threatened people in there at gunpoint. I don’t know specifically which one, but some of them have done that.”

Sheriff’s deputies could not verify any threats by residents.

“I am not aware of anything of that nature,” said Deputy Erich Deopking, who used to live in the area. “The residents are decent people. If that happened, he has not reported it to me or anybody else.”

Deputy Mark Johnson informed the frustrated residents of the agreement reached between the county and Fernandez.

“They (Oasis) are being cited by the Fire Department,” he told Briggs Road homeowners. “They can’t block access until other access is made.”

If access is blocked again, the owner will receive a misdemeanor citation. A third violation can trigger an arrest warrant. Oasis currently cannot operate as a trailer park or campground, although the owner has applied for a conditional-use permit from the county.