The Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa-controlled LAUSD board seems to be rushing head-long and willy-nilly into doing whatever it wants to do in any manner it chooses to do it. Latest case in point: They’re changing the rules of the board of education.

Buoyed by her success last week in leading the board into giving away 50 new schools to private operators, board President Monica Garcia circulated a nine-page plan, entitled “Proposed Changes to Rules of the Board of Education,” and scheduled a discussion of her plan at Tuesday’s board meeting. Garcia’s proposals include changing the board’s meeting schedule to only four a month, with one of them being in closed session, two of them devoted to special business and only one set aside for “regular business.” Garcia also proposes to suspend board committees, revise public comment procedures and “streamline” board meeting agendas.

Marguerite LaMotte, the only African-American board member and the only one vehemently unaligned with the mayor’s bloc, is crying foul of this sudden rush to change the rules, which is primed to take effect with the opening of the 2009-10 school year this month. “Not only is the board abdicating some of its responsibilities to external operators,” LaMotte said. “Now the board wants to eliminate its committee structure, which is the only opportunity to ensure some degree of transparency and accountability to the takeover process and operations.” In a written request to Garcia to postpone Tuesday’s discussion of her proposed changes, LaMotte said, “This short notice gives constituents little time to plan to attend or craft a response. … Like special interests, our constituents deserve some consideration also.” (UPDATE: The board discussed the proposals during a lengthy closed-door session Tuesday, but no decision was reached.)

Given the nature of the board, Garcia’s proposals can be regarded as a fait accompli, and, like LaMotte, The Soulvine sees these rule changes as successful efforts to exclude stakeholders’ access, input and participation in LAUSD affairs and is a clear signal that the mayor and his court plan to do things in the school district they don’t want us to know about or interfere with.

SPEAKING OF WHICH — The school district is paying the legal fees incurred by board President Garcia in the federal investigation into Councilman Jose Huizar’s consulting work for a now defunct nonprofit group linked to organized labor. That investigation has ended and Huizar has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Huizar was a school board member during the period of the probe and Garcia was employed as his chief of staff. She, too, was investigated by the feds and incurred legal expenses pursuant to the probe. She hadn’t been elected by anybody to anything during the period under scrutiny, so she ought to pay her own damn legal fees.

Newly elected school board member Tamar Galatzan, who represents the Valley, is one of what looks like 100 people running for the 2nd District City Council seat. She is being excoriated by the other 99 for having sent out three mailers promoting her council candidacy by touting her work as a sitting school board member. Her mailers, which arrived in homes just as voters began casting absentee ballots for the council race, did not mention that she’s running for city council, they boasted that she’s a great school board member. Her handlers claimed there was nothing improper in those mailers, as she was merely trying to communicate with her constituents about school issues.

Here’s the rub: She didn’t communicate with me. As a West Valley resident, I am a constituent in Galatzan’s 3rd LAUSD District who would have been delighted to receive communication from her about school issues. I haven’t heard from her since she was running for the school board the other day. Back then, she wouldn’t shut up, seeing as how she had $2.2 million in campaign money from a Villaraigosa-controlled campaign committee to spend. But there was a reason I wasn’t on her mailing list last week: I’m not a resident of Council District 2 and I can’t vote for her for city council! Galatzan sent her “school issues” mailers only to her school board constituents who are also Council District 2 voters. That’s clever. (She’s a lawyer, you know.) That’s just what we need on the City Council: Another clever, self-serving, Villaraigosa bought-out, “anything-to-win” lawyer.

CRENSHAW-TO-THE-OCEAN — Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and MTA chief Art Leahy rolled out the $1.7 billion Crenshaw Transit Corridor Project at a media briefing last week. The pair outlined the two alternative design options for the Crenshaw line to the South Bay, a massive public works project that would link South Los Angeles to LAX. One option is the establishment of a bus line in special traffic lanes and the other is the creation of a light rail transit line that would operate on electricity from overhead wires. The supervisor called the traffic-relief project, funded mostly by last year’s Measure R, “long overdue.”

The MTA will hold public hearings this month and the next before voting on which of the two options to build. Ridley-Thomas said involving the community in the decision-making process “will build a sense of trust and transparency of the project.” The Soulvine says involving the community in the decision-making process will ensure that Black residents of this city get their fair share from the MTA for a change.

THIS AND THAT — Inglewood City Administrator Timothy Wanamaker has been on the job only 18 months and already he has gotten on Councilwoman Judy Dunlap’s last nerve. I heard she’s doing everything she can to get rid of him, but he’s holding firm with the support of Mayor Roosevelt Dorn and councilmembers Danny Tabor and Eloy Morales, who appreciate his impartial independence and excellent work. A special council meeting was held Monday to discuss the findings of three independent audits conducted of Inglewood’s fiscal affairs in 2005, 2006 and 2007, at which Dunlap and her minions took the opportunity to attack her fellow council members, the city as a whole and Wanamaker in particular, which was ridiculous because Wanamaker did not come to Inglewood until 2008.

Mayor Villaraigosa made some changes in his office last week, which the mayor says “ushers in a new era for City Hall.” That new era is the return to the 1950s when nothing but White men ran the city. Robin Kramer, the chief of staff, left and was replaced by the Rev. Jeff Carr. I heard that Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Grunfeld also left. Grunfeld, you might recall, replaced the Black administrative genius Marcus Allen, who left two years ago because Villaraigosa wouldn’t pay him what he was worth. I also heard that Matt Szabo, the mayor’s communications man, was promoted way up to deputy chief of staff. I called the mayor’s office and asked if this was true and I got the run-around and the “I’ll call you back” but not a “yes” or “no” to a very simple question. The mayor imported Jay Carson, former senior staffer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, to be his new chief deputy mayor. I hope Carson knows a little something about Los Angeles — its people and its governance. If not, I hope our paths never cross. Then there’s Tom Saenz, the counsel to the mayor, who left a couple of weeks ago to head MALDEF. Saenz has not been replaced yet because after the mayor was done filling posts, he looked and said, “Oops!” and immediately began looking for a Latino or Black man or woman lawyer for that spot so he could give the city’s top leadership some semblance of that diversity he’s always talking about.

On that same note, the mayor named 11 new commissioners last week, only one of which is African-American. That would be Keisha Whitaker, wife of actor Forrest Whitaker, to the Commission on Children, Youth and Their Families.

AND FINALLY — Veteran educator George McKenna, whose long and distinguished career in public education has earned him both local and national recognition, has been named interim superintendent of LAUSD Local District 7, effective Aug. 25. Excellent!