Schools trustee: 'Good morning' from Greece - Marin IJ - June 2, 2006 - By Don Speich

Schools trustee: 'Good morning' from Greece
Marin IJ Front Page June 2, 2006 By Don Speich

Live from Aegina, Greece, it was Sausalito's George Stratigos - participating Thursday in a meeting of the Sausalito Marin City School District Board of Trustees.
"Good morning," said board president Stratigos on the phone about 20 miles southwest of Athens on the Greek island in the middle of the Saronic Gulf.

Bringing the meeting to order, trustee Vice President Whitney Hoyt said, "I will be running the meeting because George left his gavel at home."

It was 5:20 p.m. as she banged the gavel. In Aegina, where Stratigos has a family home, it was 3:20 a.m. He was alone in a pharmacy near his home where he was set up with a telephone

George Stratigos, Sausalito Marin City School District board president, called in to Thursday night's board meeting from a pharmacy in Greece. (Provided by George Stratigos)

and a computer and a chair pulled up next to him.

On the door of the pharmacy was an agenda that had been stuck there by Stratigos.

"I will post the agenda at the street and on the door 24-hours in advance of the meeting (as required by California law) and the door will be open during the meeting to accept interested members of the public," Stratigos e-mailed district staff on Wednesday.

"I will also have a chair so that persons in the room can listen to the meeting. I think this meets all the legal requirement for me to be in attendance at the board meeting. Please advise if there are any other requirements. Thanks."

That the 24-hour notice was required in Greece seems unlikely, but no matter, the intent of the state law was being honored thousands of miles, multiple time zones and numerous countries away in the birthplace, after all, of democracy.

Talking through a Star Trek-looking contraption at the end of the board table at district headquarters in Sausalito, Stratigos sounded wide awake on the island of 6,500 residents and bleached-white buildings and all-night bars and the former part-time home of Nikos Kanzantzakis, who authored "Zorba the Greek."

But his tone was sheer disappointment when he referred to the chair next to him.

"No one has shown up yet,"
said Stratigos, who paid for the phone call.

And perhaps just as well, for what soon was to transpire was a meeting filled with audio-visual aids - not at all phone friendly - and distressing news - not at all conducive to the light-heartedness that might have been expected during this democracy-to-democracy experience.

The bad news was that the district was told by engineering consultants that the land that had been earmarked for the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school was on a foundation of unstable bay mud, which trustees already knew. What they didn't know is that it would cost the district more than $1 million than it had to stabilize the state-of-the-art school that was planned for construction in the fall in Marin City.

One of the consultants, Lee Pollard, distributed some charts and tables to board members and then placed one next to the Star Trek speakerphone.

"I'm going to leave this here for George," he said.

Stratigos and the other trustees, clearly distressed by the news, directed the consultants to go back to the drawing board and see what they could do to reduce costs.

As the board adjourned to a closed session in another room it was decided after some discussion that the cord on the speaker contraption was long enough to bring Stratigos along.

It was 5:30 a.m. in Aegina.

"I'm going to get a doughnut," said Stratigos.

Contact Don Speich via e-mail at dspeich@marinij.com

Sausalito Marin City schools Superintendent Debra Bradley and board members Whitney Hoyt and Thomas Clark attend the school board meeting Thursday, while its president, George Stratigos teleconferences from Aegina, Greece. (Special to the IJ/Kevin Hagen)

George Stratigos, Sausalito Marin City School District board president, called in to Thursday night's board meeting from a pharmacy in Greece. (Provided by George Stratigos)