Ed Loyd: Fired up about change

Deirdre Newman

Ed Loyd is a passionate about his beliefs that the Newport-Mesa

Unified School District Board of Trustees needs to be invigorated and

made responsive to its constituents.

Loyd is running against Serene Stokes, who has been on the board

for eight years, and Ron Winship, who is running for two other

elected positions in November. The trustee zone covers Corona del

Mar.

A four-year Newport Beach resident with one child in the

Newport-Mesa Unified School District, Loyd is a blunt,

straight-talking candidate who says he is fed up with a school board

that he believes is past its prime and much too passive.

“A lot of [the trustees] should have been voted out a long time

ago,” Loyd said. “That board doesn’t initiate one blessed thing. They

just go to a lot of teas and award ceremonies.”

Loyd, who was born in Baltimore and raised in Brooklyn, was drawn

to politics at an early age, due to his grandfather’s political

leanings.

“My grandfather was a Republican, although the rest of the family

was Democrats,” Loyd said. “I used to sit down and talk to him as a

little kid and always had the urge to be active in politics.”

As a businessman, Loyd says he tackles problems head-on, solving

them by using his own resourcefulness and initiative. After going to

work for an electronics company on the East Coast in the late 1960s,

he encountered an area that was having problems receiving a cable

signal. So he started his own company to resolve the problem and was

so effective in obtaining franchises that the National Cable TV Assn.

enrolled him in its lobbying efforts. But Loyd encountered

difficulties procuring financial backing and was eventually squeezed

out of the company.

From there, he moved onto the international business arena,

working for a U.S. governmental organization in London that deals

with international development.

Loyd lasted 30 years in that position, working with foreign

countries, the World Bank and the United Nations.

Loyd moved his family to the Newport Beach area in 1998. His

involvement with the school district started a year later when he was

elected to the board of the Junior All-American Football league. The

previous president of the league had butted heads with a former

principal of Corona del Mar High School, resulting in the league

being banned from practicing at the school.

“I saw [the principal] handling the situation in a dictatorial

way,” Loyd said. So Loyd intervened. Asst. Supt. Jaime Castellanos

eventually sided with Loyd, and practices resumed, he said.

The incident left a sour taste in Loyd’s mouth about what he

perceived to be the principal’s blatant abuse of power. Loyd also

claims there is a pervasive climate of silence in the community that

prevents parents from expressing their true feelings about certain

teachers, coaches and administrators. He blames this on a lack of

confidence on the part of parents that they will prevail. He feels

they fear that retribution will be visited on their children.

Loyd has strong opinions, and he is not afraid to say what he

thinks needs to change on the school board, including enacting

two-term limits for trustees to continually bring in fresh ideas, and

redistricting to make the trustees more accountable to the residents

they represent.

If elected, Loyd says he will be receptive to concerns from

residents anywhere in the district.

“I want to give the electorate a voice on the board again,” Loyd

said. “So you can pick up the phone, even if you’re not in my

district. And I will have a full-time person to take your calls.”