Resigned to an ignominious end

When running for reelection in 2004, Ocean View School District Trustee Barbara Boskovich referred to herself as a “cheerleader” for the district, saying that in her first four years, the district had become a friendlier place.

Today, that election, and those words, seem long ago.

Before winning her seat on the school board, Boskovich rallied her neighbors in Crest View ? unsuccessfully ? against the Wal-Mart on Talbert Avenue near Beach Boulevard. She parlayed that notoriety and neighbor support into her successful school board campaign, when she ran as someone “in tune with the community.”

Those days of Boskovich speaking out for her neighbors seem very long ago.

Sometime during the next two weeks, Boskovich will resign her position on the Ocean View Board of Trustees, a part of a settlement agreement she has reached with Harbour View Elementary School principal Roni Ellis. Ellis filed the lawsuit in May 2005, alleging that Boskovich had spread rumors about her and former district Superintendent James Tarwater.

It is an ignominious end to what began as a classic “citizen first, politician second” story.

During the past few years, Boskovich has been a polarizing figure in the school district. There has seemed to be no middle ground. People either supported her or opposed her just as strongly, efforts that included a failed recall bid following her reelection. She won praise on one hand for guiding the district’s sale of surplus land on the Bolsa Chica mesa. Opponents say morale in the district is rock bottom and that she was an intimidating, domineering figure.

Wherever the truth lies, Boskovich’s time as a public servant is finished. And the epitaph on her political career will be her resignation because of a lawsuit. She will be added to the list of failed, or disgraced, public servants in Huntington Beach, a city that seems incapable of getting free of politicians who cannot rise to a level of decency and lawfulness its residents deserve.