COOS BAY — The Coos Bay School Board has decided to take Wally Hazen at his word that he is a resident of the school district.

After raising the prospect that the Barview resident lives in Fairview — disqualifying him from serving on the board — the School Board held a special meeting Wednesday to resolve the issue.

It did not take long.

Vice Chairwoman Donna Opitz asked Hazen if he still lives in Barview.



“Yes, I do,” he responded.

That satisfied the board, which asked no further questions.

“I don’t want to spend any more time on it,” Opitz said.

Instead, Opitz and Chairwoman Kathy Murray spent most of the meeting explaining why the board questioned Hazen’s residency in the first place.

Murray explained she and Superintendent Bob De La Vergne had merely been following legal advice when they brought the issue before the board.

“The board has no choice but to conduct its business in public,” she said.

She noted that attorney David Dorsey had originally advised keeping the item off the agenda, but changed his mind after studying further case law.

Opitz said asking where Hazen lives is a legitimate question, because a board decision could be challenged as a result of having an unlawful member.

“The stakes are high this year because we want to be passing a bond measure,” she said. “It is all the more important to get this issue resolved.”

Both Murray and Opitz took exception with coverage of the issue in The World.

Murray said media coverage was “not true, accurate or complete.”

Optiz went further, criticizing The World’s Editor Kathy Erickson, and the editorial published Saturday. Opitz said it was wrong to call the residency issue “petty” and expressed displeasure with an earlier headline suggesting the board might “boot” a member. She also said the question of Hazen’s residency was not raised because of personal animosity.

“I think it’s unfair that the media has portrayed this as a disagreement among board members,” she said.