The Lack of Transparency Parallels Between Bell and LACCD
Are Striking.
Gutierrez, a community activist I know in Northeast Los Angeles. She told me a rather disturbing
story. Sources within the Los
Angeles Community College District (“LACCD”) were telling her that instead of
opening the $72 million new Satellite Campus of LA City College at the historic Van de Kamps
Bakery site (a 10-year long promise of District officials to Northeast voters),
the LACCD was looking to just rent out the buildings for money. The District officials were solemnly
claiming that they could not “afford” to open the Van de Kamps Satellite due to
the state budget crisis, which initially sounded to me to be a plausible
explanation.
was instantly troubled. How could
a community college spend $72 million of capital bond funds approved under the
strict restrictions of Proposition 39 and then, having never even used the buildings for community college purposes,
start renting them out for a profit and depositing the money in the general
fund? I knew a District could not
use bond funds directly for operating costs.
How was it legal to take a bond-financed facility and convert it into a
stream of operating funds for the District? These questions in mind, I went to my first LACCD presentation
on the subject.
located in a little white church in that neighborhood. There, I listened to LA City College
President, Dr. Jamillah Moore claim that there was no money to operate Van de
Kamps, as the brand new buildings were still under construction – the District
planned to finish them with bond funds dedicated for that purpose, but the
buildings could not be “left empty” so the District would rent them out to
cover the operating costs. Moore
also told the public that an effort to qualify the District for state “Center
Status” funding had fallen through because Glendale and Pasadena Community
College would not provide letters of support.
business suits from the District, including two Board Trustees, Mona Field and
Sylvia Scott-Hayes. Vice
Chancellor Dr. Adriana Berrera stood and said that LA City College faculty “had
voted” to transfer jurisdiction over Van de Kamps out of LA City College to the
District Administration. She said
that the District was looking at leasing one building to a charter high school,
and the historic bakery building would be filled up with unemployment offices.
filled with two Board trustees, two Vice-Chancellors of the LACCD, the LA City
College President, and multiple construction consultants from the bond building
program. I later told my clients
that in all my years of experience running public agencies and advising cities
and school districts, I had never seen such a major roll out of resources for a
little community meeting. It was
overkill — and I sensed from LACCD officials’ demeanor that night that a cover
up of something was afoot — I just did not know what.
a belief that the transfer of the jurisdiction of the campus away from LA City
College had been engineered for some other purpose because the LA City College faculty
had shown overwhelming support for the Van de Kamps Satellite Campus and were
busy planning its opening classes and curriculum.
verify some of the information that LACCD administrators were putting out to
the public. LACCD officials began
to stonewall production of records that they promised that night in
Atwater. To this day, two years
later, Dr. Berrera has never produced District budget documents requested by
the Van de Kamps Coalition.
behalf of the Coalition. The
District’s written response was that my request to inspect all project records
for the Northeast Campus at Van de Kamps would result in an “interminable”
record production by the District.
Yes, they said it would be “interminable.” And they have been true to their word. To this day, substantial portions of
that public records request remain outstanding. Later, the Coalition uncovered a District memo that laid out
the strategy for dealing with the hard questions and objections of the Van de
Kamps Coalition. The option set
forth in the memo was to “stonewall” and predicted that Van de Kamps Coalition
members would “give up” as they get no support from elected officials who the District planned to lobby through back channels.
We know that in the City of Bell fraud and theft scandal,
the same pattern of behavior occurred.
A community activist asked Bell officials to produce employment
contracts to verify how much money City officials were paying themselves in
salary and benefits. This was instantly
perceived as threatening to City officials who for years had acted in the
shadows and without public scrutiny.
Bell officials created false records to cover up their salaries. That is how the scandal started: the
arrogant refusal to comply with simple public records requests and the
fabrication of misleading records.
that soon after the meeting I attended, Board of Trustees member Sylvia
Scott-Hayes scolded Jamillah Moore to stop telling the public that Pasadena and
Glendale Community Colleges refused to give letters of support to the state for
“Center Status” funding to open Van de Kamps.
adjoining districts. Pasadena
officials were willing to give a letter of support and Glendale
officials said they were sure an agreement on opening Van de Kamps could
be reached. Scott-Hayes then told Moore to refine
the story because “we do not want this to blow up in our faces.” So, the Van de Kamps Coalition
possesses email records showing an effort of a Board member to tutor Dr. Moore
how to lie to the public without being caught. Again, I shook my head in disbelief when I read this email.
and plan on how to open and operate the Northeast Campus — even with a budget
crisis. It involved LA City
College offering a high number of profit-oriented classes to cover operating
expense and low number of traditional academic classes. This plan could have been used by the
LACCD Board of Trustees to open Van de Kamps as promised to the voters, but THEY
CHOSE NOT TO DO SO.
officials refused to intervene to stop the illegal conversion of Van de Kamps
from a community college facility, arrogant Director of Facilities, Larry
Eisenberg, directed construction contractors to destroy eight classrooms in the
building and use, by my estimate, about $7.1 million of taxpayer bond funds to
convert the historic bakery building into executive office space for the
tenants LACCD contemplated. At the
time these changes were being made, there was no official Board approval or even a
signed lease in place. Eisenberg
just ordered it and the construction contractors, wanting future work with
LACCD, did it. This is not a lawful use of our taxpayer bond funds which by the
Constitution are restricted to be spent on “school facilities.”
Attorney’s office told me that “What’s happening at Van de Kamps is wrong,”
when we presented evidence to both the Civil Grand Jury and the District
Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit, those institutions also failed the taxpayers
of Los Angeles County. They have
not lifted a finger for more than a year after the Van de Kamps Coalition
submitted evidence of diversion of a $72 million campus to charter high school
friends of Mayor Villaraigosa and to City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office funded unemployment
programs. Instead, the Van de
Kamps Coalition, an all-volunteer organization, was told by the District
Attorney to sue in the civil courts.
counsel, he drummed the table with his fingers and said: “There’s so much
illegality here, I don’t know where to begin.” So, I have joined with him to file two lawsuits against the
LACCD to halt the illegal laundering of bond money into general fund operating
funds which is expressly prohibited under the Constitution. I have also sued on behalf of the Van
de Kamps Coalition under the California Environmental Quality Act to overturn
the leases to the charter high school and the City of Los Angeles unemployment
programs. However, the vagaries of
civil litigation may or may not vindicate the voter’s rights in this case.
effort to squash the Van de Kamps Coalition. Larry Eisenberg at public meetings dismissed the Coalition
as “confused.” The District’s
chief enabler to the rampant illegal conduct I have observed is General
Counsel, Camille Goulet. She is
authorizing the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars of more bond
funds to a private law firm outside Los Angeles County, Gresham Savage Nolan
and Tilden, to defend against the pending environmental and taxpayer lawsuits.
mode. How long this posture can
last in the face of a growing mass of angry voters reading the LA Times
investigative series on massive waste and incompetence remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the Van de Kamps Coalition calls upon our elected law
enforcement officials to finally, and very belatedly, to intervene to end this
Bell-like scandal.
As a long time employee of LACCD, I know the District administrators will continue to deny wrongdoing and insisting that their world-view that they can spend bond funds on just about anything they damn well please will continue. And they will be assisted in this effort by a group of attorneys and accountants who have been asleep at the wheel for nine years of bond abuse. The District’s bond counsel, Fulbright and Jaworski, and the District’s auditors, Moss Adams.
They are acting like Bill Clinton in his famous press conference: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” That was Clinton’s downfall, not the sex, but the arrogant denials until the evidence gathered showed otherwise. And Richard Nixon ordered his people to stonewall on the evidence of a cover up of the burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate.
Richard Nixon later famously said that it is not a crime if the President does it. I wonder what the Board of Trustees of LACCD’s excuse will be? Fulbright and Jaworski and Moss Adams never said I could not spend this bond money this way?
Crimes have been committed here. Taxpayer monies have been grossly wasted. Our young adults have been short-changed in educational opportunity.
I too am a long-time LACCD employee. In fact, I am a faculty member at LACC and I feel compelled to comment that while many of us agree that there were some poor and even shady decisions made in the Bond Program, the decision by the faculty to ask the District to run the VDK site was not one of them. Mr. Wright is completely wrong in his analysis of that decision. There was nothing sinister or illegal or inappropriate. With a deficit at the main campus, there really is no money for us to operate that facility. It was a wise decision by the administration and the faculty to look for a solution that would not leave the buildings empty. Senator Richard Polanco said as much himself at the ceremony to open the site. Unfortunately, Mr. Wright’s analysis is covered by his own ulterior motive which is to hit a huge payday by suing the District. He is a lawyer and therefore well aware that Bond funds CANNOT be spent on operational costs. Thus, his implication that all the money that was spent on construction proves that we could have afforded to operate the campus is fallacious. And, his argument about the study that proves that the college could afford to operate the campus through contract education fails to mention (something of which he has been made aware) that LACC approached all of the other entities listed in that report only to find that none of them were interested in working with the college to provide those contract classes. So, for him and the VDK Coalition to continue attacking LACC for not following that report is not persuasive because it is based on false assumptions.
If Mr. Wright and the Coalition want to keep fighting the District over the decisions made after the campus was handed over, that is one thing. But for them to keep attacking the college is completely unreasonable and indefensible.
Mr. Wright responds:
In my opinion, “Truth” represents a segment of the LACCD administration that is in deep denial about the inappropriate actions taken in connection with the Los Angeles City College Satellite campus. Our investigation and possession of thousands of pages of LACCD records, especially emails of former Chancellor Dr. Mark Drummond, LA City College President Dr. Jamillah Moore, LA City College Academic Senate President Ken Sherwood, Vice Chancellors Dr. Adrianna Berrera, Marvin Martinez, and Gary Columbo, District Facilities Director Larry Eisenberg, and Van de Kamps Project Manager Richard Brand tell a different story.
In the opinion of the Van de Kamps Coalition, there were political reasons why the District Administration wanted to take control of the Van de Kamps campus away from LA City College. For one, Mr. Eisenberg had plans drawn up to buy the property next door to the campus and lease it to a developer who would construct apartments and mixed use on the site. The goal was to generate a stream of lease payments to put in the District’s general fund. During a budget crisis, that might sound like a good idea except the use of bond funds to buy the land without the intention of building education buildings on it is unconstitutional. Illegal, as one of the taxpayer lawsuits contends. We have gone to Board meetings and instructed the Board and staff why the Coalition believes it is unlawful and yet the LACCD continues to move in this direction.
Why does the Coalition think the District needed to seize Van de Kamps away from LA City College? The Coalition believes it arose when LA City College faculty resoundingly rejected Eisenberg’s idea to develop mixed use and apartments on land next to the campus. By finding a way for the District Administration to take over, the Coalition contends that it was free to continue to pursue the mixed use development and the idea to deposit the stream of lease payments into the general fund.
Then there is the contention that “all of the other entities listed in the report” were contacted and were not interested in providing contract classes. Not so according to the substantial mass of emails in our possession. The effort was to install a charter high school in one building and a bunch of unemployment programs in the Bakery. I have emails showing Glendale Community College was willing to work with LA City College on joint profit oriented classes. And we have no email showing any effort to fill out the Van de Kamps schedule with the myriad of other types of classes identified in the Kosmont Study. If “Truth” has emails to show a different level of effort, I challenge the LACCD to release those emails to the public. So far, all we have is “Truth’s” anonymous assurance that all entities were contacted. That is not objective evidence and the Van de Kamps Coalition has released some emails on its website and is working toward making others available.
One series of emails the Coalition is working to release is the set of emails between Chancellor Drummond, President Moore, and Academic Senate President Sherwood just prior to the vote to hand off Van de Kamps. The Coalition believes this series shows how Drummond made a budgetary threat to frighten the LA City College Shared Governance Committee to “recommend” a hand over Van de Kamps to Drummond.
LA City College was perfectly capable of rolling out the successful schedule of profit oriented classes to cover the operating costs at Van de Kamps. But actions at the top of LACCD and LA City College, the same folks whose judgment is on display in the LA Times investigative series and the Daily Breeze, prevented the LA City College faculty from opening the community college facility promised to voters for more than a decade.
For this reason, I predict Northeast voters who have been denied educational opportunity, and other voters across the City enraged by the LA Times articles will send a message at next Tuesday’s election for the FOUR Board of Trustee seats.
Respectfully,
Daniel Wright
I have spoken to a number of people over the past few years who work at LACC who genuinely believed the story put out by Moore, Sherwood, Drummond and company. It was certainly less painful for them to believe that. When I asked them if they had looked into any of this, read any documents or in any way researched this situation – they would admit that they had not. By now most have communicated to me that they no longer think they were told the whole truth.
The Van de Kamps Coalition has offered to show the documents and evidence of this debacle we have collected to so many people we have lost count. Only a handful have ever taken us up on it.
All through this ordeal we have said that, unlike the District who arrogantly insists that everyone believe whatever they say just because they say it , with no evidence whatsoever, we ask people to look at the documents and evidence.
This has been an ordeal for those of us trying to get the truth of what has and is continuing to happen, out. We have been scoffed at, called names, insulted, derided and told to f**k off by various LACC and LACCD luminaries and cronies. Elected officials have undermined us and dodged us, and worse, their sworn duties.
We in the Van de Kamps Coalition are all volunteers who care about our communities and the Community Colleges. We have had to dig deep into our shallow pockets to scrape money together to make copies and pay fees of all kinds. We have been threatened with lawsuits, had the high paid outside (more contracting) lawyers for the district ask for sanctions against us…and more. We don’t do this for money, and it’s a good thing since we don’t even expect to recover our expenses.
Early on in this struggle, I had a rock thrown through my window – there’s an LA weekly article about it called “Unbroken Will”. We have worked unbelievably long hours and still are, just to try to do the masses of document organization required, much less all of the other things we have to do. We lament that so much still needs to be done, but we are truly doing our best. We are just citizens, we have to work for a living, so our time is not unlimited. We do not regret this fight, we are more determined with every insult and time we are “stonewalled”.
This just underscores how easy it is for the government in all it’s many forms, to do as they please. There are few watchdogs in place and most of them are part of the system we want them to keep honest. I can say from years of personal experience – it doesn’t work. There is very little oversight or enforcement. That leaves private citizens and activists, who are not funded to do this a rarely have the kind of time it takes to do such a difficult task. Most people are overwhelmed just trying to make a living and pay the taxes that are being so ill used.
The help of good people in the media like Ron has been invaluable. The political pressure to keep this out of the press has been enormous. We are grateful that,in this instance, in the end, the “fourth estate” has stood up to it. If not for the press this situation at LACCD would still be a tax payer cookie jar for everyone who could reach into it and most would not know about it. Our elected and hired (and well paid) officials with the job of preventing theses messes would still be gobbling up the power broker’s money and ignoring their duty. We who pay all the bills, would be none the wiser. For every boondoggle like this, there are countless ones that go on and on and never come to light . Never wonder why the press is being starved, just look at this classic illustration.
Finally, I do find it amusing that the fake name the person behind “truth” would choose, is “truth”.
Mr. Wright, the only people in denial are you and the VDK Coalition. The LACCD did not seize the campus from LACC. There was no threat from Chancellor Drummond. In fact, just the opposite. When the college approached him about the idea, he said he was willing to help but not excited about the idea. It was purely a favor to LACC because they could not run the satellite. You can keep claiming otherwise, but that does not make it true, as George W. Bush found out with regard to the weapons of mass destruction. Similarly, the fact that you keep claiming that the college could have figured out how to run the satellite does not make it true. You (as well as the Coalition) are not an expert in college administration. You do not know the challenges of setting up the structure to run a college or satellite campus. It is beyond hubris for you to keep claiming that poor choices were made and something else could have been done when you have NO expertise in that particular field. You would not accept someone without a law degree telling you that they know more about how to try a case than you. So, why do you think you know more about how to run a college than people who do so for a living?
And to Miki, you shouldn’t wonder why I don’t use my real name. After seeing you call Mr. Sherwood a liar and intentionally taking his words out of context and seeing you call Dr. Moore a menace when all she was doing was trying to protect her institution and seeing you call Monda Field a terrorist, which is offensive at more levels than I can count, it should be no surprise that I have no desire to see my name in one of your posts as the target of another of your ad-hominem attacks.
So, for anyone out there who might be reading this actually looking for some truth about the situation, you should know a couple of things: 1 – Miki Jackson, Laura Gutierrez, and Netty Carr have never been anything but bullies in their acts of social activism. A true activist who has the truth on her/his side does not need to devolve into ad-hominem attacks to get their way. This trio, however, are famous for doing exactly that. 2 – If This group were true activists, they wouldn’t be looking for a payout from the District that they have been criticizing for mismanagement of funds. They are, on the record, however as saying that they are willing to accept a settlement to make this all go away. 3 – Lack of evidence does not constitute evidence itself. Mr. Wright would have you believe that because there are no emails to prove that the college was unable to find the requisite number of investors to run a for-profit style college that this means no such efforts were ever made. Wrong. There just aren’t any emails on the subject. That doesn’t mean the efforts weren’t made. 4 – The Van de Kamps Coalition DO NOT represent or speak for the majority of the NE community. They never seem to mention in ANY of their blasts of LACC or the LACCD, the numbers of people who have come out to speak in support of the programs the District is currently offering at that campus. While they are a very vocal minority, they are just that in their own community – a minority.
LACC Faculty Member observes:
I am pretty sure “Truth” is Ken Sherwood. Who else would defend himself and his girlfriend, er, professional colleague, President Jamillah Moore? Especially two days after the post when almost no one else would be reading the blog?
“Truth’s” claim that the “idea” to transfer the Van de Kamps property to District Administration came from LACC faculty is not true. It was Sherwood who brought the entire motion to the Shared Governance. No one else was pushing the idea. At first, many of us thought the budget prevented the Satellite Campus from opening, but later, many of us felt that we had been misled into the vote to transfer the Northeast Campus to the District’s central office. Many faculty believe that once the central office got their hands on this campus, they would never return it to LA City College. That would be bad for the people we are suppose to be serving with the Northeast Campus — a $60 plus million dollar campus. ‘
Mr. Kaye – I just discovered your blog and wanted to thank you for the hard work at uncovering the corruption at LACCD. Believe me, it doesn’t start or end with Van De Kamps. I too am a relatively long-time employee of LACCD and I can assure you, that there are levels upon levels of nepotism and cronyism within the Board of Trustees up through the Chancellor’s rank and file of Vice Chancellors. Yeah, Larry Eisenberg may have been “let go” but the taxpayers are still funding his $200K+ salary and benefit package. We have always called him “Mr. Teflon” and now you can see why.
It’s common knowledge at LACC and throughout the LACCD that Ken Sherwood has been having sexual relations with President J. Moore – most likely to gain academic senate power over faculty concerns.
The LACCD is in union negotiations at this very moment with 6 unions and their collective bargaining agreements. The LACCD has been, for the last 2 years, on the fence about furloughs (but not for faculty, God forbid) and each college president has made his/her “list” of who will be laid off for the least paid – the classified unit. Now keep in mind that the “new” Chancellor is being paid more than the last Chancellor, Dr. Drummond, the Board approved a relocation allowance of taxpayer dollars that was around $30K, and all of the Vice Chancellors, Deputy Chancellor, and the 9 college presidents got raises October 2010, raised travel allowances PER MONTH of $1600 (which is the average classfied salary per month by the way) – all public funds. Oh, and the entire cast of lawyers at the LACCD got the same perks.
So, the next real investigation I would beg you to do Mr. Kaye, is to ask for all these public expenditures. Oh, and LACCD Board Members get $2K per month and perks.
Meanwhile back at all 9 campuses, students are getting into fist-fights to get classes, bringing $100 bills to the first day of class to bribe professors to add them, and being cast aside by the STate of CA.
Now is the time for the public to take a good look at what LACCD is doing – behind the boardroom doors – to its faithful employees and students.
Was looking for facts about that. I wrote it off as merely another charge, but I’m going to look at it all over again.