Results tagged “icef” from Ron Kaye L.A.

"Fuk em"

That was the immortal email response from LA Community College District Chancellor Mark Drummond 13 months ago when Assemblyman Kevin de Leon raised questions on behalf of the Northeast LA community about betraying the commitment to build a badly-needed satellite campus in the old Van de Kamp's bakery site in Glassell Park.

Drummond's contemptuous words are set to become official policy of the LACCD board when it meets Wednesday to approve the centerpiece of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's political agenda for job creation, anti-gang programs, clean energy -- a strategy that tramples on the rule of law, makes a mockery of public policy and benefits the few at the expense of the many.

On the 365th day after the contemptuous response from Drummond (who was axed for misconduct last summer), Deputy Mayor Larry Frank told the LACCD Board of Trustees exactly what the site was going to be used for.

"This is the holy grail of all our new jobs...that is 1,000 jobs at the DWP that would be IBEW Local 18 jobs," Frank said.

These workers would do the "solar and all the municipal, commercial and residential retrofit work that happens in the city of Los Angeles," he added.

In other words, the monopoly on local solar installation and energy efficiency work would be achieved by the DWP despite the defeat of Measure B last year. It will be paid for by raising the Energy Cost Adjustment Factor by the full 20 to 30 percent despite the "meltdown" over the hike in the City Council, Frank declared.

In a deal negotiated over the last three years with the IBEW union boss Brian D'Arcy, these unemployed workers, many of them current or former gang members, would be hired after training at the Van de Kamp's site as $16-an-hour "green doctors" in a pre-Civil Service capacity. After a two-year probation period, they will become full-time, permanent employees at much higher salaries.

It's all part of what the mayor calls his job creation program, which is nothing more than taxing the public to create more jobs on the city payroll at inflated costs

How the Van de Kamp's site came to be used for this purpose is far worse than even the abuse of the DWP and its ratepayers, particularly home owners and businesses that are being stuck with the bills.

Under two bond measures voters approved for LACCD, $60 million was promised specifically for turning the historic Van de Kamp's building into classrooms and building a ew building for LA Community College classrooms for the educationally under-served Northeast LA.

In one of several "no-bid" arrangements, the LACCD Board flipped the new state-of-the-art building over for use as a technology charter school although paid for out of college bonds. Although architectural designs were approved by the state and structural reconstruction of the Van de Kamp's building already was completed,  construction of new classrooms was suddenly halted.

Instead of classrooms, the second floor of the building was rebuilt as executive offices for LACCD officials and the DWP/IBEW work force development program.

So instead of a college, the Northeast Valley got a high school and training program that served no local community need.

What it served was the mayor's plan to give jobs on the public payroll for hoodlums or reformed hoodlums who will some day come to your home or business and advise you how to reduce your energy use or install solar panels -- jobs that could be done cheaper, faster and with a more positive economic impact by the private sector.

The Van de Kamp Coalition formed by Northeast LA residents who want the college campus they were promised put out an email blast Monday urging the public to email the LACCD Board to reject the "no-bid sweetheart lease" of the facility before Wednesday's 3:30 p.m. meeting at West LA College.

The mayor's message, the email says, is that "executive offices for my programs are more important than your access to educational opportunity."

The email accuses LACCD of "giving a no-bid sweetheart lease to the City of Los Angeles after $6.3 million" in bond fund "to illegally convert classrooms into executive suites for unemployment programs funded by federal economic stimulus funds directed by the mayor."

Its management is in chaos, it's being taken apart piece by piece and even the people who have most to gain don't support LAUSD's ridiculous $7 billion bond issue on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Feeble in its efforts at reform over three decades, the LAUSD and its endlessly swelling bureaucracy have lost the confidence even of its friends -- the people who stand to gain from yet another bond issue.

The rapidly expanding charter school organizations, the teachers union, even the head of the bond oversight committee have refused to endorse this money grab without a plan.

If ever there was a vote of "no confidence" in the district, the lack of support for this bond issue is it. And voters should take the cue and resoundingly defeat Measure Q -- aptly named for its questionable nature -- and send a message that it's time for radical change in public education in L.A.

Think about these facts:

LAUSD has put in $450 million for charter schools despite fighting them every inch of the way and making them go to court to get the money mandated by state law. And the charters still don't support the bond.

There's $1.8 billion to rebuild brand-new massive schools into smaller academies where kids might actually learn -- a goal long sought by genuine reformers but resisted by LAUSD -- and nobody is lining up to cheer.

Green Dot Charters led by Steve Barr supports the spending plan as it's written but doesn't trust the bureaucrats to deliver on its promise.

The California Charter School Association, which can build classroom space 33 percent cheaper than LAUSD and thus get more bang for the buck, has withheld support, saying it has "concerns about the effectiveness" of the plan and wants the district to embrace a broad policy that recognizes charters' ability to create more seats cheaper and faster.

Mike Piscal, founder and CEO of ICEF Public Schools, which operates 13 charter schools in South Los Angeles and is expanding rapidly, strongly opposes Measure Q.