Fearing That Assemblymember Kevin DeLeon Could Learn Reasons Given By LA City College President For Closure Were False, LACCD Board Member E-mails Show Them Coaching Controversial President, Dr. Jamillah Moore, To Stop Making False Statements About Why Van de Kamps Is To Be Leased Out To Mayor’s Pet Workforce Union-Run Projects.
Councilmembers Ed Reyes, Eric Garcetti, Assemblymember Kevin DeLeon, State Senator Gil Cedillo, and Congressmember Xavier Becerra Happily Believed The Misinformation Provided By LACCD Officials Rather Than Follow Up On Allegations Of Misconduct By Community Representatives. Official Documents Show The Community Allegations Were Valid.
(Los Angeles, June 14, 2010) The ongoing investigation of misconduct by Trustees and Management of the Los Angeles Community College District (“LACCD”) by the Van de Kamps Coalition shows that community college officials plotted a strategy to mislead elected officials into believing that the State Budget crisis required them to lease out the Northeast Satellite Campus. In fact, college officials deliberately ignored an independently validated and faculty-approved business plan for the Northeast Campus at Van de Kamps. The business plan called for opening the campus by teaching 80% profit-oriented classes that were independent of the State’s Budget for funding. For this reason, the Northeast Campus was never dependent upon the State’s Budget to open, but LACCD officials lied to the public and elected officials by saying that it was.
Profit-oriented classes include classes like special employer contract training classes, community education classes (Yoga, foreign language, English as a Second Language), grant and foundation funded vocational certificate programs, short-term weekend continuing education, etc. Using the revenues from this high-percentage of profit-oriented classes to cover campus operational costs, LA City College faculty planned to also offer sorely needed community college transfer and other academic classes to Northeast students who needed to start off college at a location closer to home. According to the Northeast Campus business plan, the operational costs would quickly be covered and enable academic classes without any State Budget reimbursements. The study also showed that those for profit classes would not take away from the same sort of classes making money for LA City College and the other community colleges campuses right now.
“The whole reason we spent $72 million of taxpayer bonds and other funds to build the Northeast Campus was to open it up with 80% profit-oriented classes and 20% traditional community college classes,” said Miki Jackson of the Van de Kamps Coalition. “LACCD officials trying to blame their conscious refusal to open the Northeast Campus on the State Budget crisis is like Pat Robertson blaming the Katrina Hurricane on homosexuals – no sane person would connect the two.”
One e-mail showed the staff of Assemblymember DeLeon’s office asking LA City College President Dr. Jamillah Moore various questions about the District’s plans and concerns raised by the Van de Kamps Coalition. When Dr. Moore forwarded the e-mail questions to Chancellor Dr. Marshall Drummond, he reacted privately to Moore with two partial words: “Fuk em.” According to Laura Gutierrez, a Coalition member, “We shook our heads in disbelief that the Chancellor of the largest community college in nation would harbor such seething hostility to answering the questions of our elected officials. It was really shocking – and he didn’t even use a complete sentence!”
“When Assemblymember Kevin DeLeon started asking questions, Chancellor Marshall Drummond’s response was: ‘Fuk em’”
E-mails also show that the staff of Councilmember Eric Garcetti thought that the community was “resigned” to the loss of the Van de Kamps campus and Garcetti’s staff expected things to quiet down after the initial outcry. E-mails also show that Councilmember Ed Reyes’ staff met with LACCD officials prior to an early June 2009 meeting with Van de Kamps Coalition members. “In our meeting with Mr. Reyes, he never disclosed to us that he or his staff had already met with District officials,” observed Laura Gutierrez.
For months, Councilmember Reyes has told community leaders that LACCD’s leasing of the Northeast Campus buildings to a charter high school and workforce unemployment programs funded by the City’s Workforce Investment Board was “preferable to the buildings standing empty.” Coalition member Netty Carr disputed that claim: “I personally worked for a decade to bring this satellite campus to Atwater Village/Glassell Park and the Councilmember thinks we and LA City College had no plan on how to open it? There are hundreds of pages of plans and feasibility studies showing Van de Kamps has overwhelming demand for the planned classes. If LACCD officials had not grabbed the Northeast Campus away from LA City College, we would have been up and running by now.”
“We have the e-mails that show the central office administrators, led by Chancellor Drummond, strong-armed LA City College faculty to hand the Northeast Campus over to central office control instead of the City College,” said Gutierrez. “It’s all about the District administrators making money for their budget instead of benefiting the students at LA City College.”
In a striking irony, the very same type of profit-oriented classes that District administrators deny would be viable at Van de Kamps are the only type of classes that LA City College is offering this summer at its main campus. “If those classes are profitable over at LA City College main campus, why are they being rejected over here?” observed Jackson. “LACCD will use our campus to simply fatten their own administrative budget. I could use words similar to Chancellor Drummond, but then I would have to wash my mouth out with soap.”
Van de Kamps Coalition members vow that they will not quit until Van de Kamps is returned to LA City College as a proper satellite campus and other scandals they have found are fully revealed. “Our elected officials could have stopped this political Mayor centric driven disaster. Over $7.1 million of illegal bond expenditures were used by LACCD and the Mayor’s office to destroy classrooms at Van de Kamps. Passively watching those illegal expenditures unfold were Ed Reyes, Eric Garcetti, Kevin DeLeon, Gil Cedillo, and Xavier Becerra,” the Coalition members said. “This is what happens when elected officials ‘Politically go along, to get along’ instead showing real leadership.”
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