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By Dr. Gabor Vass | On April 8, we will elect three people to the Board of Trustees for LBCC. During the past 15 months, there has been real turmoil at LBCC. Students organized numerous protests, marched to LB City Hall on May 1, 2013, and demonstrated at many Board meetings. In cooperation with some of the faculty, they were protesting the drastic closures of 11 vocational programs. Administration first claimed budget cuts, later claimed that these programs had low enrollments, industry did not hire the students from these programs, they needed the money elsewhere, etc.
Community Colleges are taxpayer-funded PUBLIC institutions, established specifically to provide job skills and lower cost education than private, for profit institutions. The education of the students is the primary, and only function of a taxpayer funded teaching institution. There is an elected Board of Trustees who are entrusted with the responsibility to ensure that College Administration will never lose sight of that mission. LBCC is receiving over $100 million tax dollars every year, plus over $700 million bond money in the last ten years.
The LBCC Trustees have betrayed the people’s trust.
Who are the current Board members? Clark is a politician, former Mayor. Kellogg is a politician, former councilman. Uranga is a politician, running for a council seat. Otto is a lawyer, politician, running for Mayor’s office. Bowman is the only educator on the board. And who they hired as President of the College? An accountant, with no teaching background whatsoever.
Let’s see how your tax dollars are “managed” at LBCC. According to a former Board member, around year 2000 there was a substantial amount of money, around $30 Million that was handed over to a New York bank to “invest” it. Subsequently the money was “lost” (surprise-surprise).
In 2002, Kellogg was elected to the Board, replacing Thorpe. Kellogg was an advocate of the passing of the Bond measure, giving the College hundreds of millions of Dollars. Within a year, the College management was in negotiations for purchasing three adjacent properties on Los Coyotes Diagonal for a total of $9 Million, including 3340 Los Coyotes, which cost $4.45 Million. The deal was approved by the Board, closing some time in January-February of 2004. Kellogg abstained from voting, stating that he “knew the seller”. How curious. 3340 Los Coyotes is still vacant land, weeds are growing on it now. It has never been utilized for anything. I tried to find out why would a teaching institution spend $9 million (half of it for a vacant lot) of our taxdollars, and then never use it for anything. I never got answers. Now the property has been declared “surplus property” by the Board.
In 2007, the College spent over $10 million tax dollars on a new building, specifically designed and built for the Aviation and Automotive programs. During the ribbon cutting ceremony, President Oakley stated that, “Our new Aviation and Automotive Technology Center will train the region’s next generation of aviation mechanics, auto, diesel and hybrid experts. These are high-wage jobs that will create tremendous opportunities for the students in the program.”
Two years later, in 2009, the Welding and Machine Tool Technology building was completed, at $13 million cost. Three years after that, Oakley and his administration announced that most of the vocational programs will be closed by summer of 2013, due to budget cuts. Oakley stated, that they must save $2.1 million. The faculty and students provided ample, verifiable evidence to the Board, that the administration’s claim of shortage of funds were not true, the college had over $14 million in reserves, and there were many other areas where waste could be cut to save money (like $5 million spent on maintenance managers and supervisors, average pay $88,000 per year, most of them never been seen, spending $76,000 on a phoney “study” of who hires automotive students, $140,000 for a trip to Dubai and Italy, having nine vice presidents, one just received a $20,000 raise, long-term lease of a luxurious condo at 333 First street in Seal Beach, etc.). The Board members couldn’t care less.
Faculty provided enrollment data, retention data (Aviation program’s retention rate was the highest of the college), proving that administration is misrepresenting these numbers. The Board members couldn’t care less. Uranga, the President of the Board, summarized the Board’s position, “the vocational programs failed the students, because they did not prepare them to become the boss!” ( whatever that means?), so they voted to approve to close 11 vocational programs, denying 4000 students the opportunity to learn job skills, despite Oakley’s statement just five years earlier (Bowman, the only educator on the Board voted against it).
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Now we are getting close to April 8, and we have the opportunity to elect new Board members. Running in District 5 is retired Professor Gregory Slaughter, an educator, who will represent the students’ interests at this teaching institution. His opponent, Virginia Baxter, is part of the current establishment, mindlessly repeating the administration’s misrepresentations. She stated to the Beachcomber that the aviation program “with four full-time professors, enrollment never exceeded 19 in three years.”
If Baxter would have ever taken the time to visit these vocational programs, she would have seen herself the 180 students attending the Aviation program, ranking among the top five programs of its kind in the Nation (according to FAA). The only time she and the Board members ever came to the vocational area was when there was a free breakfast, but they never visited the classrooms or labs. I know, I was there for 17 years.
She also stated that “I’ve devoted my entire adult life to LBCC, and I want to assure it’s on the same path it’s going now, we’re doing an excellent job.” She is part of the “we” that is the current administration and the current Board, and they are doing an “excellent job.” Well, it depends on what the meaning of “excellent” is. If you consider wasting our hard-earned tax dollars, using it in shady real-estate deals, using to pay for a bloated, self-serving administration, denying learning opportunity to 4000 students is an excellent job, then they do.
So if you want another “rubberstamp” to approve all the waste, mismanagement, business as usual good-old-boys-and-girls club, elitist attitude, using intimidation and fear to silence criticism, then vote for Virginia Baxter.
But if you want to take back LBCC to serve students, working together with faculty and staff, find ways to cut waste, not programs, reinstate the much needed vocational programs, holding administration accountable, turn LBCC back to a teaching institution again, then vote for Professor Slaughter!
Gabor Vass is a retired professor
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