Divisions at Delta run deep

By Michael Fitzgerald
Record Columnist
July 18, 2008 6:00 AM

Truth is the first casualty in a closely contested election, and nothing illustrates this as well as the controversy over San Joaquin Delta College's new campus.

A recent grand jury report scalded Delta for delays and cost overruns of satellite campuses planned after voters approved a $250 million bond in 2004.

The grand jury paid particular attention to officials' decision to stick with a $55 million Delta campus in Mountain House when the city of Tracy offered a much sweeter deal.

Delta's president, staff, consultants and three of seven board members favored Tracy's offer. But four members of the bitterly divided board stayed with Mountain House.

The majority prevailed. Unfortunately, this played out over several very inflationary years in the construction industry. The satellite campus' cost soared close to $100 million.

This boondoggle became a national political issue when Delta Trustee Ted Simas alleged Dean Andal telephoned him with knowledge discussed by trustees in closed session.

The Stockton-based Andal is the project director for Sacramento developer Gerry Kamilos, who is to build the Mountain House campus.

Andal is also a Republican candidate for the 11th Congressional District seat held by Jerry McNerney. The race is one of the nation's few closely contested.

Simas alleged Andal knew two confidential items: that Simas liked Tracy's offer and that the board was considering bouncing Kamilos for missing a deadline.

Andal had called Simas within hours of the closed-session meeting in which these issues were discussed, though he and Simas did not connect until the next day.

Simas says Andal could have learned this only one way: One or more trustees violated the Brown Act. In fact, Andal explicitly said two board members called him, Simas alleges.

The dominant interpretation of these facts goes like this: an illegal leak gave Kamilos an unfair advantage, keeping the Mountain House project on track, thwarting Tracy, though Tracy could have saved taxpayers millions. And Andal was a party to this shady fiasco.

This take has been parroted all the way up to the premier political blog Daily Kos, though Andal denies wrongdoing and though nobody bothered to call Kamilos.

"It's double trouble for a candidate running on ethics reform and a Boy Scout image," Kos scolded Andal. [Citation]

It is worth interjecting that receiving information from a Brown Act violation is not illegal. Only disclosing the information is.

I don't share Andal's politics, but fair is fair. This story admits for another interpretation.

First, there are valid concerns that Tracy's offer was shaky and that Delta might never get approvals necessary to abandon Mountain House and sell that land.

Second, for all the bad press Delta has received, the extent of its mismanagement is still not thoroughly grasped.

Incredibly, Delta officials bought the Mountain House land without understanding they would have to pay $14.5 million in traffic and utility fees. They could not afford those fees.

This mistake alone delayed construction by years at a time when such delay might increase costs by $10 million a year.

Kamilos bailed them out by offering to donate $14.5 million to $17 million, probably the largest contribution by a private citizen to education in San Joaquin County history.

The board thanked him by distrustfully ordering him to securitize the donation with letters of credit, causing more delay; when he did, the board rejected one or two letters because they came from Oregon banks.

The deadline for producing these letters was the one Kamilos missed.

The board further thanked him by flirting with Tracy, another year's delay.

Third, this leads to something else not fully appreciated, in my view, namely how deeply dysfunctional Delta's board is. "Divided" is not strong enough. Hatreds exist.

Simas, for instance, publicly supported Trustee Maria Elena Serna's rival in 2006, taking out print ads, a rare instance of one board member going after another this way.

The board is so factionalized and filled with animus it seems entirely possible that the pro-Tracy minority is monkey-wrenching Mountain House to thwart their enemies on the board. I'm not saying this is the case, but it is an equally plausible scenario.

Kamilos said he did not receive any closed-session information.

"I would probably throw it back to Mr. Simas and ask him why is he pursuing this," Kamilos said. "Because I can tell you that year delay (over Tracy) with inflation, just because of time, probably cost Mountain House $10 million."

Andal says it was not necessary to receive illegal information to know that Kamilos was missing a deadline; Kamilos knew it.

He denies saying anything about board members calling him. That point comes down to a he said/she said scenario.

Andal's rejoinder: "Ted (Simas) accused his colleagues ... of violating the Brown Act without any evidence. That cast a pall on all of his colleagues."

Simas did not back down: "I stand by everything I said," he retorted. He offered to show his diary in which, he says, he meticulously documented Andal's every word.
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