Labor leader seeks AG investigation into San Joaquin Delta College scandal

By Jeff Mitchell

The president of the San Joaquin-Calaveras Central Labor Council has sent an urgent letter to California Attorney General Jerry Brown asking him to open an investigation into the findings of a Grand Jury report that alleges wrongdoing on the part of local college district board and a prominent development company who has extensive business dealings with 11th District GOP challenger Dean Andal.

A copy of the letter written by labor council President Joe Coy was provided to the campaign staff of incumbent Congressman Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton, who in turn forwarded a copy to PolitickerCA.com.

"I am not representing the council or the congressman on this," Coy said in a brief interview Tuesday morning. "I really feel that the Attorney General needs to get involved in this situation. We need a full, complete and impartial investigation of all the parties involved."

In his letter, Coy, who has contributed personal funds to McNerney's reelection campaign, connects the dots where the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury stops short. He directly implicates that Andal was the "(unnamed) consultant" working with builder Gerry Kamilos and his firm, PCCP Mountain House LLC, on the development of second campus for the San Joaquin Delta College District in the community of Mountain House outside of the city of Tracy.

Andal has consistently denied any wrongdoing or any connection with the incident. He has, however, openly acknowledged his business dealings with Kamilos and federal disclosure records show that he earned slightly more than $217,000 last year serving as a consultant to the Sacramento-based developer.

Distribution of the letter may be a harbinger of the kind of race voters in California's Congressional District 11 may encounter this fall. Pundits have said the race is expected to be among the most hotly contested House battles in the nation this fall. And that prediction comes on the heels of a bruising 2006 race between then Republican incumbent Richard Pombo and McNerney.

The June 18 Grand Jury report sharply criticizes Delta College trustees for their botched handling of the overall development of the satellite campus. The report says that one or more of the elected board members is believed to have violated the state's Brown Act by communicating vital closed session information from a February 2006 meeting to one of Kamilos' consultants. This private information in turn allowed the high-profile developer to keep the project at the Mountain House site alive.

(The report also pointedly notes that had the trustees gone with a property offered to them by the city that was inside Tracy, the project would not have wasted an estimated $40 million of the $250 million Measure L funds that voters approved in 2004.)

For their part, the Andal campaign staffers said they were concerned about the timing of and the motivation behind Coy's letter.

"Dean has been very clear on this issue -- he did not receive any leaked information from any closed door meeting of the Delta College Board of Trustees. The labor council, who authored this letter, is a McNerney supporter with a clear political agenda," said Andal spokesman Richard Temple. "McNerney should reject low road politics like this, and instead he should explain to voters why he opposes drilling for new oil anywhere in America even though gas prices are skyrocketing, and why he supports higher taxes on families even though the state's economic problems are making life for Californian families a day-to-day struggle. Voters deserve to hear about issues, not unsubstantiated political attacks."

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