Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Looking for leaders

Written by Jennifer Wadsworth / Tracy Press
Wednesday, 30 July 2008

A group of teachers is trying to rally challengers to replace longtime Delta College trustees in this fall's election.

A handful of San Joaquin Delta College teachers have formed a group that aims to rally as many people as possible to run against the school’s longtime trustees, some of whom have sat on the board for decades.

Even if a couple trustees go unchallenged, the group wants to hold incumbents to task by hearing why they’re running again, what they hope to accomplish and how they justify past actions.

The teacher-led Delta College Political Action Committee, which coalesced in June, plans to bring new blood to a board long known for its divisiveness and, according to some agencies, incompetence.

"We’re hoping at a minimum to replace two or three people in this election," said Sam Hatch, a Delta English teacher and one of six committee members.

The California Teachers Association-chartered organization was born out of teachers’ frustration with standing trustees, said chairwoman and Delta history teacher Lynn Hawley.

"It just became clear that if we wanted better governance at the school that we’d have to get involved politically," she said Tuesday. As other government agencies have recently determined, she added, "we’re not happy with the board as it stands now."

Delta instructors at a public meeting last month overwhelmingly voted for a resolution of no confidence in the board for many of the same reasons laid out in recent reports from the San Joaquin Civil Grand Jury and the school’s accreditation commission — notably mismanaging bond money and flouting open-meeting laws.

The condemning vote proved a catalyst for Hawley, Hatch and a handful of other teachers to form the committee.

Through the affiliated teachers’ union, the committee plans to get at least $20,000 to pay for mailings, phone banks and other promotions to support the candidates it decides to endorse.

Though the group seeks to mobilize a healthy number of challengers for each seat, Hawley said that doesn’t necessarily mean she or anyone else in her committee refuses to back an incumbent.

They just want them shaken out of their perceived complacency, she said.

Four trustees’ seats are up for election this November, and the newly formed group has kept busy calling folks to recruit them to run against "the Delta establishment," as one member put it.

The filing period ends Aug. 8.

Tracy trustee Greg McCreary is the only incumbent to run unopposed so far.

Thirty-three-year trustee Dan Parises will step down in December. Board president Leo Burke has yet to file for a campaign.

Valley Springs resident and former state architect Steve Castellanos will run unchallenged for Parises’ seat, unless another candidate registers before the mid-August deadline.

Castellanos is so far one of the few candidates the committee has contacted. He said they asked him mostly about the mishandled Measure L bond, which voters approved in 2006 to pay for new construction and a few satellite campuses around the county.

Trustee Anthony Bugarin will run for re-election against Stockton businesswoman C. Jennet Stebbins.

Teacher and businesswoman Mary Ann Cox and warehouse worker/real estate agent/student Motecuzoma Sanchez, both of Stockton, will run for Burke’s seat.

During the last election, in 2006, when Manteca-Escalon Trustee Ted Simas and Lodi’s Maria Elena Serna ran for re-election, Serna ran against a cable news executive and Simas against a farmer.

Otherwise, challengers have historically been relatively few and far between, according to records from the San Joaquin Registrar of Voters.

In 2004, all four incumbents up for re-election ran unopposed and were appointed to office in lieu of a vote.

McCreary said he hopes the best for the newly formed committee, though he said no one from the committee has contacted him yet and that he knows next to nothing about it.

"But it’s good to get people involved," he said. "I wish they would’ve been around three or four years ago."

Source

Sunday, July 27, 2008

$3 million: Nothing to show for it

Collapsed Victor Road deal has Delta officials looking at other options
By Andrew Adams
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Updated: Saturday, July 26, 2008 6:08 AM PDT

Delta College spent more than $3 million on the ill-fated Victor Road site — without buying a single acre.

All the money went for options, fees and studies. No land.

Now, what had been envisioned as a new Lodi campus is likely to remain a bucolic spread of vineyards and stately homes.

With cost overruns at other Delta sites — especially Mountain House near Tracy — and inflation, the school's $250 million in Measure L bond money has quickly diminished.

Now there's only about $64.5 million to pay for regional centers at Lodi and Manteca and a campus at Mountain House.

That has left the school looking at other options in Lodi, such as an existing building or another piece of land.

Much of the money the school spent on the Victor Road site was for site analysis and planning. The firm Carter & Burgess received a little more than $1 million for reviewing the property as well as developing two master plans.

The city of Lodi received $32,780 for work on the environmental impact report.

The firm Private Public Ventures Inc., based in Pasadena, received about $760,000 to help Delta pick the site off Victor Road in Lodi as well as establish the development agreement with private companies to add housing and retail.

Delta has also spent $450,000 on option payments to retain the right to buy the property.

However, the college's board of trustees voted 5-2 on July 15 to forgo paying another $150,000 to hang onto those options.

Some are relieved

Landowners near the Victor Road site say they are relieved to hear that Delta is looking elsewhere, especially because they found the development agreement troubling.

Initial plans called for homes, retail outlets and possibly even a hotel.

Mary Hoff, who led a group of residents opposed to the school's plans, said Delta should be looking at opportunities to establish a campus within the city limits of Lodi.

"We're happy that they're hopefully not going to build a campus here," she said. "We never thought it was a good idea from the beginning."

She said a college campus could be an "in-fill" development, and locating it in the city would preserve farmland.

Another property owner, Terry Fena, said he has always supported a Delta campus in the Lodi area, even perhaps in the rural area near his home. He just balked at the idea of a large commercial development.

"I've never been against Delta College," he said, "just the developers that came with it."

Those developers were Capitol Avenue Development and Investments, or CADI, and Granite Land Co.

Granite Land Co. is the real estate development arm of construction giant Granite Construction Inc., best known for building highways, bridges, tunnels and other infrastructure. In 2004, the company employed 6,000 and had revenues of $2.1 billion, according to the firm's Web site.

CADI and Granite formed a partnership company, Victor Ventures, LLC., which assumed CADI's side in a development agreement with Delta College in August 2007. CADI and Delta formed their original partnership in March 2007.

The college had initially been looking to develop 114 acres off Victor Road itself.

When that appeared to be too costly, it opted to use only 40 acres for an "academic village" and leave the remainder for Victor Ventures.

CADI staff have rarely discussed their plans for the area in public. The company did not return a call for comment or respond to an e-mail.

David Rodriguez, the consultant with PPV, helped lead the search for a location in Lodi.

His company also helped negotiate the development agreement, according to its Web site www.publicprivateventures.net.

PPV lists the Delta project as one of its successes, saying it "arranged a complex, five-party agreement" between Delta, the city of Lodi, CADI and property owners to create a "master-planned, mixed use" development.

The company also notes the land was being purchased "well below market value," although Delta College still has not purchased the land.

Contacted at his office Friday, Rodriguez declined to comment on the Victor Road project.

Public and private partnerships

Trustee Ted Simas said he wasn't sure how Delta became linked to CADI. He said he remembered that in 2006, when the college voted to buy the property, the trustees did not know which company would help develop the Lodi site.

Simas said the college's consultant, Rodriguez, would only say "it was a reputable developer from the Sacramento area."

Trustee Marie Elena Serna also said she could not recall how CADI and Delta came together ,but thought it was "some type of bid process."

Delta spokesman Greg Greenwood said he did not know how the college and CADI came to form a partnership.

He also said the board's decision not to proceed with an option on the Victor Road property does not necessarily preclude the college's agreement with CADI.

"The college is analyzing all of the aspects surrounding the proposed Lodi site, as well as exploring the likelihood of alternatives. That said, the agreement is currently in effect," Greenwood said.

Even if the agreement is in effect, it's hard to tell if anything will happen at the Victor site. Delta doesn't appear to have enough money, and San Joaquin County planning staff could not find any development applications submitted by CADI or Victor Ventures.

Part of Delta's agreement with CADI established an escrow account into which funds would be deposited for work on the project site.

Delta has spent millions on planning work, but it's unclear if CADI or Victor Ventures has deposited anything.

Greenwood said the account is processed by a neutral third party and could not say if CADI had made any deposits.

"We recommend you contact representatives of CADI for information as to what they have, or have not, deposited," he said.

CADI did not respond to inquiries from the News-Sentinel.

Trustee Simas said he did not believe CADI had contributed anything for Delta's Lodi project, and characterized the endeavor as "gambling with taxpayer money."

Serna, however, said she still views public and private partnerships as a method to building a Lodi campus.

"There are those that are just negative on public/private partnerships, and I'm not," she said.

She said she still thinks the Victor Road site may work out, but would be willing to consider other options that Delta staff may discover. The trustee is dead set against a "storefront" location, however, because such an arrangement would not allow Delta to expand.

"We'll probably have to get very creative, but that's OK," she said. "These things don't come cheap."

    Lodi campus costs
  • The following is a breakdown of San Joaquin Delta College's spending on the Victor Road site. Consultant costs are current as of March 31 and dealt mainly with site analysis and planning work.
  • Property option payments: $450,000.
  • Private Public Ventures: $758,083.20, planning and site search.
  • Dennis E. Barnhart Program Services: $165,547.14, planning.
  • Lozano Smith: $116,440.93, legal review.
  • Carter & Burgess: $1,009,487.21, land use and master plans.
  • CCS: $111,038.51, curriculum planning.
  • City of Lodi: $32,780.02, environmental impact review.
  • Palmero Reporting: $608.75, notation services for a public meeting.
  • Design, Community & Environment Inc.: $44,948.35, land use report.
  • EDAW, Inc.: $260,698.38, land use and environmental impact review.
  • Unallocated: $148,521.
  • Total: $3,098,153.49.


    Source: San Joaquin Delta College


Source of article

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Answer to Delta College dysfunction

Written by Sam Hatch / His Voice
Friday, 25 July 2008

English professor says the mess can be cleaned up, but not without citizen involvement.

If the voters care about the institutional health of San Joaquin Delta College, they’ll take a hard look at the record of the college’s current board. They’ll ask themselves whether any of the incumbents deserve re-election.

In March, an accreditation team concluded that the college’s board of trustees was dysfunctional. In the words of the committee, the board has “devolved into a group reduced to infighting and micromanagement of college operations” and “has consistently failed to live up to its own standards of good practice.”

The accreditation team’s conclusions have been confirmed from the two other independent sources. The San Joaquin Civil Grand Jury observed similar dysfunction in the board and indicated it had “no confidence in the Delta College board of trustees as currently constituted.”

In late May and early June, the San Joaquin Delta College teachers voted overwhelmingly for a resolution of no confidence in the board, citing many of the issues raised by the grand jury and the accreditation team.

The board’s public responses to these serious charges have been feeble at best — an uneasy combination of denial and public assertions of their good intentions.

The board now faces a number of problems of its own making. First, the trustees and top administrators have wasted tens of millions of bond dollars on poorly drawn contracts, poorly supervised consultants and indecision. The $250 million bond was never sufficient to pay for all the projects on the board’s wish list. Yet the board, in one of its clear signs of dysfunction, could not make the tough decisions about which projects should be downsized or scrapped completely. While the board dithered, millions of dollars slowly hemorrhaged away on consultants, feasibility studies, and designs — in all sorts of preliminaries for projects that will never be built.

A million here, 2 million there, another 3 million on another project — they mount up to substantial sums when a board goes years without making tough, responsible decisions. Loss of the money is bad enough, but there has also been a more important loss in public confidence in the college and in the delayed construction of vital facilities for our students.

The board has also jeopardized the college’s accreditation by failing to hire, retain and then allow qualified administrators to do their jobs. The result has been drift — a failure to support administrators and faculty in doing the strategic planning the accrediting agency expects of a properly functioning college.

The board lacks what a former U.S. president called “the vision thing.” As a group, the trustees seem to have forgotten how the board fits into the running of the college and who ultimately is served — the students. The board’s job is policy and oversight; implementation of policy is the job of the administration. When board and administration can’t work cooperatively, the students suffer.

Given such clear evidence of dysfunction, voters should ask incumbent trustees to explain and defend their stewardship of the college. Unfortunately, too often Delta trustees have run unopposed, without even giving the public a ballot statement to express their vision of the college. In effect, unopposed trustees have been relieved of the burden of explaining and defending their records.

The mess at Delta College can be cleaned up, but not without significant turnover in the board. The answer to the board’s dysfunction is citizen involvement.

The college needs thoughtful candidates and informed voters. We need you, and more important, the students need you — especially in those areas where trustees run unopposed.

At a glance
• The Delta College board has three openings, one of which represents Tracy. For information on running: Austin G. Erdman, San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters, 468-2885 or www.sjcrov.org.

• Sam Hatch taught high-school English for 22 years and in 2001 joined the San Joaquin Delta College English department. He lives in Lodi and is a graduate of Delta College.

Source
Published simultaneously in the Lodi News Sentinel

Friday, July 18, 2008

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.
Source

Delta trustees get ethics lesson

Written by Jennifer Wadsworth
Thursday, 17 July 2008

The board that's been sharply criticized for allegedly violating open meeting laws may adopt an ethics code after a training session today.

STOCKTON — Delta College trustees met this morning at a Stockton country club to draft their first formal code of ethics, which in recent months the school’s accreditation commission and the San Joaquin Civil Grand Jury found lacking.

The closest thing the board had to an ethics code — guidelines up until now called “standards of good practice” — left out how to deal with trustee misconduct.

It also lacked a tenet that solely addressed the Ralph M. Brown Act, a law that spells out how public officials should conduct themselves in open and closed meetings.

Trustees were accused by the grand jury last month with at least twice violating open-meeting laws. Some trustees have named as many as five violations.

Today, a legal expert conducted a training session that touched on open-government laws and gave trustees a draft of ethical standards to work with.

“You are an essential link between the college and the community,” school-hired legal counsel Carmen Plaza de Jennings told the five of seven trustees who attended today’s training session.

Trustees are role models who set the tone, vision and policies for the institution, Plaza de Jennings reminded the board and college president Raul Rodriguez.

With that in mind, she warned them that mismanagement could lead to “a loss of respect from the public,” difficulty securing future bond measures and risking the school’s accreditation.

Plaza de Jennings’ disinterested advice as an outside consultant echoed charges made in the scathing grand jury and accreditation reports.

Among additions to the code, the San Francisco-based lawyer added clauses that restrict trustees’ interaction with college staff, expressly define a trustee’s role as policymaker and encourage honesty about conflicts of interest.

The four-page draft also addressed how authority is to be divided among trustees and college employees.

The recently issued accreditation and grand jury reports criticized trustees’ for overstepping their roles as policymakers — basically charging them with illegal “micromanaging” — which the added clause addressed.

Trustees “do not do the work of the institution, they make sure the institution gets the work done,” Plaza de Jennings summed up.

Trustees asked during the meeting about how to separate personal political leanings from their capacity as board member and how where to draw the line between loyalty to the group and individual opinion.

Dan Parises — who this week announced he’ll step down after 33 years as trustee — suggested that only the board president speak publicly for all trustees.

Tracy Trustee Greg McCreary countered that a board member retains rights as a private citizen to espouse whatever political views they like, even it’s to endorse an incumbent’s opponent.

“It may not be nice, it may not be courteous,” he said, “(but as a trustee) you don’t lose your right as a citizen.”

Plaza de Jennings agreed.

Ted Simas and Maria Serna were absent from the meeting.

The new ethics guidelines will go back to the college for staff approval before trustees vote sometime within the next few months to codify the 20 tenets, which once established, the board is set to annually revise.

Source

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Delta teachers say they have no confidence in board

By Amanda Dyer
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Updated: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 12:30 AM PDT

Delta College's teachers' union announced its vote of no confidence in the college's trustees at Tuesday night's regular board meeting and has started work to help unseat board members up for re-election.

The few dozen faculty members who attended the meeting vigorously applauded union president Joe Gonzales' announcement.

Most faculty members wore solid-white, pin-on buttons, which one instructor explained are sort of a silent protest that teachers can wear in the classroom because it does not convey any particular message.

The announcement stemmed from a faculty-wide vote that took place between May 27 and June 16. Ninety-five percent of the ballots turned in indicated that teachers have no confidence in the board.

The San Joaquin Delta College Teacher's Association referenced its ongoing struggle to settle its contract with the college, but said it is even more concerned with what it perceives as the trustees' inability to steer the college in the right direction.

"We're less interested in a contract than helping to put the college's house in order," said Sam Hatch, a Delta instructor and communications officer for the faculty union.

Hatch cited last month's less than favorable grand jury report, which said the board squandered millions of dollars of Measure L funds. Voters approved Measure L, a $250 million bond meant to make number of improvements to Delta's home campus as well as build satellite campuses, in 2004.

The union's spokesman also referenced the college's recent run-in with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges' accreditation committee, which suggested the trustees adopt a code of ethics among other things.

Hatch said union is also looking for members of the community who will run against board members up for re-election, including Trustees Leo Burke, Anthony Bugarin and Greg McCreary.

Hatch said the union was partnering with other civic groups for the search, but declined to say which ones.

Trustee Dan Parises, also up for re-election, announced Tuesday that he will not seek another term.

Other trustees had little to say about the faculty's announcement.

"I appreciate that the faculty was honest with us," Trustee Janet Rivera said.

Trustee Maria Elena Serna emphasized that the board is not avoiding adopting a code of ethics. It just simply ran out of time while dealing with more important matters, she said.

Both Serna and Rivera said the board will adopt a code of ethics at Thursday's meeting.

At the end of the meeting, Gonzales took the podium once again to say things were not all bad.

Since the vote was taken some progress has been made, he said.

"Personally, we'd like to extend the challenge to prove us wrong," [Gonzales said].

Source

Delta votes 'no' on buying land on Victor Road

Some on board say they are not abandoning a Lodi campus site
By Amanda Dyer
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Updated: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 12:30 AM PDT

Delta trustees decided not to make a $150,000 payment to extend its option to buy property in Lodi at Victor Road, where it originally intended to build a satellite campus.

At least a couple of board members and San Joaquin Delta College's President Raul Rodriguez say that doesn't mean they are abandoning Lodi — or even the Victor Road site — altogether, though.

Trustees Maria Elena Serna and Dan Parises, who objected to passing up the payment in a 5-2 vote, say they are still committed to a presence in Lodi.

However, Parises will only be committed, at least in the capacity of a trustee, for another few months.

He announced his decision not to run for re-election due to health reasons and to spend more time with his family. Parises' announcement will put an end to a 33-year career as a trustee at the college.

"Looking back, it's not always been an easy road, but through respectful collaboration during my tenure, many people working together have made outstanding things happen," Parises said in a prepared statement.

Rodriguez said the college's decision to not extend its option on the Victor Road property is an effort to conserve bond money. Delta has already spent $450,000 on options for the property.

"We're looking at all of our options," Rodriguez said. "Why make another payment if we're not sure?"

The college could still purchase the Victor Road property should it still be available in the future, Rodriguez said.

Other college officials have suggested that Delta look into another site, possibly an existing building, for its Lodi campus.

However, the board did approve of "augmenting" the budgets for several main campus projects deemed by the college's bond management team to be either too far along or critical.

"When we say augment, what we really mean is we don't have enough budgeted," said Lee Belarmino, the head of the management team.

Altogether, the augmentations totaled more than $27 million, most of which comes from the grossly underbudgeted Cunningham building. The building will provide a much needed expansion to the college's math and science departments and house two data centers.

Had the board decided not go forward with the project as planned, the bond management team said the college would lose $30 million in state funding.

By approving the Cunningham building as well as several other projects — including a student services center, portables to house the police department and infrastructure improvements — the board agreed to nix plans to build a $8.5 million district support services center.

That leaves approximately $64 million for the college's Mountain House, Lodi and Manteca projects, more than $31.6 million short of what was originally budgeted for those projects.

Still, Rodriguez and some board members insist that the college can complete projects at all three locations, just maybe not as originally planned.

"We still want to do all of them," Rodriguez said. "Instead of the Cadillac we might go with the Chevy."

Serna, especially, emphasized her intention to stick with the satellite projects.

"My concern is we keep our commitment to the voters," she said.

Trustee Ted Simas, on the other hand, apologized for Delta College's unfulfilled promises, but said when the college campaigned for the bond, it knew it had $250 million for $350 million worth of projects.

Rodriguez said the bond management team will present recommendations for board's decision about Mountain House, Lodi and Manteca projects near Labor Day.

Contact reporter Amanda Dyer at amandad@lodinews.com.

Source

Trustee of 33 years to step down

Parises cites family, health in decision to leave Delta;
Trustees also pump $30 million into about 10 projects

By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
July 16, 2008 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - The longest-tenured trustee at San Joaquin Delta College announced Tuesday he will not run for re-election in November, the same night that the college faculty publicized a vote of no confidence in the beleaguered board.

Dan Parises, 71, said his decision was about family and health. He was hospitalized with internal bleeding in May, and his wife recently battled ovarian cancer. This has lent some perspective to life, said Parises, a trustee for 33 years. "It's time to do some of the things we've put off for many years," he said.

In a written statement explaining why he's leaving the college and board in a state of "dysfunction," Parises said, "Well, you can only do the best you can. For the past few years, the dynamics involved have been very difficult."

His announcement came after a night of painful choices for the board, which is forced with scaling down or scrapping projects that had been promised under a $250 million voter-approved bond.

Trustees agreed Tuesday to pump $30 million into about 10 projects, most significantly a math and science center that is $22.9 million over budget.

While officials say the new building is badly needed, it comes at a cost. Most of the money used to bring these projects out of the red will likely bleed proposed satellite campuses in Mountain House, Lodi and Manteca.

Trustees in closed session voted 5-2 to not pay $150,000 to extend a purchase agreement for the college's proposed Lodi campus on Highway 12 east of Highway 99.

This does not mean a decision has been made not to build there, President Raul Rodriguez said. Rather, it allows the college to continue considering other options - such as buying an existing building or buying and developing property that is already in city limits.

Administrators said again Tuesday that they're not abandoning Lodi, Mountain House or Manteca. But the simple fact is there's not enough money to build all of the campuses as they were originally conceived.

After Tuesday's actions by the board, about $65 million remains to pay for the satellite campuses. Mountain House alone will cost more than that, a bond consultant said earlier this week.

"We still intend to do those projects," Rodriguez said. "But we have to make tough decisions. We think we can do them, (but) maybe not in the grandiose way we first thought."

Trustee Maria Elena Serna - who voted against Tuesday night's Lodi decision, along with Parises - said voters were told regional education centers were a priority.

"I find it very disturbing, and I'm greatly concerned," she said.

So is the city of Lodi. In a letter to the board, City Manager Blair King wrote that he is worried the board's commitment to Lodi is waning.

"Plain and simple fairness demands that the board uphold its commitment to voters," King wrote.

Also Tuesday, the College Teachers Association announced a no-confidence vote in Delta's Board of Trustees, citing four years of controversial decisions about the college and voter-approved Measure L.

"If the board doesn't change, it may be time to change the board," association President Joe Gonzales said in a statement.

Source

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Many questions, little response

Written by Steve Castellanos / For the Tracy Press
Tuesday, 15 July 2008

The Delta College board needs to show more concern and committment to answering the public's questions.

EDITOR,

On Monday I attended a special meeting of the San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees, intending to discuss the state of the construction bond program and the recent San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury report.

I was shocked and frustrated that there was so little forthcoming from the board. I was surprised at the lack of action taken by the board and its reluctance to say anything regarding the bond program, a recent accreditation report and the grand jury. It makes one wonder where and when they do talk about these things.

Even the notion of recording the session (as the board did) and then preparing a response to public comments and questions leaves questions.

These are complex issues, but, as I said, a simple commitment not only to respond but also to truly address the concerns by proposing the necessary changes as to how the board operates is a matter that demands public input and a public response.

(Mr. Castellanos is running for a seat on the SJDC Board.)

Source...

Trustees mute to critics, eye cuts

Written by Jennifer Wadsworth
Monday, 14 July 2008

A few people laid into Delta College trustees today for mismanaging $250 million in bond money that will force them to break promises to voters. The board said little in response.

Where has all the money gone? And what should San Joaquin Delta College officials do with what’s left of the $250 million Measure L bond, approved by voters in 2004 to fix up the college’s main campus and build three new satellite schools?

These were some of the questions Delta's bond team addressed at a lengthy meeting today with college trustees, where they suggested cancelling or downsizing projects voters thought would be done by now, including a proposed satellite campus in Mountain House.

The campus, about six miles outside Tracy, was originally budgeted for $90 million. If trustees on Tuesday go with today’s bond committee suggestion, just $65 million will be left for Lodi, Manteca and Mountain House campuses.

The public today also had a chance for the first time to sound off before school trustees about an investigation that charged the San Joaquin Delta College policymakers with squandering many millions of dollars in taxpayer money and breaching open government laws.

Echoing the San Joaquin Civil Grand Jury report, the public called trustees to task for their alleged mismanagement — a problem more recently raised in an accreditation report.

Trustee Ted Simas joined the public in scolding fellow trustees. He berated them today for cornering themselves into a position where they have to consider scaling back some of the college’s biggest projects.

“When in the hell are we going to consider the students in this district?” he asked the bond committee and his peers. “We’re going to give the public our little scraps and cut Mountain House to pieces.”

The college refused to take questions about the grand jury report at a June workshop held to discuss the bond.

Even today, trustees refrained from responding on the spot to the mostly critical comments. They said they’d record them and come back with official answers at a later date.

Only a handful of people spoke up during the public hearing.

The meetings about the bond and the grand jury report — scheduled for a combined 4½ hours — lasted no more than a couple.

Matthew Wetstein, a former teacher and interim dean of planning at Delta, charged the seven-member board with violating open-government laws this very afternoon, in the hour prior to the day’s second public hearing.

“You have to get better at the way you discuss matter in front of the public,” he said, accusing them with having brought up the grand jury report during the just-finished closed session, despite it being absent from the printed agenda.

Board president Leo Burke denied as much.

“We didn’t have time today,” he replied to Wetstein’s question of whether trustees brought up the report behind closed doors, when the agenda said they’d be talking about the proposed Lodi campus.

Basically, the board needs to get better at sticking to the agenda, summed up Wetstein, who nine years ago sent a letter to a county prosecutor to investigate whether trustees were indeed guilty of violating the Brown Act.

“Even then I knew,” he said after the meeting. “That’s why I got up there today.”

The board has two months to draft a response to the grand jury report.

The first half of today’s meeting picked up where officials left off with last month's Measure L bond workshop.

The newly formed bond oversight committee urged trustees to pool the budget for the Mountain House, Lodi and Manteca campuses into one "regional fund," which would give the school nearly $83.5 million in remaining bond money to work with for all three proposed satellite campuses.

The bond team talked about what projects trustees could vote to cut. As is, the bond is $60 million over budget, officials revealed last month.

Plans to build a $10 million shipping and receiving warehouse on the main campus will likely get nixed and the money used instead to pay for the satellite campuses, should the board at its regular meeting Tuesday night follow the committee’s suggestion.

In recent weeks, trustees have had to examine which of the nearly two-dozen projects to scale down or cancel. Thirteen of them are over budget, especially the proposed Mountain House campus, which trustees say would cost about $30 million more than originally approved.

The committee will also research whether it’s still practical to move the satellite campus to Tracy, near Chrisman and 11th Street — an option that would undoubtedly take longer, reminded Kathy Roach, a bond committee consultant.

Still, the Mountain House site ran into yet another delay when planners realized that an application to the California Department of Fish and Game to build on a streambed was never filed.

“We don’t know who dropped the ball on that,” Roach told trustees.

At the regular board meeting set for Tuesday this week, trustees will officially decide on how to use what bond money is left.

On Thursday, trustees will meet at a Stockton country club to put start drafting a formal code of ethics — something the grand jury suggested at the end of its two-year investigation.

Source...

Delta College has big decisions ahead

By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
July 15, 2008 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - The tough decisions begin tonight.

San Joaquin Delta College's $250 million voter-approved bond will not go nearly as far as officials had hoped. A majority of the projects are over budget, and the Board of Trustees must make tens of millions of dollars in cuts.

College administrators recommended Monday that 10 projects receive an infusion of $30 million to get them out of the red. That leaves less money for other improvements.

If the college's Board of Trustees approves the plan tonight, about $65 million in bond money will remain to build satellite campuses in Mountain House, Lodi and Manteca. The Mountain House campus alone, as originally designed, would cost somewhere shy of $90 million, a college consultant said Monday, meaning cuts are inevitable.

"We all agree this is what we should do," said Lee Belarmino, a Delta administrator heading a new team appointed this spring to oversee Measure L expenditures.

At a workshop in June, college trustees were told that the college is $62.5 million short of paying for all of the projects outlined in the bond. Officials blamed bad estimates, which did not account for inflation and in some cases did not include money for furniture and other necessities.

The San Joaquin County civil grand jury blasted the board last month for wasting bond money, in particular by choosing a Mountain House campus over a proposal to build in Tracy.

Administrators on Monday morning recommended funneling some of the remaining bond money into infrastructure improvements, a student services building that already is under construction, and, most significantly, a math and science center that is well over budget. The center is funded in part with about $30 million from the state, a sum the college loses if it drops the project.

Trustee Ted Simas said it appeared the Mountain House campus would be cut to bits and the Lodi campus delayed until 2013.

"When in the hell are we going to consider the students of this district?" Simas asked of administrators.

Belarmino said the recent cost estimates are not guesses and are more precise than earlier figures.

"We are all motivated, believe me, to get this done right," he said.

President Raul Rodriguez said the decision to put extra bond money into projects on the Stockton campus did not mean the college was moving away from its plan for campuses in other communities.

It may be a matter of paring down Mountain House. "We weren't going to be able to build the Taj Mahal there," he said.

And, Rodriguez said, "We don't want to completely abandon Lodi."

Administrators said they will take more time to decide how the remaining $65 million should be shared among the three proposed campuses.

At Mountain House, it is already too late to turn back on an interim campus of portables, meant to serve students there until a permanent building can be constructed. But in a new wrinkle disclosed Monday, college officials apparently never applied for a streambed alteration permit with the Department of Fish and Game.

It is unclear if this will delay the project, bond consultant Kathy Roach said. A delay of as long as three months is possible if the state requires the college to get such a permit, she said.

Meanwhile, bids to renovate the college library had to be put off because of a lack of coordination between two different designers of the building. That will delay completion about three months.

Administrators recommended one building be canceled entirely, a district support services center that would have housed police, financing and other departments. Nearly $1.5 million already has been spent on that $10 million project.

Trustee Maria Elena Serna said she was anxiously waiting to see what options administrators would suggest for Mountain House, Manteca and Lodi. She said the college has been "visionary" in trying to meet expected growth in students, by refurbishing the existing campus and then growing outward.


ON TONIGHT'S AGENDA

Delta College's Board of Trustees will decide tonight whether to beef up bond funding for the following:

• Math and science center (needs $22.9 million)

• Infrastructure (needs $2.7 million)

• Student services building (needs $1.9 million)

• Police portables (needs $1.3 million)

• Title IX compliance for sporting facilities (needs $869,000)

• District data center (needs $789,000)

• Atherton Auditorium safety (needs $476,000)

• Football, track and softball field parking (needs $275,357)

• Planetarium safety project (needs $22,000)

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the school's administration building, 5151 Pacific Ave., Stockton.

Source...

Sunday, July 13, 2008

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."

Complete article

Delta College in accreditation danger

High education commission says school has 2 years to fix problems
By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
July 08, 2008 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - A higher education commission Monday warned San Joaquin Delta College that it is in danger of losing its accreditation, a form of peer-review approval that is critical to the future of the college.

Should accreditation be revoked, degrees earned by Delta students "wouldn't be valid in many people's eyes," college President Raul Rodriguez said Monday.

"If we lose our accreditation, we basically shut down," he said. "But we're far from that point."

Delta has two years to fix problems before such a disaster could take place. Among the challenges: The college's Board of Trustees must develop a code of ethics, and should essentially step back and let Rodriguez do his job, according to a letter from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.

For perspective, 20 of the roughly 170 colleges in the commission's region - California, Hawaii and the Pacific islands - are currently under "warning" status. Among them are Solano, Sierra, Ohlone and Diablo Valley colleges, and now Delta, to name a few.

So Delta's predicament isn't terribly unusual, although this is the first time Trustee Dan Parises can recall an accreditation warning in his 33 years on the board.

"I think we'll be able to resolve what they want us to resolve," he said Monday.

The board has been accused of as many as five Brown Act violations in the past seven years. Most prominently, the San Joaquin County civil grand jury reported last month that one or more board members may have relayed confidential information to the developer of a controversial Mountain House campus in 2006.

The board, against advice of college staff and consultants, voted 4-3 to build in Mountain House instead of Tracy, an outcome that the grand jury said may have cost taxpayers up to $50 million.

Monday's accreditation letter does not specifically mention these incidents. It does say the board needs a code of ethics, and the trustees' roles should be as policymakers.

The college also needs a comprehensive strategic plan and a stable management team to improve communication, the commission said in its four-page letter. Its full report was not available Monday afternoon.

Rodriguez said the college is already moving to improve planning. "We think we have all the pieces," he said. "We just need to tie them together the way (the commissioners) want us to do it."

Also, when the commission visited Delta this spring, four administrative jobs were vacant. Three of the four positions have since been filled, Rodriguez said.

As for the board, the commission appears to be telling trustees to "stop micromanaging," the president said.

But Parises said that if anything, closer scrutiny by the board was needed when outside consultants were brought in to manage a $250 million bond passed by voters in 2004. College administrators have said early estimates on the cost of a range of projects were too low, and now $62.5 million worth of improvements must be cut.

"We needed to do more micromanaging," Parises said. "That's how we got into this problem to begin with."

Trustee Ted Simas, who had not seen the letter Monday afternoon, said he's heard of only one case in which a college has lost accreditation and that the commission doesn't want that to be the ultimate outcome.

"But I don't take this lightly," he said.

The college must respond to the commission in a report due Oct. 15.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Among other recommendations made by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, San Joaquin Delta College and/or its trustees should:

• Develop a code of ethics.

• Have the board make policy but delegate operations of the college to President Raul Rodriguez.

• Develop a revamped strategic plan that examines the effectiveness of the college.

• Keep a "stable" management team.

• "Increase collegewide sensitivity to the needs of its diverse population."


Complete article here

More Delta distress

Written by Jennifer Wadsworth / Tracy Press
Tuesday, 08 July 2008

Delta College was given a plan for improvement by a commission this month, and if the plan isn’t followed, the school could lose its accreditation.

San Joaquin Delta Community College has two years to get its act together before it slides a step closer to losing its accreditation, which would effectively close the school.

Raul Rodriguez, the school’s president, said it’s unlikely the school will sink that low.

A loss of accreditation — the state’s approval to operate — would render the school’s credits and degrees essentially meaningless and bar it from getting public money, according to the commission that pointed out the college’s needed improvements.

But being bumped from warning status to unaccredited is a huge jump, Rodriguez maintained. And two years is plenty of time to live up to state standards, he added.

The report, issued this week by The Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, an agency that holds colleges to task, gave the school until 2010 to reform its paid and elected leadership, among other things.

"They basically told the board: No more micromanaging," Trustee Janet Rivera said. "I agree. It’s right on target."

Monday’s review echoed some points brought up in a San Joaquin Civil Grand Jury report issued last month that lambasted school trustees for violating open-government laws and wasting millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Delta trustees should adopt a formal code of ethics and quit micromanaging the school’s administration, the review charged.

"We should just let the president do his job," Rivera said of Rodriguez. "We’re the policymakers. I, for one, think we should all step back and let the college do its job."

Aside from the elected board, the college should also develop a more stable paid management team, the review continued, specifically for the position of vice president.

When the review team visited the college earlier this year, four upper management positions were vacant. Since then, the college has hired people to fill three of those four openings, school officials pointed out.

Commissioners also reminded the college of a looming four-month deadline to meet the last set of recommendations given six years ago by the agency to improve students’ academic performance, provide better staff accountability through peer review and address charges by some employees of the school’s bias against its "diverse population."

Trustees generally agreed with the recommendations.

Delta’s dubious status is hardly uncommon, Rodriguez said. The school is one of 20 California community colleges that the agency placed on a "warning" status. The state has 110 such schools in all.

Diablo Valley, Sierra and Ohlone are a few Northern California community colleges given the same ruling.

Delta would have to be placed on probation before it would face the immediate threat of losing accreditation.

"We definitely have our work cut out for us," said Trustee Ted Simas, who has historically been the most critical of his peers.

Fellow trustees Rivera and Anthony Bugarin agreed.

Simas especially criticized the rest of the board for failing to live up to the ethical standards already in place and agreed with the review that standards should be officially codified.

"We can do this; we’ll work as a team," he said. "I hate to be negative, but a person’s ethical or they’re not. (Being ethical) requires a change in attitude."

Leo Burke, Delta’s board president, and trustees Dan Parises, Greg McCreary and Maria Serna did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

The college has until Oct. 15 to respond to the commission.

The official warning is a lot like a fix-it ticket, noted college spokesman Greg Greenwood.

"We can address these problems," he said Tuesday. "There’s virtually no chance Delta will lose its accreditation."
Complete article here...

Delta given a 'warning' by accreditation group

By Andrew Adams
Lodi News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Updated: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 6:14 AM PDT

San Joaquin Delta College has been issued a warning for several deficiencies outlined in an accreditation review by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

The private organization's recommendations range from trustees adopting a code of ethics, developing a comprehensive strategic plan and stabilizing the management team.

Delta Superintendent and President Raul Rodriguez said Monday it has become difficult for colleges to meet the stringent standards for accreditation.

"The new standards are not easy to meet," he said. "We thought we'd have done better than this."

Delta is required to respond with a report detailing how it will address the recommendations by Oct. 15. Despite the warning, the college will be able to maintain its accredited status. The warning is essentially a fix-it ticket that could turn serious for Delta if it is not rectified.

The college must correct the deficiencies by June 2010 or the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges could terminate Delta's accreditation.

Complete article...

Well past their prime time

Some Delta College trustees have overstayed their usefulness
By The Record
July 11, 2008 6:00 AM

The accreditation of San Joaquin Delta College is in danger. But not in much danger.

Representatives of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges put the college on notice that it has two years to clean up its act or face possible loss of accreditation.

If accreditation were to be lost, it would be devastating. Degrees earned by Delta's students wouldn't be as valid in the eyes of many, President Raul Rodriguez acknowledges.

No accreditation essentially means no school, at least no school with any value.

The commission's main complaints are that trustees aren't doing their job as an oversight body, that they have no code of ethics and that they interfere with Rodriguez's ability to do his job.

If some of these complaints sound familiar, it's because last month, the San Joaquin County grand jury issued a scathing report saying much the same thing.

Among other things, grand jurors complained that trustees ignored staff and administration recommendations and pushed ahead with plans for a new Mountain House campus rather than placing it in Tracy. That cost taxpayers $50 million, according to the jurors, who said some board members may have relayed confidential information to the Mountain House developer.

If that indeed happened, then plainly some board members violated their fiduciary duty to taxpayers.

What is without doubt is that cost overruns, delays and redos have cost so much of the $250 million in bond funds taxpayers approved four years ago that district officials recently said about $62.5 million in planned projects will have to be scrapped.

Clearly, some trustees - several of whom have served for decades but who are no longer functioning as overseers and policymakers - have stayed well past their time. It is time for some on the Delta College board to leave.

The fact that Delta College last year awarded more associate degrees than almost any other institution in the country is a credit not only to the students but also to the teachers and support staff. Delta ranked fifth out of more than 5,000 colleges, Community College Week reported in June. The college ranked 58th in 2006.

That $62.5 million in bond money has essentially been frittered away is a discredit to those running the district, primarily the trustees.

Losing accreditation would be the absolute last straw. It would further discredit the board. It would undermine the huge financial support taxpayers have showered on the district. But most important, it would jeopardize Delta students and the futures they are trying to make for themselves.
Source...

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Delta College in accreditation danger

High education commission says school has 2 years to fix problems

By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
July 08, 2008 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - A higher education commission Monday warned San Joaquin Delta College that it is in danger of losing its accreditation, a form of peer-review approval that is critical to the future of the college.

Should accreditation be revoked, degrees earned by Delta students "wouldn't be valid in many people's eyes," college President Raul Rodriguez said Monday.

"If we lose our accreditation, we basically shut down," he said. "But we're far from that point."

Delta has two years to fix problems before such a disaster could take place. Among the challenges: The college's Board of Trustees must develop a code of ethics, and should essentially step back and let Rodriguez do his job, according to a letter from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.

For perspective, 20 of the roughly 170 colleges in the commission's region - California, Hawaii and the Pacific islands - are currently under "warning" status. Among them are Solano, Sierra, Ohlone and Diablo Valley colleges, and now Delta, to name a few.

Complete article here...

Monday, July 7, 2008

Delta college placed on 'warning'

By News-Sentinel staff
Updated: Monday, July 7, 2008 3:07 PM PDT

San Joaquin Delta College has been issued a "warning" for several deficiencies outlined in a report issued by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

The private organization had several recommendations that ranged from the Delta Board of Trustees develop a process to review and revise existing board policies as well as develop a "comprehensive" strategic plan.

Delta is required to respond with a report detailing how it will address the recommendations by Oct. 15. While on warning, the college will be able to maintain its accredited status.

The college must correct the deficiencies by June 2010 or the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges could "take action to terminate accreditation."

Source

Dissecting Delta

As budgets outpace funds, college officials take a hard look at which projects may have to go

By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
July 06, 2008 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - It's no mere trim. In the coming weeks, San Joaquin Delta College trustees must cut, hack and chop away at projects that voters believed would be built when they approved $250 million in bonds four years ago.

While construction is under way on the main Stockton campus, some of the college's largest bond projects - including satellite campuses envisioned for Mountain House, Manteca, Lodi and the Mother Lode - may be scaled down or even eliminated.

At a recent public workshop, administrators said they're more than $60 million over budget on the Measure L bond.
To learn more

Of the nearly two dozen projects discussed, 13 will cost more than originally thought. In some cases, the board may consider eliminating or reducing projects on which millions of dollars have already been spent.

In one case, turning back would force the college to forfeit roughly $30 million in state matching funds, possibly jeopardizing Delta's ability to seek such funds in the future.

And then there's the notorious Mountain House campus, which is projected to cost $30 million more than trustees had approved.

Difficult choices await the board.

"It's quite obvious we didn't do a good job from the beginning," said Delta Trustee Ted Simas.

If you're a homeowner who lives in the community college district, which includes portions of five counties, the bond is costing you about $17 a year per $100,000 of your home's assessed value.

Here's where your money has gone, and where it may yet go.

Complete article here...

Our Voice (Tracy Press)

Written by Press Editorial Board
Friday, 04 July 2008

Keep a wary eye on two Kamilos projects.

At a time when the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury has cried foul on a college project in Mountain House, it’s interesting to take a look at the planning process for a project in Stanislaus County by the very same developer.

The grand jury report blasted San Joaquin Delta College trustees, accusing them of squandering millions of dollars in bond money on a new satellite campus supported by developer Gerry Kamilos in Mountain House.

Kamilos, who also hopes to develop the area in and around the Crows Landing Air Facility (“17 miles from the Tracy triangle,” as it’s advertised) into a 4,800-acre industrial center, has said from the get-go that he wanted to keep an open process on the project.

But regarding Kamilos’ more local project, the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury report alleges that the Delta College fiasco entailed a government process that was quite open to the developer but closed to the public.

Specifically, the report says Kamilos received closed-session information that was not available to regular citizens — information that benefited his project without the public’s knowledge. Kamilos denies receiving closed-session information and said the development process in Mountain House has been held up by Delta’s former construction crew.

The accusations in San Joaquin County seem to resemble some aspects of the PCCP West Park project in Crows Landing, on the West Side of Stanislaus County.

In January 2007, a county-appointed selection committee held a supposedly secret vote on which of two development concepts it preferred. Kamilos knew the results of that vote at a public meeting the following day.

And just as Delta trustees went against the advice of their consultants and staff to support the Mountain House project over a proposal to build a campus in Tracy in 2005, Stanislaus County supervisors went against the advice of the county’s airfield steering committee when supporting West Park last year.

Both projects will have a big local impact: We’re paying taxes for the $250 million Delta College bond; we need a south county campus; and trains from the proposed West Park project could have a profound effect on the rail futures of Tracy and the Altamont Pass.

In both cases, it seems there’s been behind-the-scenes talk to which the developer was privy but the public was not. Looking ahead, residents need to be reassured that elected leaders will keep the process open in both of these projects.

Two projects, one developer. At the very least, we need to be on a level playing field with that developer.

Source

Hold trustees accountable

Written by Jim DeHart / For the Tracy Press
Tuesday, 01 July 2008

Delta College's board must be made responsible for any waste of taxpayer money, a local man says.

EDITOR,

I’m amazed at the nonchalance of the article, “Delta College runs $62.5M over bond budget,” in Saturday’s paper.

The voters of San Joaquin County should be outraged, for it is our taxes that have been squandered. Unless these original trustees of Measure L are held accountable and responsible for their ineptitude, why should voters ever approve another bond measure?

If we want change, a good place to start is holding these bureaucrats accountable, and if they are found guilty of mismanaging taxpayers’ money, they should spend time in prison. I suggest we “follow the money” and look into the finances of each trustee, and if any have profited from the mismanagement of public funds, the trustee should be prosecuted.

Only when our representatives are held accountable will this waste and corruption be brought to an end.

— Jim DeHart, Tracy

Complete letter...

Our Voice (Tracy Press)

Written by Press editorial board
Tuesday, 01 July 2008
Plotting the next move for Delta College.

Tracy’s top officials made an appearance at last week’s all-day public workshop in Stockton, the one where the San Joaquin Delta College board of trustees found out just how far off target ($62.5 million) they are in their Measure L projects that span San Joaquin County.

Mayor Brent Ives, City Manager Leon Churchill and Ursula Luna-Reynosa, director of economic development, weren’t there to express their condolences over the shortfall — they showed up to deliver the message that Tracy is still an option for a south county campus.

Three years ago, the city offered the Stockton-based community college 108 acres at Chrisman Road and 11th Street, including fees, roads and other costs, in exchange for scrapping the plans for the Mountain House satellite campus.

Delta trustees rejected the offer and have since been criticized for it.
Complete article here...

Delta trustees face public in wake of report

By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
June 25, 2008 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - The public on Thursday will have its first chance to question San Joaquin Delta College trustees about a grand jury report alleging the board may have squandered as much as $50 million on a south county campus that is now overdue and over budget.

The San Joaquin grand jury last week said it has "no confidence" in college trustees and said Delta needs board members "who are able to meet the task of bringing Delta College into the 21st century."

The grand jury said board members may have violated the Brown Act by leaking closed-session information to the developers of Mountain House. This allegedly happened in 2006 while the board considered building its south county campus in Tracy instead of Mountain House.
Complete article here...

Friday, July 4, 2008

Delta College Board Blasted for Bond Work

Watch complete video here...

STOCKTON, CA - A San Joaquin County Grand Jury Report released Wednesday blasts the San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees for how the board has handled the creation of a satellite campus near Tracy.

The report accuses the Board of wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Voters in 2004 approved a bond of $250 million for college improvements. Though much of that money will be spent on the school's Stockton facility, more than $50 million was designated for that new facility in Mountain House.

"We are way, way over budget from what was planned by the board," said trustee Ted Simas. "I believe the best term is wasted." Simas was on the losing end of the votes about Mountain House.
...
"Look at our board. It's made up of school teachers, a farmer, an insurance guy, and so on. This is not their area of expertise. They're learning as we move along," said Rodriguez.