From a piece entitled “The Return of Red Emma (with an appearance by Mrs. Red Emma),” by Red Emma, Dissent 53, 10/9/00
A “Conservative” Occurrence
Responding to a press release sent out by the South Orange County Community College Conservative Faculty Association, a part-time IVC faculty member recently sent his own release. In a shameless effort to mollify one of his favorite contributors, your editor has agreed, despite his best instincts and the high journalistic standards of this publication, to reprint it, below. —R.E.
PRESS RELEASE—TONKOVICH
THE SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
Saddleback College
Irvine Valley College
THE ONE, TRUE,
CONSERVATIVE
FACULTY ASSOCIATION
#1
Our mission: “TRUTH”
Our motto: “ONENESS”
Our constituency:
the really, really truly conservative faculty members of the South Orange County
Community College District.
Our enrollment numbers: wouldn’t you like to know?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
* The One, True, Conservative Faculty Association Challenges SOCCCD Faculty Association
* Membership Announces Endorsement of Tom Fuentes—for ALL FOUR TRUSTEE positions
* Affiliate Faculty Associations endorse Fuentes
Contact: Andrew Tonkovich, Chair, OTCFA (949) xxx-xxxx
Today, Friday September 22, the Chairperson of the SOCCCD-OTCFA denounced the SOCCCD Faculty Association as “a small rogue group of faculty members made up of the majority of faculty in the two-campus district.” Comments attacking the legitimacy of the faculty labor union and its PAC were made by OTCFA Chair Andrew Tonkovich, an Adjunct Faculty member at Irvine Valley College, one of the district’s two colleges.
“Who do they think they are? A union?” sniffed One True Conservative Chair Tonkovich. “Just because they negotiate our contracts and we elect them to office doesn’t mean that they represent us.” He went on to declare, “So what if their membership is at an all-time high. Who cares that the state California Teachers Association (CTA) recognized this remarkable growth with an award? It doesn’t mean that the SOCCCD Faculty Association represents anyone other than the people behind them—the faculty.”
The un-elected, un-appointed, unofficial spokesperson of the One, True Conservative Faculty Association touted the credentials of his own newly-formed organization: “We’re NOT like those other faculty associations you read about in the papers. We’re NOT recognized as a collective bargaining unit by the state. We DON’T collect dues. We DON’T hold meetings. We DON’T negotiate teachers’ contracts.”
“In fact,” offered Tonkovich, “we DON’T have any legal or political standing at all. No, not a lick! Still, we offer the ONE, TRUE CONSERVATIVE VISION: Oneness. Truth.”
Tonkovich added that his organization “put the ‘con’ in “conservative.”
Tonkovich then announced his Faculty Association’s endorsement of Orange County Republican Party Chair Tom Fuentes for not one, but all four district Trustee positions in November. “He’s our candidate. If he’s not on your ballot, just write in his name or ‘GOP guy.’ They’ll know who you mean.”
Fuentes is currently a candidate in only one district, but has raised an unheard of $100,000 to fund his race, more than four times the average amount of other candidates.
Fuentes was recently appointed by the Board of Trustees to replace the retiring Steven Frogue, an alleged Holocaust revisionist, who was the subject of a community recall effort. “We believe Tom Fuentes plans to use this position as a stepping stone toward a Supervisorial run,” said Tonkovich. “That’s fine with true conservatives like us.”
OTCFA’s position follows the SOCCCD-FA’s recent endorsement of four “Clean Slate” candidates for the Board of Trustees’ race. “Their endorsement means diddly squat,” said Tonkovich. “Look, all the Faculty Association did was put together a democratic process allowing all faculty to develop questions about important issues facing the district, interview candidates in an open forum, and then vote their choices. Just because the vote was unanimous doesn’t mean a thing. I mean, this is America, isn’t it?”
Tonkovich cautioned reporters to “Listen to us! Not THEM!”
He also announced the formation of affiliate One, True Conservative groups, each offering individual F.A. endorsements of Trustee Tom Fuentes for all four positions. These affiliate groups include:
The One, True, Conservative Nudist Faculty Association (OTCNFA)
The One, True, Conservative Buddhist Nudist Faculty Association (OTCBNFA)
Friends of the Tom Fuentes Urban Park (FTFUP)
The One, True, Free, Faux Conservative Faculty Association ( 1234CFA)
Tonkovich’s remarks were met by complete indifference. He is, nonetheless, available for comment. (949) xxx-xxxx.
From the OC Weekly, October 13, 2000
Cirque du Socccd
Goofiness is back at South Orange County Community College District
by Matt Coker
Let us revisit one of the weirdest marriages in the history of Orange County’s political freak show. It’s 1996, and the leadership of the liberal union representing South County community college faculty members has locked arms with four conservatives running for the board of trustees.
Their reasons are simple: the union, which spends more in these races than all other sources combined, will use its ample treasury to prop up conservatives in one of the most conservative voting areas in California, the South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD), which encompasses Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges. In return, said conservatives will protect teacher salaries, already the highest in the state community college system, in the face of the financially strapped district’s looming bankruptcy.
The strategy of this unholy alliance was best illustrated in what became known as the “homophobic hate mailers of ’96.” To ensure the conservatives’ victory, the union paid for campaign mailers that played on the fears of conservative voters. The mailers claimed that the conservative slate would fight to protect voters’ hard-earned tax dollars from being used to fund health benefits for the same-sex partners of district employees.
Same-sex benefits were neither an issue in the race nor on the district bargaining table, but the tactic worked beautifully. Three of the four conservatives—Dorothy Fortune, John Williams and Steven Frogue—breezed to victory; fellow conservative Don Davis lost to incumbent David Lang.
The ’96 election left a bad taste in the mouths of many in the district. Acrimony led to lawsuits, turf wars, recall campaigns, outgoing staff stampedes, closed-door meetings, closed-door-meeting-law violations, threats of lost accreditation and an eventual changing of the guard in the faculty-union leadership.
But now it’s election time again, and gay-baiting has returned to the SOCCCD. Faxes that have been dropping like SCUDs at Irvine Valley College (IVC) the past few weeks riff off the same homophobia used in 1996. Claiming to be newsletters produced by IVC’s “Gay-Lesbian Task Force,” the faxes applaud a reform-minded slate of candidates—incumbent Lang and newcomers Bill Shane, Bob Loeffler and Bill Hochmuth—for supporting same-sex benefits.
Using political reverse psychology—and lots of capital letters—one fax reads: “Please, do not vote for those candidates who would DENY us our domestic-partner same-sex benefits (DON DAVIS, JOHN WILLIAMS, DOROTHY FORTUNE and TOM FUENTES).”
Fuentes, the chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, recently replaced Frogue, who stepped down from the board after a tumultuous reign that included two unsuccessful recall campaigns against him amid allegations that he is racist and anti-Semitic.
As is par for the SOCCCD, the faxes are total bullshit. There is no Gay-Lesbian Task Force. The name of the “registered Democrat” identified as the author of the abovementioned fax is not in the phone book, the district’s employee roster or the county registrar’s list of registered Democrats. The “author” listed on a second fax does exist but denies having created either fax and is offended by being linked to them.
A third fax sent out last week makes the same claims about same-sex benefits but directs all inquiries to IVC’s Gay & Lesbian Student Club—which does exist, although club members deny any involvement in this sordid mess. Fax No. 4 claims that Lang has won the endorsement of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).
Despite their over-the-top quality, the faxes prompted another IVC professor—who also exists—to announce the formation of a conservative faculty group to fight “liberal extremists” who have taken over the union and created a rogue and illegal PAC that has secretly recruited candidates to push for same-sex benefits. That professor confirmed to the Weekly that he authored that fax.
Andrew Tonkovich, a liberal adjunct faculty member at IVC and a constant thorn in the side of conservative trustees and administrators, responded to the fax campaign by putting out a satirical release from the “One True Conservative Faculty Association.” Noting that his organization “put the ‘con’ in ‘conservative,’” Tonkovich announced his group’s endorsement of Fuentes for not one but all four vacant district trustee seats this November. He concludes his delicious lampoon by pointing out that his public “remarks were met by complete indifference.”
“Complete indifference” is how we’re supposed to regard community college districts. When it comes to government fiefdoms, community college districts rank near the bottom in importance, sandwiched somewhere between vector-control and lighting-assessment districts. Here’s a little secret: community college boards don’t actually do anything. Most money for community colleges comes from the state and is earmarked for specific purposes. Talking about gays and lesbians is just a way to get some voters to pay attention.
The Weekly apologizes for having wasted this much ink to tell you that.
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