Saturday, April 7, 2012

Lee Rhodes

     Recently, former Saddleback College instructor—and SOCCCD trustee—Lee Rhodes died. The Lariat and the Coastline Pilot have noted his passing:

• Long-time instructor dies (Lariat)
• Professor Lee W. Rhodes, Ph.D (Coastline Pilot)

     The Coast Pilot explains that Lee
was deeply committed to education, serving as an instructor of biology and microbiology at Saddleback College from 1969-88; former president of the Faculty Association; trustee from 1992-1996, and board vice president from 1995-1996.
     As I recall, in 1992, Lee was recruited by the Faculty Association to run for the area 3 seat. In those days, the union was controlled by secretive schemers, including instructor Raghu Mathur at IVC and the likes of Mike Runyan at Saddleback College. They were happy to get their boy on the board.
     But Lee was a decent guy, and so he soon realized that the union’s trustees—Williams, Frogue, and Teddi Lorch—were the worst of the board and that the other trustees—including the union’s public enemy #1, Harriett Walther—were the best. When the union seized upon Walther’s technical violation of conflict-of-interest codes, exaggerating and distorting the facts outrageously in order to discredit her, Lee came to her defense with a letter attesting to her character. Such actions likely sealed Lee’s fate with the utterly unprincipled union schemers, who eventually targeted Lee and other members of the PIE slate (that went up against the union’s Frogue/Williams/Davis/Fortune slate) with the infamous “same-sex flier.” The latter was a blatant red herring; it was homophobic to boot. But it worked. Lee was replaced by the odious Dorothy Fortune, who eventually resigned from the board, in disgrace, amid unanswered allegations that she had ceased living in the county.
     Here’s a letter from the campaign of 1996 by our late and much-missed colleague Jody Hoy. It provides a sense of what was going on in the district at the time:
     Last Friday evening, Oct. 18, a candidate's forum was held at Irvine Valley College for the Nov. 5 election of Board of Trustees for the Saddleback Community College District. The forum was sponsored by the Irvine Valley College Academic Senate and the Associated Students of Irvine Valley College.
     Invitations were sent to all nine candidates for the board including current board members Steven Frogue, Lee Rhodes and John Williams. Great care was taken to provide a fair and open forum for all: candidates and to assure all candidates of the public's interest in hearing their views. The forum was moderated by the League of Women Voters. Questions were prepared in advance and the same questions were posed to all candidates.
     When neither Frogue nor Williams responded to initial letters of invitation, second letters of invitation were hand delivered by forum organizers. When Williams raised a question concerning the "legality" of such a forum, counsel for the district was consulted. Counsel assured Williams that such a forum was legal, whether on campus or off. In addition, the academic senates of both colleges sought counsel and were informed that the forum was legal. This information was also communicated to Williams.
     Given the lengths to which the college community went to provide a fair and open forum for all candidates, I was surprised and very disappointed to see that Frogue and Williams, who purport to represent the voters of this district, did not show up for the candidate's forum-nor bother to inform the people who set up the forum that they would not be present.
     I can only conclude that Frogue and Williams are indifferent to the democratic process or they believe that, as incumbents, the election is in the bag. Why else would they not even bother to appear? As the only other possible explanations are arrogance or contempt for the public in general, I prefer to assume that the former is the reason why they chose to stay away.
     Rhodes, who represents the Laguna Beach area, did attend. Rhodes has been an outstanding board member. He was a biology professor at Saddleback College until his retirement. He was also the chief negotiator for the first faculty association contract. The fact that he has been steadfastly independent and fair handed has won him the enmity of the current union leadership, which is backing candidate Dorothy Fortune, who also chose not to show up. [My emphasis.]

Nancy Jo Hoy
(Irvine Citizen, 10/24/96)
     (The two board remnants of the Bad Old Union are Nancy Padberg, for whom the union campaigned in ’98 (along with Don Wagner), and Tom Fuentes, for whom the Old Guard came to speak, supporting his bid to replace the resigning Frogue in the summer of 2000.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lee always made sure to reassert at practically every board meeting that Jeffrey Rd. is not an east-west street, but actually a north-south street.

I always found that odd because it's really a north-east, south-west street, and besides who really carred?

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...