Some Chuckleheaded Hos

•

SHUT UP.

OUSD trustee Steve Rocco is in the news again. At Thursday’s meeting of the school board, trustees adopted a rule restricting what may be placed on the board meeting agenda—an effort to prevent Mr. Rocco from blathering about loony (and maybe sometimes non-loony?) conspiracy theories. According to the Reg,

Some parents say Rocco wastes time at meetings with his meandering speeches about his parents' medical issues and a concept he calls "the partnership," which he describes as a sinister group of politicians, business leaders and education officials who are taking over the county. (See Board muffles Rocco.)

According to today’s Times,

The [adoption of the rule] was prompted by a March meeting at which Rocco attempted to make a speech about what he calls "the partnership," a cabal of powerful individuals he says runs the county and has tried to assassinate him. (See Rocco speech prompts school board change.)

OK, that one’s loony.

YES, BUT WE BLAZED THIS TRAIL YEARS AGO.

"I believe Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the ADL," Frogue said in a half-whisper during a recent interview on the Foothill High campus. Asked to repeat his assertion, Frogue said, "That's right.... I believe the ADL was behind it." —From the LA Times, 11/25/96

Long-time observers of our own district will recall similar efforts, a dozen years ago, to silence then-trustee Steve Frogue, a fellow who unashamedly used his position to speechify about the Anti-Defamation League and its alleged conspiracies.

Frogue’s behavior attracted the attention of local media. The Irvine World News was moved to ask: “What’s your point, Steve?”:

It's unclear what Saddleback Community College board member Steven Frogue is attempting to accomplish.

At recent board meetings, Mr. Frogue has been indulging in repetitious, lengthy, and at times antagonistic monologues about such disparate things as the Anti-defamation League of B'nai B'rith and faculty senate elections at Irvine Valley College.

At its Feb. 27 meeting, Mr. Frogue took up about 45 minutes of the board's time on these matters.

…During board meetings in January and February, Mr. Frogue has made some startling remarks about what the Jewish organization is doing these days. Another board member, Marcia Milchiker, a former ADL leader in Orange County, told Mr. Frogue he is misinformed about the organization. But he persists. And he has continued to harp on the Irvine Valley academic senate's election procedures, even though an attorney for the Saddleback board has said that the board has little or no control over how the senate conducts its business.

Not unexpectedly, the academic senate has asked the board to order Mr. Frogue to stop interfering in its affairs. The ADL has asked for an apology from the board.

What's puzzling about all of this is what these apparently tangential matters have to do with running the Saddleback Community College District? Mr. Frogue has offered only vague generalities in explanation.

...Judicious use of his gavel by board President John Williams would help keep things in focus. (3/2/95)

Unfortunately, Frogue’s pal Williams was none too judicious with that gavel, which he sometimes used to pound on trustee Harriett Walther’s head.

Eventually, Frogue organized a “Warren Commission” seminar, at Saddleback College, inviting four conspiracy nuts, some associated with an anti-Semitic organization that denies the Holocaust. Naturally, Williams' gavel was silent then, too.

The shit really hit the fan that time. Frogue eventually resigned in the summer of 2000.

FROGUE, THEN FUENTES.

“We’ve gotten rid of a crude Neanderthal but replaced him with a slick one,” said Irvine Valley College Professor Roy Bauer, who has successfully sued the district over free-speech issues. —OC Register, 7/13/00

These days, former chair of the OC Republican Party, Tom Fuentes, has taken over where Frogue left off (Fuentes replaced Frogue as Trustee for the Lake Forest area in 2000). Occasionally, he hints at conspiracies afoot in the Accreditation process. (Our colleges have struggled with Accreditation issues, in part because of the persistent “micromanagement” of the trustees.)

At a recent forum, Fuentes implied that the Accreditors get “all their information” from the faculty, a group that Fuentes contemns and despises, and so I asked him to spell out this alleged conspiracy. He declined to do so. (Like Mr. Frogue, Mr. Fuentes just naturally assumes that others are as dishonest and wily and cynical as he is. That’s only true when he’s hanging out with his Republican Mafia friends—or the Orange Diocese.)


FUENTES & THE OLD OUSD BOARD MAJORITY.

Incidentally, years ago, Fuentes, along with some of his “Republican Mafia” pals, orchestrated the election and scandalous/embarrassing reign of a Board Majority on the Orange Unified School District school board. (See Fuentes: some background.) That BM was almost as embarrassing as the SOCCCD BM of 1996-1998, and that’s saying something!

The OUSD BM was eventually ousted in a successful voter recall. Even those loveable rednecks in Orange (I used to live there, so I know) knew enough to get rid of the faculty-hating extremists that Fuentes and his gang supplied.

On the other hand, they did elect Mr. Rocco.

FOND MEMORIES.

Yeah, around 1990, I lived in a wonderful two-story "Victorian" near downtown Orange. It was built in 1903 and it looked it.

One time, as I was watering my lawn, some guy drove by and stopped to talk to me. We talked about the neighborhood.

“Years ago,” he said, “this neighborhood was in bad shape. It was pretty run down. Lots of weirdos, lots of drugs and stuff. Lots of crime.”

“Was that the early 60s?” I asked.

“Yeah, about then. It looks great around here now, but, back then, your house was a whorehouse.”

“A whorehouse?”

“Yeah, a whorehouse.”