Armando Ruiz' appalling legacy

     One of the minor characters in the epic “SOCCCD and the Neanderthals” saga is Armando "Beyondo" Ruiz, who, while counseling at Saddleback College, managed to get elected on the Coast Community College District board of trustees. That started back in the 80s, I believe.
     Ruiz is coarse, stupid, spectacularly incorrect (around women), and dishonest. Naturally, therefore, about a dozen years ago, in his desperation to gain allies, then-IVC President Raghu Mathur cut a deal with Ruiz; he had "Boots" transferred from Saddleback College to Irvine Valley College for the purpose of grooming him for an administrative career, despite Boot Boy's manifest shititude.
     Not a problem.
     Soon, Ruiz was indeed an IVC administrator, eventually achieving his Mathur-contrived apex as the Vice President of Student Services. Besides Mathur, he was the least popular person at the college.
     That Ruiz was a creep wasn’t a problem for Mathur--after all, Mathur’s creepitude at least matches Ruiz’. That he kept f*cking up was slightly more bothersome. But the worst thing about Ruiz was his manifest disgruntlement, in 2002, when he wasn’t chosen to replace Mathur, who, natch, was awarded the district Chancellorship right after having sued the district. (He sued the district for not having protected him from my suing him in response to his suing me for reporting the truth about him—namely, that he had once violated a federal law protecting students' privacy rights.)
     So, after that, Ruiz bailed, i.e., he retired.
     That’s when he performed the sleazy maneuver upon which his wider infamy rests. Exploiting a loophole in the law, he resigned his trusteeship just days before getting reelected; he thus contrived to enjoy an enormous pension. (As Frank Mickadeit once explained: “He was taking advantage of a loophole that allows a person who exits two state jobs on the same day to count the highest-paying of the two as the salary for both jobs for the purpose of calculating his pension. …So, Ruiz "retired" ... as a part-time trustee of the Coast district and as a full-time counselor at Irvine Valley College. Even though the trustee gig pays just a $9,800 annual stipend, he was able to calculate his state pension as if he had been paid $106K a year for that "job'" plus the $106K a year he got for his real job at Irvine.")
     It was a spectacular flimflam, proving once again that stupidity and craftiness easily fit inside the Neanderthal’s ample cranium.
     A local journalist took up the cause of getting rid of the odious Ruiz. Eventually, Ruiz lost reelection in 2008.
     But he can be proud. Evidently, he has set an example for other Coast trustees! Check it out:

Community college trustee finds pension loophole (OC Reg)

     Coast Community College Trustee Walter Howald has been boosting his future take from the state’s beleaguered public pension fund in a way that most elected officials can’t.
     In the mid-1990s the legislature passed a law saying service as an elected official doesn’t count as service credit in the public employee retirement system.
     CalPERS calculates pensions using two main factors, salary and years of service. Howald previously held administrative positions at Kern County Colleges and College of the Desert; he left the latter in 2008.
     Normally that would mean he would stop accruing service credits in PERS, but because he began serving on the board in 1985, before the passage of the law, he was grandfathered in.
     The Watchdog got wind of this late last month and filed a public records request with the district. The records … verify that Howald has remained enrolled in PERS in his capacity as an elected official.
     But as Howald cheerfully pointed out when The Watchdog chatted with him, this is all legal.
     Still, the loophole and our public records request has spurred the president of the board, Jerry Patterson, to action. He will be proposing a policy at this week’s meeting to eliminate the loophole. His regulation would mandate that a trustee whose salary generates service credit under PERS would be ineligible to be paid by the district.
    That, Patterson says, would solve the problem: A person who receives no salary is not eligible for service credit under PERS.
     This is not the first time the district has confronted retirement payout issues. Former trustee Armando Ruiz retired just days before his 2004 re-election, setting himself up to collect both salary and a pension pay-out. Ruiz lost the 2008 election; criticism of his double-dipping contributed to that ousting….

See also: The sad Armando Ruiz saga (Frank Mickadeit, OC Reg)

Who does Street think he is? John Freaking Williams?

     OC Public Guardian John Williams and OC Treasurer Chriss Street share the same shyster lawyer, namely, Phil Greer.
     Williams, an SOCCCD trustee, is infamous for his hinky expenses, especially for travel to far-away places (Orlando is a fave) and stays at fine hotels—all paid for by the taxpayer.
     Gosh. As it turns out, Street and Williams are twins in that regard as well:

Chriss Street’s travel bill: $60,000 (OC Reg)

     As trustee of a bankrupt company, Chriss Street got in trouble for using his client’s money for his own self interests, including expensive dinners and resort hotels.
     As Orange County’s treasurer-tax collector, Street and his top managers have spent more than $60,000 during the last two years attending conferences in such far-flung places as New York, Las Vegas and Washington D.C. — with stays at the Waldorf Astoria and Venetian hotels.. . .
     Street defended his travel, saying that the things he and his staff learned helped them invest $6.5 billion for the county and more than 20 local school districts. Under his guidance, the county treasury was highly praised by outside groups for its safety, Street said, with its money market fund earning 0.54 percent in the last year.
     “Many of our skills and innovations we’ve learned by going to conferences,” Street said.
     However, Street was stripped of his investment duties by county supervisors in March. The action followed a U.S. bankruptcy court ruling that he wasted millions of his client’s money in his former job as a bankruptcy trustee.
     Barred from investing, Street and his staff continue to travel and spend, with about six months left on his term as treasurer-tax collector.
     Expense documents reviewed by the Orange County Register show that Street and his human resources chief went to San Francisco for a “business process management” class in June at a cost of $11,462. Street’s executive aide Anna Bryson is scheduled to go to South Carolina for a treasurer’s conference later this month.

     Bryson is a trustee for the notorious CAPO school district. You know the one. She used to show up with Street at SOCCCD board meetings, evidently at the request of trustee (and former OC GOP chief) Tom Fuentes.
     You know what he’s about. Remember the "poll guard" incident? He's a total creep.
     The Reg gives examples of Street’s curious expenses:

• Spent $241 in December to attend the funeral of lobbyist Don Peterson in Sacramento. Travel documents stated the trip was to attend the California Association of County Treasurers and Tax Collectors legislative meeting — which was held a day before Street went to Sacramento. In an interview, Street confirmed he went to the funeral, but said he also met that day with state education officials.
• Spent $560 to stay one night at the Waldorf Astoria in February 2008, because other hotels near the conference were booked. “You look for the best price you can, but New York is New York,” Street said.
• Charged the county $250 for a meal in February 2009 at Zeffirino, a high-end Italian restaurant at the Venetian resort in Las Vegas. Street said the tab was for three people and did not include alcohol. “We went there for dinner and that’s what they charged,” he said.
• Routinely made last minute flight arrangements and changes that boosted the cost of travel. In April 2008, Street and Bryson made so many changes that it pushed the cost of airfare for a San Francisco trip from $1,620 to $2,300. One of the reasons for the changes was so that Street and his wife could appear in the South Coast Medical Center Fashion Show, according to an email from Bryson to a staff secretary. ”I try to fly and book in advance, but oftentimes there were conflicts,” Street said. “You want to try and live my life?”
• Traveled six times to New York, mostly to meet with an investment advisor called Lombard Street. He and staff also went seven times to Washington, D.C., mostly to meet with a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which advocates limited government.

     My, my, my. Who does Street think he is? John F*cking Williams?
     Street reminds me of former SOCCCD Chancellor—and pal of Fuentes—Raghu Mathur, who is notorious for spending over $1000 for an office chair and goofy New Age posters and books. He even charged the district for his expensive and absurd commencement Raghulia.
     One time, Mathur tried to pull a fast one: he snuck a raise for himself onto the board agenda and buried it under the heading “academic personnel actions.”
     They caught 'im. But Fuentes protected him.
     Greer is Mathur’s lawyer too.
     It's Orange County, man.

*For the latest on CAPO Unified, see Vern Nelson’s Capo Unified Throwdown: Alpay & Pritchard take on extremists Maddox & Winsten

ALSO IN THE NEWS:

The Real Scandal at Illinois? (Inside Higher Ed)

     If you want to study Buddhist or Methodist or Jewish thought at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there are relevant courses in religious studies -- courses where the instructors have been selected by a department of scholars, through standard academic procedures.
     But if you want to study Roman Catholicism, your instructors have been through different vetting – they will have been nominated by (and their salaries paid by) the St. John's Catholic Newman Center, a church organization independent of the university, set up to serve Catholic students at the university.
     This arrangement has existed for decades, and been opposed by faculty members – also for decades. Not only is it highly unusual for a college to give an outside group the right to screen and nominate candidates to teach, but the situation raises church-state issues at a public institution, presents issues of fairness when it is permitted for only one religious group at a secular college, and may undercut the values of the field of religious studies, faculty critics say….

Outsourced Ed: Colleges Hire Companies to Build Their Online Courses (Chronicle of Higher Ed)

     Michael Tricoli was a middle manager looking for a leg up in his career, so he got an online M.B.A. from Northeastern University.
     Well, not only from Northeastern. Much of his college experience was outsourced to a private company.
     The company, Embanet, put up millions to start the online business program. Its developers helped build the courses. Its staff talked Mr. Tricoli through the application. It even pays—and, in rare cases, refers for possible hiring—the assistants who help teach students….

My mother's home in Bärwalde, Germany (now in Poland), just prior to the Russian invasion (1945). Owing to its size and ideal location, the home had been taken over as a headquarters by the Wehrmacht (army). You can see a sign on the fence. It appears to be a Star of David, but it's hard to say if that's what it is. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) Mom says that there were indeed official military signs placed on the fence.