Fuentes

Trustee Tom Fuentes

  Well, the story (from reliable sources) is that trustee Tom Fuentes is indeed very ill and that his cancer is terminal.
     I'm told that he "refuses" to resign from the board—which, of course, implies that there are those who suppose that he should resign.
     As you know, Fuentes did not attend the last meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees.
     In recent months, Fuentes has appeared to be increasingly isolated on the board with regard to major issues, such as continued support for the district's ATEP project.

April 2008: Wagner/Fuentes still allies

     The board has undergone considerable change in the last year or so. Don Wagner, the other strong personality among trustees, and Fuentes seemed to go from allies to enemies over night—evidently over support of the mendacious Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur. Mathur was effectively ousted under Wagner's leadership despite considerable resistance from Fuentes and his allies, John Williams and Dave Lang. The latter received Tom's support in his bid to become the Republican candidate for OC Treasurer. The effort was a miserable failure.
     In November, TJ Prendergrast, a unionist and high school teacher, defeated his conservative Republican opponent in the election replacing Wagner, who ran (successfully) for the State Assembly.
     In December, trustee Williams resigned from the board in order to concentrate on his troubled tenure as OC Public Administrator/Guardian. He was replaced by Frank Meldau, who has exhibited none of Fuentes' political extremism or disinclination to compromise.
     Below, we see Fuentes doing what he does—at the “beautiful Newport Coast home of Randall and Tom Phillips”—at a fundraiser for Republican Keith Carlson three weeks ago:

Fuentes, at the "beautiful Newport Coast home of Randall and Tom Phillips"