The OC: last refuge of scoundrels

1. MORE ON ARMANDO "BOOTS" RUIZ

Yesterday, the Reg’s Frank Mickadeit once again spanked Armando Ruiz, who is known for being Raghu Mathur’s one-time monkey boy, an incompetent Coast Community College District trustee, a Junketeer extraordinaire (like our own John Williams!), and an all around asshole from hell. Here's what the Mick had to say:

'Jamming Armando?' No problem:

Serial public-perk abuser and Coast Community College District Board candidate Armando Ruiz finally defended his conduct Thursday afternoon. … Give Ruiz … credit for showing up. Credit should end right about there, though. I wandered into the Orange Coast College Student Center shortly after 1 p.m. for a candidates forum and found Ruiz at the far right end of a dais populated by the other candidates – including the two who are on the ballot opposing him in Area 3, Lorraine Prinsky and Don Apodaca.

During his six-minute opening statement, Apodaca … swung his support to Prinsky and said he wasn't going to campaign. He left the room. Ruiz got up and asked the moderator archly, "Am I going to have 12 minutes then?" With a nod toward Prinsky, he added, "I just ask because his speech was for her." Whiner!

"A lot of people are saying things about me that are unfair and untrue," he continued. He said he was part of a reform board when he took office in 1983….

Great, as Prinsky noted later, but what have you done for us lately? Besides spend tens of thousands of dollars on cross-country junkets, keep the district's accreditation problem under the radar and, most egregiously, engineer a phony double retirement so he can soak the taxpayers for about $50,000 a year more than he deserves and continue to sit on the college board.

On Thursday, Ruiz's total defense for his 2004 retirement scheme … was this: "It was a retirement I have and I took advantage of it."

We've waited four years for him to utter that? Take advantage of us, is more like it.

As for the excessive travel – he's heading off to Manhattan for another junket next week – Ruiz noted that all travel is approved by the board majority.

True. However: Other trustees travel about half what Ruiz does. And when they do get travel approved, they don't always follow through with the trip, especially in light of one of the worst budget crises in memory and with scores of classes potentially being cut. Jerry Patterson canceled his trip to the New York conference.

On the accreditation issue, Ruiz denied that two fellow trustees were kept out of the loop, as they have charged. A copy of the warning letter was put in their mailboxes and they were told to check them. "They didn't read their mail," Ruiz asserted.

And then sounding like a whiny NBA center, he invoked the third person: "This is another way of jamming Armando."

Patterson denied he was notified. The first he heard about it, he said, was at a meeting a month after the warning was issued – and only then from a teacher.

Amazingly, Prinsky charged, the issue of accreditation was not brought up by the board until Oct. 1 – at 11:45 p.m., when it could be conveniently buried.

As for the accreditation problems themselves, Ruiz blamed the faculty for not embracing a policy of laying out specific learning objectives for every course.

This was but one of several issues for which the Western Association of Schools and Colleges cited the district, but it was the only one Ruiz addressed. One of the others, significantly, is that the lines of authority between the district and colleges are not clear.

Which brings up Ruiz's excuse about how it came to pass — without public discussion by the board – that scores of courses could be canceled this spring. Those decisions are left to the three individual colleges, Ruiz said. "I'm not the expert to say, 'You should cut this,' " he said.

Wait a minute. This is a crisis. You have been on the board 25 freaking years! In your real job, you worked in college counseling and administration. You're not the expert?

It's the faculty's fault. It's other trustees' fault. It's somebody else's job. You're picking on me.

Maybe come Nov. 4, it will be somebody else's job.

2. NOT NOTIFYING THE PRESS?

A local reporter has written us about SOCCCD public information. Evidently, he notified the district in writing that he wanted to receive notices of special SOCCCD meetings, but this yielded an email response, saying that there is no system in place for providing such notices. Our reporter friend insists that, by law, districts are required to notify every general circulation newspaper that has requested notification at least 24 hours in advance. This includes any emergency meetings, he adds.

3. TO THE MOON, ARIES!

Bob Park reports that India has launched its first spacecraft to the moon. According to Bob, “Astrologers among the astronomers in the Indian Space Research Organization declared 22 Oct 08 to be an auspicious day for the launch….” Oh good.

4. ASSHOLES ON A TEAR

I’ve been told that Chancellor Mathur is on another one of his tears, getting in underlings’ faces, causing tears, the gnashing of teeth, and much irregularity.

Meanwhile, his pal and patron Tom Fuentes is sending robocalls to South County residents, taking credit for balanced budgets, high transfer rates, good weather, and I don’t know what else.

He's a lyin' sack o' shit. You can quote me.

5. MY NIGHTMARE

I had a nightmare last night: in November, the whole country will swing to the left, ridding itself of numerous Republicans.

The nightmare? Everyone everywhere rids themselves of Neanderthals, except for us in South Orange County.

The last refuge of scoundrels.

Pictured left: my dad's latest clay creation. A closeup. Above: El Toro Rd., near Cook's. Live Oak Canyon Rd., as seen from my Chrysler 300.

Big trouble for the Accreds re SLOs

Last night, someone sent me an email, dated Oct. 13, from Marty Hittleman, the President of the California Federation of Teachers, to Barbara Beno, who heads the Accrediting Commission (ACCJC). Evidently, the CFT is taking on the Accreds over its mandate that SLOs be incorporated in course outlines, a clear violation of Title 5.

Will our own union (CTA) join the CFT? Here's the email, edited for length:

Re: Amendment of ACCJC Standards III.A.1.c. and II.A.6.

Dear President Beno, Chair Gaines, and Commissioners of the ACCJC:

...One of the most important rights faculty have is to negotiate with their employer over evaluation procedures, criteria and standards. … In addition, pursuant to the EERA, academic freedom policies are negotiated at community colleges.

In recent years, considerable controversy has existed within the community colleges over the issue of Student Learning Outcomes or SLOs. It is an understatement to say that many within the college community, faculty and administrators alike, feel the ACCJC has gone too far in its demands regarding SLOs, especially when they intrude on negotiable evaluation criteria and violate principles of academic freedom.

Not long ago, the CFT invited comment from its faculty unions about SLOs, and their impact on their local colleges. Of particular concern to CFT is the propensity with which accreditation teams from the ACCJC have indicated to the colleges that they should “develop and implement policies and procedures to incorporate student learning outcomes into evaluation of those with direct responsibility for student learning.” This directive is based on ACCJC Accreditation Standard III.A.1.c., which states,

“Faculty and others directly responsible for student programs toward achieving stated student learning outcomes have, as a component of their evaluation, effectiveness in producing those student learning outcomes.” (ACCJC Accreditation Standard III.A.1.c.)

Another standard has been used by accreditation teams to justify changes in faculty work such as syllabi….

This standard, which has interfered in faculty’s academic freedom rights, states:

“The institution assures that students and prospective students receive clear and accurate information ... In every class section students receive a course syllabus that specifies learning objectives consistent with those in the institution’s officially approved course outline.” (ACCJC Accreditation Standard II.A.6.)

We believe both of these standards, as written and as applied, intrude on matters left to collective bargaining by the Legislature. For a time, we recognized that the ACCJC’s inclusion of these standards might have been considered to be mandated by the regulations and approach of the U.S. Department of Education.

Now, however, with the recently re-enacted Higher Education Act, the Federal mandate for the SLO component has been eliminated for community colleges and other institutions of higher education. I’m sure you are aware that Congress passed, and the President signed, legislation amending 20 U.S.C. 1099 (b), to provide that the Secretary of Education may not “establish any criteria that specifies, defines, or prescribes the standards that accrediting agencies or associations shall use to assess any institution’s success with respect to student achievement.” [See Higher Education Act, S. 1642 (110th Congress, 1st Session, at p. 380)]

Given this amendment, it is CFT’s position that the ACCJC has no statutory mandate which prescribes inclusion of the above-referenced standards dealing with faculty evaluations, and syllabi.
...
Accordingly, the CFT wishes to inquire as to what actions ACCJC intends to take to conform its regulations to the requirements of State law, and to recognize that the adoption of any local provisions which include faculty effectiveness in producing student learning outcomes, should be entirely a matter of collective bargaining negotiations. And, similarly, that the ACCJC cannot mandate inclusion of information in syllabi which faculty, by reason of academic freedom and tradition, are entitled to determine using their own best academic judgment, or through the negotiations process. Of course, in negotiations over evaluation, the law also provides that faculty organizations shall consult with local academic senates before negotiating over these matters.

While ACCJC is free to encourage colleges and their faculty organizations to negotiate over this topic, it is not free to mandate or coerce the adoption of such standards by sanctioning colleges which do not adopt standards that ACCJC would prefer in these areas. Given its state function, ACCJC must respect the negotiations process mandated by state law, and academic freedom rights adopted by contract or policy.

California’s public community colleges are an extraordinary public resource, and the Legislature has seen fit to decree that when it comes to faculty evaluation, that process shall be subject to collective bargaining. With the adoption of the landmark bill A.B. 1725 almost 20 years ago, the Legislature came down squarely on the side of faculty determining, with their employers, the method and content of their evaluations. This system has worked exceptionally well for almost 35 years.

Given the change in Federal law, the CFT calls upon ACCJC to take prompt and appropriate action to amend its standards to respect the boundaries established by the Legislature and not purport to regulate the methods by which faculty are evaluated or determine their course work such as syllabi.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Marty Hittelman, President, CFT

Tom Fuentes: morality on holiday

You've gotta hand it to these "moral" right-wing Republicans. Most of the time, you can find 'em praying and moralizing and condemning the unrighteous.

—Yeah but, when election time rolls around, for this dark crew, morality goes totally on holiday. 

Consider Mr. Tom Fuentes' campaign for reelection as trustee on the SOCCCD Board of Trustees. He calls his opponent, Bob Bliss, a liberal unionist. In fact, Bliss is a conservative Republican. 

Fuentes takes credit for our colleges' high transfer rates (of students to 4-year institutions). In fact, he has absolutely nothing to do with that achievement, which, in truth, is accomplished by the very people he routinely contemns and demonizes (those lazy faculty featherbedders, et al.).

Tom bases his claim to being a frugal "friend to the taxpayer" on the fact that the SOCCCD has not pursued bonds. But he neglects to mention that our district is swimming in taxpayer dough thanks to its unusual "basic aid" funding, which obviates bonds.

I asked an expert to explain how much tax money this district spends, thanks to its "basic aid" gravy train. "A total shitload," he said.

Tom crows about our "balanced budget," but he neglects to point out that he doggedly supports a hated Chancellor who, for years, has driven our district ever closer to disastrous noncompliance with the "50% Law," which requires that most expenditures be devoted to instruction, not buildings and administrator salaries.

Plus Tom doesn't mention some important truths--e.g., that he shares much of the responsibility for our two colleges' coming as close as they've ever come to losing their accreditation.

Thanks, Tom, for the trustee micromanagement and the plague of despair!

Check out the Tomster's latest mailer (see graphics). 

Then, like Tom, contemplate morality and virtue and piety. Make sure your eyes are rollin' into the back of your head.

And think of the Lord thinking about Tom thinking about his campaign. 

I do hope there is a Lord, just so Tom can finally meet him. I wanna be there for that.

VP: "In charge of the U.S. Senate"?

Wrong again.
Palin does, however, look nifty in red.

About this time last year

Wasilla: It's Worse Than You Thought

Just pay attention to the interview with the current mayor.

The latest on "public-pension hog" Armando Ruiz

Somehow, I managed to miss Frank Mickadeit’s latest spankage (yesterday) of former Mathurian Armando Ruiz (currently, Coast CC trustee and uber-junketeer):

'Coach' drops out, gives anti-Ruiz effort a boost:

The potential spoiler in the Coast Community College board race involving public-pension hog Armando Ruiz decided over the weekend to abandon his own humble ambitions for the greater good. Don "Coach" Apodaca told me that based on my recent columns, he's ending his campaign and supporting Ruiz's main challenger, Lorraine Prinsky.

Before we measure Prinsky's car for her trustee parking space, however, let's consider the mitigating factors to this most welcome development. My impressive journalism was about two months late. Apodaca would have had to drop his candidacy sometime in August to have his name removed from the ballot.

That means he's still going to draw some votes. But that doesn't mean Apodaca's decision on Saturday can't make a difference. Perhaps the difference. First, a little background:

Ruiz is the longtime part-time trustee in Area 3 of the college district, which takes in the northwest corner of the county. For years, he was also a full-time administrator in the South County Community College District. As a trustee, he got a small monthly stipend.

Shortly before the 2004 election, he engineered a smarmy deal in which he got to "retire" from the Coast district's board as if that job had been a full-time job paying exactly what he made at his real South County job. Then he ran for election to the Coast district board anyway. So he gets a pension upward of $108,000 a year, instead of what he really worked for—which might be a little more than half that—and he still gets to sit on the Coast board. Your tax dollars at work.
…
These events were known to the district faculty and a few others, including me, and Ruiz did have his reputation sullied. For the 2008 election, the faculty got behind Prinsky, a Ph.D., and a tenured sociology professor at Cal State Fullerton.


But fortune again smiled on the rapscallion Ruiz: Out of nowhere last summer emerged a third candidate: Apodaca, an optometrist and part-time high school wrestling coach.

He had the backing of some in the coaching community, but he was a very dark horse. He didn't even pay for a ballot statement. Nonetheless, conventional political wisdom holds that entry of a minor third candidate would benefit Ruiz by splitting whatever anti-incumbent bloc was out there. I even heard speculation that Ruiz had asked Apodaca to run.

Not so, Apodaca told me. In fact, he had never met Ruiz and had no idea about his double-dipping. (Ruiz has never returned one of my calls for comment.)

In the days after my columns ran, Apodaca considered his options. He sent me a message saying he was considering dropping out but, he said, "I need to be assured it will not be a meaningless gesture."

He talked to independent sources and he looked into Prinsky's background. Friday night, he and his campaign manager, David Finch, met with Prinsky and her husband at the Starbucks at Goldenwest and Delaware in H.B. What was going to be a 15-minute chat stretched into a two-hour conversation.

Apodaca said it confirmed a few things: One, as he e-mailed me Sunday: that Prinsky is "an honest, hardworking, dedicated lady who does have the temperament and background to straighten out this mess and return our local colleges to the level they once were as the crown jewels of our local communities."

And two, as he said in an interview Saturday night: Prinsky agreed she would look after the issues that made him want to run, chiefly, his desire that community colleges "use athletics as a way to draw in kids who are at risk."

(Had the money spent on Ruiz's nationwide junketing over the years been sent to Golden West and Orange Coast colleges, you'd have been able to spare a sports program or two.)

So Apodaca says he will do what he can to help Prinsky. What that is and how Prinsky hopes to capitalize I will update you on in coming days. But this morning, let's muse for a moment about the civic mindedness of Coach Apodaca and hope he continues to help our youth.

Above graphic from New York Times