JUNE: faculty speak out against impending contract renewal for Mathur

PRESS THE LITTLE RED ARROW above.

AN HISTORIC MOMENT, DIGITALLY PRESERVED:

At the June 21 SOCCCD board meeting, faculty spoke out against the board's impending decision to renew Raghu Mathur's contract as Chancellor.

The speakers:

Priscilla
Wendy
Lewis
Margot
Claire
Bob
Jeff
Carmen [Carmen's remarks are cut off at midpoint.]

Carmen's entire comment:

In the end, the board voted 4-3 (Lang, Fuentes, Wagner, Williams VS. Padberg, Milchiker, Jay) to renew Mathur's contract. He was given a quarter-million dollar salary, some of it retroactive. --CW

P.S.: This audio clip was edited down to about six minutes (last June) for the sake of possible future play on the union website. Thus, unfortunately but unavoidably, some remarks were left on the "cutting room floor."

More arrogance & cronyism in the Fuentesphere

Yikes! I read the LA Times this morning, and two articles caught my eye.

he first concerned Fuentes crony Mike Carona, the County Sheriff, a fellow honored with a “Hometown Hero” award three years ago by Irvine Valley College’s GOP-crony-infested Foundation (A Sheriff's Rising Star is Dimmed by Scandal):

Two of [Carona’s] former aides are facing criminal prosecution. Federal agents have subpoenaed his financial and administrative records. State investigators are examining his conduct with women. And he's the sheriff. Scandals and controversies have clouded Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona's public and private lives, dimming the prospects of a man whose political future once seemed unlimited.

Carona's official biography describes him as "America's sheriff," the handle CNN's Larry King gave him after the successful hunt for the killer of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, whose kidnap-murder captivated the nation. The sheriff's camera-grabbing performance in the 2002 case made him an overnight sensation in Republican circles — a would-be contender for lieutenant governor and rumored candidate for a Bush administration post. He met with White House political strategist Karl Rove to plot career moves.

Yes, Karl Rove. Remember when the Bush people spread the false rumor, just before the South Carolina primary of 2000, that John McCain had fathered an illigitimate child with a black prostitute? That Carl Rove.

…Rehabilitation would require Carona to overcome a siege of allegations and embarrassing disclosures. Many center on bribery and election-law charges against two sheriff's officials, and accusations that Carona sexually harassed two women. Others have raised doubts about a life-shaping story he has often told of finding his mother dead from alcoholism.

…The sheriff declined to be interviewed for this story because he believes The Times has "fabricated" material about him in the past, said Michael Schroeder, his unpaid attorney and political advisor [Schroeder is a close associate of Tom Fuentes]. Schroeder, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, said Carona has done nothing wrong, remains popular in Orange County and will be reelected.

Schroeder was very involved in the Frogue Recall. He was responsible for bringing the state GOP on board the anti-Frogue bandwagon.

…In addition to the pending prosecution of an assistant sheriff and captain, and a state investigation into the sexual harassment allegations, The Times has learned that federal officials have subpoenaed records from Carona's reserve deputy program and election committee.

And America's sheriff may even have a Russian problem. Photographs have surfaced of Carona cradling a young woman in his arms during a 2002 Moscow trip, and of her wearing the sheriff's uniform jacket in a hotel. Schroeder said the woman was an official translator and the photos are innocent.

…The married Carona has portrayed himself as a Christian conservative, saying his "personal relationship with Jesus" is the most important thing in his life, followed by his family.

What's with "Christian conservative" politicians in this county, anyway?

The Times continues:

…Carona began his first term by persuading the Board of Supervisors to change a county rule requiring that assistant sheriffs serve first as captains in the department. That allowed him to appoint George Jaramillo and Don Haidl as his top assistants. Jaramillo, a lawyer, had been a Garden Grove police lieutenant. Carona fired him in March 2004 and Jaramillo was later indicted. The former aide has pleaded not guilty to charges that he took bribes from a Newport Beach company, CHG Safety Technologies…CHG owner Charles H. Gabbard admitted to funneling thousands of dollars to Carona's 1998 campaign through an illegal stock swap, a matter the district attorney's office referred to the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

…Carona's other top assistant was Haidl, a wealthy businessman and Carona fund-raiser who came to the job with little law enforcement experience. He had been a volunteer reserve deputy in San Bernardino County. Three state agencies investigated him years earlier for allegedly skimming proceeds from government auto sales through his City of Industry auction firm. Though denying the allegations, he paid $104,000 to settle a civil complaint. He resigned as assistant sheriff in September 2004 because of the fallout over his son's arrest in a notorious sexual assault case. Gregory Haidl and two codefendants were convicted of attacking a highly intoxicated 16-year-old girl during a party at his father's Newport Beach home.

Don Haidl oversaw the expansion of Carona's reserve deputy program, creating a volunteer corps that critics say was designed as a fundraising tool for the sheriff's political campaigns. Eighty-six of the reserves — nearly all of them Carona's political allies — got weapons permits, badges and, in some cases, guns in 1999, without the full training or background checks mandated by the state Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training.…In August, a reserve who was Carona's martial arts instructor was arrested for allegedly waving his gun and badge at a group of golfers he thought was playing too slowly. Raymond K. Yi has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a felony trial. Another reserve, Freddie Glusman, who owns the upscale Ritz restaurant in Newport Beach, allegedly pulled his badge and threatened a coin-laundry proprietor in an argument over a parking space. Glusman, who held a 50th birthday party fundraiser for Carona last spring, resigned after the Sheriff's Department began an investigation of the incident.

…One of Carona's confidantes, Sheriff's Capt. Christine Murray, was charged last year on 16 misdemeanor counts of soliciting campaign donations for the sheriff from department colleagues. State law prohibits government employees from asking co-workers for political contributions. Murray denies the charges….

…Some people who have worked with Carona or knew him before he became sheriff say many of his woes betrayed a lack of savvy in running a big-league department, as well as hubris. They say the appointments of Jaramillo and Haidl and putting friends and political insiders on the reserve force smacked of arrogance and cronyism. Just as revealing, they say, were Carona's since-abandoned proposal to emblazon his name on all sheriff's patrol cars, and his practice of traveling with an entourage of bodyguards. The four-deputy contingent referred to Carona by the code name "Braveheart."

…The celebrity brought by the Runnion case also invited a closer look into Carona's background. In 2003, The Times first reported the inconsistencies between Carona's story of his mother's death from alcoholism and the official record. He said his mother drank a fifth of liquor and a six-pack of beer daily, and that he found her dead in her bed one morning when he was 11. An autopsy report, however, stated that his mother died of cancer that began as a sinus tumor. It said she had no alcohol in her blood, and that Carona's father had discovered her body.

…Last summer, Erica Hill, who is Jaramillo's sister-in-law, told the grand jury she'd had sex with Carona. The panel called her as part of its investigation into the bribery charges against Jaramillo. Hill told The Times that Carona pressured her to have sex as a condition to the Sheriff's Department hiring her husband as a deputy. She said their first tryst was during Carona's 1999 inaugural party, in a hotel room. Her husband was not hired.

…In September, a Mission Viejo man filed a $15-million claim against the county, alleging that his former wife was sexually harassed by Carona. Dean Holloway, who is now divorced and is on probation for grand theft, asserts that Carona called Susan Holloway in 2002 at the couple's Aliso Viejo home and asked her to spend the weekend with him in San Francisco. The Holloways were married at the time….

On the 4th of April, 2003, the IVC Foundation issued this press release:

Sheriff Mike Carona to be Honored at Irvine Valley College Foundation Awards Dinner...The Board of Governors of the Irvine Valley College Foundation announced today that Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona will be the guest of honor at the annual IVC Foundation Awards Dinner, to be held at the Irvine Marriott Hotel on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 at 5:30 p.m. The theme of this year’s dinner will be “Securing the Future.” “We are proud to announce that Sheriff Carona will receive our Hometown Hero Award and will be acknowledged for his contribution to the community,” said Board Chairman Duane Cave.

For a recent blog re Fuentes and cronyism, see Cronyism & Mirthulence.

he second article concerned a guy with whom I went to grade school (Cerro Villa Junior High, Villa Park High). We used to call him “Hambo." Well, Hambo got a fifteen year prison sentence for “bilking the city [of Orange] out of millions through kickbacks and fraud.” According to the Times (OC Trash Firm Owner Gets Fifteen Years),

A man once embraced as a hometown hero was sentenced Friday to nearly 15 years in prison for bilking the city of Orange out of $4.3 million through his trash hauling company. Jeffrey Hambarian, 51, who had faced up to 20 years in prison, was also ordered to pay $12 million in restitution and fines. Hambarian's attorney, Mark Geragos, unsuccessfully sought a sentence similar to those given to Martha Stewart and other executives with no criminal history…A jury in August found Hambarian guilty of 47 counts of grand theft, fraud, embezzlement, money-laundering and filing false tax income statements…The scam surfaced in 1995 after an accountant for Hambarian's trash firm, Orange Disposal Services, alerted the city to discrepancies in the annual audit. News of the scam distressed the tight-knit community, which regarded civic-minded Hambarian as a favorite son who gave generously to charity and was friendly with politicians. The disclosure also caused a rift in City Hall and ultimately the firing of the town's police chief after he started investigating the leak of sensitive internal documents to reporters. Prosecutors said Hambarian blackmailed his vendors into padding and faking invoices, then forced them to funnel the profits to him, laundering the money through check-cashing businesses in south Los Angeles County…Geragos said Hambarian had done nothing wrong and was the victim of a conspiracy by vendors who were promised immunity by the government.

I remember “Hambo” as a lout and a dolt. No wonder he became a Big Man in the OC. No F-ing wonder.

Thursday's Photographic Updatery!!!

issent the Blog is efficacious, baby.

Back in November, our own Rebel Girl offered a piece called "Twinkle, Twinkle, Trustee Tom" that highlighted the profound lowlights of the part-timer experience here in the district, a circumstance of which Trustee Tom Fuentes appears wholly oblivious. Wrote the Reb:

Take for example, the part-time faculty office in A-200 (please!). A modest hand-lettered piece of paper taped to the door affirms that it is, indeed, the part-time office. The otherwise unadorned facility serves, theoretically, the needs of some 60 or more part-time faculty and their students.


The office resembles a windowed closet..., tucked away between a mail box arrangement and the cheerful Howard Gensler Memorial Xerox Cubicle, its constant rhythmic sound and light show, a jolly mechanical celebration of the ingenuity, creative thinking, and can-do spirit of that clever fellow....

A quick survey reveals the bunker is equipped with two desks--that’s one for every thirty “star” instructors, teacher-to-furniture ratio-wise. The drawers of one desk are broken and splintered..., no use to anyone unless they are going to use their gaping cavity as some kind of “cubby” or public storage unit. Or maybe this is what the Martha Stewart-type magazines mean by “distressed”? (Nov. 19)

Well, guess what! Recently, matters have improved in the A200 part-timer office. I'll let a photo--taken earlier today--do the talking:


The office still isn't anything to write home about, but it is much improved. We appreciate the effort!


ecently, I noted that Irvine Valley College rests upon an enormous plume of toxin-contaminated groundwater and that, back in 1989, the Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD) installed a solitary cleanup pump (called ET-1) across the street from IVC. I noted, too, that, about a year ago, the IRWD proposed building a much-needed second toxic cleanup pump, but that got NIMBYd into oblivion. According to the Irvine World News ("Woodbidge nix sends well back to drawing board"),

The Irvine Ranch Water District is back to re-evaluating options in the project to clean up the plume of toxins in the groundwater under Irvine. The Woodbridge Village Association board voted Feb. 4 to not allow the water district to drill a cleanup well near the community's North Lake Lagoon and to work with IRWD to find another solution in dealing with the "toxic plume." The board had initially agreed to allow the water district to use the Woodbridge Lake well to pump trichloroethylene (TCE)-contaminated water from the plume in groundwater that extends from the old El Toro air base. The well would have been part of the larger project, dubbed the Irvine Desalter Project, which would clean up toxins from the air base that seeped into the groundwater over a period of about 40 years. One such cleanup well [namely., ET-1] has been in operation at Irvine Center Drive and Jeffrey Road since 1989, but the water district says that one well is not enough...The plume also is headed toward areas in the aquifer that might be used in the future to supply Irvine with drinking water. And, the contaminated part of the water basin is a potential source of drinking water for the future...Some residents questioned why the project was named "Irvine Desalter Project," when it's a toxic plume clean-up....Without the cleanup well, the lake will continue to be filled with water pumped from the toxic plume by an existing well owned by the Woodbridge Village Association, as it has been since the lake was created.... (Feb. 12, 2004)

Earlier today, I walked across the street to ET-1 to check it out. Right away, I encountered a pair of signs. These prove that the people down at the IRWD have a wicked sense of humor:


The ET-1 facility is set back from Jeffrey a hundred yards (on one side), but it's pretty much right up against Irvine Center Drive (on the other), where it is surrounded by a ragged barbed wire fence. There's a sign that identifies the facility. Once again, something--maybe not a sense of humor, maybe something darker--is in evidence:



(Just for laughs, let's imagine how the sign would read in a less BS-impacted world:


Now, here's a fascinating factoid. About ten or fifteen feet from this facility--a facility used to clean toxin-contaminated water--is a strawberry field!


That tears it. No more strawberries for me!

I walked to the middle of the complex and peered through the fence. What I saw amazed me. I held my camera over the fence and took a cock-eyed snap. I felt like Warren Beatty in Parallax View! Here's what I got:


The picture doesn't really convey how deep and big that hole is. It appears that IRWD is constructing a super-duper TCE-sucking gizmo. Wow.

Well, what do you make of it all?

If you find out later that I disappeared under suspicious circumstances, do remember about this pic.

And remember: Klaatu barada nikto. --CW

"You Did a Raghu Thing" (2000)

recorded this ditty about six years ago on my old Fostex R8. It's based on the Chris Isaak recording "You Did a Bad Bad Thing" (remember from "Eyes Wide Shut"?). Unfortunately, the recording was transferred over the phone, and so the sound quality is poor. (You can hear me monkeying with the phone. Drat.)

Note: to hear the song, press on the red arrow to the right of "play this audio post." Voila!

What's this stuff across the floor?
What's this sh*t up on my door?
What's this memo over here?
And that crap right under there?

Chorus:
You did a Raghu thing
You did a Raghu thing
You put that sh*t up on my door
You did a Raghu thing

You been lyin' like a rug
You been dressin' like a thug
What's that guff you givin' me?
So you bought a Ph.D.?

Chorus

Saw you grabbin' someone's plant
Saw you grinnin' at the bank
You put a stink into my world
Don't you point that thing at me

Chorus

Etc.

Notes:

The line about the plant is an allusion to the infamous "poinsettia" episode. See The "poinsettia" episode.

The line about "pointing" is an allusion to the Great Man's love of the saying, "when you point a finger at someone, three fingers point back at you." Somenow, the fellow doesn't seem to grasp that the point is NOT to point at people. To see a fine illustration of Raghu's penchant for pointmanship, see the Archives: Raghu points a finger of blame.

The line about the "Ph.D." concerns the Great Man's doctorate (not a Ph.D., actually, but a doctorate) which he received from the spectacularly unprestigious Nova Southeastern U in Florida, an institution that routinely ranked dead last in U.S. World & News Report's yearly rating of colleges and universities. Who knows, maybe it's climbed up the rankings in recent years.



"BONUS" SONG:

I recorded this "song" at about the same time. It's essentially a kind of punk chant. The lyric: "Rat bastard at 12 o'clock," repeated ad nauseum. I played the guitar on an old acoustic, routed through a distortion box. Noisy, ain't it?

It's not about anyone in particular. If you know a "rat bastard," then it's about him (or her or it).

Karl Rove? --Sure, why not. It's about Karl Rove and all Karl Rove wannabes.

Played into my phone and thus onto Blogspot's computer. Pretty low-tech. Think I'll have a beer and call it a day.

--CW

P.S.:

See The Incident for an old article re the history of the phrase in question.

Rebel Girl Has a Dream: The Girl Can't Help It

nce again, Rebel Girl is humbled by the thoughtful, inspired programming commemorating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. offered by the college.

Some colleges are satisfied with a day of events or even a single event, but not IVC. No. Only an entire week of activities will do.

This surely demonstrates the college’s commitment to inclusion, civil rights and all that is good and just in the world. It shows our community that this little sector of Orange County is committed, nay, dedicated to living the legacy of Dr. King. It makes her proud.

One glance at the heft of the Schedule of Events booklet shows the depth of our respect.

The week begins with a free pancake breakfast on Tuesday morning, with all the trustees taking their turns behind the griddle, clutching spatulas. Performing will be a local interfaith chorus. Representatives of local peace and justice, community and environmental organizations will be present. Irvine Valley College will announce its institutional adoption of an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and unveil plans for a Peace and Justice Center adjacent the (former) Terry Burgess Greenhouse. Chancellor Mathur will cut the ribbon. President Roquemore does the honors with the shovel.

Throughout the week, district administrators will visit classes, encouraging involvement in service projects both on and off campus, toward helping provide for the needs of those without. Furthermore, each administrator has made a personal pledge to tithe amounts equivalent to the unprecedented raises each received last year: the monies will go to local groups battling poverty, including the Catholic Worker. Rebel Girl was told that the meeting where this decision was made was very, very emotional.


Noontime events on the lawn in front of the Student Services Center include college trustees giving the King speech of their own choosing. The event is free, and community members are welcome. While reports suggest there was indeed a friendly tussle for the honor to recite the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Trustee Fuentes, former chair of the Orange County Republican Party, prevailed and will offer the landmark speech--from memory--on Tuesday. Wednesday’s presentation has been claimed by Trustee John Williams who will read, not a speech but instead King’s 1963 “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.” On Wednesday, Don Wagner will recreate King’s classic anti-war speech given at Riverside Church a year before his death: “Beyond Vietnam.” In accepting the responsibility of this controversial address, for which Dr. King was attacked at the time as a “demagogue” by Time magazine, Wagner quoted King: “Our lives begin to end on the day we refuse to speak.” Thursday’s schedule includes a “Civil Rights” recreation event, the 1965 nonviolent confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, facilitated by Dave Lang, Nancy Padberg, Marcia Milchiker and Bill Jay.


Throughout the week, the Orange County Lego League will honor Dr. King by staging various interactive scenes from his life in the A-quad. The centerpiece is their distinctive and award-winning recreation of the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The OCLL is particularly proud of, not only its ability to re-create the mall, Washington Monument and reflecting pool, the Lincoln Memorial, but also its construction of uncanny models of historical figures who took the stage that day alongside King: Peter Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan, SNCC’s John Lewis and Mahalia Jackson.

Finally, in honor of King’s commitment to labor justice, the district has announced that it will settle the contract dispute with the Classified Union. It will be, indeed, a “fair contract.”

As you can probably tell by now, Rebel Girl dreams too.


Now some may gripe that Rebel Girl is simply eating a plate of sour grapes. That she, given lemons, lacks the vision to make lemonade. That she is one of those who sees a glass of water for what it isn’t, not for what it is: wet.

It’s true that when she was newly hired and full of all sorts of ideas and full of the energy that comes from working at an institution that seeks to nurture rather than oppress, that she and her colleagues had the temerity to put together a modest but singular King Day offering for a number of years: a showing of the award-winning documentary: "From Montgomery to Memphis." It was an effort that sought to fill a need. It did. Of course, she secretly hoped that the institution would take on what is obviously an institutional obligation.

Years passed, the college underwent its “changes” and so-called “multicultural programming” was taken over by people who imagined Yul Brynner’s “The King and I” offered relevant lessons in assimilation for college students. Say no more, though Rebel Girl could say plenty.

But Rebel Girl can’t help to add that the deafening silence by which King Day is celebrated on this campus is a sharp contrast to another day that she still remembers: on April 27, 1994, our district distinguished itself by becoming the only college district in the nation to close in an official day of mourning in honor of the passing of Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Say no more.

Yabba Dabba Doo

ON THE SECOND DAY of the Spring semester, I awoke in bed bleary-eyed and glanced at the clock. Good Lord! I had a class to teach in five minutes!

I ran to the phone to try to find someone at the college to tell the class that I would be a tad late. As it turns out, the School secretary was not at her phone. I then tried “IVC information,” but, as usual, that only gave me a recording. I tried some of the extensions mentioned on the recording, but that only yielded more recordings!

Boy was I steamed. How hard is it to hire actual human beings to answer the gosh darn phones?

I guess we’re a pretty peevish bunch at Dissent. Even our friends are peevish.


bout a week ago, I ran into a couple of student friends at Rutabegorz in Tustin, an old-school vegetarian restaurant. One of them, Jonathan, said hello, while the other, Mr. E. Debs—an occasional contributor to Dissent—grunted diffidently, as is his custom.

“What’s up?”, I said.

That prompted a torrent of abject peevitude from Jonathan. He explained that, several weeks ago, he had tried to register for classes at IVC online, but he was immediately stymied because, somehow, his enrollery was premature.

He had not waited, it seems, for his “enrollment window."


“What’s that?” I asked. Well, nobody at IVC had actually told Jonathan what his enrollment window was. He had one, though.

Jonathan then explained that, when he proceeded to try to enroll anyway, he received an error message according to which, owing to his prematurity, he was preventing other students from enrolling! Imagine that!

None of this meant anything to me. “So what’s your beef?” I asked. Jonathan looked at me like I must be kidding or something. He then patiently explained:

"Any well-designed system will have excess capacity built in to handle things like this—busy periods, network attacks, and so on!”

But of course! Any idiot knows that!

Well, that was about it. Jonathan said goodbye, Mr. Debs grunted, and off the two went.

A few days later, Jonathan sent me a message to which he attached two emails regarding the above-mentioned incident. The first, dated November 22, was addressed to Glenn Roquemore, President of IVC:

Dear Dr. Roquemore:

It has come to my attention, through a message placed on the Web by your programmers, that your system is unable to handle the extra load placed on it by students attempting to enroll prior to their enrollment window. I had no idea how determined my fellow students were to register, or that two or three of them might attempt to register prematurely at the same time! I also had no idea how starved for funds you truly were! In order to see any appreciable delays from an extra three users per second, you must be running your college enrollment software on a ten-year-old Pentium laptop with 48 megabytes of memory.

I am prepared to help. If asked, I will donate to the college my dual processor Pentium Pro server, circa 1998, with four 9Gb disk drives and 512 megabytes of memory. With Linux, the Apache web server, and the MySQL database engine, you ought to be able to get 100 users/second out of that machine, easily enough to accommodate over-eager enrollers. If, by some astronomical windfall, you get hold of an off-the-shelf computer from Sam's Club—well, your limiting factor becomes your network capacity.

In the interim, you have my profound sympathies, as does the engineer who has to prevent that poor Pentium laptop from melting down.

Very truly yours, Jonathan

Weeks passed, but Jonathan received no response from the Roquester. Jonathan commenced seething in peevitude.

He then turned to plan B. On December 9, he emailed one Jim Phaneuf, the district’s “Associate Director of Information Systems & Services”:

Dear Mr. Phaneuf:

I am a registered student at IVC. When I attempted to register prior to my registration window, I got an error message stating the following:

You are being denied access to the registration system for the following reasons: You may only use registration during your assigned appointment periods. By trying early you are preventing others from gaining access to the system. Please do not try again until Tuesday, November 29, 2005 after 02:00 PM

Is it literally true that I was inadvertently preventing others from gaining access to the system? Don't you have sufficient system and network capacity to handle requests from people accessing the registration system by mistake, without undue stress?

My brother works on online multiple listing service solutions for the real estate industry. His systems can handle tens of thousands of Web transactions per second, each involving multiple page builds and database calls. The data centers are modest—four or five dual processor machines facing the Web, four database servers, and four application servers. The connectivity in each facility is also modest—two peered T1 lines.

I can't believe that SOCCCD can't field that kind of architecture for its students! If you have something reasonable like this in place, why do you say that people who attempt to register early are preventing other people from using the system?

Sincerely, Jonathan

Once again, he received no response whatsoever.

Yesterday, I ran into Jonathan yet again. He was still steamed about the enrollment snafu. Said he:

“My guess is that either they were being stupid and moralizing for the hell of it, or that students were trying to game the system by trying to ‘snipe’ the first available classes in the enrollment window. If the latter, there are obvious technical steps to solve the problem, e.g., decoupling the authentication phase from the subnet used to run the rest of the enrollment system.”

I guess so. Absolutely!

The "toxic plume"

"The long-term effects of trichloroethylene [TCE, a solvent] on human beings is unknown. In animal studies, chronic trichloroethylene exposure has produced liver cancer in mice, but not in rats. Studies on its effects on reproduction in animals have been similarly inconsistent, and so no conclusive statements about its ability to cause birth defects in humans can be made."

--Wikipedia on "TCE"

or some reason, we never seem to hear much about the toxic plume beneath us here in Irvine, caused by 40 years of solvent dumping at the former El Toro Marine Base.

When I say "we," I mean denizens of Irvine Valley College in particular. (See plume map below.)

If you visit the Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD) website (IRWD contamination history), you'll find this helpful "History of El Toro Contamination":

* 1985: [TCE] Contamination discovered
* 1989: Installed Well ET-1 [across the street from IVC] to slow plume movement. However, one well is not enough to remove the plume completely
* 1990: Dept. of Navy accepted its responsibility and Superfund site created
* 1994-2001: Negotiations with the Navy and the Dept. of Justice
* 2001: Settlement agreement reached: Navy agreed to pay for removal of the volatile organic compound contamination
* In October 2003, proposed project modifications were made, including changing well locations, and adding a shallow groundwater unit (SGU) volatile organic treatment facility near the former MCAS El Toro
* In February 2004, well site acquisition in Woodbridge was unsuccessful
* IRWD reached agreement with The Irvine Company (TIC) to take over existing TIC agricultural wells and pipelines, some of which can be incorporated into the Irvine Desalter Project. Therefore, construction costs were lowered, resulting in a more cost effective project



ecently, the IRWD has attempted to build a much-needed second toxic cleanup pump, but that got NIMBYd into oblivion. For the story, go to "Woodbidge nix sends well back to drawing board"

Some excerpts from that Irvine World News article:

The Irvine Ranch Water District is back to re-evaluating options in the project to clean up the plume of toxins in the groundwater under Irvine.

The Woodbridge Village Association board voted Feb. 4 to not allow the water district to drill a cleanup well near the community's North Lake Lagoon and to work with IRWD to find another solution in dealing with the "toxic plume."

The board had initially agreed to allow the water district to use the Woodbridge Lake well to pump trichloroethylene (TCE)-contaminated water from the plume in groundwater that extends from the old El Toro air base. The well would have been part of the larger project, dubbed the Irvine Desalter Project, which would clean up toxins from the air base that seeped into the groundwater over a period of about 40 years. One such cleanup well has been in operation at Irvine Center Drive and Jeffrey Road since 1989, but the water district says that one well is not enough.

Other wells will pump uncontaminated water upstream from the plume to help slow the progress of the plume's expansion and slow movement toward areas in the underground water that provide drinking water.

The plume also is headed toward areas in the aquifer that might be used in the future to supply Irvine with drinking water. And, the contaminated part of the water basin is a potential source of drinking water for the future.

...Some residents questioned why the project was named "Irvine Desalter Project," when it's a toxic plume clean-up.

...Without the cleanup well, the lake will continue to be filled with water pumped from the toxic plume by an existing well owned by the Woodbridge Village Association, as it has been since the lake was created. About two years ago, the association stopped using the well water to fill the swimming lagoon beside the lake, which is now filled with drinking-quality water. No TCE has been detected in the lake, according to association official Bob Figeira, though it has been detected in the existing well.

...At [a] meeting, environmental medicine specialist Mary McDaniel said that measures would be taken to ensure the safety for the community during the drilling of the proposed toxic plume well.

She said a study indicated that the project did not present a health risk during the drilling of the well or during the clean-up operation, which is estimated to last about 40 years.... (Feb. 12, 2004)


P.S.:

I ran across an interview of Ray Watson, former President of the Irvine Company (Watson). He designed the Woodbridge Village Association, which opened in 1976. In the interview (evidently in 2001), he explains why North Lake is warmer than South Lake:

The main idea was to have a recreational community connected by paths. We also came up with the idea of lakes. I don’t know if you ever heard the story, but the water that goes into the North Lake Lagoon is warmer than the water that goes into the South Lake Lagoon. This happened by accident in the sense that when we were drilling for water for the North Lake, we hit a natural hot water spring.

Yeah, but that's not all they hit.


Note: NIMBY = "not in my back yard"
It would seem that opposition to the El Toro Airport was largely fueled by NIMBYism, although other motives existed.
Trustee Fuentes was among the leaders of the opposition movement. Oddly, given their differing politics, so was Irvine's Larry Agran.