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.

Old photos: 20s through 40s

     I continued scanning old photos—and documents—today. I came across papers left by my grandfather (Opa) in an old briefcase, including official yearly "registration" forms that recorded days worked and taxes paid (something like that). Opa seemed to keep all of them. The earliest one I could find was the one above from 1924. He would have been seventeen years old.

     This photo seems to date from the late 20s. That's my Grandmother (Luise) playing the guitar at right. Oma and Opa married in 1930. They lived in Böblingen (the name is a reference to Babylon), which is near Stuttgart.

     I haven't figured out what this one's about. These small town Germans seemed to know how to have a good time.
     My guess is that the photo dates from the late 20s or early 30s. My dad thinks that two of the women look familiar—perhaps they are Opa's sisters or cousins. Most of the people who could have answered the question are gone now.

     My mother lived in the furthest eastern part of Germany—an area that was swallowed up by Poland after the war (Pommern). Here, she is visiting her father's grave in about 1943 or 1944 (she would have been 10 or 11).

     When the Russians advanced a year or two later, soldiers insisted that civilians, especially women, flee to the west. My mother and her stepmother managed to get on a flat car of a train. Most of the trains were bombed or strafed. Mom was among the lucky ones who survived.

     In this photo, my father appears to be about 13 or 14, and so the year would have been about 1945 or 1946.

      My dad and his pals did lots of camping. They lived not far from the Black Forest.

     Arko, the Wonder Dog. My father was given the puppy Arko as a gift from a neighbor. When he saw the pup, Opa was not pleased. Nevertheless, he insisted on joining the local Schutzhund Club (a working dog club that typically involves German Shepherds) and taking Arko to it. Arko was soon the "star" athlete among the dogs. He did everything well.
     By all accounts, he was a great friend too.

Mom hasn't been back to her home town since 1945.

(It's in Poland now.)

Mom ended up near Hamburg. Eventually, she left for Canada in 1951 (she was 17). She met my dad on the boat, an old Liberty Ship that nearly broke in half during the Atlantic crossing. (All passengers were rescued by yet another old Liberty Ship.)

Phil Greer was incompetent, says Chriss Street

     As you know, Orange County is slowly morphing into a less severely Neanderthalic habitat. The glaciers are receding, and the Cro-Magnons have the run of most of the county’s forests and beaches.
     Oddly, during this unstoppable transmogrification, the Old Guard—friends and associates of good ol’ Tom Fuentes (Mike Schroeder chief among them)—have managed to keep its crew of unscrupulous and cronyistic Cave People in key positions. DA Rackauckas is the best example. Former OC Sheriff Mike Carona was another (until he was convicted of one of the many crimes he committed). Lots of lower-profile pols are part of the network. They give each other prizes. They trade jobs. They smoke stogies.
     Until recently, an important member of the team was OC Treasurer Chriss Street, a corrupt bastard whose dark past cast a pall on his office even before he started knocking out walls and buying expensive furniture.
     Eventually, the lawsuit against him was decided, and, overnight, he became our latest big Orange crook. Plus he was broke—he owed people a zillion bucks—and Republicans hate a pauper.
     It was oblivion time.
     He dealt with the situation with an odd combination of realism and denial: he took himself out of the running for reelection, but he also commenced issuing opinions and policy statements, as if he were a seriously respected guy, which he definitely ain’t.
     Well, here’s the latest. According to the OC Reg (Chriss Street sues bankrupt trust for $40 million), Street is suing his adversaries for $40 million and appealing the court decision against him. As the Reg explains,

     Street was trustee of the End of the Road Trust, the … successor to the bankrupt Fruehauf Trailer Corp., from 1998 until creditors forced him out in mid 2005.
     He is suing the trust, Los Angeles money manager Dan Harrow, who replaced him as trustee, the trust’s current and former law firms and the hedge funds that supervised the trust.
     Street alleges that the two hedge funds … tried to embezzle money from the trust while he was trustee. When they failed, Street wrote, they “simply pushed him out and brought in someone ethically detached and morally flexible.”

     Sounds zany.
     Then there’s the appeal. In his filing, he “argues that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Richard M. Neiter wrongly applied Delaware trust law.”
     But here’s the best part:

The appeal also alleges that his lawyer in the two-day trial, Phillip Greer, was incompetent.

     The Reg lays out the amazing story Street offers regarding the conspiracy against him. Check it out.
     Back to Greer.
     Incompetent, eh?
     Greer is, of course, the Old Guard’s legal consigliere. Recently, he helped protect OC Public Administrator John Williams from the obvious implications of two damning and fun-filled OC Grand Jury reports. He helped that rat bastard Raghu Mathur negotiate a sweet exit from the South Orange County Community College District when Board Prez Don Wagner finally got fed up with his conniving ways.
     Who knows what else this shyster has been up to.
     I love it. Street’s on the outside, and he’s got no friends. But he’s fighting back, and he’s calling Greer a boob.
     Yes, Greer is a boob or worse. But there are other truths that are dying to be said.
     In my imagination, Street decides to turn a new leaf and cease being a corrupt and hypocritical Cave Man. He sells out his former knuckle-dragging friends.
     And it's wonderful.

Grandpa's German Communist associations

     Today, I came across some photos that were found among my grandfather's things after he died in 1998 (Opa was 91). They include pictures of relatives, of the family home and town (Böblingen), and of many German Shepherds, including Arko, a dog of legend in the Bauer family.

     But I also found the picture above.

     I had been told that Opa's brother was active in the German Communist Party. I have a photo of Opa hanging with his brother and his pals in Berlin in the twenties. They're all wearing Communist Party uniforms, it appears.

     The people in the picture above are mostly wearing uniforms. They could be Communist uniforms.

     I zeroed in on the people:

     Aha! The flag includes the words "wir sind bereit!" ("we are ready!"), and that certainly sounds like a party slogan. I looked closer:

     Sure enough, the image below the words is the famous clenched fist. I did some checking, and German Communists routinely used the clench fist as their symbol. (Their version of the fist usually has the thumb on the right.) It is possible that the flag symbolizes, in particular, leftist hopes and aspirations with regard to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which inspired fervent support of the Republicans from the international Marxist community. (Meanwhile, Ford and GM, among others, supported the fascists, who ultimately won.)
     So there you go.
     But which of the people in the photo, if any, are connected to Opa and thus the Bauers? Tomorrow, I'll bring the picture to my dad, who might have some answers.
     As you know, the Nazis targeted Jews, but also Gypsies and other groups, including Communists. I'm not sure how (or whether) Opa's brother was targeted owing to his left-wing, anti-fascist politics. I do know that Opa got into trouble. His friends in town saved him by arranging to have him join the Wehrmacht (Army), despite his age (he was 33 in 1940). Or so says my father.
     Opa (Otto) served with Rommel in Africa but later fought in Italy. He was captured by the British, I believe, in 1944.
     Few people are aware that German POWs were typically kept for years after the war. That's what happened to Opa, who was kept in a terrible camp in Egypt, where many of his colleagues died. When his British jailers reckoned that Opa was about to die, they allowed him to go home.
     He lived another fifty years.
     I came across a post card that Opa sent home during his time in the POW camp. Unfortunately, I can find no date on it:

     Essentially, the letter wishes everyone (his wife, Luise, and the two kids, Ruth and Gunther) a good Christmas and New year. He hopes they experience happiness and peace. 

     It is a very brief and sad message.

I do believe that this is Herr Arko, dog

He, too, hated fascists

Our delightful world of doltocratic reality-detachitude

     “Detachment from reality.” There’s an interesting notion. All of us, I think, are somewhat detached from What Is. Few are entirely detached. There’s lots of room in the middle.
     Some people are both very and entertainingly reality-detached. Such a one is Mr. Steve Rocco of Orange. You’ll recall that, several years ago, the clueless and staunch people of the city of Orange elected him onto the board of the Orange Unified School District—evidently on the strength of his claiming to be an “educator,” something he isn’t. He showed up to board meetings with a signature nutty getup and a daft conspiracy theory having to do with sausages. He was incompetent. He was disruptive. He was a nut.
     There was nothing to be done about it, 'cause this is a democracy, and the people had spoken. His colleagues censured him (so what). They tried to recall him, but they couldn’t get enough staunch Orangeites to stop and think. They snarled instead.
     The people of Orange were saved from persistent Roccohood by a fortuity, namely, a redistricting, which redefined Rocco’s seat’s area in a manner that failed to include Rocco’s home, a treehouse in Hart Park. (I made up that last part.)
     Naturally, later, he was caught stealing ketchup from the Chapman University cafeteria. (He did not steal one of Chapman’s ironic Albert Schweitzer monuments. That would have been intelligible.)
     There was a trial. He blathered about his favorite conspiracy. More sausage. He lost.
     He ran for city council. No luck there. Then, recently, he ran for OC Public Administrator—against incumbent and über jackass John Williams, who happens to be an SOCCCD trustees. Naturally, despite two “scathing” grand jury reports about Williams’ disastrous performance and character, the voters reelected him. They did this even though one or two apparently knowledgeable alternative candidates, not including Mr. Rocco, were also on the ballot.
     (Once in a while, I get into a debate with somebody about whether you’ve got a democracy when the voters are persistently bone stupid (well, bone ignorant)—and also persistently incapable of recognizing that fact. Some say yes: it’s just a shitty kind of democracy is all, a Doltocracy. Some say no: focus on the manipulators, the “engineers of consent,” they say. They’re the real rulers. Owing to the apparently limited intents of the so-called “manipulators,” I tend to favor the first view.)
     Well, according to the Greater Orange News Service, Rocco is at it again:

Controversial former Orange Unified School Board Trustee Steve Rocco has pulled papers to run in Trustee Area 7 of the sprawling Greater Orange school district. Rocco served one turbulent term on the OUSD Board … and then a recall effort led by other Board members that failed due to lack of signatures. He eventually was ousted not by recall or election, but by a redistricting…. Trustees in OUSD must live in the Area they represent, but are elected at-large).Trustee Area 7 is represented by Trustee Rick Ledesma and his term expires in November. Ledesma was one of the few people who managed not to get into a conflict with Rocco, at one point even sponsoring Rocco putting two Agenda items on the Board’s agenda. When Rocco’s home was moved into Ledesma’s area, Rocco declared that he would not run against Ledesma….

     OK, so, on top of being a lunatic, Rocco is disloyal to his friends and doesn’t keep his word. But that just makes him ordinary.

     According to Mr. Cunningham over on the Red County blog, the people of Orange aren’t about to make the same mistake twice, but I’m not so sure. I recall talking to a hotshot political scientist in the middle of the Steve Frogue recall (back in ’98). Said Professor Hotshot: it could be that your recall effort will only make Frogue’s name vaguely familiar to voters as they enter the voting booth in a couple of years. Voters don't think; they don't pay attention. So they won’t remember that Frogue's a nut and a Holocaust denier; they’ll remember only his name.
     So, natch, they’ll vote for ‘im.
     In a way, I hope Rocco wins. He may be a nut, but he doesn’t seem to have vices exactly. (Not like Williams, who’s all Shit-Eating-Grin.) If you’re going to have a democracy that, owing to the foolishness of the people, barely works, it’s better to elect incompetent lunatics than incompetent, smiling Shit-shire Cats.
     It’s no less ridiculous, but it’s a smidge less corrupt.

Westphal v. Wagner moves forward

     Just got word that the lawyers filed our “opening brief” last night—in Westphal v. Wagner, our suit challenging prayer practices in the SOCCCD.
     As you know, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids government “establishing” religion. When trustees and college/district officials lead prayer (e.g., at commencement), they are acting as agents of the government. At such times, the government is leading religious prayer (“invoking” the Lord) before the religiously diverse community that the colleges serve.
     Among the plaintiffs are theists, agnostics, and atheists. They represent members of the community and faculty and students at the two colleges.
     I’m told that “defendants” (namely, SOCCCD Board Pres. Wagner, et al.) have 28 days to respond, but they’ll likely get an extension. After they file their response, we can file a reply.
     Then: oral argument in court.
     The lawyers happened to mention that there are 700 pages in the “Excerpts of Record,” which comprises evidence from both sides.
     Sheesh!

     For those who wish to read Red Emma’s book review in Sunday’s Times, here’s the link: Book review: 'Kicking In: Stories' by Richard Wirick