The seven-member board of the Los Angeles Community College District will hold a public meeting Wednesday, convening at Harbor College in Wilmington. It will be the first meeting of the Board of Trustees since the Los Angeles Times published a six-part series revealing waste, incompetence and poor oversight in the district's massive construction program.
Did you read the jaw-dropping series, "Billions to Spend"? There's still time before tomorrow's election, when incumbents Mona Field and Miguel Santiago are up for re-election in two of the four contests before voters.
Wednesday's meeting will include an update on the district's renewable energy program, which on Sunday was the focus of the last installment of the Times series. The Breeze reported on problems with Harbor College's solar program back in May 2010.
When I was doing reporting for that story, I head the Times had had multiple reporters -- for months -- investigating the broad construction program. I had no idea it would take a total of 18 months. Worth the wait.
Anyway, it should be an interesting meeting Wednesday. The first public session is at 11 a.m., followed by a closed session and then another open meeting at 3:30 p.m. Both are in the second floor of Harbor College's Seahawk Center. The agenda is online.
The nine-campus district's defiant responses to the Times stories are posted on the BuilldLACCD website. Here's an excerpt from one response from Chancellor Daniel LaVista, already noted in part by Times columnist Steve Lopez:
After ignoring the good news of the Program for years, the Times spent 20 months on this investigation and now picks at a few issues in what appears to be a sensationalist series published right before trustee elections. The timing is suspect, and the reporting is one-sided. So far, we are sorely disappointed. While the Times notes that half the $6 billion is still to be spent and there is time to "correct" things, I say to the Times that with only two articles published, there is an even better opportunity to correct their sensationalist tone and one-sided and biased reporting.
LaVista says that the program is "one of the most heavily audited and examined in the history of public construction" and is bringing much-needed buildings to college campuses, a fact he says is overshadowed in the Times stories by the paper's emphasis on problems.
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