HARBOR COLLEGE: March 2011 Archives

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the Los Angeles Community College District board has voted in closed session to fire Larry Eisenberg, who oversees the $5.7 billion construction program that was the subject of the newspaper's recent investigative series.

The Board of Trustees was meeting today at Harbor College in Wilmington for the first time since the Times six-part series, the product of 18 months of reporting, was published.

A short item on the Times' news blog says the board voted unanimously to terminate Eisenberg's contract, effective Saturday.

Eisenberg, the district's executive director of facilities planning and development, was responsible for a troubled solar program at Harbor that the Breeze covered last year. Called a visionary by some, Eisenberg also brokered than abandoned a deal with a local green building nonprofit that was set to run a showcase out of district offices.

The vote comes a day after two incumbents were re-elected to the board. Steven Veres, another candidate who ran on a slate with the incumbents -- Miguel Santiago and Mona Field -- also was elected. A fourth member of that slate, Scott Svonkin, is headed to a runoff with San Pedro teacher Lydia Gutierrez.

On Monday, LACCD Chancellor Daniel LaVista, who was appointed last year, sent out a letter to district staff saying that "reparation work" was needed. The letter had a different tone than defensive press releases he and the district issued in response to the Times articles.

He said he still felt the paper had taken an "unbalanced approach" to the district's construction program.

That being said, I am in no way denying that there have been major issues within the Program. So this time, I want to emphasize how seriously I take the problems and mistakes of our Program that this series has pointed out in detail. The Times has brought to light much that needed to be exposed, and we'd be more than remiss if we didn't take advantage of the outside perspective the Times has presented.

LaVista's letter -- with promises of a review ethics codes and evaluation processes -- is attached for your perusal.

Moving Foward 3-7-11.docx

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.