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ANYBODY BUT MONA FIELD FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD and we do mean ANYBODY!!!  2.26.11

Mona Field is a rolling disaster for the Community Colleges of Los Angeles and she wants voters to elect her to another term - she must figure she has more damage she can still do. Mona’s first amendment bashing and bond wasting ways have been documented on this blog before.

“THE BIG SCREW-UP” - Mona Field’s EXCUSEGATE -Field stumbling around trying to explain away yet another of her bond scandals

Field had to admit to to “misspending” (LA Times “political polite” for BOND ABUSE) taxpayer bond funds on the College district’s near $6 billion dollar “green” bond construction program in a March 10, 2010 LA Times Article . Green doesn’t always mean sweet little blades of grass - in this case it means sweet rolls of “long green cash” for “greening” the greedy cronies, contractors, developers, Mayor’s favorites, unions and the rest of the unsavory bunch that the LACCD Board of Un-Trustees bankrolls on the poor taxpayer’s dwindling green. The best excuse for this multimillion/billion dollar sink hole Board President Field could come up with is that she and her Board cohorts were too incompetent to live. That’s not the first time she has slapped that excuse (or maybe she is just too incompetent to function - which is worse - incompetent or shady? Either way the tax payer and the students lose big time) on a expensive College Board bond boondoggle she is in up to her ears.  Ron Kaye covered her excuse for “screwing up” millions in solar energy building at tlocal colleges.

THE KNOW NOTHING EXPERT

Field is listing herself as a “College professor” on the ballot, not as an incumbent Board Member - more on that in a moment - but just what is she a long time professor of - CALIFORNIA GOVERNMENT - no less. She has written books on this subject (see side bar at right). Only a died in the wool politician would have the gall to claim:

a.- she doesn’t understand California government well enough to understand the rules about bonds

2. b.-at the same time say she is such an expert on California Government they should write books about it (books sometimes used as textbooks),
   

100. c.-teach California government to our young people and
     

d. -be elected time and again to a Board that has over $6 billion in bond funds       under their “care”.

Mind boggling. The governing of these bonds are a part of the California Constitution (prop 39) -  I don’t know what is worse - her apparent blithe willingness to violate the law with votes enacting bond abuse or such glaring incompetence that she didn’t understand a law that is so simple a 12 year old could easily grasp it. Isn’t there something about ignorance of the law not being an excuse? Isn’t that actually part of the law??? What does she say about continuing to vote for the same kinds of bond abuse she had to admit to in the LA Times, even long after she knew it was abuse - after community activists went to Board Meeting after Board meeting and explained the laws in painful detail and plead with her not to vote to break the law? She doesn’t bother to offer an explanation, she just hides her membership on the Board and expects to be elected again and again.

THE DEALS, THE MACBETH TRIO AND THE COLLEGE CASH CAULDRON

It is being bandied about that the Unions (who call the shots on the Board) want the entire Macbeth Trio of Field, Sylvia Scott-Hayes and Georgia Mercer out. Field was the first to announce she was abandoning stirring the College Cash Cauldron and not running for reelection. It seems the power and money cabal consider the trio to be a liability that may well explode under the scrutiny of State Controller Chiang and the many lawsuits taxpayers have filed over the Van de Kamp’s campus bond abuse. They are also worried that the bond abuse scandals involving Mercer, Scott-Hayes, Field et all, will break wide open when (and if) the the LA Times publishes it’s long awaited, supposed block-buster multi-part series on bond abuse. The Times has held back until after the upcoming March 8th elections - rumor has it that a bigger fix to kill the whole thing is being worked on - but it depends on who comes out on top in the bankruptcy of the LA Times parent Tribune company. Is this low life version of a Shakespearian tangled web snarled up enough yet? Just stay tuned.

There are always deals and this is no exception. The story on Field, a flighty type at best, is that she was the first to cave and announce that she wasn’t running. Steve Veres, then Assembly Member DeLeon’s local deputy, those in the know say, had proved his loyalty by doing all he could to bury the Van de Kamps Coalition’s efforts to get DeLeon to go for a Legislative audit of the bond funds. Veres was anointed by the Union/Developer/contractor money trifecta - (the last two components usually represented by Mayor Antonio and City Big Daddy Eli Broad) as the next Board Member from Field’s long time seat in the 1st.

Field started making noises about running anyway - which led to  a reputed “deal” that has LACCD Board of Trustees watchers, who want some reform, or at least more trusty Trustees on the troubled board, steaming. They say the power trifecta told Field to forget seat 1, they want Veres, whom they think has a future, instead of an incumbent with way too much past. They told her run in 3, where the person they want probably can’t win - or isn’t quite ready to run - pick your favorite version (no, they aren’t saying who that is) . Field will “hold the place” for a while then scoot out, saying she wants to spend more time with her gerbil or some such nonsense, presumably just ahead of the torrent of scandal. The powers that be will get the mystery guest appointed to that seat. (One wag said maybe it will be Antonio - City Hall watchers are apparently still taking bets on whether he will be forced to resign.)

A bitter Scott-Hayes is reputedly making rumbles that she will start talking. Seems she feels she has been a loyal soldier and was not given her due. More than one insider says the crusty Scott-Hayes is muttering about naming names to get a bigger crust of sweet breads (in the political sense) for her years of loyalty.

Mercer, probably the wisest of the three, is said to be glad to get out without too much disgrace or having to do the City of Bell style perp walk. She has let it be known that “more time with her grandchildren” is looking good to her. She actually does have grandchildren.

THERE ARE 6 BILLION REASONS IN THE CITY COLLEGE RACE

Democracy LA style. Why so much fuss over such an obscure election? Try $6 billion reasons - LACCD has some $6 billion in bond funds. Which set of cronies get those little green reasons and who pulls the strings to open the financial flood gates is a high stakes game. That’s what the district really means when they call their bond building program “LACCD Builds Green”.

LA TIMES WEASELS OUT ON ENDORSEMENTS - TAKES THE LOW ROAD

After pontificating about expanding endorsements to encourage voting and electorate awareness, the LA Times has refused to interview candidates for the Board of $6 billion - I mean the Board of Trustees - and is making no endorsements for the race after having made endorsement in previous (2009) College Board elections. 

Maybe they don’t want to look like total sell outs by endorsing the likes of Field and the other incumbent who is running and has voted for some of these shady bond uses, Golden Boy Miguel Santiago? On the other hand the power and money people don’t want any candidates who might try to clean up the bond abuse to get the thumbs up - not before more of those sweet green waves of green roll out - so they don’t want to endorse any of those types...what’s a poor little newspaper with it’s parent company in bankruptcy court to do - what they usually do - nothing.

...The decision is reached after the disclosure of misspending on the district's $5.7-billion bond construction program. ..

March 10, 2010   By Gale Holland and Michael Finnegan

... The state Constitution does not allow such spending of voter-approved bond money, she told the board. Wells said she did not know how much bond money had been misspent.

Board President Mona Field said the trustees had no experience running a large bond program when it began rebuilding its nine campuses in 2001. … "We missed a few details, clearly."

"Bond counsel has made it clear there are many unauthorized expenditures being made every day," said trustee Georgia Mercer.

The Macbeth trio at the Community College Board are fading out, except for central cauldron stirrer - Mona Filed.

Boil and toil - is that Antonio lurking  in the smoky mist? Is he directing the brew being boiled up in the $6 billion dollar bond cauldron ? Tongue of dog, eye of newt - billions in taxpayer bond funds...