The Solano County grand jury loses some of its
credibility when it issues reports like the recent pair published regarding
Solano Community College’s Measure Q bond election and citizen oversight
committee.
The concerns expressed by the jury might be
taken more seriously if they didn’t couch the reports in rhetoric.
Consider, for example, the title of the first
report issued by the jury: “Measure Q: We have your money, now what?” Not
exactly the kind of thing you expect when reading the supposedly fair and
thorough legal review of a public agency.
It’s a borrowed phrase from a college board
study session after the election, where the board members were receiving an
update on the election and presumably the next steps. Using it as the title of
the grand jury report was designed to imply that somehow the college leadership
had no plan in place for using the funds and is still just winging it with the
taxpayers’ money.
Setting aside the tone of the report, though,
what were the basic finding voiced by the jury?
First, and foremost, they felt the board
hadn’t clearly listed each project that the funds from Measure Q would be used
to build before voters headed to the polls.
Yet they concluded that they found “no
evidence of criminal activity on the part of either the Board of Trustees or
any employee of SCC.” That’s because the college was pretty darn clear with the
votes about what the money was going to be used to do.
Trustees and the campaign focused on the
priorities for the bond: It was going to improve science facilities, support
veterans and improve job training.
The science facilities promise is being
fulfilled even as the grand jury complains. A new biotechnology building on the
Vacaville campus and science buildings on the main campus are already being
designed by architects. The biotechnology building will be completed in the
Fall of 2017 — just in time for a new program that will allow students to earn
a bachelors degree in biomanufaturing (one of just 15 baccalaureate programs
being piloted in the state).
As for veterans support, one of the first
projects using Measure Q funds is a new Veterans Support Center.
And as for improved job training, a new Career
Technical Education facility is being planned for the Vallejo campus.
Promises made are being kept. It is sad to see
such a critical report skip over that fact.
It’s equally sad for such a report to come out
just at SCC loses the leadership of Superintendent/President Jowel Laguerre
just as he leaves to take the helm at another college.
The jury noted an October 2013 letter to the
editor in which Laguerre said the board “deliberately elected to not tie its
hands with an exact list of Measure Q projects.” Laguerre explained, however,
that instead of a list “we have taken the time to carefully research exactly
how we will best spend your tax dollars and have kept in mind the potential for
projects that were ‘on the horizon’ but not finalized as we worked to pass the
bond.” In short, Laguerre explained, “We have followed an approach that allows
for adding projects, while at the same time fulfilling the letter and the
spirit of the bond’s declared projects and their funding.”
The grand jury report would have us believe
that no project was ever declared or promised with the bond and that the voters
were all duped. Nothing could be further from the truth.
July
11, 2015
The
Reporter
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