FAIRFIELD — The Solano County grand jury
issued its second report on Solano Community College administrative practices,
blasting the management and oversight of the $348 million Measure Q bond passed
by voters in 2012.
The grand jury report noted the Citizen’s
Bond Oversight Committee as it is being used by the college violates the
California Constitution, state law and legislative intent.
Grand jurors concluded that the oversight
committee mandated by state law is comprised of members who are largely
directionless and who operate in the dark.
Zero oversight
The grand jury found that the bond
oversight committee had been presented by college administrators with
reports that were at least three months old, and often much older.
“Rather than receiving front-end
information, they are simply informed as to what has already happened. Not only
have the (trustees) reviewed and approved it, but ground may have been broken,
or land purchased. This is hindsight . . . ‘review’ following completion of
projects serves no purpose.”
Citizen oversight
The bond oversight committee is
supposed to ensure the public that taxpayer money is being spent legally,
appropriately and efficiently.
The grand jury met with all bond oversight
committee members and concluded “none of them had ever participated in any
form of orientation or training regarding their roles and responsibilities. The
only documentation any of them could recall receiving at the onset of their
term was a copy of the bylaws and a copy of Measure Q.” They did not receive a
project list or other “roadmap” of Solano College’s upcoming plans “outlining
how bond revenues were to be used,” according to the report
Overall familiarity with the bylaws by bond
oversight committee members was poor, according to the grand jury report,
“and most had never read Measure Q in its entirety,” the report noted.
It was clear the bond oversight
committee members believe they were not in charge of their own meeting
agendas, the grand jury reported. The oversight committee lacks
independence with their oversight agenda; one board member said the agenda
is created by the administrators who are spending the bond money, according to
the grand jury report. Others members said they believed agenda items had to be
approved by what they described as the “bond team.”
The grand jury report pointed out that some
bond oversight committee members repeatedly expressed the need to change
their structure to provide better oversight of bond money spending. However,
oversight committee members were told the Solano College board of
trustees did not want them to meet more frequently, and that the trustees
created the bond oversight committee bylaws and they could not be changed
by the committee members, according to the report.
Some bond oversight committee members
reported a serious problem with attendance at their meetings, which results in
a failure to obtain a quorum and therefore the inability to conduct a
meeting, according to the grand jury report.
The bond oversight committee meeting
agendas and minutes for 2015 reflect four meetings have been scheduled and
three of them have been canceled.
Annual reports of the bond oversight
committee are questionable, according to the grand jury, because they are almost
entirely prepared by the company hired to serve as the bond program manager.
This “calls into question the independence”
of the bond oversight committee, the grand jury pointed out.
Board of trustees
Although the members of the bond oversight
committee believed their requests and concerns were being transmitted
through bond staff to the trustees, “that was in fact not the case . . .,” the
grand jury report concluded. The report added that the way the district’s board
of trustees and the bond oversight committee were interacting reflected
the “complete undermining” of the concept of “independence” of the oversight
committee in trying to ensure that taxpayer money “is spent legally and
efficiently.”
The most recent grand jury report can be
viewed at www.solanocourts.com/materials/CBOC.pdf.
This is the second grand jury report about
Measure Q to be released in as many weeks.
The grand jury on June 28 issued a report
claiming that local voters were duped in 2012 by Solano College staff and
supporters of the bond measure. That report is titled “Measure Q: We Have Your
Money, Now What?” and can be viewed at
www.solano.courts.ca.gov/materials/Measure%20Q.pdf.
The current Measure Q bond oversight
committee members are:
• Melvin
Jordan, chairman
• Robert
Charboneau, second chairman
• Vacant,
business organization, Vacaville
• Lyman
Dennis
• Hermie
Sunga
• Neil
Ferguson
• Angelo
Cellini
• David
Fleming
• Vacant,
student association member
July 8, 2015
Fairfield
Daily Republic
By
Jess Sullivan
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