Published Monday, Feb. 13
OPINION
By Dave Price
Daily Post Editor
I had a good laugh when I heard that the San Mateo County Community College District’s board was suing the contractors who allegedly ripped off the district’s bond funds.
The lawsuit claims that former Chancellor Ron Galatolo, who is free on bail while awaiting trial, was paid off by these contractors in return for lucrative contracts for construction and architecture services at the district’s three campuses, Canada, CSM and Skyline.
What made me laugh is that the board members — who were Galatolo’s bosses — haven’t accepted any blame for this theft of taxpayer funds. It was the board’s job to oversee Galatolo and act as a fiduciary of public funds.
But when the allegations came to light in August 2019, the board’s first move was to cover up the facts. Then, when the pay-for-play allegations with the contractors emerged, the board expressed surprise. But they should have known something.
Galatolo not only drove around fancy cars, he stored them in special spaces in a college parking structure. He had lavish vacation homes. He charged $100 bottles of wine to the college district.
At some point, you’d think somebody on the board would have asked him about his extravagant lifestyle.
But the board didn’t do its job.
Maybe the board ought to sue itself. Their lack of due dilligence made it easy for people to steal from them.
Not to excuse the board, but the community college system lacks accountability that makes theft easy. Most public agencies have constituencies that keep an eye on the board and the top administrator.
In the K-12 schools, you have a parent constituency. It not only watches over the district, but parents are usually the ones who run for school board and head up campaigns for bond measures or parcel taxes. And K-12 schools have the employee constituency, another way of saying the unions for the teachers, non-teachers and administrators. They’re quick to blow the whistle on funny business in the superintendent’s office, unless they’re involved in it.
In a city government, you have a huge constituency of taxpayers, another constituency of business owners, and of course a constituency of city employees.
But in a community college district, there’s no parent constituency — the students are usually over 18 and often living on their own.
So there’s no student constituency. They’re often commuters. At the very least, they don’t have the allegiance to their community college like they would a full-fledged four-year college. All you’ve got in a community college is the employee constituency. They’re not likely to make a fuss about corruption if they benefit from it.
In a 2014 column, I noted how odd the college district’s $388 million bond measure campaign seemed to me. There were no parents or teachers involved. The steering committee was made up of district employees.
Unlike an elementary or high school district’s campaign, where the money donated to promote the measure comes from parents, nearly all of the $284,000 raised by the campaign committee came from construction contractors, labor unions, architects and other companies that could benefit if the bond is approved.
And usually a school bond campaign is led by a concerned citizen or parent. In 2014, the principal officer of the college district’s campaign was none other than Chancellor Ron Galatolo. The campaign’s treasurer was then-deputy chancellor James Keller.
The money was supposed to go for constructing and upgrading classrooms, but it didn’t look to me as if the bond measure was necessary. I wrote on Nov. 3, 2014, “If you walk around these campuses, you’ll see that most of the buildings are modern and spacious.”
And I pointed out that money from the 2005 bond measure went in part to opening a gym at CSM that would compete with private gyms.
The measure passed with 63% of the vote, more than the 55% necessary.
Now it looks like the money from that bond measure, as well as ones in 2001 and 2005, was ripped off. The board that should have been on top of the spending of these funds is suing to get the money back. Good luck.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays. His email address is [email protected].
You may want to go deeper into the coverage of the the financial theft,fraud,kickbacks,etc at the SMCCCD.
My sense is that is a deep well of stories and your previous coverage positions you well to go deeper.
One avenue could be to explore the topic at the contractors involved level. Also for starters I think a look at the Canada faculty housing could be a gimme. You have my email if you have time to talk. I have pursued something similar to this to the point of a perpetrator being sent to prison. The SMCCCD board is probably a gimme too…anyone discussed them making things right with the taxpayers? Jim
Have you considered that the gym at Canada performs the exact same function? Look at the floor usage for the entire building. Compare usable member space to usable space set aside for students. I think you’ll see it is 80% member and 20% student. Let’s not even talk about the gym space…. can students use the excellent equipment…. nope… paid member only. How about the beautiful shower area…. Nope…. member only. Taking tax payer money creating a building that provides income, then using that income for what? where is the oversight on that side of the equation… some would call that money laundering.
Thank you for this timely article. Like the two comments above, I strongly suggest you look into budget overrun for Building 12, the one sitting at the edge of the cliff. Money that was to have been budgeted to take down Building 1 (the oldest building on campus)and rebuild a new, seismic-safe, four-story building which included numerous 21st century smart classrooms, offices for faculty, and a new theater, was spent on finishing Building 12. Instead, we have taught and worked in building 1 which is under construction for the past three semesters. It is a dangerous and toxic place to work. Come see for yourself.
That place is a swamp. Richard Holober was elected in 1997 and saw all of this first hand. He’s been there 26 years. That’s crazy. I know they recently left, when the investigations started, but you had people like Karen Schwarz, Dave Mandelkern and Maurice Goodman. They deserve to take responsibility for this. They approved the funds and should have been asking questions.
As a longtime SMCCD employee, I truly appreciate that SMC residents and the local press are noticing the extent of the bond money fraud. Keep the pressure on and demand restitution!
To be fair, it is important to note that in the absence of a chancellor back in August 2019, the TWO Trustees who attempted to shed light on the bond money shenanigans was Maurice Goodman and Richard Holober. Do the math. As the SMCCD elected board is comprised of five voting members, there was not much they can do when it’s three against TWO. Unfortunately, they were outnumbered. Thank you Trustee Holober and (past) Trustee Goodman for your service! Many employees who know the truth appreciate your service and tireless attempts to do what is right for SMC taxpayers and SMCCD students.
Mr. Price had a good laugh. The San Mateo County Community College District’s board was suing contractors who allegedly pampered ex-Chancellor Ron Galatolo with gifts and perks to obtain almost $1 billion of construction bond money. To him, it seemed absurd that the same board that had allowed this to happen was now trying to recoup the money.
I would agree, however I believe he’s poking fun in the wrong place. The current SMCCCD Board of Trustees should not be blamed for transgressions that preceded their tenure, especially when they are trying to clean up the mess created by the former Board.
The old Board was “in the room where it happened.” They left office without explaining their failure to hold Galatolo accountable.
The new Board, however, has improved transparency and accountability. They nullified the old Board’s bogus, boondoggle contract that promoted Galatolo to Chancellor Emeritus, including a clause preventing trustees from firing him, held him harmless for prior misdeeds, and provided Galatolo with a $1.6 million golden parachute. Currently, the new Board has a team of lawyers going after the construction firms that curried favor with Galatolo. Bravo!
The old Board had a fiduciary responsibility that they appear to have abdicated. I agree with Mr. Price that the old Board has yet to take responsibility.
The good news is that there is a new sheriff in town; the new Board appears to be taking their fiduciary responsibility seriously. Elections matter.
The “new board” is pretty much like the “old board”. One reason is that two out of the five members are hold overs from the “old board,” one going back to 1997. But look at how the “new board” is handling things — no bid contracts, allowing for sweetheart deals, and they’re keeping open a private gym students can’t use at CSM.
Worse, when the board had to pick a replacement for Maurice Goodman the other night, they used a bizarre balloting system that nobody understood. And then today it came out in the paper that all three candidates for chancellor withdrew after the board bungled the search. Now they have an interim chancellor in there while they start the search over again. Who is going to apply for that job? Probably somebody whose career is on a downward trajectory.
It’s sad to see apologists for the “new board”. They ought to be demanding reform, not the status quo.
Dear Ben, As an “apologist” for the “new board,” and a former resident of San Mateo County and employee of SMCCCD during the tenure of the “old board,” I agree with you that the report in the press about the balloting system to replace Goodman sounded unusual.
On the other hand, your comment about the “bungled” search may be inaccurate. According to a report in the Almanac online, it appears the top choice chose to remain at his current job. Unfortunately, probably to cover his ***, he went public at home to show his loyalty to the team (and perhaps used the SMCCCD offer to negotiate a new contract).
The other candidates subsequently withdrew as no one wants the job if they are publicly known as the second fiddle… Did the “new Board” blow it? Will quality candidates not apply because there was a failed search?
Not so; as an academic with forty years experience, I’ve seen this tug-of-war before.