L.A. College Trustees on the Griddle : Tough Questions Served Up at Candidate Debate

The three incumbents on the Los Angeles Community College Board got tripped up Tuesday during a candidates’ debate by the same question that did in then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” asked the moderator at the candidates’ forum at Valley College. That prompted a round of complaints from students and faculty about reduced classes, dirty hallways, foul-ups in student aid, expensive administration and a general deterioration in the city’s two-year colleges.

Round of Boos

Board members Wallace Albertson, Arthur Bronson and Lindsay Conner tried to deflect the complaints by blaming the state, both for reducing community college funding and for imposing a $50-per-semester fee that they say has led to a 29% enrollment decline among the nine Los Angeles campuses.

But Albertson drew the biggest reaction from the audience--a round of boos--by concluding that “this has been best board we have ever had.”

The challengers, who have had a tough time getting any exposure in the nonpartisan race, also got a chance Tuesday to get applause and whistles for practically any comment they made.

“It’s been business as usual for this board, despite the crisis out here in the colleges,” said UCLA education professor Julia Wrigley, who is opposing Albertson. “They have failed to take any responsibility for what’s happened or the leadership to change it.”

Former Los Angeles school board member Richard Ferraro, who is challenging Bronson, attacked the size and expense of the district’s administrative headquarters, whose $1.2-million annual cost was said to exceed that of four of the nine colleges.

“They have a Taj Mahal down there,” seven floors of a downtown office building, Ferraro said, while the campuses are forced to cut back on classes, staffing and maintenance.

Financial Aid

Two of Conner’s opponents--Joseph Kehoe, an education reporter from Newhall and a former Valley student, and Jack Ballas, an assistant city attorney in Inglewood--criticized the student financial aid office, which even district officials have admitted is a “fiasco.”

Last year, under pressure from federal auditors, the Los Angeles college district restructured the financial aid operation, removing it from the campuses and centralizing the office at East Los Angeles College.

But thanks to a series of computer snafus, thousands of students did not receive state or federal aid checks during the fall semester, even though they had applied last summer.

“I can understand why people are frustrated,” replied Conner, 29, a Los Angeles attorney seeking his second term on the board. But the community colleges depend for their funding on the state, and aid has been reduced by 25% since 1978, he said.

“This board opposed tuition to the very end,” he added. “You can hear a wish list from (the challengers) about things they would do if they got elected, but it’s nonsense. The money just isn’t there.”

Seeks 4th Term

Bronson, 68, who seeks his fourth term, and Albertson, 61, who is running for a third term, also said that most of the questioners don’t understand the board’s plight.

“How do we answer these ‘when are you going to stop beating your wife’ questions?” Albertson said.

But the challengers charged that the board has failed to take action even when problems such as the financial aid mess become well known.

“All they do is point fingers. When the issue is money, they point the finger up north at Sacramento,” Ballas said. “When the issue is free flow (of students to colleges outside the district), they point the finger at the other colleges,” he said.

“We need classes, not more cuts,” Kehoe said, “and a board that takes responsibility, not retreats,” a reference to the district’s recent San Diego retreat for 100 of its top administrators.