Anti-Poverty Council Gets New Board Members

A little more than a year ago, Orange County’s largest anti-poverty program had trouble finding enough people to sit on its board.

Wednesday, more than enough candidates were nominated to fill the seats on the Community Development Council Board, said John Flores, the council’s executive director.

Mired in allegations of improper travel and expenditures 18 months ago, the agency found “it hard finding board members,” Flores said Wednesday.

The new board includes an executive assistant for Southern California Edison Co., the chairwoman of the Cal State University Fullerton accounting department, and four executive assistants to members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Poor Not Represented

The attorney for the council, which receives about $3 million a year to provide food, health care, and housing assistance to the poor, pointed out, however, that the board includes no representatives of the poor.

“I don’t want to throw a wrench in the works, but it’s my belief that we have no representatives of the poor on any of the ballots,” attorney Frank Valdez said.

Herbert Swartz, chairman of the nominating committee, said the new board also includes a member of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and a member of Lutheran Social Services of Southern California.

“I’m more than satisfied,” Swartz said after the meeting. “We met a number of times with our counsel and an attorney from (the Office of Economic Opportunity in) Sacramento before the election.”

New board members include Kenneth Bellis, the Southern California Edison executive assistant, Trini Melcher, the Cal State Fullerton department chairwoman, and James D. Colquitt, the NAACP representative.