Local Elections : Brownell Retirement Vote Becomes Major Issue in Coast Trustees Race

A controversial early retirement package given to Coast Community College District Chancellor David A. Brownell has become a major issue in the three-way race for a seat on the district’s Board of Trustees on Tuesday’s ballot.

On June 2, the five trustees voted unanimously to give Brownell a 53% pay increase for his last year in office and a retirement package that included lifetime medical and dental care. After the details of that vote were disclosed, prompting strong criticism of the board’s action, the trustees voted 4-0 to reduce the pay raise to 4% and to revise the retirement package.

The district governs Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Golden West College in Huntington Beach and Coastline Community College, based in Fountain Valley. There are about 308,000 voters in the district, but no more than 10% are expected to vote Tuesday.

At stake is the seat now held by the Rev. Conrad Nordquist, who is seeking re-election. He is opposed by former Marina High School Principal Paul Berger and Hal Roach, computer services administrator at Mt. San Antonio College in Los Angeles County.

Nordquist, an Episcopalian rector in Costa Mesa, was first elected four years ago in a political uprising in the district that was led by the teachers’ union. In 1984, the union sought the ouster of the incumbent trustees for laying off about 100 teachers. Nordquist was among the “reform candidates” supported by the union.

Union Changes Stand

This year the same union is seeking to oust Nordquist, partly because of Nordquist’s support for the retirement package voted for Brownell. While all five trustees on the governing board voted for the controversial package, only Nordquist is facing a reelection challenge.

“He (Nordquist) still supports that retirement given the chancellor,” charged Dave Jarman, president of the teachers’ unit of the Coast Federation of Employees, American Federation of Teachers, Local 1911.

Nordquist says he and other trustees, using a mathematical formula to determine the specific terms of Brownell’s package, miscalculated and voted more than they intended.

“Neither the trustees nor Chancellor Brownell intended for some of the benefits to be as high as they came out initially,” said Nordquist. “It was simply a problem with a formula. We voted to change that. But I think there is nothing wrong in our supporting early retirement for Chancellor Brownell. He worked very hard for this district.”

The two candidates opposing Nordquist say the initial retirement package is a legitimate campaign target and point out that the vote for it came in the same year the trustees said no pay raise could go to the teachers.

Berger, who has been endorsed by the union, said, “In a time of a (budget) cutback, it (the Brownell retirement package) was ill advised. It was precedent setting.”

In a similar vein, Roach said “the retirement compensation for the current chancellor was not a wise decision. . . . The community was outraged that this kind of decision could be made.”

Nordquist said the real issue in the election is whether “the union shall control both sides of the bargaining table,” referring to contract negotiations between the Board of Trustees and the teachers’ union.

“I’m running on my record and stressing the fact that I’m independent,” Nordquist said.

“I think I have established a good track record (as a trustee) in support of women and minorities for top positions (in the district). I feel good about that.”

Nordquist also said that he had strongly championed “our most important asset, the faculty.”

Jarman noted that the union has won election for every candidate it has backed since 1984. All five incumbents on the Board of Trustees, including Nordquist, had union support. Jarman said the union’s initial support of Nordquist “was a mistake. . . . He’s been opposed to us from Day One.”

Nordquist, 54, is rector of St. John the Divine Church in Costa Mesa.

Berger, 65, has been employed by an investment corporation since he was removed in 1984 as principal of Marina High in Huntington Beach by the Huntington Beach Union High School District school board.

The ouster triggered a big public outcry and a recall effort against the school board. Parents and students said Berger was an excellent principal and demanded that he be reinstated.

Berger, who holds a doctorate in education administration, was the founding principal of Fountain Valley High School from 1965 to 1979, when he went to Marina High. He has said his high school background would be helpful in working to get more high school students to attend the three community colleges in the district. He lives in Costa Mesa.

Roach, 55, who lives in Huntington Beach, holds a doctorate in education from USC. “I have been in education for the past 27 years either as a teacher, staff member or administrator, and the last 12 years as a community college administrator,” he said.

Roach has criticized actions of the incumbent trustees, including their travel expenditures, a vote to increase their salaries and their refusal to change district elections to coincide with major elections. He said that if he is elected Tuesday, he would “work toward raising the image of the Coast Community College District in the eyes of the local community.”