College Still Lacks Student Leader : Oxnard: Friction has arisen between the council and the school’s administration over the impeachment of one elected president.

Oxnard College just can’t seem to hang on to a student body president.

Student leader Tim Cabrera, 19, elected last spring, was impeached during the summer because his fellow council members said he missed too many meetings. But when the administration tried to reinstate him this fall, he refused the job.

After a special election last month, students picked Almando Magana, 22, to succeed Cabrera. But Magana bowed out this month because of failing grades.

This week, after huddling with administrators, student leaders decided to hold another special election next month to fill the positions of president and vice president.

The controversy has caused friction between the council and the school’s administration over Cabrera’s impeachment.

Although the dispute has been covered by the Oxnard College newspaper, many of the 5,300 students on campus were unaware of it.

“I don’t know anything about student council,” said Rick Dennis, 22. “I come here, take my classes, and then I’m out of here.”

The saga began in April, when Cabrera was elected president and began gearing up for the coming year as the school’s student leader.

Cabrera--who attends Oxnard City Council meetings for fun--said he devoted all his spare time through the end of June to student council matters, knowing that in July and August he would be working in Malibu as a camp counselor and could only come into Oxnard for meetings once every two weeks.

The other council members understood Cabrera’s job commitments when they decided in mid-summer to meet weekly instead of every two weeks, he said. But his fellow student officers--Magana, then vice president; Steven Klein, treasurer, and Geoff Tyner, senator--dispute that account and maintain they quickly grew frustrated with Cabrera’s absences and his failure to execute certain duties, such as fixing the copy machine or preparing weekly meeting agendas, even when he did not plan to attend the meeting.

On July 27, they handed him a formal letter accusing him of “misconduct, (neglect) of duties and responsibilities of office, failure to execute responsible leadership, and unethical behavior,” and warning of possible impeachment if he did not resign.

Three weeks later, the council did just that, throwing Cabrera out and calling for a new election in September.

Magana was the only candidate who came forward to seek the council presidency.

But a week after he won by default, administrators nullified the election and reinstated Cabrera.

“The students didn’t go through due process,” said Ronald Jackson, vice president of student services. “(They) said he did this, that, and the other thing, but where’s the evidence?”

Student council members subsequently asked an English professor with a law degree, Evangeline Wilkes-Vacca, to do an independent review of the situation. In a page-long letter to the council, she concurred with Jackson.

The student council’s letter to Cabrera, she wrote, contains “highly prejudicial, inflammatory statements which must not only be made but substantiated by those making the accusations.”

But by late September, Cabrera decided he no longer coveted the office. With three part-time jobs and six classes on his schedule, he said he didn’t have time for student government and resigned the post immediately.

For his part, Magana said the extended controversy created tremendous stress for him, causing him to fail a test because he could not get his mind off his troubles with the school’s administration long enough to study his books.

But the last straw, Magana said, occurred when Jackson came to the council’s meeting and announced that he would ask college President Elise Schneider to approve Magana’s presidency following Cabrera’s resignation.

“They kick me out, then they send a letter recommending me to the college president?” he said. “What is this, a game?. . . . I want a student government to be run by student government, not by the administration.”

The special election will be held Nov. 9 and 10, a student senator said Tuesday.

Cabrera said he might consider running again.

“It’ll sound like Ross Perot all over again and maybe that’ll hurt my credibility,” he said. “But if I get a response from the students that they want me back again, I’ll run.”