Trustee Broke Campaign Law, Teachers Charge

In the latest move in a bitter contract dispute with the Ventura County Community College District, five teachers Thursday filed a complaint with the district attorney’s office about campaign contributions to board of trustees member Bob Gonzales.

The teachers--all high-ranking officials or members of the Ventura County Federation of College Teachers--accuse Gonzales of violating state campaign finance laws by not disclosing the true identity of a $2,000 contribution he received in 1996.

The complaint asserts that David Bender, legal counsel to the district, contributed $2,500 to a Costa Mesa-based political action committee called Latino College Trustees.

The committee then donated $2,000 to Gonzales, who was running for a seat on the college district’s board of trustees.

“Mr. Gonzales won the election and the [political action committee] was one of the biggest contributors to his campaign,” said Barbara Hoffman, a counselor and vice president of the teachers union at Ventura College.

Since Gonzales was elected, district legal services by Bender’s law firm have jumped from about $90,000 a year to $500,000 a year, the teachers said.

The complaint surfaced the day a neutral fact-finding report on the contract dispute was to be released to district officials and teachers. If officials reject the report, they can impose work conditions while continuing to drag out the negotiations--a scenario teachers want to avoid.

Officials have 10 days in which to make the report public.

On Thursday, teachers stopped short of saying the complaint was a last-ditch effort to persuade the district to resolve their contract differences. But they acknowledged that it stemmed from the labor turmoil.

In 1996, the teachers supported Gonzales and campaigned for him. They felt betrayed, they said, when he stopped talking to them and stopped returning their phone calls shortly after bargaining began.

“The communication all came to a halt when we came to the bargaining table,” said Larry Miller, a teacher at Moorpark College and president of the Federation of College Teachers. “We wondered why Gonzales was so tremendously loyal to the board. So we followed the money.”

Gonzales, a commander at the Santa Paula Police Department, did not return several phone calls to his home and office.

Bender acknowledged the $2,500 donation, but said, “There were no strings attached. It could have gone to any candidate that they saw fit.”

The motive behind the complaint was purely political, he said.

“They are in a position now that if the trustees don’t agree with the fact-finding report, they may implement certain working conditions,” Bender said. “The union has run out of options.”

But teachers argue that the real issue is that Gonzales violated the state’s Political Reform Act. If the district attorney’s office declines to investigate, they plan to file a private civil suit against Gonzales.