Change Needed at College District

* Re “Controversies Taking a Toll on Colleges’ Budgets,” May 3:

Those of us who have been concerned about the welfare of our South Orange County Community College District students have been expecting such reactions.

It appears that the district’s administrators are completely unaware of the problems being fostered at the district by the present trustee majority. The administration either foolishly ignores these problems or seems to attempt to cover them up. Consequently, even the charitable donors and corporate giving are drying up.

The district is the only one in Orange County identified as being “financially unstable” and having “significant financial problems” by the state chancellor’s office.

District Chancellor Robert Lombardi has flown the coop in retirement. [Saddleback] College President Ned Doffoney and district Vice Chancellor Tony Carcamo have also [left the district]. [Irvine Valley] College Vice President Terry Burgess is moving to another district, and the presidents of both Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges have also left within the last year.

The district’s community is especially upset with the trustee majority support of Trustee Steven Frogue’s attempt to inflict a Jew-accusing Kennedy assassination seminar onto the students. There have been accusations of anti-Semitism directed against Frogue for years now, resulting in the present recall campaign, yet the trustees either ignore these or support Frogue in spite of all these problems.

How can any college district expect community support in the face of all these ignored and unresolved problems?

Let us hope that the Frogue recall will be successful and that a new trustee majority will result from the next college board election. The community and the students deserve no less.

IRVING E. FRIEDMAN

Laguna Niguel