Alatorre Loses College Consulting Contract

The Compton Community College District has canceled its $5,000-per-month consulting contract with Richard Alatorre, with officials arguing that the former Los Angeles city councilman’s tax-evasion conviction made it impossible for him to serve as a lobbyist for college interests.

The five-member board of the tiny district, which includes only a single community college, voted unanimously Tuesday night to cancel the contract. The vote represented a dramatic reversal from its July 24 decision, by a 4-1 vote, to award Alatorre a contract to lobby the Legislature to cover cost overruns on a campus building project.

Alatorre pleaded guilty in April to tax evasion for failing to report almost $42,000 he received from people attempting to influence him in his official council duties. On Aug. 27, he was sentenced to three years of probation--including eight months of home detention with electronic monitoring.

In awarding him a contract in July, college district board members said they saw his conviction as irrelevant. Alatorre himself assured college officials that he could travel to Sacramento with a judge’s permission.

“I’m happy with the change we made Tuesday night,” said board President Carl Robinson, the only one to vote against the original contract in July. “It was important for the board to say that, since he’s been convicted, we don’t do business with him. And the fact that he’s under house arrest also makes this impossible.”

Robinson said the college was drafting a letter Wednesday to send to Alatorre. He said the board gave no official reason in making its decision after 9 p.m. Tuesday, when many community members were at home watching coverage of the East Coast terrorist attacks.

Reached at home Wednesday, Alatorre said he was not aware of his contract’s cancellation. “I do not know anything about it,” he said. If true, he said, The Times had cost him the contract by disclosing it to the public.

It was the second contract Alatorre has lost since his conviction. He also received $15,000 through a contract with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. That was canceled in June.

The vote seemed to be an effort to end a mounting political controversy in the cities that make up the college district: Compton, Lynwood, Paramount and Carson.

Alatorre’s contract with the college, as well as similar contracts held by former Lt. Gov. Mervyn Dymally and Lynwood Mayor Paul Richards, have drawn strong criticism from local religious and political leaders. Challengers had pledged to make an issue of Alatorre’s hiring in November’s elections to fill two seats on the college district board.