First of two parts
Community leader John Kuechle had plenty to say at Wednesday afternoon’s pivotal meeting of the Los Angeles Community College District board of trustees, but he was only able to air several skeletal thoughts.
Two days later, he was blazing with fury over alleged deception by West Los Angeles College, and by shadowy practices on the part of the trustees.
On a showdown day at Trade Tech that looked well rehearsed to some, the trustees predictably approved of expansion/construction plans for West Los Angeles College along with a disputed environmental impact report.
City Hall and Culver City residents have opposed approval of key elements of the expansion that they maintain have been “arrogantly and unilaterally” manipulated by West in some cases, dismissed in others.
Meanwhile, at Trade Tech, there was not time for more than a fleeting message from Mr. Kuechle, an attorney who lives on Culver Crest and has been dueling with West the last five years.
“It was outrageous,” he fumed in a succinct sum-up after the sail-through vote.
“It is one thing for the trustees to make their substantive decision, which I think was wrong. But they did not even listen to us. I got up and told them about how the college had been intentionally deceptive. They pretended there was a trench across the track for six months to create a safety issue that never existed.
“I concluded — they set this meeting up by saying we had 20 minutes to speak. Then they went out and found 15 students and contractors to speak in favor of the documents. Then the trustees said ‘that means we will have to cut down to a minute and a half or 2 minutes for each person.’ So we had very little time to speak.
“But I concluded saying ‘I don’t know if this board was a party to that deception. I am assuming you aren’t. Now is the time to make it clear that you are not going to participate in intentional misrepresentations.’”
Mr. Kuechle was astounded by the trustees’ reaction.
“They did not say a word about it,” he said, his voice elevating. “This led me to think maybe they have been a party to all of the college’s deceptive practices over the past five years (spanning exactly the tenure of recently resigned West President Dr,. Mark Rocha).
“What happened was really outrageous.”
Question: What do you believe is the fundamental motivation of the college to perform in this manner?
“The college doesn’t want to have anybody other than itself tell it what to do.
“That includes a set of mitigation measures the trustees agreed to five years ago. Mark Rocha clearly did not like them when he came into office. He didn’t like people telling him what to do. He just ignored them.
“When it became too politically tough to ignore them, he would fraudulently create the impression that there were excuses for failing to comply.”
(To be continued)
