Fourth in a series
Re “Salkin’s Advice to the City on West L.A. College: Sue”
[img]898|left|Mark Salkin||no_popup[/img]On Wednesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Community College District board of trustees is expected to approve — probably unanimously — the final form of an environmental impact report that will open the gate to campus considerable expansion that upsets many or most neighbors.
This sizzling subject swings the focus to community activist Mark Salkin, who lives close enough to pass a football onto the campus.
This is one of the reasons he has been perhaps the loudest voice to protest West’s dalliances into the world of construction.
He was underwhelmed by West’s last President, Dr. Mark Rocha, and is much less enchanted with departed Dr. Rocha’s fill-in, Acting President Betsy Regalado, who has just days left before her replacement is scheduled to be named.
They change faces in the President’s chair on an almost regular basis, he says, but the fierce fighting Mr. Salkin doesn’t believe it matters who occupies the main seat.
“The problem with making peace between the city and West L.A. College is in getting the trustees to come to the table,” he said. “I was told not long ago by someone close to the college that the lack of Mark Rocha and the presence of the new President (Ms. Regalado) would foster a more believable, a more compromising and giving atmosphere.
“But I doubt that.
“I am ashamed of the Acting President (Ms. Regalado). She came to the City Council on July 12, offered her good intentions, said she wanted to work with the community.
“Yet she did not even pick up the phone to anyone on Culver Crest and say, ‘Hi, I am your neighbor,’ which is what we do here in town.
“And then at that same meeting, the general counsel for the college refused to let her speak when asked directly, by (Vice Mayor) Mehaul O’Leary, if she would answer his questions.
“She should have spoken, if only her own words, rather than letting the attorney do the talking.
“If she didn’t want to say a word, she should not have come up to the podium at all.”
(To be continued)
