Is Solorio trying to sneak a $29M taxpayer giveaway to special interests?

Help Stop Jose Solorio From Illegally Hiding His $29 Million Taxpayer Give-Away To Special Interests

By: Dave Everett, Government Affairs Director, Associated Builders and Contractors, SoCal

Help stop RSCCD Trustee Jose Solorio from illegally hiding his $29 million taxpayer give-away to special interests! It is being voted on TOMORROW, TUESDAY 11/12/2013 at 4pm.

It seems the Rancho Santiago Community College District (RSCCD) Board of Trustees has been violating California’s open meeting laws (also known as “The Brown Act”) by negotiating a discriminatory union agreement on their nearly $200 million dollar Measure Q bond passed by voters in November 2012. No mention of this wasteful special interest deal was of course ever made when selling this to the citizens – and now the public is being purposefully kept out of the debate.

If that isn’t bad enough, they might vote tomorrow night to CONTINUE ILLEGALLY HIDING THIS FROM THE PUBLIC!

The PLA is Item 6.6 on the agenda and the last two pages of the document include an error-riddled memo from the Chancellor trying to pretend that “It is a common practice for…public agencies to discuss PLA negotiations in closed session.”

We need you to do the following:

Attend the meeting tomorrow. TUESDAY November 12th at 4:00pm at the RSCCD District Offices located at 2323 North Broadway, Board Room #107 Santa Ana, CA 92706. We need you to bring management, workers, and apprentices and tell the RSCCD Trustees to bring this deal out into the light of day!

These discriminatory union deals are traditionally called Project Labor Agreements or PLA’s, but in another effort to disguise this waste from the public, RSCCD went so far as to call the agreement a “Community and Student Workforce Project Agreement.” Join us tomorrow night and help stop this ongoing deception!

If it is such a good idea to waste $29 million dollars of our teachers and students education dollars just to over-pay for construction, then why is Jose Solorio trying to cover this deal up?

Join us Tuesday, when we demand answers. If you are able to attend or have any questions, please contact us at deverett@abcsocal.net. Thank you for your consideration.

Note: Rancho Santiago Community College District oversees Santa Ana College and Santiago Canyon College, and represents 700,000 residents in the cities of Anaheim, Garden Grove, Irvine, Orange, Santa Ana, Tustin, and Villa Park. The State Senate race in the 34th District in 2014 is expected to be the most contested one in California in 2014. At this time, there are 3% more Democrats than Republicans in the 34th Senate District, which includes all or parts of the communities of Anaheim, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Santa Ana, Seal Beach and Westminster.

More Recent Media Reports on Rancho Santiago Community College District’s discriminatory union agreement:

1. http://www.flashreport.org/blog/2013/11/09/smoothing-over-project-labor-agreement-disputes-in-closed-session-the-latest-union-scheme-for-progress-in-california/

2. https://newsantaana.com/2013/04/01/jose-solorio-gives-janet-nguyen-an-early-christmas-present/

3. https://www.votervoice.net/ABCSC/Campaigns/32134/Respond

Art Pedroza Editor

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

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