Funds shrouded from an O.C. community college district board — is it illegal use of taxpayers’ money?
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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, March 26. I’m Carol Cormaci, bringing you this week’s TimesOC newsletter with a look at some of the latest local news and events.
Rancho Santiago Community College District, which oversees Santa Ana and Santiago Canyon colleges, has been at the center of recent reporting by my colleague Sara Cardine, who for just over two years has been unraveling some eyebrow-raising actions — and relationships— between a vendor and a couple of former district administrators.
When I say two years, it’s a bit misleading. It is true she started digging into this complex story in January 2023, but, given the modest size of our staff, we could not spare her more than one day a week to devote to it. So she’s plugged away quietly every Monday, interviewing stakeholders and availing herself of the California Public Records Act to request internal documents from host of a entities so she could put all the pieces of the puzzle together. What she has reported so far is roughly a third of that jigsaw; more pieces are awaiting at the side, tantalizingly so, until the time is right to put them into place.
Readers might remember the first stories that materialized from Cardine’s findings and were published in September, “How one Orange County community college district found $8M of its own money,” and “2 retired Rancho Santiago CCD employees have deep moorings in ASCIP risk pool,” both of which (we heard through the grapevine) were sniffed at by at least one embarrassed (or perhaps nervous) insider as not worth worrying about because the Daily Pilot is “just an insert” in the Los Angeles Times. The online readership stats for those stories belie that sentiment. Sometimes it’s a true pleasure to be underestimated.
Around the time those stories broke, a member of the district’s board of trustees, Phil Yarbrough, pressed for an audit to get to the bottom of how it could be possible that $8 million had been essentially (maybe even intentionally?) hidden from the board. Those dollars might have been used to meet urgent needs over the years, yet they remained the knowledge of just a few people who, for whatever reasons, kept the info to themselves.
On a recent Monday, the forensic audit was presented to the district’s board. It confirmed every detail Cardine had discovered during her own investigation into the problematic relationship between RSCCD and the entity that held funds belonging to it without clear accounting for them, the Alliance of Schools for Cooperative Insurance Programs, or ASCIP, the unaccredited joint powers authority that provides districts with various types of insurance.
Which led to our most recent articles, published in Sunday’s paper: “Community college district’s audit of secret $8M insurance rebate fund exposes violations” in which Cardine reported, “Accountants found that current and former district employees violated California’s education code, state budgetary guidelines and the board’s own policies by failing to publicly disclose the fund’s balance, including in annual district audits.”
The sidebar to that story was a not entirely unexpected reaction to that audit’s findings, inasmuch as breaking ed code is unlawful: “Rancho Santiago stakeholders take forensic audit findings to O.C., L.A. investigators.” Yes, the matter was sent to the district attorneys of both counties.
Not only were there violations at the district level, but there still remain, as Cardine reports, “the wider implications of ASCIP’s practices involving the 140 public school district members it serves, from San Francisco to San Diego counties.”
How many of those districts remain unaware ASCIP is holding funds back from them at a time when they could use the funds, wonders Barry Resnick, a source for Cardine’s reporting.
“This is not the way taxpayer funds should be handled,” he said.
MORE NEWS
• As had been predicted by many, celebrity chef Andrew Gruel was appointed from among three earlier mentioned candidates and immediately sworn in as the newest member of the Huntington Beach City Council last week. It also might not come as a surprise that the audience — representing both sides of the political divide — would became so loud in their bipartisan disagreement over the appointment that the police would be forced to clear the chambers of everyone except the council. Note the sign on the dais indicating Gruel’s appointment to replace Tony Strickland (recently elected to the state Senate) had apparently been decided ahead of the meeting.
• On a 4-1 vote last week and over the objections of some residents, the La Habra City Council gave the green light to the Diocese of Orange to build 21 market-rate apartments on a 1.6-acre grassy field at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. According to TimesOC, a consultant for the Diocese told the council, “It’s just like any other apartment complex, it just happens to be owned by the Diocese.” Here’s a lukewarm endorsement from one of the council members, Daren Nigsarian: “I favor the project because I don’t think we have a choice,” he said.
• The three adult daughters of undocumented immigrants Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez, longtime residents of Laguna Niguel, were stunned to learn that when their parents showed up Feb. 21 for a routine annual check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of an agreement to remain in the country, they were detained and sent back to Colombia. The L.A Times reports that, according to a statement from ICE, the married couple entered the country illegally in 1989 near San Ysidro. Their daughters, who are all U.S. citizens, wrote on a fundraising website, “They have never broken the law, never missed an appointment [with ICE] and this sudden occurrence has left us in shock.”
• College Hospital Costa Mesa announced earlier this month it had discovered that more patient information had been exposed during a data breach last year than had earlier been reported. Those impacted were notified that a “threat actor” had accessed certain files within the hospital sometime between Aug. 14 and Sept. 17, 2024.
COURTS, PUBLIC SAFETY & CRIME
• Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer announced Friday his office is charging 48-year-old Irvine resident Saritha Ramaraju with one felony count of murder and one felony enhancement of personal use of a weapon. Ramaraju was arrested for allegedly slitting her 11-year-old son’s throat with a kitchen knife after after they spent three days exploring Disneyland.
• California Highway Patrol is investigating a multi-car crash involving a Huntington Beach police officer that sent six people to the hospital Sunday night. The crash occurred at about 10:15 p.m. near where Beach Boulevard meets Yorktown Avenue.
• A round-up of some of the local public safety briefs reported by City News Service over the past several days:
— A 35-year-old man was charged Friday with stabbing an O.C. Sheriff’s Department deputy in San Clemente on March 18. Moses Paulisin was charged with attempted murder, willful resisting a peace office resulting in injury, assault with a weapon on a peace officer and obstructing an officer, all felonies. The deputy was treated for a neck wound and released from a hospital
— Michael Carl Hallgreen, 70, was sentenced Friday to 16 years to life in prison for fatally stabbing a fellow resident in a care home in Anaheim on Nov. 20, 2018.
— The man who was charged with molesting two girls over a seven-year period while living in a crowded Cosa Mesa home with their mother was found guilty Monday. Nelson Anibal Saavedra is scheduled to be sentenced May 9.
SPORTS
· The Angels acquired right-handed starter Ian Anderson from the Atlanta Braves on Sunday in a trade for left-hander José Suárez, according to this Associated Press story in the Los Angeles Times. Bill Shaikin’s lasted column on their team, also for the The Times, will no doubt resonate with die-hard Angels fans. Shaikin wonders out loud what, exactly, the plan is for this season, inasmuch as the team has the longest playoff drought in Major League Baseball.
• Golfing legend Jack Nicklaus was the featured guest last week when the Hoag Classic, the annual tournament for pro golfers 50 years old and up, held its pre-tournament Breakfast with a Champion at the Balboa Bay Resort. The three-day tournament got underway Friday, with Brendan Jones leading at the end of the day, Fred Couples tying for lead with Spain’s Miguel Angel Jiménez at 11 under par on Saturday and Jiménez finishing the tournament at 15 under par to win by a stroke.
• One of the senior players on Newport Harbor’s baseball team was crushed in February to learn that his 47-year-old father had died unexpectedly while on vacation in Cabo San Lucas. This story by Daily Pilot writer Matt Szabo about the way the team and coach have been rallying behind him is inspirational. “It’s definitely one of the coolest brotherhoods I’ve ever witnessed,” the player’s mother said of her son’s teammates, some of whom had been coached by her late husband when they were younger.
LIFE & LEISURE
• In honor of Holi — the Hindu festival of colors — the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel is hosting an afternoon tea service reimagined for the holiday. This special service, which is being offered on Saturdays, is dubbed Chit, Chat, Chai. Priced at $138 per person, it is being served up in the resort’s restaurant Kahani, helmed by New Delhi native chef Sanjay Rawat. Reservations for Kahani are available on OpenTable.
• In partnership with Charitable Ventures and UCI, the Samueli Foundation and Orange County Community Foundation recently surveyed more than 600 county nonprofit leaders for a needs assessment report, which revealed obstacles they typically encounter in their field. The main challenges uncovered included investing in staff and leadership, infrastructure and financial sustainability, collaboration and restrictive funding models. It was announced last week the Corona del Mar-based Samueli Foundation has committed $15 million to three initiatives to help meet that those needs.
CALENDAR THIS
Segerstrom Center for the Arts presents American Ballet Theatre’s premiere of “The Winter’s Tale,” inspired by Shakespeare’s play, from Thursday, April 3 through Sunday, April 6. Tickets start at $44.07. Visit scfta.org for more information.
• WonderCon returns to the Anaheim Convention Center this Friday through Sunday and will feature more than 900 exhibitors, cosplay, panels and entertainment. The San Diego Comic Convention (Comic-Con International), which also organizes Comic-Con in July at the San Diego Convention Center, puts on the Anaheim event.
• The OC Japan Fair is set for Friday, April 4 through Sunday, April 6 at the Orange County Fair & Event Center. General admission is $15 if purchased in advance and increases to $18 beginning April 4. Free admission for ages 6 and younger or 66 and older. Parking is $12. Hours Friday are 4 to 10 p.m., Saturday, noon to 10 p.m. and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more details visit OC Japan Fair.
• Green thumb alert: The San Clemente Garden Club is hosting its 2025 GardenFest on Saturday, April 12, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The club’s website touts it as the city’s “Biggest, Best Plant Sale and Garden/Household Goods Flea Market.” From free garden tool sharpening to children’s activities,it looks like there will be a lot going on during the event in addition to the plant sale and flea market. San Clemente Community Center, 100 N Calle Seville.
Until next week,
Carol
KEEP IN TOUCH
I appreciate your help in making this the best newsletter it can be. Please send news tips, your memory of life in O.C. (photos welcome!) or comments to carol.cormaci@latimes.com.
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