UNDER REVIEW: A civil grand jury has completed an investigation of San Joaquin Delta College, following allegations of bond mishandling and illegal board meetings, and is expected to release its report in June. Above, students gather at Delta’s main campus in Stockton.

Harsh report to be released in June

The San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury has been investigating Delta College leadership for two years and is set to issue a scathing report by the end of June.

The jury’s findings will focus on the board’s mishandling of a 2004 bond to expand college campuses and accusations of illegal meetings by trustees, according to a person close to the investigation who asked not to be identified because grand jury meetings are confidential.

College President Raul Rodriguez and one trustee confirmed the grand jury had been investigating, but neither could comment on the report.

The report comes after years of controversy and finger pointing among the community college leadership.

Progress on a proposed Mountain House satellite campus has been exceedingly slow, partly due to legal struggles with Mountain House developer Gerry Kamilos. The opening date for temporary classrooms is now optimistically scheduled for 2009.

Faculty and some trustees have criticized the board’s deal with Kamilos, arguing that it gave too much away and was inferior to an offer from the City of Tracy to build a campus on donated land.

The college had also promised to expand satellite campuses in Manteca, Lodi and the Foothills under the $250 million, voter-approved bond measure, but rising costs of the Mountain House campus may make some or all of those other projects impossible.

After their lengthy investigation, grand jury members have concluded that the board has violated state open-meeting laws known as the Brown Act, but criminal charges are unlikely because they would be too difficult to prove in court, according to the anonymous source.

Most recently, several college trustees were accused of holding a series of phone conversations outside their scheduled meetings to orchestrate a contract extension for Rodriguez, a violation of the Brown Act.

Rodriguez, who was recently announced as a finalist candidate for a chancellorship at a southern California college district, acknowledged that he had testified before the grand jury but was not allowed to discuss what occurred there.
But he said he had seen “no evidence of any wrongdoing” by college administrators or trustees.

Trustee Ted Simas, who represents Manteca and Escalon and has been an outspoken critic of some board actions, said he believed all the trustees had testified before the grand jury, but also refused to describe his testimony because the interviews were confidential.

“If they find something or multiple things I want it out in the open,” Simas said. “And I hope they get very specific. If they don’t, it’s going to be back to the same old, same old.”

Board Chairman Leo Burke did not respond to multiple calls from the Sun Post.

Aside from asking the district attorney to press criminal charges, the grand jury can make recommendations to public agencies that it investigates if it believes there has been wrongdoing.

However, those agencies are not forced to follow the grand jury’s advice.