Putting heat on 2 related issues

I had coffee the other day with Jerry Patterson, retired Costa Mesa

attorney, onetime member of that rare breed, a Democratic Congressman

from Orange County, and currently trying to put heat under two local

issues that are frustratingly slow in catching fire.

One is the recall of Trustee Armando Ruiz from the Coast Community

College District.

The second is preventing our only public television station, KOCE,

from falling into the hands of a TV network called Daystar that is

owned by the fundamentalist Word of God Church in Dallas, Texas, and

is the world’s second-largest religious network.

Both Ruiz and Patterson bridge these two issues.

Ruiz was the only member of the Coast district board to favor

Daystar by voting against the sale of KOCE to the Orange County-based

PBS Foundation. And Patterson is a trustee of both boards who would

like to hasten the departure of Ruiz and Daystar from the local

scene.

The Ruiz recall first. When a public official being recalled is

anyone but Gray Davis and the recall movement is led by anyone less

visible than Arnold Schwarzenegger, it is far-and-away the most

difficult political act to pull off. Just getting a recall on the

ballot is tough enough.

Even with Arnold as bait, the people pushing the Davis recall had

to hire a corps of professional signature-gatherers when the early

going was too slow. Patterson -- faced with both funding and

visibility problems -- will probably have to depend on volunteers.

“Summer’s bad,” he sighed. “Not much happens in the summer. But

we’ve got until November to collect 45,000 signatures, and we’re

going to use the Internet as well as volunteers. We think we can make

it.”

So do a lot of high-profile local citizens -- including Jean Watt,

Martha Fluor, Jean Forbath and Shirley Grindle -- who have joined

Patterson in this effort. He laid out a whole list of particulars for

me about Ruiz’s behavior that need to be checked out but will

certainly surface in any recall campaign. What doesn’t need to be

checked out for use here today is the con job Ruiz did on local

taxpayers last November.

You’ve read about it in the Pilot. Ruiz took advantage of a

long-since-banished legal loophole that allowed him to almost double

his pension by retiring from the Coast board and his administrative

job in the South County Community College District on the same day.

That should have been greed enough, but he also wanted to retain his

board seat, so he set his retirement date so close to election day

that there was no time to change his listing as an incumbent -- which

he decidedly wasn’t when the balloting took place.

“When a presidential election comes down to school boards,”

Patterson said, “voters are tired and ready to move on, so incumbents

almost always win, no matter how bad they are.” And even though his

machinations were known at election time, Ruiz still won with 40% of

the vote when the remainder was split between two other candidates,

one of whom Patterson firmly believes was a stalking horse. If that

isn’t enough for you, remember that Ruiz was ready to turn our only

public TV station over to the Christian muscle men from Dallas who

would replace the local public service programming of KOCE with

fundamentalist evangelism and Daystar fund-raising.

Which brings us to the plight of KOCE-TV. The station was offered

for sale by the Coast Community College District Board, which had

been subsidizing it heavily and wanted to use the money from a sale

for educational improvements in the district. The board majority

chose to sell to a foundation made up of local business and community

leaders that technically made the largest offer and would continue

the public service programming.

Daystar, meanwhile, was first offering considerably more cash,

then a higher total offer that came in after the sale deadline. When

Daystar -- which is under investigation by the Federal Communications

Commission for improper commercial use of alleged nonprofit TV

stations it owns -- was rejected, it filed an appeal and then sued

everyone in sight on the other side, including all of the Coast board

members except -- you got it right -- Armando Ruiz.

The appellate court negated the sale. The district then filed for

a rehearing, which was granted. A date hasn’t yet been set, and that

is where the matter presently rests. Chaos prevails.

The lawsuits filed by Daystar accuse the defendants of “blatant

discrimination on the basis of religion,” and the appellate court

charges the Coast board with “the rankest sort of favoritism.” Which

leads me to ask why these accusations shouldn’t be welcomed as signs

that the public interest is being defended.

Of course favoritism is being shown, along with refusal to give up

our public airway to the evangelizing of a particular religious

group. As Jerry Patterson put it: “Doesn’t the district have an

ethical as well as a financial responsibility in selling KOCE?” And

shouldn’t the courts also take into consideration how the public is

best served in this matter?

A little public outrage in both of these instances would be

helpful. Since I share Patterson’s conviction that neither Ruiz nor

Daystar are acting in the public interest, I’m happy to shill for the

positions he represents.

If you feel similarly moved, you can sign a recall petition or

circulate one or help the cause in other ways by calling (714)

408-9183 for marching orders.