EDITORIAL:

The chancellor of the Coast Community College District, which governs OCC as well as other local community colleges, has been put on administrative leave pending an investigation of unknown allegations.

In the interim, Ding Jo-Currie has been named to replace him.

All of this raises myriad questions. After all, Ken Yglesias is no newcomer to the district.

Yglesias has been chancellor of the district since May 2004, when he replaced retiring Bill Vega. He had been with the district since 1985, when he was hired as a dean at Coastline Community College, then appointed president of Golden West College in 1995.

In his previous career, he had been a high school teacher and an officer in the foreign service.

So what do board members have to say?

Board President Jim Moran said he could not comment because “it’s a personnel issue and a closed-session item.”

“What has been announced is in a document that went out to the presidents [of the colleges],” he said. “The chancellor is on leave.”

At their regular meeting this week, which fell during winter break for the colleges, the district’s board members voted behind closed doors to put Yglesias, the district’s top administrator, on indefinite leave.

At that same meeting, the board also hired investigative firm Barboza & Associates and computer firm Data Triage Technologies, whose website promises to “assist the client in retrieving electronic evidence.”

Moran would only say that the firms were hired “for college business.”

Other board members refused to comment altogether, deferring to Moran as their spokesman.

Mind you, this is a public position involving taxpayer dollars.

And, once again, the taxpayers are stonewalled.

It is our stance that the board of directors should be more forthright in explaining this dramatic situation. If there is dirty laundry, it’s bound to come out.

Better to forgo denial and air it out, which is possible to do without compromising the investigation or Yglesias’ dignity.

That much, at the very least, is owed to taxpayers.