Will Solorio lead the charge for a union-only PLA on Measure Q projects?
The Rancho Santiago Community College District’s Board of Education will be quite different once their new Trustees are sworn in. For the first time that I can remember the Board will be majority Latino with only two holdovers in Phil Yarbrough and John Hanna.
The rest of the Trustees are Latinos – Arianna Barrios; Nelida Yanez; Jose Solorio and Claudia Alvarez. Three of them are Democrats. Barrios however is an independent who is very tight with the Orange County Republicans – and she does public relations work for Anaheim Council Member Kris Murray, another Republican.
Yarbrough is also a Republican and Hanna is a Democrat, although both he and Barrios have endorsed Republicans such as U.S. Representative Ed Royce in the past.
The lot of them will soon have to make a decision about the successful Measure Q – a bond measure that will provide funds to Santa Ana College, which was shortchanged by the last RSCCD bond, Measure E, which was used mostly on the Santiago College campus and on a Deputy Sheriff’s training center our county simply didn’t need.
The RSCCD Trustees passed a union-only Project Labor Agreement (PLA) after Measure E was approved by the voters. The PLA banned non-union contractors from bidding on RSCCD construction projects that were funded by Measure E. I fought the PLA and Hanna later admitted to me that the PLA was a disaster – it increased construction costs and delayed the projects. An estimated fifty million dollars were wasted by that PLA. You can read more about that here.
I suspect the only votes against the PLA will come from Yarbrough and Barrios and possibly Hanna, who told me that he would never again vote for a union only PLA.
The rest of the Trustees are fairly beholden to labor, particularly Alvarez and Solorio. The writing is on the wall. They are going to vote to waste taxpayer money yet again, with a union only PLA on Measure Q projects. I hope I am wrong.
Ain’t no thing if they pass a Union only PLA because if they run out of cash, they just go back to the Tax Payer and ask for more! Suckers!!!!
art you should look into why nelida mendoza yanez works in a county department that is mostly funded with federal money and she gets to run and keep her job but jose moreno can’t.
Unions need money too. give them all you have.
Art: Keep an eye on the contractors, attorneys and consultants that benefit from Measure Q project and then compare it to the fundraising (form 460s) reports for the Measure Q Committee. I’m sure you’ll see that pay to play is alive and well in Santa Ana College.
this is so ridiculous, art. what do you have against working class people??? what the hell is it? you don’t remember being (or are?) working class? what the heck is wrong for workers to fight to get paid well? you are a bag of contradictions.
BTW the picture you posted is solorio with UNIONIZED JANITORS. fyi 90% of the janitors work for private industry, not public. why did you use their picture? what do you have against latino immigrants fighting for a better life the way the janitors have historically demonstrated is possible – documented or not.
ALSO – what happened with you and Claudia??? you were always such a big cheerleader? what happened? did claudia belittle you the way she does everyone else. . . lol that’s what you get for selling out.
Merry Christmas to you too.
I grew up in a working class family. From an early age I helped my father with his janitorial business. I cleaned floors and toilets and worse. So you’re barking up the wrong tree!
Working people will be paying more property taxes now and wasting that money on a union only PLA would be criminal. Let the trade union contractors bid fairly for this work! Remember that the non union workers are working people too!
I like Solorio and Alvarez. I hope they don’t vote for a union only PLA. Union only PLAs do nothing for us but waste our money.
As for that picture it was the only one I could find of Solorio with union members.