LETTERS
PLA ‘Boondoggle’
The Rancho Santiago Community College District’s decision to begin negotiating a Byunion-only Project Labor Agreement is a step in the wrong direction, and a slap to local voters who recently approved the district’s $337 million bond measure.
PLAs drive up construction costs and increase union membership and dues while shutting out the 80% of the workforce that is non-union. Clearly, voters should have been advised that the bond measure was going to be a boondoggle for the unions, and that their money was going to be misspent.
Unions lobby for PLAs by contributing to the campaigns of Democrats at the statewide and local levels. District Trustee John Hanna is a past chairman of the Democratic Party of Orange County. Is it any wonder that he and the other Democrat trustees support the PLA?
Moreover, less than 12% of Latino workers belong to unions, however the Rancho Santiago Community College District includes Santa Ana, which has a population that is 90% Latino. The district PLA will disenfranchise local minority workers in order to placate a handful of union workers.
Please urge the Rancho Santiago trustees to vote no on the PLA.
Art Pedroza
(Pedroza, of Santa Ana, is an associate of the Coalition for Fair Employment in
Construction.)
Extreme Situation
I’m responding to the Jan. 27 OC Insider item concerning Jim Doti and his sudden passion for “extreme sports.” I speak for the entire Chapman University board when I tell you the board would be very relieved if Jim would slow down a bit.
There is no one at the university, or in Orange County for that matter, who doesn’t know that it is Jim’s brilliance and incredible ability that has gotten Chapman to where it is now and where we want to take it in the future. The thought of him getting blown off a mountain or having a heart attack running a marathon is too horrible to contemplate. We who are deeply involved with the university would be eternally grateful for anything you can do to persuade him to slow down.
I think this whole thing started when Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the campus to see our School of Film and Television and Jim shook his hand. There is no other logical explanation.
Donald E. Sodaro
Chairman
Chapman University Board of Trustees
On Our Case
Re your Jan. 27 editorial, “Case Sensitive,” I suspect you’ve advertently opened Pandora’s Box/Case.
But that’s okay. Just remember Case Hurrah Hurrah.
Tom Wilck
Irvine
