How the SMC Foundation Robs Peter to Pay Paul

According to a June 25, 2003 online article written by Oliver Lukacs for the Santa Monica LookOut, eight former full-time faculty members filed a lawsuit against Santa Monica College. They allege that the decision to get rid of them and to shut down vocational programs at SMC was "arbitrary" and "violated college, as well as state, procedural codes." The school's decision to shut down Transportation Technology, Architecture and Public Safety was supposed to "help bridge a $9.5 million budget gap."

Lantz Simpson, the president of the Santa Monica College Faculty Association, responded: "“We don’t believe that the budget problem is as bad as they say it is, and if it’s not, we don’t believe there is a fiscal need to eliminate the program.” Simpson should know what he's talking about as he's sat on the SMC District Budget Planning Subcommittee. However, college administrators such as Robert Sammis claim that the suit is without merit. Sammis was Vice President of Human Resources at the time the suit was filed as well as the District's attorney. He now holds the position of Vice President of Planning and Development. The administration's thinly veiled justification was that the elimination of these faculty and the programs they taught would save SMC approximately $632,575.

But did SMC actually save this money or was it spent frivolously elsewhere? According to the 990 tax return filings for the Santa Monica College Foundation for 2003, Renzo Zecchetto Architects, located in Santa Monica, CA, received compensation in the amount of $929,222 for their work in the Madison Theater Project. That's almost a million dollars! This is at the time SMC cut the Architecture program. In 2002, Renzo Zecchetto Architects received $597,340. The total is $1,526,562. That's $893,987 over the saving which was supposed to bridge the massive budget gap, which lends support to Simpson's beliefs that the budget problem isn't as bad as SMC contended.

Here's the first of two screenshots I made from the SMC Madison Campus Arts groundbreaking ceremony:



In the first image, notice how happy Renzo Zecchetto looks. Well, with all that cash dropped into his pockets, of course he would be. And there's Dale Franzen standing next to Dustin Hoffman. Franzen is credited as the Madison Project Director. Wait a minute here, wasn't Franzen supposed to be the Program Director for SMC's Academy of Entertainment and Technology (AET)? Also, Joan Abrahamson was the Program Director with Franzen for the Academy, yet she continued to list the Santa Monica College of Art, Design, and Architecture as part of her non-profit Jefferson Institute mission statement on her form 990 tax filings for 2004, even though the Architecture program was cut from SMC a year earlier. Both women continue to sit on the AET Advisory Board.

The combined consultant contracts for Franzen and Abrahamson cost SMC $128,800 a year, not including any expenses they billed to the school. Is this how SMC saves money? How many faculty members could have been paid from these funds? How many scholarships could the Santa Monica College Foundation have given to students with the money dumped into Piedad Robertson's Madison Theater Project? I'll leave the calculations to you.

Remember the 2004 CSEA Survey Comments? When the CSEA was asked whether President/Superintendent Robertson effectively controlled SMC's budget and expenditures, the first answer stated: "The President allocates disproportionate funds to pet projects (i.e. the anti-merit system campaign, Cubafest, Workforce and Development, Madison) that do not serve the community or the college." Remember that Robert Sammis is Vice President of Planning and Development, which falls under SMC's Workforce Development. The CSEA also responded to question 23: "Budget cuts unfair to students, especially vocational." Is it any wonder that Robertson received a vote of no confidence at SMC and ultimately resigned a year ago?

According to a press release from Santa Monica College, dated October 1998, Santa Monica has been named among "Ten of the Best" community colleges in the nation by Rolling Stone magazine. "The Half-Priced Diploma" Rolling Stone's article stated:

"But Santa Monica isn't just a stop on the way to better things: It has a specialized College of Design, Art and Architecture, a mentor program that provides promising students with individual instruction in the arts (architecture, art, dance, fashion design, music, photography, theater). It also runs the only public two-year women's college in the country. On the whole, Santa Monica does well in the traditional community-college departments -- its nursing program boasts a nearly 100 percent job-placement rate, for instance, and computer tech, auto tech, accounting and welding are strong. Finally, given Santa Monica's proximity to Hollywood, the school would be remiss if it did not prepare students for careers in the entertainment industry, so last year it launched the Academy of Entertainment and Technology, which trains students in digital animation, special effects, CD-ROMs and theme-park development."

Notice how this excerpt heaps boundless praise for the Architecture, Auto Tech, and Welding vocational programs, the very same programs which felt the executioner's axe at SMC a mere five years later! Of course it also praises the Academy of Entertainment and Technology, the vocational program with the theme-park development occupational certificate which vanished in thin air within a year of its creation. Why did SMC's Academy not feel any cuts in its faculty or budget while the other vocational programs were erased from SMC without a blink of an eye? Would this have anything to do with Katharine Muller, AET's Dean who kept AET alive while ridding the college of its Architecture library in 1999?



The second image above from the Madison Theater groundbreaking ceremony reveals more of the story behind the AET/Madison crossover. The last person on the right is Frank Stiefel, the SMC Foundation Board President. Not only is Stiefel listed as a "friend" alongside BJ Dockweiler on the AET donor plaque, his Stiefel/Dockweiler Fund was supposed to provide scholarships to students such as myself at the Academy of Entertainment & Technology. A lesser known fact is that Frank Stiefel is also listed as a faculty member for AET according to a cached webpage from the Academy from February 25, 1999.

Notice that Ava T. Shamban, MD, Inc. is also listed on the Santa Monica College Foundation Board of Directors for 2005-2006. Ava Shamban is also listed as an AET donor "friend" right next to David and Katharine Muller. Katharine Muller is Dean of External Affairs at SMC and oversees the Academy.

Digging a bit deeper, let's examine the Santa Monica College President's Circle. According to the description given, "The President’s Circle was established in 2001 as a private, annual giving support group for the College. Its members contribute unrestricted funds to be used for the enhancement and support of the campus’ programs." Let's see which familiar names jump out at us as follows:

Joan Abrahamson & Jonathan Aronson *
Lin & Michael Caldwell
Renate Bentsen & Thomas J. Donner *
Dale & Don Franzen *
Blanca Malpartida-Girard & Don Girard *
Marilyn Goodrich
Randal Lawson
Katharine & David Muller
Esper A. Petersen
Piedad & Bill Robertson *
Ojeni & Robert Sammis *
Ava Shamban
B.J. Dockweiler & Frank Stiefel *
In honor of SMC Alumnus Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Renzo Zecchetto *

*Founding Member

Wow, look at how many of these familiar names pop up as founding members! Even the Esper A. Petersen Foundation has made the honor roll along with Marilyn Goodrich, Judith Penchansky's administrative assistant, and Lin Caldwell, Thomas Donner's administrative assistant. Lin D. Caldwell is a defendant in our California Public Records Act lawsuit along with Donner and Penchansky. Is it any wonder Robert Sammis and Thomas Donner are stonewalling public records belonging to SMC and the Santa Monica College Foundation? Donner has been both the Chief Business Officer of SMC as well as the treasurer of the SMC Foundation.

And Penchansky has a vested interest in her repeated retaliatory attempts to deny me access to my education as her cousin Dustin Hoffman is the Golden Boy spokesperson for the Madison Theater Project while Penchansky herself was one of the original AET administrators. She now holds the all-powerful role of Assistant Dean of Judicial Affairs. Randall Lawson is also listed in the SMCF hall of fame. Curiously, he is unable to find the Master Services and License Agreement between SMC and eCollege. Does this have anything to do with eCollege's problems with alleged fraud prevention pursuant to the SEC filings for July 6, 2005?

Even Renzo Zecchetto is a founding member of the Santa Monica College Foundation. How convenient for him to help create a foundation which would ultimately take money from the SMC faculty and students through the elimination of the vocational programs to make him a very wealthy man! Does his role in the President's Circle raise some questionable ethical issues? It does for me, but what do I know? I'm just a student at AET trying to obtain an education in a vocational program, which has risen in cost and has decreased due to cancelled occupational certificates and the elimination of classes.

The SMC classified staff has nicknamed the building that houses both the Santa Monica College Foundation and President Donner's office "Pico Palace." If the SMC Foundation is truly a "palace," then the President's Circle is its royal court, which has appointed its members the judge, jury and executioner of our programs. It appears that Santa Monica College, by and through its Foundation and President's Circle was robbing Peter to pay Paul. Perhaps it's time to steal from the rich to give back to the poor. Where is our modern-day Robin Hood who will be worthy of this monumental task?

Des Manttari,
Editor-in-Chief,
Phoenix Genesis

(c) 2006: Phoenix Genesis/MBS LP

SMC WHO'S WHO IMAGE GALLERY:


From left to right: Lantz Simpson, Frank Stiefel, Robert Sammis, and Randall Lawson.

THE ORIGIN OF THE PHRASE "ROB PETER TO PAY PAUL":

"The expression 'rob Peter to pay Paul' goes back at least to John Wycliffe's 'Select English Works,' written in about 1380. Equally old in French, the saying may derive from a 12th-century Latin expression referring to the Apostles: 'As it were that one would crucify Paul in order to redeem Peter.' The words usually mean to take money for one thing and use it for another, especially in paying off debts," according to the "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997) ". In 1546, it was included in John Heywood's collection of proverbs: 'To rob Peter to pay Paul.' George Herbert listed it in his collection (1640) as 'Give not Saint Peter so much, to leave Saint Paul nothing.' First attested in the United States in 'Thomas Hutchinson Papers' (1657). The proverb has its counterparts in other languages. Decouvrir saint Pierre pour couvrir saint Paul (French, 'Strip Peter to clothe Paul'); Desnudar a uno santo para vestir a otro (Spanish, 'To undress one saint to dress another'); Dem Peter nehmen und dem Paul geben (German, 'To take from Peter and give to Paul'). " According to "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996) by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).


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