Fresh Faces / New Hope for Sierra College

Grand juror seeks board seat
He blasted a trustee for accusing ex-president of money laundering.
By Edgar Sanchez -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, July 23, 2006

As a member of the 2005-06 Placer County grand jury, Bill Martin helped write the panel's final report blasting a Sierra College trustee for accusing Kevin Ramirez, the college's former president, of money laundering.
The trustee, Aaron Klein, disagreed with the grand jury's findings and rejected its recommendation that he apologize for what it called unfounded allegations.


So, Martin says he decided to take action on his own.
He announced last week that he will run for the Area 5 seat on the Sierra College board, with a goal of "helping to restore community confidence" in the body. The seat is being vacated by trustee Dave Creek, who is moving from the area.

As filing opened for the Nov. 7 election, Martin appeared to be the first outsider to publicly declare an intention to run for the Sierra board.

Seats held by Sierra College trustees Barbara Vineyard, Nancy B. Palmer and Dave Ferrari also will be open for the election.

Vineyard and Palmer said last week they plan to file for re-election, but Ferrari could not be reached for comment about his plans.

Other winds of change also may buffet Klein and board President Jerry Simmons, both targets of a recall attempt by the group Save Sierra College.

"The current board is fractured," said Martin, 67, a retired engineering executive, former college instructor and eight-year Auburn resident.

"It's time to eliminate the destructive partisan politics that have infected the board," he said, expressing his belief that Ramirez was "publicly vilified" in a political maneuver that ended with his departure in January 2005.

Responding in an interview Thursday, Klein said, "Quite a few people like Mr. Martin have been critical of me, and once they peel back the onion a little bit and realize the tremendous reforms that were necessary at Sierra College, they begin to understand why the last year and a half has been such a difficult season of change.

"But this is a new day, and we have new leadership with Dr. Leo Chavez as our (college) president, and I'm looking forward to the next two and a half years of my term as we work with faculty and staff to make Sierra College even better," he said.

The Save Sierra College group contends that Klein and Simmons have wasted taxpayer money and tarnished the college's reputation through their "attack politics" and "negative" leadership -- charges that both deny.

The misspent money, the group said, included Ramirez's retirement settlement of $464,950, plus $54,750 spent on a national search for a new president.

On Friday, Simmons said the critics may not fully appreciate Sierra's recent successes, including its current ranking as "the No. 1 community college in California for the fourth straight year" in terms of associate degrees awarded.

"I believe (that achievement) is due to the hard work of our faculty and staff and the strong leadership of the board of trustees," Simmons said. "I think we're well on our way to becoming the No. 1 community college in America."

To Martin and others, Klein added Thursday, "I may not have done everything right, but I have stood for the right things: balanced budgets, better facilities planning and increasing access to college."

Placement of the recall question on the November ballot requires between 25,000 and 27,500 signatures by Friday, leaders of the recall drive have said.

"At this time, I'm not sure if we'll have enough to make it for November," Rocklin Mayor George Magnuson, head of Save Sierra College, said last week. "We've had a good response, but we haven't counted all the signatures yet."

Should more be needed, he said, the group will continue to circulate petitions for the next few months in hopes of triggering a special recall election next year.

If the recall fails, Simmons and Klein will be up for re-election in 2008.

Martin, a "decline to state" registered voter, said he supports the recall drive and, as a candidate, will call for Sierra's board to be more nonpartisan.

As chairman of the grand jury's school and libraries committee, Martin said he looked into allegations that Ramirez had laundered cash in connection with bond issues for the 20,000- student college. The grand jury later concluded the allegations were "utterly without merit."

He said he decided to run after seeing "the arrogance and unwillingness to acknowledge the injustice the board imposed on its former president and the resulting damage to the college."

Martin enters politics after a 35-year career in the design and development of electronic systems.

He has a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a master's degree in management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For 15 years, he taught mathematics at West Coast University and University of Southern California while serving as a departmental manager at Hughes Aircraft Co.