LA Times on Compton Community College Trustees 6/21/2014

The LA Times has an article that profiles Trustee, Andres Ramos.  The article gives you a brief history of the troubles of the district.  It begins:

Andres Ramos won his first race for public office when he was still a senior at USC in 2007, making the then-22-year-old among the youngest elected officials in California.
But shortly after securing a seat on the Compton Community College District Board of Trustees, Ramos thought: "What have I done?"
The board was stripped of its power by state legislators a decade ago after widespread corruption at the campus. Like the rest of the five-member board, Ramos sat in the audience after his election while a state-appointed administrator ran the meeting.
Even today, board members can't officially vote or attend confidential, closed sessions. At times, they were even discouraged from participating in meetings.
"It made me wonder 'why did I run for this? What am I doing?'" he said.
Nobody runs for office to sit in the audience.- Andres Ramos, Compton Community College District trustee

A decade ago, the board lost power over academic matters and all remaining decisions, such as the district's $35-million annual budget and overseeing nearly 200 employees, are now made by a state-appointed administrator, Tom Henry.
Over the years, the arrangement has been a heated issue between the trustees and California officials — a former state superintendent barred board members from the meeting's dais in 2004, called them obstructionists and reportedly said "I don't want them in my way."
But relations slowly have improved over recent years and Henry took a small, symbolic step recently by allowing the board to return to the dais full-time. Although they still can't vote, Ramos and his colleagues say they appreciate the gesture.
"Nobody runs for office to sit in the audience," he said.
Two other California community colleges also are led by state appointees. At San Francisco City College, the special administrator posted meeting agendas and accepted comments but did not meet with elected officials, although that policy recently changed. The College of the Redwoods board is allowed to vote on agenda matters but the appointee has veto power.

The rest of the article goes into some details of our troubles with the past board of trustees.