$86 Million of taxpayer financed bonds were spent by Los Angeles Community College District to build a Satellite Community College Campus at the historic Van de Kamps Bakery site in Glassell Park/Atwater Village so that low-income and predominantly minority students in Northeast Los Angeles could better access adult educational opportunities.

Nine months before scheduled opening, LACCD bureaucrats used the state budget problems to "justify" not opening the campus, even though LACCD's plans called for opening Van de Kamps with profit-oriented (fee-based) classes that remain in high demand. Instead, one-half of the campus was leased to the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a charter high school controlled by former Mayor Richard Riordan, the Eli Broad Foundation, and other advocates of the charter school movement. The other half of the campus was leased to the City of Los Angeles Mayor's Office so that three unemployment programs funded by the City could take over the historic bakery.

Incredibly, LACCD officials spent more than $7 million of restricted bond funds to destroy classrooms to benefit Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and accelerate construction to rush Riordan and Broad's charter school into the site.

After a tough battle with LACCD, the Van de Kamps Coalition won an environmental lawsuit against the District on September 12, 2012. Hon. Ann I. Jones found that the LACCD staff "essentially lied" to its Board and failed to do any environmental review of the changes to the former satellite community college land uses approved in previous decisions.

Since then, LACCD attorneys have delayed the Coalition's ability to get a final judgment from the Court. After the Coalition objected on February 3, 2012, on Monday, February 6, 2012, Judge Jones signed a judgment in favor of the Coalition and the case became final on Wednesday, February 8, 2012. After months of delaying tactics by LACCD, the Coalition had judgment ending the case and ordering LACCD to set aside the leases and complete proper environmental review.

On Friday, February 10, 2012, a highly unusual "ex parte hearing" (one-day notice hearing) occurred. The Coalition's attorney appeared at 8:25 a.m. just prior to the time scheduled, but the attorney for the Alliance Charter School informed him that "It's over. We met with the judge." The LACCD's attorney used a false sworn statement to get the ex parte hearing before Judge Jones and even more alarming, the Judge went behind closed doors, without a court reporter to record the discussion and most importantly, without the Coalition's attorney. In this one-sided hearing, for which the Coalition had no notice at all, and which was unlawful, the judge set aside the judgment she had just entered in favor of the Coalition!

Northeast LA is apparently not entitled to justice in our court system when Richard Riordan, Eli Board are in possession of our community college campus. And recently, the Van de Kamps Coalition learned that the Alliance Charter School has one more board member with a connection to the Los Angeles Superior Court: Judge David S. Cunningham III sits on the Board of Directors of the Alliance School. This calls for an investigation by the California State Bar and the Commission on Judicial Performance.

Please add your name to this online petition to demand that California state authorities immediately commence an investigation of whether the attorneys who initiated or participated the improper in-chambers meeting (without insisting on the presence of the Van de Kamps Coalition's attorney) should be subject to discipline in depriving the Van de Kamps Coalition of its final judgment in the pending litigation, and whether any judicial officer violated the Code of Judicial Conduct.