CalSACC's President under fire
by Ariel Carmona Jr.
October 2005
Despite a bomb scare on the Metro green line closing a major freeway, The California Student Association of Community Colleges (CalSACC) held their regional meeting at Mt. SAC Friday with several area colleges in attendance including Cypress College and Rio Hondo.
Several representatives who could not attend Friday’s meeting were able to participate via teleconference. CalSACC representatives discussed the upcoming Los Angeles Lobby day and possible action against embattled President Jason Teramoto.
CalSACC is the official organization of Community Colleges and despite rumors of its demise, its 109 member schools just participated in a historical Associated Student officers’ presidential summit commissioned by Chancellor Mark Drummond and held at the Los Angeles Sheraton.
“Cal SACC held the official title for over 12 years until Chancellor Drummond withdrew it in May because he felt the organization was counter to the spirit of Title 5 and because of that the Chancellor convened the summit and we all met together to create the guidelines and bylines of the student senate,” explained Mt SAC’s Associated Student President Greg Justice who also serves as Calsaac’s region 8 Policy Board Representative. He called the summit very productive. “To me personally, it felt like people who were involved with CalSACC knew what was going on and it was good to see that,” Justice said.
Among items discussed at the meeting were the planned Los Angeles Lobby Day in which student representatives plan to conference with influential legislators like U.S. Senator Gilbert Cedillo, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and Chancellor Darroch Young of the Los Angeles Community College District. The event will take place Friday October 28 in Downtown Los Angeles at City Hall. “It’s wonderful to meet these influential legislators all in the name of advocating for higher education,” said former Region Secretary Mayra Mejia in a recent edition of the official CalSAAC newsletter.
Also discussed was possible action with regards to status of leadership under its current president. Justice told the assembled members Teramoto’s status first came into question when the region found out he was attending UC Berkeley. “As of this point, region 8 has not received any verification of A.S.O. (Associated Student Organization) involvement, or facts stating he is a former member of their A.S.O.” said Justice about Teramoto who had been attending Los Positas College and whose school is pulling out of CalSACC’s region 4. “It’s time for us to actually make a declarative stance. In my opinion he’s been more detrimental to this organization. He is not someone we need leading us at this time, we need a leader,” said Justice. Xavier Meza from Rio Hondo who co-chaired the meeting concurred. “I feel like we are not getting any support from Jason,” Meza said. The organization’s future goals include enacting committees dealing with elections, communications, legislation and budget and finance as well as filling the vacant secretary position.