LP Hastings

Who you gonna call?

Our news story this week told the saga of Jason Troia, Long Beach City College's (LBCC) student trustee who has declared war on the school's board over what he claims are financial irregularities in its decision to cut 11 vocational programs. After the release of the print story, Mark Taylor, the director of college advancement, public affairs and governmental relations at LBCC sent the Weekly a letter, which we'd print in the dead-tree edition if we still had a letters section. But since we don't, the letter is published here in its entirety--and just like we used to do in the dead-tree edition, we're allowing Troia to rebut Taylor. To the tape!

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Jason Troia layin' down the law

"Oh man, you're not going to believe this," Jason Troia says into the receiver. Troia is the student trustee at Long Beach City College who hasn't made waves, but launched a tsunami against the school's Board of Trustees last week by calling for their resignation in the wake of them cutting 11 of the school's vocational programs.

"They've totally underestimated me," the 32-year-old trustee says. "They're not going to get away with this." And the timing could not be more perfect; just a few days after Troia bitch slapped the administration, the Academic Senate released a report that shows the LBCC faculty ain't happy with dem trustees, either.

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David Le

May Day comes at the perfect time as Long Beach City College's administration is crumbling under its own ego.

Last week, student trustee Jason Troia anhiliated LBCC's Board of Trustees for their incredibly shady behavior surrounding the school's program discontinuence. Tomorrow, Troia, LBCC students, faculty, and trade organizations will march to protest against the inanities.
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Jason Troia

Jason Troia is the Long Beach City College administration's worst nightmare. "I just really like doing research," the student trustee says with a little laugh that accompanies most stories when he talks about LBCC. Troia began poring over reams of documents he's compiled in the months since hearing that 11 of the school's vocational programs had been cut due to budget problems: Auto Body, Aviation, Audio Production, Interior Design, Welding, Automotive Technology, Real Estate, Photography, Air Conditioning/Refrigeration/Heating, Diesel Mechanics, and Carpentry. These are programs that have an incredibly high success rate compared to other non-vocational programs at LBCC--and programs the trustees axed with little regret.

"If there's anywhere that really needs trade programs - it's Long Beach," Troia says, "It's always been a blue collar town, and the jobs are here."

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*Corrected since original publication to reflect the affiliation of the writer who covered the Santa Ana gathering.

Members of the sizable Cambodian population in Orange County and Long Beach have a problem with state voter guides printed in the language most are familiar with, Khmer:

The guides are too complex.

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Courtesy of Long Beach Police Department and NBC4/Los Angeles

Long Beach police detectives are investigating a "horrific" murder pinned to a homeless man who allegedly burned a 63-year-old man to death inside his SUV parked in a convenience store lot along Pacific Coast Highway. Cops, hoping witnesses will come forward, have released surveillance footage from around 5:30 p.m. Friday in front of the 7-Eleven near PCH and Clark Avenue.

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See the update on the next page about a lawsuit being filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

ORIGINAL POST, APRIL 5, 3:23 P.M.: Based on the number of times I see a Lipstick Bounty Hunters vehicle, an employee either resides near someone I visit weekly in Long Beach or perps are routinely busted there.

The California Secretary of State puts at least one of the all-female bounty hunting crew's offices in Lakewood, but it was in Huntington Beach where Lipstickers are accused of severely injuring a man whose bail bond had been revoked, leaving him blind in one eye.

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Federal agents recently raided Industrial Pharmacy Management LLC in Newport Beach and Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, which are companies owned by Michael D. Drobot, who is suspected of workers compensation fraud.

A sealed grand jury affidavit cleared the way for last week's searches by FBI, IRS and other government agents, according to the Los Angeles-based U.S. Attorney, who declined to discuss specifics.

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See the update at the end of this post about the jury ruling for the dead man's family.

ORIGINAL POST, APRIL 3, 2:13 P.M.: A $21.5 million civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Long Beach over cops fatally shooting a guy holding a gardening water nozzle on a friend's Belmont Shore porch is now in the hands of the jury. Deliberations began after closing arguments at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana, where jurors must decide whether police were at fault and what damages the city should pay for the 2010 killing of 35-year-old Douglas Zerby.

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Connie Boardman

Huntington Beach Mayor Connie Boardman and her Orange County-adjacent colleague Bob Foster in Long Beach are among 25 California mayors who have signed a Courage Campaign letter supporting gay marriage.

All the other OC mayors--it seems as if there are 50 or so--apparently could not find pens with ink in them.

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