Talk Wasn’t Cheap

So now we know what the San Diego Community College District Foundation does with its money. It paid state Sen. Wadie Deddeh $10,000 in honoraria last year.

Perhaps that explains why district administrators “shopped” Deddeh around to the social science faculty as a potential guest speaker, hoping to justify the expense. Could there be a connection between these payments and Deddeh’s endorsement of an incumbent in last fall’s trustees election? No, that would be too obvious.

And isn’t the foundation prohibited from using funds to achieve political advantage? But then, these expenses obviously had an educational objective. Didn’t they?

Organizing shopping trips to the Garment District in Los Angeles seems to be the other major educational endeavor of the foundation. Its contributions to the intellectual climate of this city are really magnificent.

EDWARD M. NEWTON

San Diego