The focus of these articles was corruption, fraud and scandal in the Los Angeles Community College District, primarily at Los Angeles Valley College’s Media Arts Department.
A few of these articles summarized.
Erika Endrijonas faces new questions in LACCD fraud | May 2, 2023 |
Pasadena City College President-Superintendent Erika Endrijonas being fired from the institution and trying to get a job at Santa Barbara City College, Mt. SAC, and Los Angeles City College. Endrijonas had been subjected to a vote of no confidence by the Pasadena Academic Senate, Pasadena Full-Time Faculty Union, protests by Part-Time Faculty, and finally the vote to reduce her contract by the newly elected board of trustees.
The article dived into Endrijonas’s tenure at her previous institution – Los Angeles Valley College. Endrijonas was announced in her new role at PCC in December 2018, the same week that a jury in Van Nuys awarded a former LAVC employee $2.9 million jury award for illegal retaliation and abuse. A few months earlier, the Los Angeles Times published a major story about the Valley Academic and Cultural Center – a project meant to be Endrijonas’s crowning achievement – being an alleged massive racketeering scheme.
Further it documented the Media Arts Department the VACC would house had a lengthy history of lawsuits and accreditation complaints against the faculty for not providing the education and training advertised – negating the need for the new building. The building’s approval vote happened in August 2016, the lawsuit happened in 2009, and the Accreditation Complaints happened in June 2016.
Dozen LAVC Cinema Students Narratives challenge Erika Endrijonas’s LACCD Success Story | May 5, 2023 |
This article covered a release of an email thread from a dozen students in 2016 that was ultimately sent to the Accreditation Commission for Junior and Community Colleges in 2016, substantiating that there was widespread fraud in the department. Classes were not scheduled by Department Chair Eric Swelstad, training was not provided, labs were not held, etc . . .
Van Nuys/Los Angeles College Screenwriting Professor Faked Writer’s Guild Membership | May 17, 2023 |
Revealed that LAVC Media Arts Department Chair Eric Swelstad faked his membership in the Writer’s Guild of America – West, and then used it in multiple professional bios.
Los Angeles Valley College perpetuated wage theft against students on Julie Su’s watch | May 19, 2023 |
Documented how Grant Director Dan Watanabe engaged in wage theft against students for two years from 2013 – 2016.
Two Los Angeles Film Professors Bilked Taxpayers Over $3.5 Million Dollars | May 21, 2023 |
Described how LAVC Media Arts Department Founder Joseph Dacursso’s retirement first as Department Chair, then as a full-time faculty in 2012, left Department Chair Eric Swelstad and Arantxa Rodriguez to engage in petty infighting and squabbling that spilled over into scheduling decisions. In short, two faculty members collected six-figure-salaries while putting students in the middle of department in-fighting.
LAVC Omsbudsman Stalked Whistleblowers | August 8, 2023 |
Described how LAVC’s Dean of Students, Annie G. Reed (Goldman) retaliated and stalked students that went to Accreditation, going as far as running a smear campaign that one of them was a potential school shooter. Worse, she began stalking him after he left school – including on social media.
[Image: Annie G. Reed Goldman, Dean of Labor and HR at LACCD]
Further articles questioned where Academic Degrees were given out to students who had not completed Academic classes and criteria, the role of Jo Ann Rivas turned YouTube Personality ‘AuditLA’ who was on the Los Angeles Valley College Citizen’s Building Oversight Committee, whether a number of students with falsified resumes received payments from a Grant as ‘Professional Experts’ etc . . .
The scrubbing of these articles coincided with the formal appointment of Alberto J. Roman as the new Chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, following the retirement of disgraced administrator Francisco Rodriguez.
It also came with the publication of two final articles. One about Annie G. Reed’s being named as a Defendant in a lawsuit by former faculty at Los Angeles City College, who came to her about an administrator engaging in illegal behavior – including planting drugs on employees to get them fired.
The second article, probed Los Angeles Valley College Department Chair, Eric Swelstad’s professional bio again and provided evidence that he repeatedly lied and engaged in deceptive advertising and practices for two decades. It provided students who held loans with information about student borrower defenses.
The censorship also came months after Jo Ann Rivas aka AuditLA, herself probed by the articles, launched a barrage of attacks for about a week in January about a former student who had grievance's against the school. Rivas had previously engaged in a similar barrage in July 2020.
This was not the first time that an attempt was made to censor this news stream.
In 2020, an attempt was made to hack the community news feed account on Twitter/X.com @LACCDW. Then a week before the LACCD Board of Trustees election in November 2020, Twitter suspended the community newsfeed altogether. It was only restored two years later after Twitter's sale and the re-evaluation of previous suspended accounts.
In a final update – The Valley Academic and Cultural Center, despite having a 2018 completion date, remains unfinished. According to minutes of the LAVC Work Environment Committee Minutes from 2025-05-08;
“The Valley Academic and Cultural Center (VACC) is as of Friday, May 8th, about 80% complete. They are still patching the roof. There are still some critical items like stage protection net.”
