Editorials

The controversial proposal to develop Laney College and Peralta Community College District lands surfaced briefly and then resubmerged this week, when an item appeared on the Peralta Board of Trustees closed agenda to discuss “real estate negotiations” between Chancellor Elihu Harris and developer Alan Dones, but no report on the negotiations was given to the public in open session. 

According to the First Amendment Project of Oakland, public bodies are only required to report on votes or actions taken in closed session. 

The item appeared on the Peralta Board’s March 8 closed agenda under the one-line listing “Real Estate Negotiation (54956.8), Laney College and District Office, Negotiators Harris and Doans.” Dones’ name was misspelled in the agenda item. 

Last November, the outgoing Peralta board authorized Harris to negotiate a one-year contract giving Dones and his Oakland-based Strategic Urban Development Alliance (SUDA) the right to produce a plan to develop unspecified Laney College properties and the adjacent district office on East 8th Street. 

Harris later announced that he had suspended contract talks with Dones because of controversies, including suggestions of conflicts of interest, surrounding the proposal. 

Trustee Cy Gulassa said following the meeting that while he could not discuss anything that occurred during the closed session, it was his understanding that “there has been some pressure on Elihu” to draw up and execute a contract with Dones. 

Since the November authorization, Dones has been attempting to shore up support for his development plan, but one such effort has apparently backfired. 

Last month, following complaints that he had not met with Laney College representatives, Dones held an open meeting on the Laney campus to discuss his plans. Reporting on that meeting, the Laney Tower , the student-run newspaper, wrote that the genesis of the Laney development plan actually came from a Laney College President. Dones said “he was first invited to look into the land use possibilities by former Laney President Dr. Deborah Blue back in 2000.” The paper reported Dones saying he had several meetings with Blue and others on the subject. 

Blue calls that assertion “patently false.” 

In an opinion article published in the Tower in late February, Blue wrote that she did meet with Dones “sometime between 2000 and 2001,” but the meetings concerned the interest of Dones and former Peralta Chancellor Dr. Ronald Temple in “Laney College development curriculum in the area of alternative energy sources. Their curriculum interest was the sole content of our discussion.” 

Blue went on to write, “I would like Mr. Dones to know that he cannot use me as a scapegoat for his failure to communicate with college representatives in his current areas of interest with Laney College.” 

Blue currently works for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the accrediting agency for such colleges as Laney. Neither she nor Dones returned calls in connection with this article.›