What a Blizzard of Publicity
As far as I can tell, none of the newspapers has even mentioned West L.A. College in the past year, except for a brief, inoffensive, excuse-me introductory piece about the interim president. I don’t remember her name. She has not made any news. We met once. Probably a nice lady. But why didn’t they hire, instead, a boxboy from the Ralphs store in the Culver Center? He could not have caused less publicity, and he would have worked for much less money. This lady is a caretaker-type who is fifty miles from what the publicity starved West L.A. College needed, even as a stop-gap hire. Just the opposite of what the college needed. What West desperately needs is the style, the dash, the grace of Frank Quiambao. Of course he kept the pot boiling. Every morning. How some quivering people fear that. He was news. He made news. He had one of the toughest names in Southern California to pronounce and to spell. Neither was an impediment to keeping the once-again sleepy campus on the front page. It is not as if West L.A. — whom few people talk about even in the good times — had much capital to expend.
Mr. Q. Had What West Needs
Mr. Q. was smart, savvy, delightful, charming and a lightning rod. He was the Hope Diamond of college administrators in the Southland. He was a dream for fundraisers and for alumni who are bereft of ideas for attracting attention to the invisible college. He was more quotable than all of the other tinhorn shlubs combined who have been hired by the exquisitely insightful Los Angeles Community College District since West opened in 1969. At no extra charge, Mr. Q. was a bonanza, dessert after every meal for West L.A., always worth a few lines. Like the mileage he and the college derived from a seemingly wild-eyed statement several years ago.
Said he was going to make West L.A. College the No. 1 community college in America in a few years. Maybe No. 1 on Overland Avenue, where there is no competition, but in the whole country? Nah. What he did was to get people talking, get people involved. They never did before Mr. Quiambao came to the campus, and they surely have not in the year since the Board of Untrustworthies spit on their hands and dropped their gleaming axe on his neck a year ago this month. Instead, they should have given him a raise and strewn scarlet-flavored roses in his path. His brimming vigor and enthusiasm evidently were odious to members o the Board of Untrustworthies who lean toward serenity and extreme inaction.
Is Anyone Inside?
Between the groves of trees and the Raintree properties near the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Overland, I am not even sure that the campus of West L.A. College still exists in the background. Maybe a carjacker heisted it. He could have thrown a blanket over the whole thing and stolen off to Hawaii or Alabama. How would you ever know? At West in the post-Quiambao era, you whisper for fear that someone will overhear you.
The closest the college came to any publicity this school year was early last winter when fumes from nearby oil drilling wafted over to the pricey adjacent neighborhood of Culver Crest in the middle of one disturbing night. Attention to the college was incidental. The fumes were described as having emanated from behind the campus. Oh, I see. Deflective publicity from a negative incident — and that was the best thing that happened to West in print this year. Frank Quiambao, please come home. You are strongly needed.