{"id":456669,"date":"2026-09-07T23:46:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T23:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/456669\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T23:46:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T23:46:30","slug":"rancho-santiago-chancellor-suspended-amid-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/456669\/","title":{"rendered":"Rancho Santiago Chancellor Suspended Amid Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of one of Orange County\u2019s largest community college districts is locked out of the office amid an investigation into his conduct after months of closed door meetings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision was announced on Tuesday night that trustees of the Rancho Santiago Community College were placing their Chancellor Marvin Martinez on administrative leave \u201cpending completion of an investigation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s unclear what Martinez is being placed on leave for, but it comes after board members talked repeatedly behind closed doors earlier this year about firing him, but ultimately couldn\u2019t reach consensus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Martinez claimed earlier this year he was being harassed by former board President Phil Yarbrough, who\u2019s been removed as board president by his fellow trustees but remains on the board and has frequently questioned if Martinez should remain as the district\u2019s chancellor.<\/p>\n

Martinez couldn\u2019t be reached for comment, and district staff declined to comment when asked why he was placed on leave.<\/p>\n

In a Wednesday interview, Yarbrough said he was unaware of why Martinez was being placed on leave, saying the board members improperly kicked him out of closed session.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething\u2019s going on and I don\u2019t know what it is,\u201d Yarbrough said. \u201cI have a right to know and my constituents have a right to know.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yarbrough said he\u2019d previously brought up complaints with the way Martinez handled a hidden fund between the district and their health insurance provider, the Alliance of Schools for Cooperative Insurance Programs which held around $8 million worth of rebates in accounts hidden from the trustees for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Yarbrough said that he previously asked the Rancho Santiago board to hold people accountable for that mistake, but that none of the trustees joined him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Alliance has faced repeated questions over the years about conflict of interest and cost, with a Voice of OC investigation in 2023 finding that multiple former district executives went to work for the insurance company after they retired and a series of conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

[Read:\u00a0 These Community College Retirees Say Bad District Leadership Put Their Healthcare in Peril<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Despite those questions, the Rancho Santiago district has continued to contract with the Alliance, approving a renewal for their healthcare program at their Sept. 1 meeting despite the fact they could\u2019ve saved over $1.7 million by switching to a different provider with a nearly identical program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Barry Resnick, a former district employee who\u2019s repeatedly questioned district leaders connections with the Alliance, noted that for years board members tried to leave but couldn\u2019t because the Alliance\u2019s bids were the cheapest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said Anthem was not competitive because it was 17% higher than their current rate,\u201d Resnick said in a Thursday interview. \u201cWell, ASCIP this year was about that much higher too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, it wasn\u2019t too expensive (to leave)\u201d he continued. \u201cMaybe they\u2019ll claim \u2018we found the money.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s suspension also comes after Jeannie Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College submitted a complaint raising a series of questions about Martinez\u2019s conduct in April, as well as the conduct of Vice Chancellor Enrqiue Perez.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That complaint has not been released publicly, and was only mentioned briefly on the board\u2019s closed session agenda in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim, who was hired in 2023 and is currently on leave, is facing strong pushback from faculty after they issued a vote of no confidence in her last November.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The statement of no confidence<\/a>, which received 24 yes votes from the Academic Senate with one vote against and one abstention, blasted Kim for a series of ethics and management violations including \u201cfailure to ensure transparent, ethical, and equitable hiring\/appointments, budget, and planning processes,\u201d and \u201cpersistent disregard for professional, ethical, and participatory standards of conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s Vice Chancellor of Business Services Iris Ingram is filling in for Martinez, while Perez is filling in as president of Santiago Canyon College in Kim\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

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We\u2019ve tracked the big shakeups, the quiet deals, and the decisions that hit you where it counts\u2014 your wallet, your home, your community.<\/p>\n

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\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of one of Orange County\u2019s largest community college districts is locked out of the office amid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,115612,115613,180173,13,106677,2267],"class_list":["post-456669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-ascip","tag-chancellor-marvin-martinez","tag-marvin-martinez","tag-politics","tag-rancho-santiago-community-college-district","tag-voice-of-oc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}