The 1969 mural had been on the facade of a former Home Savings in Santa Monica for 50 years. In 2019, with the building facing demolition, the mural was painstakingly removed, in sections, and crated up.

Reassembled, it’s now been installed outside its new home, the Hilbert Museum of California Art in Orange.

When I visited in late January, at the museum’s invitation, the mural was in place but largely obscured behind three tiers of scaffolding.

“It’s been quite a project,” Brian Worley, the restoration artist, told me.

As careful readers will recall, I visited Worley last August as he made repairs to the mural. The Claremont artist had laid out the 41-foot-by-16-foot artwork on the expansive floor of what was once the Claremont High gym. There, I saw only enough of the mural to get a sense of it.

In Orange on Jan. 25, I met up with Worley and Mark Hilbert, the museum’s founder and namesake. Hilbert explained how he’d come to acquire the mural.

In Palm Springs, his wife, Janet, saw watercolor versions of several murals by Sheets, including “Pleasures Along the Beach,” which she’d liked best. Wouldn’t it be great, she suggested, if the real mural ever became available?

Hilbert phoned Tony Sheets, the artist’s son. Serendipitously, the mural was coming down imminently and needed a home.

Hilbert could provide one. The museum, which was established in 2016 and which is owned and operated by Chapman University, was starting a major expansion that is adding a second building, with a plaza in between.

Visually linking the two buildings, the mural is held aloft on a steel structure.

“This mural weighs 12 tons or thereabouts,” Worley said. “You need a lot of steel to support it.”

Anyone visiting the museum will walk under the mural. Orange’s Metrolink stop is within view of it. “I suspect this will become a landmark in Orange County,” Hilbert said.

The mural’s theme ties in perfectly with the theme of the museum, which is a showcase for California art, particularly narrative works, Hilbert said.

“People having fun on the beach, families having fun on the beach. It’s so California,” Hilbert enthused. “It represents California so well.”

Sheets, whose work is in the Smithsonian, lived and worked in Claremont, where he painted watercolors, designed buildings and produced mosaics. He might be best known for the striking series of Home Savings and Loan branches he designed from the 1950s into the 1980s with murals and other art that reflected the community.

Worley, now 74, is one of the last surviving artists from the studio of Sheets, who died in 1989.

“He was a genius. There are people at the time who likened him to Walt Disney,” said Worley, explaining that Sheets was a savvy businessman as well as an artist who thought big.

“He believed art was for the public. It should be everywhere,” Worley said. “It was like air.”

Hilbert, who made his millions as a real-estate investor, was a latecomer to art. He bought his first piece, a California scene painting, in the early 1990s. Paging through a book on California art, he realized he liked almost all of it.

“I thought, I want to collect this,” he recalled.

The museum is largely drawn from Hilbert’s personal collection of 5,000 artworks. Hilbert, 79, likens the museum to the Norton Simon in his hometown of Pasadena.

Hilbert walked me through both wings of the museum, then still under renovation or construction, but almost ready to welcome the public. The opening is Feb. 23. Most of the art was in place, but without labels.

With 26 galleries and 21,000 square feet, and free admission, “I think we’re going to be one of the most popular museums in Southern California,” director Mary Platt said.

One of the nine exhibits focuses on — who else? — Millard Sheets, a retrospective of 40 of his paintings from over a half-century. I was especially pleased to see the original of the evocative “San Dimas Train Station.”

“A Matter of Style: Modernism in California Art” is a survey of postwar painting. Represented are Susan Hertel, who was the lead artist on many of the Sheets mosaics, and Karl Benjamin, a former Claremont neighbor of mine.

Agnes Pelton, a Cathedral City painter who was the subject of a profile-raising Palm Springs Art Museum show in 2020-21, is seen via three paintings that had been in the basement of a Silicon Valley college. “They haven’t been seen in 50 years,” Hilbert said.

Other exhibits focus on Navajo blankets, Disney art and Orange County scenes. Another is devoted to Norman Rockwell. “Here’s another unknown artist,” Hilbert deadpanned.

“Most of our paintings are upbeat, positive,” Hilbert told me. “We like for people to leave happy. We’re a respite from the rest of the world.”

Outside on a high wall is a sculpture of a girl riding joyfully on the back of a dolphin. It’s by John Svenson, who was well-known around Upland. Like “Pleasures Along the Beach,” the dolphin was also uprooted from the Santa Monica Home Savings.

Like a lot of former coastal residents, they’ve both moved inland.

A few days after my visit, the scaffolding that blocked the mosaic was removed and the mural unveiled. With column deadlines pressing, I couldn’t make a special trip. But on Feb. 3, a friend’s birthday in Santa Ana provided an excuse for me to stop in Orange.

There stood “Pleasures Along the Beach,” unfettered. The scene is a shoreline near sunset, colors deepening, as people toss a beach ball, sunbathe, walk or hold oars near a rowboat and a flock of birds careens past.

The figurework is a bit stiff, honestly. But the piece’s preservation is welcome.

It was afternoon and what sun there was — depending on your viewpoint, it was either partly sunny or partly cloudy — hit the thousands of pieces of glass.

The next day brought that deluge of rain. That’s how it goes in Southern California. But “Pleasures Along the Beach,” like the activities depicted, should be eternal.

David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, a mosaic of columns. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.

But Cutspec realized that marketing pet food and then running her own marketing and design company wasn’t going to give her the voice or the fulfillment she wanted in her life. You don’t get back to the other side of the fence plugging pet food or designing websites.

Which is where the Voice comes in. The Voice — her Voice — could get Cutspec back to the field. She’d literally talk her way back to the Santiago Canyon College softball field, back to the other side of the fence.

“I literally got to the point where I realized I needed softball back in my life,” she said. “I realized I do love it more than anything else and kept asking myself, ‘How do I get it back?’ Well, they needed an announcer, so I went back as an announcer. It’s me. Done. I would have gone back as a volunteer coach. I didn’t care how I got back to the field. I needed to be back on the field.”

And that’s how SCC found its next softball coach. Only the second one in school history.

One year after announcing lineups, Cutspec is making out lineups. One year after announcing who’s coming to bat, Cutspec is figuratively — if not literally —back in the batter’s box. She’s back on the field, back on the other side of the fence.

The first-year SCC coach has a big act to follow. She took over from her mentor, former coach and former boss, Lisa Camarco, who built the SCC program from scratch when it began in 2007. Camarco retired as coach after leading SCC to state championship appearances in 2014 and 2016. The 2016 team won SCC’s first state title, becoming the first team since 1996 to lose the first game in the double-elimination tournament and come back to win the title. That team also became the first team since 2005 to mercy-rule its final opponent, when it dismissed Sacramento City College, 8-0, after five innings.

During her initial four-season stint as an assistant coach (2014-17), Cutspec was a part of both teams. In fact, all four of those teams would reach the state Super Regionals and the 2016 team would earn National Fastpitch Coaches Association California Junior College National Coaching Staff of the Year honors.

Before then, Cutspec was an all-conference first baseman for the Hawks, who helped SCC make its first regional appearance in 2011. And before that, she was an all-league first baseman for Ocean View High, who powered the Seahawks to the 2008 CIF Division 4 championship via a fifth-inning grand slam off Bishop Amat’s Amy Lwin — one of the best pitchers in the division.

So yes, the bona-fides now established, Cutspec looks around her new digs and still finds reasons to pinch herself. Her voice now carries louder than the PA system that reopened the door to the other side of the fence.

“Honestly, of all the jobs I had, that was the hardest. I couldn’t be on the other side of the lines. It was tough for me,” she said. “I’ve been the athlete. I’ve been the coach. But when you don’t know what’s going on, and when you’re not on that side of the field, it’s hard. But had I not taken that job and done that, I don’t think I would be in the position I’m in today.”

And yet, even Cutspec’s infectious confidence, outgoing presence and electric personality that pulsates with every word found doubts. She left the sport in 2017 because of that pesky meager paycheck. Cutspec decided it was time to turn her natural curiosity, love of writing and designing everything from websites to brochures loose in the corporate world. After spending nearly every waking moment on a softball field since she was 4, Cutspec felt a different tug, one that included picking up an MBA at Chapman University and starting up her own marketing company.

But after flexing her voice and talking to Camarco, who recruited her out of Ocean View, then brought her into the coaching ranks, could Cutspec reinvent herself again?

“To be honest, I was nervous. Being away from it for a lot of years — five or six years — the game’s the same. But it’s been a while,” she said. “I felt nervous that I’d been away from it for so long that maybe I wouldn’t be as effective as I could be if I stayed in it the whole time. But I trust Lisa so much. She wouldn’t have handed the program she built over to me if she didn’t believe in me. There’s a big confidence factor that she believed in my ability to continue the legacy she built.

“I think I feel more pressure to continue the culture she built and continue what she’s turned Santiago Canyon College softball into. Being an athlete and a coach, I have a strong understanding of it and know how important it is to help the girls who come through our program.”

Cutspec’s outgoing personality helped the transition. So did the journals she’s kept since she was 7. For as long as she can remember, Cutspec embraced writing, using a journal. It provided power, release and growth when she was trying to figure out who she was as a person. Not only did it help Cutspec make sense of the world around her and build her writing voice, but it provided another side gig.

Cutspec sells her Daily Journal templates to “give people an opportunity to be able to do that and to find the same pleasure and growth from it that I’ve had.” These templates are brought to you by Cutspec.

But her journals? They’re more than a sidelight. They’re a guiding light.

“To this day, I haven’t told very many people this, but when I would feel lost in the mix of things, if I felt lonely or I didn’t feel like I belonged, I would take my favorite TV show and write myself my own character, so I could make myself feel like I belonged somewhere,” she said. “I could create myself wherever I wanted to be and throw myself into my favorite TV shows and oh my God, I felt perfectly safe there. That would make other parts of my life feel better.”

Those parts are feeling better these days. Cutspec found the other side of the gate, the side that allows her to mentor young girls, provide them those oft-told life lessons and navigate some of the trickiest, most stressful times of their lives. Her voice has the same passion, the same caring intensity it had before she picked up — and put down — the PA microphone.

“I see myself doing this for the foreseeable future. Right now, I only coach here, but I would love to teach at the college and be a professor,” she said. “I definitely want to grow in my role. And I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”

“We acknowledge that our students have a lot of demands on them,” said Jason Parks, vice president of academic affairs. “They’re working and they have familial responsibilities. When you think about a full load of 30 units a year, that’s four to five classes a semester—a big challenge for students who have a family, plus a job.”

The Hawks Flight Path was created to ease the burden.

Parks conceived of the program, but he is quick to credit a team of colleagues, including faculty and deans, who put it together. “The team got together and really thought it through about how we would work to benefit the students the most. I think it’s really well-designed. The spring is the soft launch for it,” he said. “Next fall we will target incoming freshmen who need all of their prerequisites.”

The first class is in public speaking (Feb. 12–March 24) followed by a class in nutrition (March 25–April 28), and, finally, an introduction to cultural anthropology (April 29–June 9).

“We have knowledge of what classes go well in those shorter times and where students thrive, so we’ll choose those classes (accordingly),” Parks said.

Since the Hawks Flight Path classes will fulfill General Ed requirements, students will be able to put more hours and effort into the classes that are part of their major. This is particularly helpful for students whose majors require a lot of time, for instance, if they must work in a lab.

“They can take those three classes and then take an overlying major’s course, something that they maybe need to spend quite a bit more time on, such as a calculus, chemistry or physics course,” Parks explained.

“The initial thought was let’s target our students who may be pre-nursing or health sciences,” he said. “For those students, the hope is that they would take those three classes and then maybe an anatomy and physiology class that would last the entire term. The amount of time you have to spend in the laboratory is a lot, so we would want to give them that opportunity to spend that laboratory time doing the work that is going to be most pertinent to their career as they move along.”

The plan is also designed to relieve exam stress. Rather than having five final exams at once, exams will be spread out over the semester.

And because the three GE classes are sequential, faculty members will be able to share with each other information about students who may be struggling or those who need more challenge.

“The idea is to create an ecosystem where those faculty members communicate with one another about the students who are incoming, Parks said. “This will be an advantage because most faculty members get students cold. You just walk into your classroom and you need to learn about your students starting on day one. But if one of your colleagues has said, ‘Hey, this group kind of needs help there, and this group is accelerating over here,’ then you’re not walking in cold.”

The ultimate intention of the Hawks Flight Plan is to make it easier for students to stay in college, Parks said. “We know that our most vulnerable students, we don’t lose them at the very end of completing their degree, we lose them at the beginning,” he said. “And so, we want to help them to persist.”

The number of students enrolling for credit programs at Santiago Canyon College recently jumped more than 12%.

“(They are) our target audience, absolutely,” Parks said. “This particular program is going to target more of the traditional college age, which is in the 18 to 24 range, because we are trying to get them in, get their associate degrees and out into a career. Or if they’re looking to transfer, we want to help them to transfer to a university to earn a bachelor’s degree.”

Santiago Canyon College also has a tutoring center that encourages students to support each other in their studies. “I’m just the old guy telling them college is good,” Parks said. “But if their colleagues are telling them that you can do this, and they encourage one another, that’s worth more than I could ever tell a student.”

Other forms of student support at SCC include a basic needs center, a food pantry, and financial aid. “We’re trying to hit them from all angles to make sure that they feel supported and they have everything they need to get through college,” Parks said.

Eric Jimenez, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 952, said the union’s collective bargaining agreement with Republic stipulates that Teamsters’ employees handle 50% of the waste.

The subcontracting whittled that to as low as about 30%, he said, affecting 21 Teamsters employed as semi-truck drivers for Republic, transporting municipal waste from transfer stations to landfills.

A court-appointed arbitrator has awarded the employees $197,397.45 for lost wages in 2023. And over the next nine months, the company will own another $96,229.28 to Local 952 members, bringing the total to $293,262.73.

Also see: UCLA, UC Riverside students petition to remove Starbucks from campuses

Representatives with Phoenix-based Republic declined to comment on the settlement.

Republic trash trucks pick up municipal waste and deliver it to transfer stations, including one in Anaheim, where green waste and materials that can be recycled are separated out. The remaining waste is trucked to landfills.

More union news: Employees speak out against proposed Kroger/Albertsons merger

“This settlement sends a strong message to Republic and other greedy corporations that when you violate a Teamster contract, we will fight back and we will win,” Jimenez said. “Republic has nine months to get in compliance, or they’ll end up in court. You can take that all the way to the bank.”

Jimenez said Republic’s violation of its collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters was noted early on.

“We started investigating this over a year and a half ago,” he said. “We spoke with the company, and they promised they would fix it, but that didn’t happen. Then we went through the grievance process, which led to arbitration and the settlement about a week and a half ago.”

Chuck Stiles, director of the Teamsters Solid Waste and Recycling Division, said the settlement puts Republic on notice.

“This company will never get away with violating collective bargaining agreements negotiated by the Teamsters without fierce resistance,” Stiles said in a statement. “We will never back down when it comes to protecting our members, and we will utilize every tool at our disposal to ensure our membership is made whole.”

Teamsters Local 952 in Orange represents roughly 9,000 truck drivers, transportation, food, office and warehouse workers at locations throughout Orange County and the surrounding region.

But that attention was not important to Campbell.

“What was big for me was the fact that it was my hometown,” Campbell said. “To be able to be mayor of your hometown, there’s something really special about that. Everybody’s pretty much family and friends to me. And to be able to help people in my community and be mayor of my hometown was the greatest honor.”

Campbell’s family has strong roots in North Orange County, having lived here for more than 35 years. She attended St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in Yorba Linda and then Rosary Academy in Fullerton.

She applied to colleges in the spring of 2011 and was accepted at University of Southern California for spring 2012 admission. Taking advantage of the extra time during the summer and fall after high school, Campbell took general education classes at Santiago Canyon College, credits which transferred over to USC.

“I really loved my experience at SCC, and it really set me on a great course for my college career,” she said. “I saved a ton of money and got to stay close to home, too.”

As a sports fan and an athlete, Campbell’s goal was to become a sports journalist. “I got to do that for a little bit, reporting from the sidelines for the football team and the basketball team,” she said. “I really loved that, but I thought I better broaden my journalism experience to something other than sports.”

A summer internship for C-SPAN in Washington, DC, fell through at the last minute, so Campbell scrambled and got another at a bipartisan nonprofit that was trying to get members of Congress to work together.

“We were working on some common sense legislation and thought we were doing all this great work, but then the government shut down. That was in 2013,” she said.

Returning to her hometown she discovered the same gridlock she’d seen in Washington was happening on the local level, too.

“In my hometown of Yorba Linda, our city council was in the midst of a recall. I was like, ‘What is happening in my local hometown? We are a great community.’ I found out that that wasn’t too uncommon for Yorba Linda. We had a number of potential recalls. I realized, ‘OK, if you want to see a change, be part of that change.’”

She decided to get involved and started serving on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission while still in college. She added political science as a major and then went on to get a master’s degree in public administration at USC.

“By going to SCC and getting my GEs done, I was able to start my master’s courses while I was a senior at USC,” she said. “I got my undergrad and master’s at USC in five years.”

She credits Santiago Canyon College for giving her the early boost she needed.

“SCC really set me up for success down the line. It was a huge benefit for me. We have this great institution so close by where you can set your career — not just your education, but your career — in a great trajectory.”

Yorba Linda’s City Council members elect their mayor every year, and Campbell is starting on her eighth year on the council. The job has its challenges and conflicts, she said.

“I’ve tried to lead by example of being a problem solver and being able to engage and talk to everybody and hear all sides so that I can make the best decision for my community,” she explained.

Campbell’s style of leadership has earned the respect of her constituents, even those who don’t agree with her views. And her dedication to Yorba Linda is obvious.

“Yorba Linda is an amazing community because you still have that small-town feel, but you also have all the great amenities. We just built a beautiful, state-of-the-art new public library and cultural art center. We just built a town center. We just built Adventure Playground, which is now year-round.”

Campbell notes with pride that Yorba Linda has a balanced budget and a crime rate far below the average for a U.S. city.

“I might be biased because I’m the mayor, but I think Yorba Linda is a great place to call home, a great place to raise family, and one ranked in the top of the safest cities in California,” Campbell said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I wanted to come home to this great community and help set it on a great course for generations to come.”

But instead of decorating a Home Savings & Loan branch in Santa Monica where it was first created in 1969, the mural is now a new landmark in Old Towne Orange.

After spending years broken down into pieces so it could fit in storage, the glass-tile mosaic has been painstakingly reassembled and will now welcome visitors to Chapman University’s expanded Hilbert Museum of California Art. The museum will reopen to the public on Feb. 23 after being closed for more than a year so it could also take over the building next door, nearly tripling in size.

The finished mosaic was unveiled on Tuesday, Jan. 30, in an afternoon ceremony that featured Mark Hilbert, who commissioned its reconstruction for the museum that he and his wife helped Chapman build, and Brian Worley, who oversaw the restoration of the mosaic that he first helped Sheets create as a young artist all those years ago.

Beginning this fall, SCC will expand that support by offering credit courses and a full associate’s degree program specifically for youth offenders in Orange County Juvenile Hall. This will be possible thanks to a $1.5 million Juvenile Justice Program grant that was awarded to SCC through the California Community Colleges Rising Scholars Network.

In 2018, SCC formalized its support of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students through Project RISE, a bridge program that removes the barriers of higher education for these members of society through credit and noncredit courses, vocational certificate training, education planning and counseling support. The campus has served nearly 3,000 students in the adult jails.

Project RISE also serves juvenile offenders, which in the state of California can include those through age 25. SCC has offered credit courses to that group of students since 2021. California recognized that this specific population has unique needs when it comes to higher education and created the Juvenile Justice Program grant.

SCC will begin receiving disbursement on the five-year grant award this month and will use the funds to build a full credit program that focuses on dual enrollment courses, as well as Career and Technical Education training and the Associate Degree for Transfer.

“With the dual enrollment program, we can get them that dual credit, so when they get their high school diploma, they’re already ahead of the game in college, whether they’re taking the college program inside the juvenile hall or they’ve been paroled and are joining a college outside of the hall,” said SCC Vice President of Academic Affairs Jason Parks, who will oversee the expansion of the program. “The CTE will give them a certificate in training to get a job after they are paroled, and then the ADT program guarantees them a spot in one of the CSUs.”

The students will be provided laptops, and a full suite of course offerings will be available either online or in person, hosted inside the facility. Counselors will guide students in meeting requirements for high school diploma completion, as well as degree advancement. Parks has a background working with the juvenile offender population and feels this approach will spotlight a path that many may not have considered.

“Inside juvenile hall, there is a lot of forced programming, and college is suddenly giving them agency,” Parks said. “We’re going into this space and we’re saying, ‘Tell us what you want to study. Tell us what you’re interested in, and we’re going to come back and provide options that cater to your interests.’ ”

SCC Dean of Instruction and Student Services Joanne Armstrong prepared the Juvenile Justice Program grant application and has seen firsthand how Project RISE can open the minds of the students it serves.

“The entire point (of Project RISE) is exposure and access,” Armstrong said. “It’s hearing them say, ‘I didn’t know I could learn until I learned. I didn’t know I was capable until I was in your class.’ It’s those kind of things where you’re planting a seed somewhere that somebody cared enough to be there to support them, regardless of where they’re at.”

Armstrong also notes the impact of higher education on the family unit and how these opportunities can work toward breaking a cycle.

“Incarceration impacts entire family systems, and so when you change even one degree of somebody’s trajectory, you change the path of their life,” Armstrong said. “We like to call it pivot points. If I catch you at just the right time, it may be a pivot point where we just shifted the direction of your life minutely now, but the trajectory is really going to make an impact on that whole family.”

The program currently serves 20-30 juvenile students with credit courses, but with the Juvenile Justice Program grant, Parks is looking to double that number. SCC will also be providing counselors who are specifically trained in the ins and outs of credits and transfer eligibility to further support these students on their academic journey.

Above all, Parks envisions a future that includes graduation ceremonies where these juveniles are dressed in regalia and able to celebrate their accomplishments and their commitment to a better path.

“We’re working with a population of human beings who didn’t come into life and live their youth with a lot of advantages,” Parks said. “This is an opportunity for them, while they’re paying their time, to find a way back into society and rejoin as productive citizens, without starting over.”

Martinez’s accomplishments prior to RSCCD include improving outcomes for students, balancing budgets and overseeing millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades.

With a new year just underway, Martinez is setting in motion an ambitious agenda for the future of the district, which includes new and upgraded buildings, the expansion of apprenticeship programs and programs serving specialized populations.

At RSCCD, Martinez leads a district with an enrollment of 50,000 students and 3,000 employees.

The district includes Santa Ana College, Santiago Canyon College, the Orange and Centennial learning centers and RSCCD headquarters.

Realizing the demand for skilled professionals in a variety of industries, State Chancellor Sonya Christian has called on Martinez to take the lead on the Apprenticeship Pathways Demonstration Project, an initiative established by Gov. Garvin Newsom to create 500,000 new apprentices by the year 2030.

With seven apprenticeship programs currently offered at Santiago Canyon College, Martinez has been tasked with allocating funds to enhance and increase the number of apprenticeships to 25 community colleges statewide.

The benefits of apprenticeships are two-fold, the chancellor said.

“We can convert all of the hours that you’re generating as an apprentice into credit,” Martinez said. “You get an apprenticeship, but at the same time, you get a degree.”

The associate’s degree attained through an apprenticeship can be the ticket to enrollment into a four-year university, he said.

The chancellor would also like to build on some specialized programs that cater to specific demographics.

One such program is the Project Rise Program, a statewide community initiative providing job training and educational opportunities to assist formerly incarcerated individuals in their transition into the workforce.

“A lot of formerly incarcerated people just don’t get the chance,” Martinez said. “If those populations couldn’t come to us, where would they go to?”

Amid the decrease in the number of students attending college right after high school, Martinez is hoping to build on the current adult and continuing education curriculums at Santiago Canyon and Santa Ana colleges.

“We needed to find other areas where our enrollments can come from,” he said. “That area became adults.

While it might not be widely known, RSCCD offers a bachelor of science in occupational studies at Santa Ana College.

Martinez would like to increase the number of bachelor’s degree programs to 10.

The total cost to attain a bachelor’s degree in the district would cost about $11,000, excluding textbooks, a fraction of the cost for a degree at a four-year university.

“Many of these individuals will probably be low income, middle income, or even higher income, but they’ll be able to go and get a degree, an accredited degree from an accredited college so they can move forward with their career,” the chancellor said.

Growing and forging new relationships with community groups is another goal.

The RSCCD currently enjoys symbiotic relationships with Santa Ana Unified School District, the Santa Ana Unified School District, the Orange County School of the Arts and other schools.

Martinez hopes to go deeper into the community to forge new relationships.

Orange County icons such as Disney, Anaheim Stadium and the Angels would make for beneficial partnerships to both sides, Martinez said.

One of Chancellor Martinez’s large-scale goals, albeit costly, is to implement needed infrastructure upgrades throughout the district, particularly at Santa Ana College, which was constructed 100 years ago, he said.

At Santa Ana College, a new facility is needed to house automotive technology, welding and culinary arts programs, which all utilize hands-on learning classes.

A new student services and student life building is needed at Santago Canyon College.

Some upgrades would likely require the passage of a bond measure, the chancellor said.

“We need to have the newest facilities and technologies so that we can prepare students for the jobs of today,” Martinez said. “We can’t do that on our own. So, we do need help from voters.”

An economic impact report recently published by the RSCCD showed that the district contributed nearly $2 billion to the Orange County economy.

“I believe in getting out there and supporting the needs of the local community,”  Martinez said.

Officers responded to West Orangewood Avenue at the 57 Freeway overpass around 6:08 a.m., where a pedestrian, later identified as Carlos Gerardo Jax from Los Angeles, was found visibly injured on the south sidewalk. He was pronounced dead at the scene by the Orange City Fire Department.

No further details, including information about the suspect’s vehicle were released.

The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information can contact Detective Rocha at 714-744-7342.

The ceremony took place at 10:30 a.m., the time it would been midnight in India — making Chapman University in downtown Orange the “first in the nation amongst all universities to celebrate the 75th Republic Day,” officials said before the event.

“India’s Republic Day is a day to celebrate India’s adoption of its constitution,” said Pradip K. Shukla, a professor of business and economics, on Thursday. “(This) is a historic occasion and India is the world’s largest democracy.”

One of three national Indian holidays, Jan. 25 was the first Republic Day celebrated on Chapman University’s campus, according to Shukla. Other holidays include the Diwali Festival of Lights, and Holi, the Festival of Colors.

Chapman University has over 80 countries represented in its student body, according to spokesperson Rachel Morrison. Thirteen percent of the school’s international students are from India.

Orange County itself has a thriving Indian community, with Irvine having the highest population of Asian Indian residents, according to the latest U.S. Census data from 2020. The cities of Anaheim, Tustin, and Buena Park each have the next highest populations of Indians.

Other university-wide efforts to honor the holiday included an award ceremony in mid-January, which recognized Indian community and business leaders, a discussion on U.S.-Indian trade with previous U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Juster, and a panel discussion on India and U.S. trade with nonprofit The IndUS Entrepreneurs.

Chapman University received recognition from former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of India, with a video congratulating Chapman University for these events.

“We are witnesses of India thriving as a nation, but we’re also participants in the amazing growth of the United States and India partnership,” Garcetti said in the video. “Today, our U.S.-India partnership is broader, it’s deeper, and it’s more significant than it has ever been before.”

Both nations have established a strong “defense industrial cooperation,” and have launched educational programs to prepare startups and younger innovators to contribute to the defense industries, Department of State officials said.

India is also one of the fifth largest economies in the world, with a GDP of over $3 trillion. Near the end of last year, global analysts said India would be the “next great economic power.”

Local Indian Americans and Chapman University officials sang India’s national anthem, “Jana Gana Mana,” as the flag was hoisted up by three retired veterans of the Indian Army.

Anoushka Sarma, a double-major in finance and data sciences, said the ceremony was “really interesting” to see as an Indian already familiar with Republic Day.

“It’s kind of just like a ‘Yay India’ day, but I’m from Colorado, so this never really happened in my high school or at any of my other schools,” Sarma, 21, said. “It’s just a nice way to commemorate India.”

Shukla, who has been a professor at Chapman for 39 years, said that Chapman University’s mission is to “provide personalized education of distinction that leads to inquiring, ethical and productive lives as global citizens.”

“It is important for our students, who strive to be global citizens, to learn about India’s business, economics, political, and cultural global impacts,” he said.

Other ways the university works toward this goal is by having a South Asian Student Association, study abroad courses in India, courses that teach about four major world religions with roots in India, and a newly established Shah Family Endowed Chair in Innovativeness.

His wife, Yatri Shukla, is an adjunct professor at the school. She said they are “proud Indians” with deep ties with Chapman University, even sponsoring the flag of India when the school’s International Peace Plaza was first opened in 2009. It is the same flag raised during the campus’ first Republic Day flag ceremony.

Wearing a traditional sari, San Fernando Valley resident Melvinder Kaur came to Thursday’s event to see her husband hoist the Indian flag.

“My husband served 21 years in the Indian Army,” Kaur, 67, said. “I wanted to be here for my husband, for my country. I was born and raised there most of my life.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct an error. Thirteen percent of Chapman University’s international students, not all students, are from India.