Money, construction, and a lawsuit are at the center of the latest public fight inside the State Center Community College District.
State Center attorneys have been defending trustee Rob Fuentes against an anonymous complaint filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission in July.
The complaint, signed by the anonymous group the SCCCD Avengers, suggests Fuentes violated the Levine Act, a state law designed to prevent elected officials from weighing in on decisions involving major campaign donors, also known as “pay to play.”
But State Center’s attorneys dispute the allegations.
The issues center around a July 7 SCCCD board meeting in which members were scheduled to discuss the settlement of a lawsuit involving one of Fuentes’ major donors to his city council campaign, Richard Spencer of Harris Construction and his wife, Karen Spencer.
Fuentes received $5,900 from Spencer on May 28, 2025; $5,000 from Karen Spencer on March 16 and another $5,900 from Karen Spencer on Aug. 31, according to campaign filings.
The complaint asks the FPPC to determine whether Fuentes was required to disclose and recuse himself from closed-session discussions about the lawsuit and whether he participated in or influenced the settlement. The lawsuit is ongoing, and a final settlement has not been reached.
The Levine Act prohibits public officials from participating in decisions, or using their position to influence them, involving campaign donors who have given more than $500.
The litigation stems from a dispute over a Harris Construction sub-contractor’s wages paid to build State Center’s West Fresno campus. JT2 Integrated Resources, the sub-contractor, sued SCCCD and Harris Construction in October 2024. They accused the district of keeping them in the dark about legal requirements to use union workers from UA Local 246.
The West Fresno campus project was supposed to be built with union labor, with contractors paying prevailing wages, under a Project Labor Agreement between Harris Construction, the primary contractor, and State Center.
JT2 says it bid the project with an understanding that it could use its own non-union plumbing workforce. After construction began, the Local 246 union accused JT2 of violating the project labor agreement because it did not use union workers. That dispute resulted in a $1.63 million arbitration award against JT2.
The lawsuit also alleges Harris Construction owes JT2 more than $3.6 million related to project work, costs and delays. This led, according to the lawsuit, JT2 to perform extra work not included in the original plan.
The SCCCD Board of Trustees approved the project labor agreement in February 2020, to encourage hiring local workers, SCCCD graduates. A formal ribbon-cutting for the West Fresno campus was held in January 2024.
The complaint says Fuentes entered a closed-session discussion about the litigation during the SCCCD board of trustees regularly scheduled July 7 meeting, according to agenda minutes.
The closed session followed a one-hour ethics training that Fuentes attended covering the Levine Act and the Political Reform Act, which prohibit public officials from using their position to influence a government decision when the politician has received donations from a person who has a financial interest or stake in a decision at play.
According to board documents, the board has discussed the case in closed session only twice before, once on Jan. 13 of this year and, earlier, on May 6, 2025.
Fuentes’ first donation from Spencer came a few weeks after that May 6 meeting in 2025.
FPPC’s communication director Sherry Yang confirmed with Fresnoland the date the complaint was filed and that the FPPC sent a letter to Fuentes, Richard and Karen Spencer, on July 10 to respond with information and documentation of the accusations in 14 days.
Yang was not able to comment on whether Fuentes and the Spencers responded to the letter or whether the case is in active investigation. She said in an email statement that if the case merits a fine, the Enforcement Division could seek penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.
Richard and Karen Spencer did not respond to a request for comment on the complaint.
Chancellor Dr. Carole Goldsmith, vice president Destiny Rodriguez, and trustees Deborah Ikeda, Austin Ewell, and Nasreen Johnson are all named witnesses in the complaint.
“I read the FPPC complaint, and I believe it’s asking really important questions,” Johnson said in an interview with Fresnoland. “And I would be concerned if any of the trustees were simultaneously taking large contributions while making those decisions.”
Johnson also said trustees have responsibility for identifying potential conflicts of interest themselves. She added that trustees should recuse themselves not only when an actual conflict exists, but when circumstances could create the appearance of a conflict.
District says Fuentes did not violate campaign finance law
In a July 24 letter to the FPPC, SCCCD General Counsel Kristen Kuenzli Corey defended Fuentes against the complaint.
Corey wrote that the July 7 meeting was a closed session in which the board received legal advice about existing litigation and that the board did not approve a settlement or take any other action involving Harris Construction. The district also said it could not disclose what was discussed in the closed session because those discussions are confidential and protected by attorney-client privilege.
The district’s larger legal argument is that the Levine Act, better known as the pay-to-play law, doesn’t apply to the district’s handling of its own litigation.
The law generally restricts officials from participating in certain proceedings involving licenses, permits, contracts and other “entitlements for use” when they have received more than $500 from a party or participant in the proceeding within the last year.
Corey argues that a lawsuit is different because the dispute is ultimately decided by a court, rather than by SCCCD. The district also argues that because the board made no decision on July 7, there was no covered proceeding in which Fuentes could have been disqualified.
But the question of whether a settlement was considered or approved is significant because FPPC guidance says the law can apply to contracts, and a 2024 FPPC advice letter specifically states that a settlement agreement is a contract.
The district ultimately asked the FPPC to close the complaint without further investigation and issue a “no-findings” determination.
The letter from Corey was shared by Fuentes to Fresnoland. Fuentes declined to comment on questions Fresnoland shared in an email on whether he recused himself from any closed-session discussions on the litigation.
Expert questions whether Fuentes should have recused
Dr. Thomas Holyoke, a professor at Fresno State who specializes in American politics and government, interest groups and lobbying, said Fuentes “probably should have recused himself,” particularly if he was involved in discussions concerning a potential settlement with the Spencers’ company.
“Regardless of what the technical legal points actually are, public officials should be aware that, when trying to decide between recusal and non-recusal, should always take the safe route,” Holyoke said. “The more publicly acceptable route of choosing to recuse themselves [is] to prevent the appearance of corruption.”
He added that the situation could create the appearance that Fuentes “may well have been acting to further the interests of his campaign contributors.”
However, Holyoke acknowledged there appeared to be “a distinct possibility of some gray area” because the July 7 discussion didn’t end in a settlement agreement.
He added that discussions that could ultimately lead to a settlement could still be significant, even if the settlement itself was not formally approved at the meeting.
“Anything that is done to get to progress towards a settlement, even if a settlement is not approved, is influencing the shape and scope of the settlement and therefore potentially leading to an act that benefits or does not benefit contributors to Mr. Fuentes’s campaign,” Holyoke said.
Holyoke said laws like the Levine Act serve a broader public purpose beyond preventing actual corruption.
“Laws like this are not only to prevent actual corruption, but they’re also to give the public a sense that their elected public officials are acting in the public interest.”
The state’s fair political practices commission historically has not shared information about their investigations until they have made findings.
The lawsuit between JT2, State Center, and Harris Construction will be back in court on Oct. 26 for a settlement conference with a jury trial tentatively scheduled for mid-November.
