Raghu Mathur: a man very much of his time (continued)

CONTINUED...

August 31, 2000: it’s Thursday morning, and I hear a rumor that someone has tipped off the president regarding the faculty’s knowledge of his highfalutin new throne. Reportedly, Raghu responds by ordering that the chair be returned to the store immediately.

“Jeez,” I think. “That’s the same as a confession.”

I make inquiries as to the chair’s whereabouts and learn that it is back in the warehouse. Accompanied by a few denizens of A200, I walk over to investigate.

We find what seems to be The Chair over by the west wall, again covered in clear plastic. I examine it and decide that it’s the very chair we spotted yesterday. Someone tells us that, now, the darned thing is being sent back to the store.

“How come?”

“Don’t know.”

As I head back to A200, I observe others making the pilgrimage to The Thousand-Dollar Chair. Evidently, word has spread all over campus.

I hear someone carp, “Who the f*ck does this guy think he is?”

* * * * *

Later, I run into Robber Girl, who is smiling. She explains that she has mentioned Raghu’s new chair to a student who, as it turns out, works at the Lariat. The kid, she says, seems to think that there is a news story in it, so he headed over to the warehouse to investigate. Later, she says, he returned with a photographer, but, by then, the chair had been covered with opaque plastic. This only piqued the journalists’ interests. The photographer took what pictures he could, lifting the chair’s dark skirt to glimpse the secret opulence and grandeur thereunder.

* * * * *

After my 12:30 class, I drop in during the IVC Academic Senate meeting, but it’s a real snoozefest, so I head back to my office. I decide to drop a note to some trustees. I quickly compose and send the following email:

Dear Doc, Martha, Dave, and Nasty:

Yesterday, while in the administration building, I heard a rumor that our president, Mr. Raghu P. Mathur, had ordered a chair for his office and that it just arrived, though it had not yet been delivered to A100...I did some research and discovered the whereabouts of the chair. When I found it, it was covered with plastic upon which was attached an invoice. Apparently, the chair—a “La-Z-Boy presidential highback”—cost the college $1,085.98. I can testify that it is indeed presidential. It is a chair fit for a king!

Today, I was told that the President somehow became concerned that faculty had learned of the purchase. Oddly (I’m told), he has ordered that the chair be sent back to the store. (McMahan’s I think.)

I certainly hope that my little inquiry yesterday didn’t discourage the president from using college funds for something of such manifest importance to our mutual endeavor of “serving the students” in a fiscally responsible fashion. I would raise the matter with him myself, but he owes me a lot of money, and I don’t want to embarrass him.

Perhaps one of you can intercede and explain to the President that he should feel entitled to spend a grand on a chair, given what a grand job he’s done for this college. (No doubt, the downward trend in enrollments…is a temporary situation. I sure hope so.)

Hope you’re all doing well. I’m doing fine.

September 1, 2000: it’s 12:45, and I get a cell-phone call from Melinda Lou, who’s been teaching all morning. She tells me that she has just served President Mathur with papers regarding his “Judgment Debtor’s Exam.”

I should explain. You see, back in January of 2000, Mr. Goo filed a suit against Harland Sanders—and me—regarding my reports (in three issues of Dissent) regarding Mathur’s violation of a student’s right to privacy as delineated by a federal law (FERPA). That Mathur had violated that law was, at any rate, the conclusion of the district’s lawyer, Spencer Covert (yes, Covert), who had been asked, by then-IVC president Don Do-si-do, to provide an opinion on the matter. Ironically, Mathur, a man who can neither detect nor pronounce irony, believes that the Dissent stories amounted to a violation of his privacy rights, and so he sued us for $50,000. According to Mathur, the only way I could have secured the documents I reported on was through the help of Harland Sanders, formerly the VP of Instruction. (That’s nonsense. The documents had been readily available on campus for years.) Thus Sanders was included in the suit.

Unfortunately for the Gooster, the great state of California has a law (the anti-SLAPP statute) designed to protect citizens from lawsuits that are filed by powerful interests—developers, politicians, et al.—merely in order to silence legitimate criticism. SLAPP suits (i.e., “strategic lawsuits against public participation”) are burdensome annoyances or even disasters for defendants, and they are usually pursued, not to win, but to produce a chilling effect on criticism. They thwart free speech.

To make a long story short, we responded to Mathur’s suit by appealing to California's anti-SLAPP statute, which yielded a quick dismissal. In court, Judge Bremmer noted that my Dissent reports were both true and newsworthy and that, further, there was no evidence whatsoever that Sanders provided the information regarding Mathur that I had reported. In fact, he hadn’t.

As per the law, Bremmer ordered Mathur to pay Sanders and me costs and attorneys fees. That amounted to $34,000 and change. Ouch! That occurred months ago.

But, as of this day (Sept. 1), Mathur hasn’t paid. In such situations, the prevailing side files for a “Judgment Debtor Exam.” Once it is granted, the “judgment debtor” is served papers that inform him that he must appear in court on a certain date. “If you fail to appear…you may be subject to arrest and punishment,” say the documents.

It’s way cool.

On August 29th, Karen Sobieski, my attorney, filed for a debtor’s exam for Mathur. The order was granted on that day. So, on this day—the 1st of September—Melinda serves Raghu with the papers:

“Hi Raghu. I’ve got something for you!” chirps Melinda.

He stares but doesn’t move. She hands him the papers, smiling broadly. Eventually, he takes them, glumly thanks her, and then disappears behind the door of his office.

Later, someone tells me that she thinks she heard Mathur crying and banging his head against a chair. But she isn’t sure.

Could be, though. The document orders Mathur to bring 27 kinds of document, including

All checkbooks, registers, and canceled checks for all savings, checking, credit union, bank, mutual fund accounts and/or all other accounts owned by you and/or you and your spouse for the past three years…All payroll check stubs for you and/or your spouse for the past three years…All passbooks for savings, checking, credit union, bank, mutual fund accounts, and/or all other accounts owned by you and/or your spouse for the past three years…All financial statements listing your assets…during the past three years…All stock registers or other records of stocks presently owned by you…All documents evidencing any partnership interest in property owned by you…All credit card applications…Ownership documents…Your state and federal income tax returns for the past thee years…

—and so on. Jeez, I’d cry too. The exam is set for September 19th.

September 5, 2000: It’s the day after Labor Day, and I’m at school. I hear a rumor that Nelson C, the uniformly unloved head of maintenance, has asked campus police for the form to report an “unusual occurrence.” I make inquiries. Sure enough, that’s what he’s done. But what’s the unusual occurrence? Mathur’s purchase?

In the hallway, someone tells me that someone he knows recently met Mike Corfield, Mathur’s hapless attorney. Supposedly, they asked Corfield about Raghu. “He’s the worst client I’ve ever had,” responded Corfield. Or so he said she said.

I believe it.

* * * * *

I go back to my office. I lean back in my chair and think. The chair issues a lugubrious squawk.

* * * * *

When I arrive home, a find a phone message informing me that, according to Corfield, Mathur wants to settle. In return for a reduction in the award, he will pay the entire debt in one cash payment, thereby rendering the “exam” unnecessary.

I confer with the lawyers.

September 6, 2000: it’s the morning, and I’m in A200, standing atop a water stain. Someone accosts me and says, “It’s back!”

“What’s back?”

“The chair!”

She drags me outside to the window of Mathur’s office. We peer inside and see Raghu and his Amazing Techno-leather Dreamchair. He looks like a midget in a tree, purring.

“Naaaa. That’s Naugahyde,” I declare, referring to the chair, not to Raghu.

“Nope. It’s leather. Plus, look at those brass studs.”

Sure enough, those brass studs are ashinin’. Lots of ‘em.

“It’s the chair,” I say, charily.

* * * * *

It’s the afternoon, and I’m home. I get a call from my attorney, Karen. “He’s agreed to pay $32,000 cash,” she says.

Evidently, he wanted to pay with a personal check. Nothin’ doin’, said Karen. She insisted on a cashier’s check, she says.

“Good idea.”

September 11, 2000: it’s the morning, and I’m at IVC. Someone tells me that they have it on good authority that Raghu kept the chair owing to Chancellor Sampson’s insistence.

Perfect.

* * * * *

I arrive home. There’s a message from Karen. She has received the check. She sounds chirpy.

* * * * *

I leave for the International House of Humor to buy a whoopie cushion. [END]

EPILOGUE:

MATHUR PAINED

Mathur, a notorious tightwad, is much pained by the outcome of his lawsuit.

He sues the district for failing to protect him from me. (At about the same time, former trustee Teddi Lorch seems to threaten to do the same. See below.)

The district settles, handing him a check for $36,000.

Not long after, Mathur is named Chancellor of the district:

Mission Viejo, Calif. – A college president who sued his own district and survived faculty votes of no confidence has been appointed chancellor by the trustees he once took to court.

The South Orange County Community College District’s trustees voted 5-2 on Feb. 1 that Irvine Valley College President Raghu Mathur, 53, was the best man for the job, despite his being ranked fourth out of five finalists by a nine-member selection committee…. (Community College Week, Feb. 18, 2002: “COLLEGE PRESIDENT WHO SUED HIS DISTRICT BECOMES CHANCELLOR.”)

EPILOGUE:

THE LORCH FILE:

Feb. 3, 2000
College district rejects [TEDDI LORCH’S] claim
(2/3/00; Irvine World News)

The board of trustees have rejected a claim against the South Orange County Community College District filed by former trustee Teddi Lorch.

Lorch claimed a campaign had been conducted to "willfully and maliciously defame and inflict emotional distress upon her." Chancellor Cedric Sampson said the district was following standard procedure in referring the claim to its insurance carrier.

During a January board meeting, Lorch alleged that underground newsletters "The Vine" and "The Dissent", edited by Irvine Valley College Professor Roy Bauer, were meant to defame, ridicule and intimidate those in leadership positions at the district and colleges.

"His continual acerbic attacks impinged on my personal rights and freedom and threatened my personal security," said Lorch's written statement, most of which she read to the board.

"I don't know what she's talking about," said Bauer. "I've never had a conversation with her of any kind ever."

Lorch was part of a four-member majority bloc on the board of trustees, along with Steven Frogue, Dorothy Fortune and John Williams, which reorganized the colleges and appointed chemistry professor Raghu Mathur president of Irvine Valley College in 1997 against the protests of the three other trustees on the board of trustees. They were sued by Bauer for violations of the Brown Act, California's open meeting law.

When Lorch's term as trustee ended, she did not run for reelection in November 1998.

Bauer won a judge's decision in his suit against the district chancellor, Cedric Sampson. Sampson threatened Bauer with disciplinary action unless he toned down the tenor of his newsletters. Two judges have upheld Bauer's right to criticize the district and its employees. The district is appealing the decision.

"Only reasonable minds can conclude" that the content of Bauer's newsletters were meant to intimidate," Lorch said in her statement to the board.

But U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Fees said, in a ruling favoring Bauer in November, "No reasonable person could have concluded that the written words of Bauer constituted a serious expression of an intent to harm or assault." Fees awarded Bauer $126,000 in attorneys' fees.

When asked why, as a former trustee, Lorch is adding yet another claim to mounting district litigation, she said, "Someone has to take someone else to task on it."

[NOTE: Dissent has long predicted that former Board Majoritarian Lorch would be appointed district director of personnel. Persistent rumors have it that this has finally come to pass.

[Two years after retiring from the board, Ms. Lorch ran for a seat on the OC Republican Central Committee. She same in dead last in her area.]

EPILOGUE, PART TWO:

From an Executive Summary that cited the Orange County Business Journal
Date: Monday, March 12 2001

The South Orange County Community College District named former trustee Teddi Lorch director of human resources, settling an age-discrimination suit she had brought.