From the 'Vine 10, October 6, 1998
WILLIAMS’ SECRET DEAL REVISITED; [By Chunk Wheeler; aka Roy Bauer]
Last July,
I wrote the piece that follows. I showed it to my legal advisers, who, upon
reflection, suggested that, if I was going to run it, I needed to remove
references to certain elements of certain declarations—elements that, if
discussed openly, would tip the hand of our legal adversaries. Thus, in the
August 17 District News, which was distributed district-wide, I ran a
highly edited version of the piece.
The legal
worries no longer obtain, and so here is the unedited version:
WILLIAMS’ ATTEMPT TO BROKER AN ILLEGAL SECRET DEAL BETWEEN
THE BOARD MAJORITY AND THE BOARD MINORITY REVEALED
As you know, we won our first lawsuit against the board of
trustees. On September 17, 1997, Judge McDonald of the OC Superior Court found
that, with regard to the April 28, 1997, meeting in which Raghu P. Mathur was
appointed interim president of Irvine Valley College, the board (and
Chancellor) violated five sections of the Ralph M. Brown Act (a.k.a. the
California Open Meeting Act), a law that limits secret or private governmental
actions and that protects the public’s rights to monitor and comment on them in
advance.
Naturally, the board majority—those noisy champions of
“accountability”—accept no blame for this. Instead, insofar as they acknowledge
error here at all, they blame it on Spencer Covert, the district’s legal
counsel, and Robert Lombardi, our last Chancellor.
Surprisingly, even after the court’s judgment against them,
Williams, Frogue, Fortune, and Lorch have blithely violated Brown provisions
anew, complaining all the while about the “needless” court costs incurred by
the district, owing to our lawsuit. It never occurs to these people simply to
obey the damned law.
Soon, the court will consider our second Brown Act suit. It
concerns three board meetings in particular: the closed meeting of July 16, in
which, without warning, and without agendizing the matter, the board majority
reorganized the district; the closed meeting of August 18, in which the board
was treated to an unagendized address by state official and Mathur crony
Vishwas More; and, finally, the closed meeting of September 8, in which the
board, after only 25 minutes of discussion, decided to appoint Raghu P. Mathur
as “permanent” president of Irvine Valley College.
I mention,
in passing, that, apparently, in July, the board once again violated the Brown
Act, for, again in closed session, they discussed a controversial personnel
action despite having failed to agendize the matter. The pattern of private
decision-making continues.
My remarks today concern the September meeting only.
Our efforts
to uncover the facts concerning Mathur’s September board appointment have been
hampered somewhat by key player Dave Lang’s decision, based on Spencer Covert’s
advice, not to answer some of our questions during deposition. (We have pursued
a challenge to the alleged privilege that Covert cited to justify Lang’s
reticence, but the process is very expensive.) Despite this hurdle, we have
managed to assemble information and testimony that, we believe, establishes
that each of the board majority, and John Williams in particular, conducted him
or herself egregiously and illegally with regard to the presidential
appointment.
The gist of the remarks that follow is that, prior to the
September meeting, Williams approached minority trustee Dave Lang in an attempt
to broker a deal between the board majority and the board minority regarding
the upcoming presidential appointment. Williams’ own testimony makes this
clear. It also implies that he sought, on behalf of the majority, specifically
to secure an “unopposed” or “unanimous” vote for Raghu Mathur as IVC president. These circumstances imply that
the majority had already agreed privately to support Mathur’s appointment prior
to the meeting on the 8th, in violation of the Brown Act. Further, insofar as Williams
was acting on behalf of the board majority, his attempt to broker a deal
between the opposing groups on the board in itself constituted a violation of
the Brown Act, for it constituted part of an effort to reach a “collective
concurrence” through secret or private communications.
Perhaps
inadvertently, Williams has provided useful testimony in establishing these
facts. On March 12, 1998, he signed a legal “declaration” regarding events
referred to in our suit. In paragraph 7 of his declaration, Williams
acknowledges that, prior to the September 8 board meeting, he spoke with Lang.
According to Williams, during that conversation, he expressed his “hope” that
the Sept. 8 presidential vote would be “unanimous or at least unopposed.” Later
in the declaration, Williams adds:
At that time I also asked Mr. Lang whether it would be possible to reach a compromise on the Mathur appointment with the Board members who opposed his appointment; however, Mr. Lang never responded back to me on that issue.
Just what do these assertions tell us? In the highlighted
sentence, Williams implies that there exists, first, a group of board members
(in fact, the so called “board minority” of Lang, Hueter, and Milchiker) who
oppose Mathur’s appointment and, second, a group (in fact, the so-called “board
majority” of Williams, Frogue, Fortune, and Lorch) who support it. Further, in
that sentence, Williams clearly describes himself as attempting to broker an
agreement, a deal—he uses the term “compromise”—between these two opposing
groups regarding the Mathur appointment. He implies that, in his conversation
with Lang, he regarded the trustee as a representative of the minority group
that opposed Mathur’s appointment. Finally, in the last part of Williams’
remark, he describes himself as waiting for a minority “response” from Lang.
Williams’
choice of the word “compromise” is illuminating. Observe that, by definition, a
compromise involves concessions made by each of two opposing parties relative
to some decision or action. With respect to the September 8 meeting, the
salient decision or action was the selection of a president by majority vote
among the seven trustees. But since Mr. Williams knew that his group—the four
persons of the “majority”—already had the votes to appoint their man Mathur as
IVC president, Williams’ compromise was not an effort simply to gain Mathur’s
appointment. That Mathur would be voted in as IVC president was already a done
deal, and everyone knew it. (Bear in mind that each of the board majority had
already voted—in April—to make Mathur interim president of IVC. Further, when
the 8th arrived, each of the board majority did in
fact vote for Mathur.)
For Williams, what was not yet a done deal was the nature of
the majority vote through which Mathur would win appointment—that is, whether
it would be a mere majority vote or a unanimous vote. To the board majority,
politically, a unanimous vote in support of Mathur would be much better than a
4-3 split along the usual lines. The occurrence of yet another 4-3 board
majority victory would validate the already widely-held belief that the board
majority were imposing their will on everyone else within the district. As we
saw, in his declaration, Williams acknowledges that, during his conversation
with Lang, he expressed hope that the presidential vote would be “unanimous or
at least unopposed.” Then he speaks of attempting to broker a “compromise”
between the two trustee groups. What else would this compromise be about if not
the adjustment of minority member votes in order to achieve unanimity?
I submit that there is no reasonable alternative to my
interpretation of Williams’ talk of “a compromise” in paragraph 7. In a moment,
I shall present facts that clinch the matter.
Williams’ word “compromise” implies concessions on both
sides—one does not speak of a “compromise” when only one side concedes
something. Curiously, though Williams seems to allude to the proposed minority
concession—namely, refraining from voting against Mathur—he fails to refer in
any way to the majority concession. One
obvious question raised, then, by paragraph 7 of the Williams
declaration is: what was the majority’s concession supposed to be in the deal—the
“compromise”—that Williams, by his own admission, sought to broker prior to the
September 8 board meeting?
The question is answered by others who have given, or who
will soon give, testimony, through declarations, regarding these events.
According to that testimony, on the 5th of September
(and after his conversation with Williams), Lang called Terry Burgess—then an
Irvine Valley College VP and Mathur’s supposed nemesis—and related to him the
“deal” offered by Williams. According to Burgess, et alia, the deal was that,
in exchange for the minority’s cooperation in securing an unopposed or
unanimous Mathur vote, Burgess and VP Pam Deegan would have their contracts
renewed. (It is possible that, at first, the deal called for the minority to
vote for Mathur; later, in response to its apparent failure, the deal was
adjusted by Williams so that it only called for the minority to refrain from
voting against Mathur.)
This is extraordinary. In effect, Williams was saying: “Vote
for Mathur, or we’ll fire your favorite IVC administrators.”
(It is significant that this is the second episode in which
the board majority had offered similar contract renewals for Burgess and Deegan
in return for “cooperation”—read “coercion”—with the Evil 4. Unfortunately,
because this first sleazy attempt is the subject of pending litigation, I
cannot discuss the particulars.)
Later that day, Lang, Burgess, Deegan, and one other IVC VP
[Bob Loeffler] met at a Coco’s restaurant. They had assembled, of course, to
discuss the deal—the “compromise”—that Williams was offering. According to
Burgess and others, Lang made clear that Williams was offering the deal, not on
his own initiative, but on behalf of the board majority.
After a few words from Lang, Burgess and Deegan immediately
said that they did not want to be the beneficiaries of this deal. “Don’t do us
this favor,” they said. Reportedly, Lang, who no doubt recoiled at the idea
that, by rejecting the “compromise,” he would be the one who caused or
permitted the firing of the excellent Burgess and Deegan, expressed relief at
their response, for he was very troubled by the deal and clearly hoped to avoid
making the decision whether to participate in it.
At some point thereafter, Lang called minority trustee Joan
Hueter and apprised her of Williams’ offer and the day’s events. Hueter made
clear that there was no way she would have gone along with this so-called
“compromise.” It appears that, at least by then, Lang recognized that, even had
Burgess and Deegan supported it, he would not have gone along with the
arrangement.
Lang also called Williams to inform him that the deal was
definitely off.
The next morning—Saturday, the 6th of
September—then-Chancellor Robert Lombardi called Burgess to urge him to support
the deal and to bring Deegan on board. Apparently, Lombardi had spoken with
Williams, who informed him of the failure of the attempted “compromise”
arrangement. (How Lombardi learned of the deal’s failure is not clear, but that
he spoke with Williams seems certain. Observe that the Brown Act prohibits
secret “serial meetings” among, not only trustees, but staff, such as the
Chancellor.) Lombardi, who, it is said, suffers from an exaggerated sense of his
persuasive powers, thought that he could bring Burgess around, but, even after
a half hour, Burgess, speaking on his own and Deegan’s behalf, hadn’t budged.
After the Lombardi phone call, Burgess felt obliged to
inform Deegan about it, and so he phoned her, but Deegan, too, was resolute.
There was no way she was going along with this sleazy deal. Following that
phone call, Burgess called Lang to inform him of Lombardi’s phone call and
Burgess and Deegan’s continued refusal to cooperate with such a repulsive
arrangement.
I should emphasize that, by all accounts, Lang was at best
extremely uncomfortable with Williams’ proposal. I have been told that, at some
point, Williams tried to induce Lang to support Mathur’s candidacy by promising
support for Lang during the December trustee officer “elections.” That is, in
exchange for Lang’s vote now, Williams would support Lang for treasurer in
December. Lang rejected this out of hand. Probably, Lang was less quick to
reject the “Burgess and Deegan” proposal because he recognized that the jobs of
two people he greatly respected were at stake.
So what?
Observe
that there is a great difference between, on the one hand, attempting to
persuade someone to vote for a particular candidate on the basis of his merits
and, on the other hand,∞providing someone with an incentive to vote for the
candidate (or to refrain from voting against him) that has nothing to do with
his merits—e.g., proposing to pay for the favorable vote or threatening some
evil if the favorable vote does not materialize. Usually, the former kind of
persuasion is legitimate; generally, however, the latter kind of persuasion is
sleazy and unethical—terms that clearly apply to Mr. Williams’ conduct and the
conduct of others, if any, among the board majority who participated in
hatching this extortive “compromise” deal.
No matter
what the details were, Mr. Williams’ attempts, during a private conversation
with a trustee prior to a board meeting, to broker a deal between opposing
trustee camps regarding an upcoming vote, was an assault on the ideal of open
and honest government.
With the
Ralph M. Brown Act, the state of California has wisely forbidden private
agreements among members of “legislative bodies”—e.g., community college
trustees. We believe that, prior to the Sept. 8 meeting, Mr. Williams and his
compatriots secretly agreed, through private conversations, to support Raghu
Mathur and, further, secretly pursued a deal concerning the presidential
appointment with their opponents on the board. These actions were violations of
the Brown Act.
I should add that, on the 5th of September, the district PIO contacted IVC
requesting photographs of Mr. Mathur to be sent by the 8th. Draw your own conclusions.
Especially when one considers the details of this episode—the
terms of the agreement, etc.—can there really be any doubt at all that Mr.
Williams and his allies are unfit for public office?
Williams: “Prior to the Sept. 8, 1997 Board meeting, I spoke
to Trustee David Lang, who voted in the minority against the Mathur
appointment, and told him that I hoped that the Board’s appointment to a
position as significant as president of Irvine Valley College would be
unanimous or at least unopposed. I did not request Mr. Lang to vote in any
particular way or not to vote, nor did I ask him how he would vote. Mr. Lang
did not tell me how he intended to vote. At that time I also asked Mr. Lang
whether it would be possible to reach a compromise on the Mathur appointment
with the Baord members who opposed his appointment; however, Mr. Lang never
responded back to me on that issue.”
See September 1998 Depositions
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