"Fuentes World," part 1

Ever hear of Mark Bucher?

Now, bear with me here. Mr. Mark Bucher is a minor player in “Fuentes World,” the world of Orange County way-right-wingers who continually weave in and out of each other’s political plans and projects. The players of Fuentes World comprise a kind of Christian Neanderthal Rat Pack, and Bucher is maybe Joey Bishop.

EDUCATION ALLIANCE. Back in 1993, Bucher, then a businessman, and two pals—James Righeimer and Frank Ury—fought for passage of the “school voucher” initiative (Prop 174). Apparently, when that measure failed, the three amigos founded “Education Alliance,” in Tustin, an organization dedicated to placing “conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, on local school boards” (Cosmo Garvin).

At the time, Frank Ury was a trustee on the Saddleback Valley Unified School District board—having been elected as part of a slate that took out trustee Raghu Mathur in ‘92!—but, owing to Ury’s support of the voucher initiative, he lost in 1996 to an opponent who was heavily financed by the California Teachers Association (CTA), of which, incidentally, Raghu was a member. (CTA is the parent organization of our own Faculty Association.)

THE CAMPAIGN REFORM INITIATIVE (1998) . Perhaps that experience helps explain Ury, Righeimer, and Bucher’s decision to author the so-called “campaign reform initiative” of 1998. You’ll recall that Proposition 226 would have required “all labor unions to obtain annual written permission from union members before allocating any dues for political action or political education efforts” (Garvin). Evidently, when a very similar measure passed in Washington state in 1992, union coffers took a huge hit. (See Garvin and Cristopher Rapp.)

In other words, Prop 226, whatever its intrinsic merits, was a major threat to the clout of unions in general, and to the clout of teachers unions in particular. The CTA’s continued uber-clout in California definitely depends on the failure of such measures as Prop 226.

By 1998, Education Alliance’s campaign reform initiative had attracted the attention of big-time national Republicans. Bucher and his pals got much of their support in their battle for 226 from out-of-state Republicans who dreamed of passing such measures all over the country. One big contributor was J. Patrick Rooney, a close advisor of Newt Gingrich. Another was Gingrich crony Grover Norquist.

Well, 226 failed.

But wait! What’s all of this got to do with US in the good old SOCCCD?

WAGBERG. Well, in a way, a lot. Back in 1998, the Faculty Association secretly used mucho union funds to elect two anti-union trustee candidates: Don Wagner and Nancy Padberg. Both Wagner and Padberg were affiliated with Bucher/Ury/Righeimer’s Education Alliance.

No surprise there. Over the years, Wagner has openly advocated the school voucher concept, and he was a big supporter of Prop 226. As a conservative, he’s clearly way out in the darkest Fuentes right-wing frontier. In fact, you’d have to say that he’s a denizen of Fuentes World. (Not so Padberg, evidently.)

Wagner helped found, and is presently on the Executive Board of, the Orange County chapter of the Federalist Society, a right-wing attorney group with strong ties to the Bush White House. The FS is associated with the philosophy of “strict constructionism” (as opposed to judicial “activism”).

Only a month ago, the OC Federalists hosted a debate at Gulliver’s Restaurant in Irvine about Proposition 75—you know, this year’s version of the GOP’s anti-union “campaign reform initiative.” (The Republicans are gonna keep pushing this thing until it takes! It’s just a matter of time.)

The debaters? Beverly Tucker of CTA, and—you guessed it—Mark Bucher of Education Alliance.

There are other SOCCCD/Education Alliance connections. According to Kimberly Kindy of the OC Register, Trustee John Williams, who has long portrayed himself as the unions’ friend, “has strong ties to members of the Education Alliance, which supports opponents of union-backed candidates” (10/31/98).

FUENTES. And there are Fuentes-Education Alliance connections aplenty. According to the OC Weekly (in 2000), Education Alliance’s Jim Righeimer is the “longtime trusty lieutenant to [Dana] Rohrabacher and OC Republican Chairman Tom Fuentes….”

Perhaps you know—and perhaps you don’t—that there are three notorious right-wing “Board Majorities” among OC school districts. Fuentes, being the sort of guy he is, has hovered in the background, and sometimes the foreground, of all three. They are: (1) the Orange Unified School District “Board Majority” (which was offensive enough to be successfully recalled in June of 2001), (2) our own SOCCCD “Board Majority” (which was much dissipated by the inclusion of Bill Jay and the awakening of Nancy Padberg), and (3) the notorious Westminster School District “Board Majority,” which has taken aim at laws requiring fair treatment for gays. (Re Fuentes and the OUSD Board Majority, see OC Weekly, 12/28/01)

Mark Bucher was the Orange Unified BM’s attorney—yes, he quit his contractor's business in favor of the law in 2000—but he was quickly fired after the BM was replaced. Later, he became the Westminster School Districts BM attorney.

These guys sure do get around!

Plus, Bucher is the current Treasurer of the OC Republican Party—the organization that Fuentes chaired for twenty years and until recently.

Got all that straight?

AHMANSON. One more thing (for now). The initial sugar daddy of Education Alliance, and the chief backer of the OUSD’s Board Majority, was Orange Countian Howard Ahmanson. According to Jerry Sloan (http://www.skepticfiles.org/fw/alliance.htm), Ahmanson is a “Christian Reconstructionist idealogue and daddy deep-pockets [who has] embarked upon a plan to capture California’s school boards.”

What’s a Christian Reconstructionist? Well, according to Wikipedia,

Christian Reconstructionism is a highly controversial religious and theological movement within Protestant Christianity. It calls for Christians to put their faith into action in all areas of life including civil government, and envisions the private and civil enforcement of the general principles of Old Testament and New Testament moral law, including those expounded in the case laws and summarized in the Old Testament Decalogue.

(Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Reconstructionism)

In 1992, Ahmanson, a creationist, was quoted as saying: “My purpose is total integration of biblical law into our lives.” (See website of American United for Separation of Church and State.)

Funding the Education Alliance in its early years was, according to Sloan, part of Ahmanson’s plan to carry out his Reconstructionist philosophy in California/Orange County. (It appears that Ahmanson stopped funding EA by the late 90s.)

Ahmanson is on the Board of Directors of the Claremont Institute. Guess who else is on CI’s Board?

That would be Tom Fuentes.

That's some world, that Fuentes World.

More soon. —Chunk

(For a brief bio of Mr. Ahmanson, see:

http://www.nndb.com/people/374/000058200/)

WHAT KINDA GUY DOES SOMETHIN' LIKE THAT?

I left the last Board Meeting early, at about 9:30, and so I missed the fireworks that occurred during its last hour. As I reported on the 15th and 16th, Tracy Daly, the district's irrepressible Director of Marketing and Public Affairs, was grilled that night by the Board re her (and the Chancellor's) request for $229,830 basic aid dollars for IVC and SC marketing, outreach and recruitment.

That wasn't pleasant. Tracy took some heat from skeptical trustees, especially Wagner and Fuentes. But at least Mathur spoke up to defend the request. It had his name on it, not just hers.

Today I ran into a friend who witnessed the part of the meeting that I missed. I mentioned that I thought things were getting a bit unpleasant re the request for marketing moola.

She said: "That was nothing! You shoulda seen what happened later!"

She told me that, during the last part of the meeting, Tracy was again grilled, only this time things got really hot. The grillage concerned item 43, revision of the district "logo/graphic identity."

My friend reports that some of the Trustees were peeved about the item. How come we're changing our logo? We never asked for that! How come the mountains on this logo are too big?

--That sort of thing, she said. The 'Tees were generally miffed. Maybe not all of 'em. Like I said, I wasn't there.

But, sheesh. Talk about your micromanagement!

Evidently, Tracy took ALL of the heat for the perceived impudence or effrontery, or whatever it was, that the trustees saw in Tracy's logo revision activity.

Now get this: I have it on very good authority that, in fact, Chancellor Mathur was up to his eyeballs in the logo revision project! Without doubt, he knew about it and gave it his "OK"!

Like I said, Tracy took the heat, and there was a lot of it blastin' her way.

Did Chancellor Mathur speak up on Tracy's behalf? Did he stop everybody to say, "Wait a minute, I OKed this thing, so leave this gal alone!"?

He did not. He just sat there, watchin' Tracy's body jerk around as it was machine-gunned with bullets of bombast.

--You know, like at the end of Bonnie and Clyde. Only without Clyde.

Now tell me! What kinda guy does somethin' like that? --CW

UPDATERY by Chunk

1. Leaf eruptions quelled. Not long ago, Dissent's crack photographer, Raul, took some pictures of one of the so-called "temporary" classrooms at IVC. One photograph, which appeared in this blog, revealed the poor condition of the eaves of a prominent and notorious classroom--the one between A300 and the IVC Bookstore, which is affectionately called "the sh*thouse." (Well, that's what I call it. But affectionately.)

As Rebel Girl has explained, the eaves of this particular building appeared to be stuffed chock-full of very old rotting leaves. So stuffified were these eaves that they even sported unpleasant "leaf eruptions"--i.e., places where the cheap plywood could not avoid blooming hideously outward like one of those deep-fried onions at Outback. See pics.

Recently, we noticed that workers had ripped the old wood away and had removed the leaves. (See.)

Well, that's a good start. We appreciate the effort. We hope to see further progress soon! I mean, you're not gonna leave it like that, are you?

2. Can I have two? We are a peevish lot here at Dissent. A while back, we presented a picture of the typical whiteboard "eraser" at IVC, namely, a filthy old rag that looks like it may have originated in Howard's bathroom or worse. (See pic.) It's been stinkin' up A405 for months, maybe years.

Well, again, we've noticed a change. A week or so ago, Rebel Girl informed me that a set of white towels, each with a delightful blue stripe, suddenly appeared in her classroom and in another classroom of a colleague.

"Didn't they put some of those blue-stripe towels in your classroom?" she asked.

"No," I said. I was peeved.

But today I noticed that, sure enough, A405 sports exactly one towel of the blue-stripe variety.

I guess that's an improvement. Could I have another one?

That reminds me of an old movie I saw once. In the movie, a kid cries about having no shoes. His dad feels bad about that. Then, on one fateful day, dad proudly presents his son with a gift. It's a shoe! "Here you are, my son! Just what you wanted!"

The kid looks at it. Then he looks up at Dad. He asks: "Can I have two of 'em?"

Dad smacks him upside the head.

Just for laughs, I present a picture of an actual whiteboard eraser. (See.) I do appreciate the effort represented by the new blue-stripe towels. Still, why not purchase some ACTUAL ERASERS?

I would be happy to supply a hard copy of the photograph to the individual charged with purchasing erasers. Let me know. I'm in A239--you know, the office that forms stinky puddles near the window (underneath my computer) during rains. We've got tiny livestock, too.

3. Air testage. Somebody told me that, two days ago, some guy was in A200 with fancy equipment to test the air. Somebody asked him, "What are you doing?" He said: "I'm testing the air." The guy did not elaborate.

In the meantime, long-suffering Mr. S continues to stew in heavy juices of rank peeviosity in his unfortunate, spore-bedevilled office. He's particularly peeved about his rank and heavily spore-ified carpet.

One day, he told me that he was personally gonna rip the carpet out of his office and throw it out the door.

I urged him to hold off on that.

See? Chunk's no trouble-maker! He's a trouble-stopper!

THE UCI ALL-STARS!

DISSENT the BLOG has once again attracted the attention of Matt Coker of the OC WEEKLY. Check out his Nov. 18-24 posting at:

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/06/11/web-coker.php

(Or click on the link to "Clockwork Orange" at the right.)

Coker presents Trustee Fuentes' curious remarks about luring part-timer "stars" from UCI. (See Nov. 14 post on Dissent the Blog.) Then he writes:

Dissent the Blog's Rebel Girl (think Commie Girl, only not Commie Girl) just reported over the weeknd on all the reasons UCI's star faculty would not want to come to the South County campuses, including bad pay, part-timers must pay to park, crappy part-time faculty offices, crappy classrooms and various molds, spores and other nasty junk that wafts from the campus ventilation systems.

But other than that, they'll love it! Which is why Clockwork enthusiastically forwards this list of UCI faculty members we're just sure Fuentes & Co. would welcome with open armaments:

Urban theorist/SoCal doomsayer Mike Davis

Political scientist/thorn-in-OC-GOP's side Mark Petracca

Sixties historian/Nation contributor Jon Wiener

Middle East historian/Bush war critic Mark LeVine

Chicano historian/OC's preeminent labor historian Gilbert Gonzalez

The entire Cross-Cultural Center

French deconstructionist/UCI part-time faculty member Jacques Derrida (Mitigating factor: they'd have to dig him up!)

Investigative journalism lecturers/commie pinko fags Will Swaim and Gustavo Arellano

Is that enough star power for ya?

--Chunk here. Incidentally, Petracca is an old fan of Dissent (he used to ask me to send him the latest editions) and Wiener once shared the stage with IVC Philosophy instructor Roy Bauer when each received an award from IVC's Student Liberties Club circa 1998.

Plus Jacques Derrida once borrowed Rebel Girl's snorkel equipment. Or was it a kayak?

He returned it, sans deconstruction. --CW

Twinkle, Twinkle, Trustee Tom

"Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars…"

At the most recent board meeting, Trustee Fuentes opined that we should try and lure star faculty from UCI (and OCC) to come and teach at our little campus in the orange groves. (See "Nov. 14 Board Meeting, part II," 11/16.)

His proposal begs questions aplenty, but Rebel Girl will leave the begging of those to others more suitably irreverent and “sophomoric” (Red? Chunk?). She will presently address only one: Besides the glamour of working with Trustee Fuentes, what, exactly, is in it for these “star faculty”?

Who does the starry-eyed trustee imagine might feel motivated to traipse across town and teach for the paltry adjunct faculty compensation offered by the district, not to mention return some of it for the privilege and convenience of parking on campus?

Lousy compensation and paying for parking aside, let’s consider the bountiful resources available to our present part-time faculty. Perhaps these will attract the stars from the U of C at I.

Take for example, the part-time faculty office in A-200 (please!). A modest hand-lettered piece of paper taped to the door affirms that it is, indeed, the part-time office. The otherwise unadorned facility serves, theoretically, the needs of some 60 or more part-time faculty and their students.


The office resembles a windowed closet (with one window broken and leaning against the wall for months now), tucked away between a mail box arrangement and the cheerful Howard Gensler Memorial Xerox Cubicle, its constant rhythmic sound and light show, a jolly mechanical celebration of the ingenuity, creative thinking, and can-do spirit of that clever fellow. (See "The Howard Hilton," 9/30/01)

For those nostalgically inclined, the part-timer’s office conjures the sites of those screwball college pranks of the 50s where students crammed into telephone booths and Volkswagens, even as their parents cowered in bomb shelters under the house.

A quick survey reveals the bunker is equipped with two desks--that’s one for every thirty “star” instructors, teacher-to-furniture ratio-wise. The drawers of one desk are broken and splintered (or the equivalent of the splinters produced by particle board), no use to anyone unless they are going to use their gaping cavity as some kind of “cubby” or public storage unit. Or maybe this is what the Martha Stewart-type magazines mean by “distressed”?

Our inventory is completed by noting one table, one bookcase, three chairs, two computers, a telephone, and a scattering of table lamps.

But there’s more. Need I remind anybody that the part-time office is also an outpost or protectorate of the now famous colonies of mold of the A-200 building? There’s something perhaps the pedagogy stars are not getting in enough quantities over at UCI. Nothing quite like being exposed to Penicillium (a potential allergin-–I think that this is related to the stuff that if I ingest can kill me!); Aspergillus (allergy, respiratory infection) and my favorite: Stachybotrep (allergy, respiratory and skin irritant and some strains give off gases that are nerve toxins). I bet they don’t have this stuff over at UCI--at least not in faculty offices and classrooms, maybe in the labs--but not, you know, available for the taking or breathing. Not just giving it away!

And don’t get me started on the classroom conditions “star” UCI faculty would face once they leave their part-time office. You know how Rebel Girl feels about rodents in the ceiling, podia, floors and broken furniture. (Hey, has anyone seen the broken window over in the CEC building yet? Or the cascades of mulched leaves eating away at the sagging eaves? We’re talking YEARS of leaves here. Good compost, poor roofing material.)


She feels, well, like calling the health department.

That said, part-time faculty do, to their credit, use their sad little part-time office. After all, our part-time faculty may be employed part-time but they are full-time professionals. We all see them in there, making do and doing as well as they can.

It makes me wince. They deserve so much more--and so do their students.

The beautiful thing about Fuentes’ nutty offerings a few nights ago is that nobody takes him seriously. Or do they? I look forward to his follow-up and welcome a concrete proposal for a campaign to, yes, stay with me here: attract Senate and, presumably, Non-Senate Faculty to apply for teaching positions at Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges. And what might such a proposal look like? How would it be promoted? A junket to UCI? Lunch with Chancellor Drake (who’s got a liver ailment, not to mention contract struggles with his own faculty and staff unions)?

How about we just recognize the trustee’s yammering for what it is? A few minutes of hot air offered to distract whomever is listening from real issues. A purposeful blowing of smoke. Or as Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” says: “Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

Of course, trustee Fuentes doesn’t even bother with corroborative detail. He just says stuff.

-- Rebel Girl

SOME CARTOONS

We at Dissent used to have fun adapting old cartoons to our contemporary Dissentular purposes.

I thought it might be fun to reprint some of the cartoons from old issues--cartoons that might still have meaning or might have a new meaning.

Or not.

1. LEAVE! This cartoon appeared in the 'Vine (the predecessor of Dissent) on July 28, 1998. By that time, Raghu had experienced a massive (76%) vote of "no confidence" from full-time IVC faculty. As you know, he later (in 2000) suffered a 90% vote of "no confidence." In 2004, as Chancellor, he managed to hit 93.5% "no confidence," a personal best. (If you click on the image, it should get bigger.)


2. THAT MUST BE UNCOMFORTABLE. Eight or nine years ago, faculty warned the Board that the district's reserves were too low. The Board Majority dismissed such warnings, for it dismissed anything the faculty had to say (unless the faculty were Old Guard union patrons like Lee W, Sherry M, et al.).

This cartoon appeared in September of '98. At the time, Kathie Hodge was the acting chancellor.


3. LITIGATION ATTRACTOR. This next cartoon, which alludes to the Accreditation team's visit, is from an issue published on July 6, 1998. By then, the Board had been spanked pretty hard for its "persistent and defiant" Brown Act violations. And it had also been sued for (Raghu's) violating students' free speech rights (those suits were ultimately successful):


4. FROGUE IS "TOPS." Fiinally, this one is from the period in which Trustee Frogue was receiving tremendous attention owing to his embrace of wacky conspiracy theories, his apparent Holocaust denial (so swore numerous former students), and his plan to invite a crew of crackpots and anti-semites to a forum at Saddleback College:

THE NOVEMBER 14 BOARD MEETING, Part II

As I indicated yesterday, Monday night's Board discussion of marketing and outreach was kinda interesting, if "interesting" means "worrisome."

It started with the grilling of Tracy Daly, the gal in charge of marketing and chirpiness. Tracy explained that IVC's pattern of enrollment decline has ceased, and Saddleback's enrollments are slightly on the upswing. She's no logician. She immediately and unapologetically attributed these trends to her much-ballyhooed "Next Step"/Surfer marketing campaign. --You know, the one in which a moron represents studentry and our colleges are like wax.

(The campaign is not "ballyhooed" on the cover of the latest Lariat, which declares: "Ad campaign reviews mixed: campaign fails to attract many students despite winning national marketing award.")

Some trustees questioned the reliability of Tracy's "post hoc" reasoning. Good for them. I like Tracy, but a fallacy is a fallacy.

In the course of the discussion, Trustee Fuentes displayed his philosophical repulsion at the very idea of our luring students to our colleges. Something deep within him causes the fellow to cringe and squirm and squeal at the very thought of messin' with the "marketplace."

And this phenomenon of district's poaching in other district's territories? Well, that's a "cancer." That Fuentes sure has a way with words. He's got a point, though. Why don't all the districts get together and declare a moratorium on poachitude? Wouldn't that be sensible? For all I know, they're doing that.

Another aspect of the discussion concerned the responsibility of faculty for outreachery at the High Schools. Some have suggested that faculty are inclined to resist participation in outreach, and if they're gonna do it, they oughta be compensated.

Naturally, Trustee Fuentes seems to view such attitudes as a further demonstration of his Lazy and Overpaid thesis re full-time faculty, which he articulated on TV a year or so ago.

Check out his suggestions about luring "star" part-timers. Maybe you can explain to me what he's saying.

In the end, the item--a request for a big chunk of basic aid money--passed, with only Fuentes and Wagner voting against it.

FUENTES: ...Will [this marketing] be in our district geographically? Or are we talking about advertising and promoting like the other districts do outside of [their own] district?

DALY: Most of it’s here in our district.

FUENTES: All right. I think that’s something we need to come to grips with in clarity. It is a cancer that has spread among the districts, that there is this competitive recruitment, and it’s costing us, and it’s costing our taxpayers, and it’s costing the taxpayers of other districts. I wanted to respond to a comment that Trustee Milchiker made about our experience at Irvine Valley’s forum. I guess it’s who hears it, but I heard that very enthusiastic teacher [Spanish instructor Jeanne E.] tell us of her and her husband’s experience in outreaching, and going to visit other campuses, and the non-doing of that by others. I heard her say how few visited other campuses, that day that we went as a Board to sit in that forum. There were only six or seven teachers that came to visit with us, and she made the point, I thought, that more [instructors] needed to participate as she and husband did to go out to the campus….

…We talked about gas prices. And I related that, when this subject was first brought up, that I had a family room full of 18 to 20 year olds, because my son is a college freshman, and that was early in the semester. And many of those young fellas—surfers all—were going to OCC and to Golden West, and I can report to you, on the most unscientific poll ever taken, that they have decided now, at three dollars a gallon, to return to our local campuses! And I think the marketplace is at work, and it’s going to play a role in this.

Now, one of the most striking marketing things that I heard in recent weeks was an ad by our colleagues over at UCI, touting the quality of their teachers, being No. 5 in the nation, a striking contribution and quality in our community. Bill [he turns to Bill Jay] has addressed the merits of part-time faculty, and I would think we ought as a Board be thinking about more part-time faculty, especially star faculty that we might recruit from UCI to come over and teach some courses that would be a draw to students. These young people [students] shop the marketplace; these students look for name and identity, and I think we need to think outside the box and take advantage of the opportunity of part-time teachers. Maybe some of those part-time teachers that [students] are presently going to OCC and Golden West to take classes from might be available to us….

PADBERG: I am going to support the item. One thing that, I think, we’re missing…is the complaint that I hear from my constituent groups that there are not enough classes of the required courses for transfer for students, or they’re not scheduled at convenient times, so [students] have to go to other colleges…to get those. I know that this has been an experience of friends of mine….

HO: …I think the main detractors for students who live in our district, we are not meeting the demand of the classes, and that’s why I propose a mechanism in which we can see, recognize the demand…and respond to it…. [Ho is referring to wait lists and surveys.]

WAGNER: I think I agree with everything Trustee Jay said except his part about supporting the item. I think you’re absolutely right-on about what we need to do in terms of finding out what the students want, and what’s troubled me about this item, what troubled me …when the million dollar item came to us [months ago], and we scaled it back to $100,000—…our focus here with this program is still the wrong focus. What the hundred thousand should have been spent doing was answering the questions that Trustee Jay has asked. What do the students want? Not, OK, let’s try something new; let’s try a new coordinated marketing campaign; let’s do a surfer and have a logo. –All of those may be appropriate down the road, but I don’t feel we’ve done our homework to know that those are what’s appropriate…We aren’t sure we even need a marketing program, and we won’t know what a marketing program ought to say until we know why we don’t have the enrollment we want, and that’s things like, surveys of other districts and what they offer, that’s things like surveys of our students…Those are the things that we ought to be spending a hundred thousand dollars for.

LANG: …There’s a lot of wisdom in some of your comments…I don’t think there’s any question that we need to have a marketing program. I think the question is, is what the focus of that marketing program needs to be…We’re trying a lot of soft things—putting ads in movie theaters, etc…and we really don’t have a good idea whether that’s going to generate the additional student enrollment that we’d like to see…If we understand that students are looking to have a unique program here that they can’t get somewhere else, perhaps that’s what will generate additional student enrollment…It’s seems to me that…one good use of funds…would be to do some polling, to find out, OK, what is it that’s going to bring students here?

[Traci then explained that much of the work that Wagner and Lang identified as important is actually being done by enrollment management groups on the two campuses; they are active and they meet each week, she said. Chancellor Mathur, too, explained that the item under discussion concerns only marketing, and that much other work is being done beyond the marketing.]

MILCHIKER: [Reading from her notes for the forum:] Jeannie Egasse said that she wasn’t sure that Frisbees and surfer logos and things worked. Her kids are surfers, and her kids really didn’t like these things…She said other teachers would like to go out [for outreach at High Schools], but they would like to be given some release time so that they don’t have to go out on their own time….

THE NOVEMBER 14 BOARD MEETING, Part I

I attended most of Monday’s board meeting, and so here’s what I saw. It’s late, and so I’m gonna make this quick.

The room filled up pretty well with red-shirted CSEA members, some of whom were gearing up to address the Board during the “public remarks” portion of the meeting. But before we got to that, Trustee Fuentes led everybody in a rousing Pledge of Allegiance, but not before he offered some seriously weird patriotic blather:

FUENTES: “…Young men and women, some members of this district, are at the battlefields around the world defending our freedom. Let’s join together in pledging our allegiance to that flag, and that nation, that they defend.”

I stared at him, trying to figure out what makes him tick. It was like trying to understand a moray eel.

Trustee Padberg invoked the Lord, but that’s the essence of invocations, I guess.

For some reason, trustees really love to hand out awards and plaques and such, and so, with the help of Student Trustee Ho, four “teacher of the year” awards were presented, followed by photo ops. Recipients included Dottie Sherling and a fella named Pearlstein—they both teach Math at IVC, I think—and Susan Hecht and Robert Parsons of Saddleback.

Fuentes, who wore his standard extravagant “master of ceremonies” persona—complete with too-loud voice and subtle but theatrical gestures—seemed a little lost when he called out the four names and only Ms Sherling showed up. Maybe the other three were sending a signal. Could be.

I know I’d show up. I’d grab the plaque and say, “well it’s really very lovely to be here, and I owe it all to—well, I sure as hell don’t owe it to these people, who can’t even be bothered to visit the college, ceptin' for Nancy over there!”

How come nobody ever does something like that?

As I said, the classified staff did a pretty good job making their case for receiving a better contract than the district is prepared to offer. One woman explained that you “can’t get excellence" if you're only willing to pay for "mediocrity.” One guy named Cherry, I think, outlined the facts about other categories of employee in the district and the sometimes surprisingly generous raises they have received. Some administrators, he said, received as much as a 30% raise! And the Chancellor! Sheesh, the fellow is the second highest paid Chancellor in the system. (2nd? Good Lord, who’s the first?)

I’ve gotta say, most of these classified employees were very articulate and they made a strong case for their having been treated most shittily. Some referred to a study done by Johnson and Associates that showed that classified employees are definitely underpaid in comparison with similar workers elsewhere. Connie Z of IVC explained that the kind of raise CSEA was asking for its 450 workers would cost much less than the raises given to administrators, a crew of 28 people.

Well, it all sounded good to me, but the Board seemed unmoved, but who can say.


During their reports, Trustees referred to their meeting two weeks ago with Accrediting officials. They kept saying that things went well, but they also seemed kinda tense about these Accreds, like maybe they’re expecting to get wacked real good up side the head. They all looked flinchy, if you ask me.

Raghu explained that he gave an address to the Kiwanis Club in Laguna Hills. I thought he was kidding, but I guess not. He yammered a bit about some study that attempted to quantify the “economic impact” of our two colleges. Evidently, we bring something like a trillion dollars—or maybe a billion, or was it a zillion?—to the county. How do they measure something like that? I bet they just make it up and hope nobody asks questions.

Trustee Marcia Milchiker talked a bit about the “academic calendar” issue. I do believe that the “District Calendar Committee” has experienced lots of disagreement, and it has decided to recommend to the Board that the two colleges adopt different calendars—IVC would adopt one that allows for a winter inter-session. I’m told that Chancellor Mathur supports this idea.

In the end, of course, it will be up to the Board, just like everything else.

Student Trustee Paul Ho told one or two classic jokes of the self-effacing variety:

HO: “…Besides teaching me math, [Professor Sherling] also taught me that there’s actually three types of math student: one that can count and one that cannot count. [Laughter.] .... I attended the veterans ceremony, and [Mathur and Roquemore] were willing to let me speak, and I told them that I will speak free of charge and I think that your audience will agree with me that I am worth every penny of it…. [Laughter.]


Paul repeated one of his themes: the need for more classes, especially science classes. He spoke about the need for wait lists and student evaluations of online classes. He seemed to be underscoring the paucity of data for measuring the success of such courses. I think he’s an Empiricist or something. The fellow wants facts. It was refreshing.

Eventually, they got to items 27 and 28: goals. As you know, thanks in part to the help of a pricey consultant, the board has written some “district” and “trustee” goals. They're crap. The Saddleback College Academic Senate responded to this crapulence by editing and rewriting the goals with a big red pen. The IVC Academic Senate has endorsed the Saddleback red-ink editing effort. But, on this night, there was no mention of the two senates. Maybe that’s because Raghu and Co. actually incorporated some of the senate suggestions. Does anybody know?

As we’ve reported elsewhere, the Board has not made public the “Chancellor” goals. They remain a secret. Recently, one of the senate presidents asked Mr. Kinsler, the district’s lawyer, about the Board’s refusal to reveal the Chancellor’s goals, and Kinsler reportedly said that the Board takes the position that, legally, those goals “are not a public document.” Jeez. I seem to recall that the IVC Academic Senate has resolved to ask the Board to come clean with these goals. I mean, if taxpayers are gonna give a guy a quarter million dollars each year, shouldn’t they be told what he’s trying to do?

Chancellor Mathur explained that they’ve added a goal that says something about engaging faculty, staff, et al., in shared governance, but Trustee Fuentes, using that overly-deliberate televangelist delivery of his, got weird again and insisted that the phrase “to best serve the taxpayer” be added. I think that Raghu counter-suggested the phrase “students and taxpayers.” Yes, that's it!

They were pleased as punch. Everybody else just stared.

Trustee Bill Jay focused on a “goal” that concerned the expansion of distance ed, but he was concerned that it seemed to be focused on “just technology” and not “general education” courses. Lapsing into incorrectness (and 1952), he launched into a mini-lecture about the value of engineering degrees: “You can give a young man” an engineering degree, he said, and he’s set. How come we can’t put together a good engineering program?

Item 30 concerned “additional funding for colleges’ marketing, outreach and recruitment strategies.” Tracy Daly and her crew were requesting $229,830 of basic aid money for that purpose.

Right away, Don Wagner adopted a sour look, as though he'd just entered an IVC restroom. He does that.

This item produced the most interesting discussion of the evening, I think. [I'LL TRY TO POST TRANSCRIPTS OF THESE REMARKS TOMORROW.] Fuentes and Wagner have some kinda right-wing take: that you need to let the marketplace decide where students go. Somehow, Fuentes was put off by the idea of spending money to get students to go to our colleges. I seem to recall Fuentes saying, at a previous meeting, that if some kid in South County wanted to drive all the way up to OCC, then “God bless him.”


Well, Mathur and the rest of the board seemed to take the contrary view, that we are now in a “competitive environment,” and the other districts of Orange county are spending big money to get to our students. The days of “we will build it, and they will come” are over, said Raghu. If we don’t attract students, we will lose enrollment and we’ll have to lay people off.

Someone screamed.

There was some discussion about outreach. Raghu alluded to faculty “resistance” to participating in outreach at the high schools, but, he added, they now see the need for that. (I think he was trying real hard not to piss anybody off.) He said that we need to ask ourselves whether we want to grow or not. If we don’t compete for our share of students, we won’t grow, and we’ll have to “reduce staff.”

There was some speculation about the drop in enrollments experienced across the state. Chancellor Mathur guessed that the phenomenon has to do with the availability of “distance education,” which is growing by 10-25% yearly. So we have to provide that, too, he said.


Tracy Daly presented an overview of the fall marketing campaign, which, it seems, was viewed as a success by most trustees. Evidently, the campaign targeted “18 to 22 year olds.” Its theme was “the next step,” i.e., the step after summer.

Huh? I thought they meant that step off of the surf board and into the drink!

Tracy explained that her efforts are paying off: IVC had exactly 1 fewer students than last year—which means that the decline has been reversed or stopped. Saddleback headcount was up by 151.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc!

Bill Jay climbed on one of his hobbyhorses: that the best marketing is offering classes at local high schools. High Schools! High Schools! High Schools!, he seemed to say.

Fuentes used the term “cancer” to refer to the phenomenon of districts luring students from outside their own area. He looked pretty sour too.

Wagner seemed to express skepticism about the inference that the fall marketing campaign worked. How can we know that it did any good at all? How do we know it wasn’t something else that changed the numbers? He looked peeved again.

Well, that’s about when I had to leave, at about 9:30. I’ll try to find out what else happened, but nobody tells me anything.

Jack the cat says "Hey." --CW

Fun with Google!

Tidbit of the Night:

When I "googled" (I know, I know, I have better things to do)--but really, when I "googled" Raghu Mathur (What's an ace reporter to do on a slow night, huh?), anyway, when I "googled" Raghu Mathur - well, hang on, the second result (That's number 2) that came up was DISSENT!

Woo hoo!

We're proud!

Check it out:

from Google:
Results 1 - 10 of about 14,700 for Raghu Mathur. (0.26 seconds)

This one was #1:
[DOC] SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
Negotiators – Dr. Raghu Mathur; SOCCCD Police Officers Association. 4. Negotiators –
Dr. Raghu Mathur; Unrepresented Employees – All ...
www.socccd.org/board/agendas/TENTATIVE-AGENDA-10-27-03.doc - Nov 12, 2005

This chestnut was #2:
DISSENT the BLOG: February 2002
The Raghu P. Mathur-Dorothy Fortune Scholarship for Heterosexual Awareness. ...
Raghu Mathur saved my life. Woof! Raghu is a good master. Bow-wow! ...
dissenttheblog.blogspot.com

Here's #3:
DISSENT the BLOG: August 1997
There was an exception: in Raghu Mathur’s own School, the office never rotated,
... I think the accolades for Mr. Raghu Mathur are impressive; however, ...
dissenttheblog.blogspot.com/1997_08_01_

ETC.

--What this means, I am not exactly sure, but it's kinda fun.

- Rebel Girl (doing her part to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. What happened to the mold count anyway? Sniff.)

Somebody Out There Reads Us!

But we knew that already due to our handy dandy site counter (Thank you Mr. Debs!) and the news that we are now #1 when someone googles "Dissent the Blog" and hey, you should be impressed because there are other dissentful blogs out there but apparently our high rate of hits lands us in that desired place (according to Mr. Debs who knows about these things).

Anyway, it's nice to know we're being read.

As further evidence, Rebel Girl, up late this night after teaching a rather long day (yawn!), found this notice in the OC Weekly's Matt Coker blog, "A Clockwork Orange":

TIO TOMAS' READING HOUR

Speaking of PODs (Pals of Dana), ex-chairman of the Orange County GOP Tom Fuentes, who now darkens the halls of the South Orange County Community College District as a trustee, apparently has some scary ties of his own, according to the latest rants from everyone's favorite dissent-spewing SOCCCD website Dissent the Blog. Seems that Tio Tomas is on the board of directors of Regnery, "which publishes books not likely to be found on an academic's bookshelf," Dissent reports.

Hint: Evolution? Total bullshit!

Someone better inform the science teachers at Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges that their lesson plans need to be altered accordingly. Oh, that's right: they already know evolution is bullshit because of the weekly de-evolution they witness every time Fuentes and the rest of the SOCCCD board of trustees meet.

Ah, well, at least they've cleared out the Nazis.

+++++

Coker's blog takes on all things local, loco and around the state.

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/06/09/web-coker.php

That's all for tonight.

Say goodnight Gracie.

-Rebel Girl

CHECK OUT OUR ARCHIVES! HERE'S
A SAMPLE OF WHAT YOU'LL FIND!
(Click on image for greater detail.)

PADBERG VISITS WITH FACULTY/STAFF/STUDENTS; MONDAY'S CURIOUS BOARD AGENDA; the SECRET CHANCELLOR'S GOALS

1. TRUSTEE VISIT. Yesterday (Nov. 8), Trustee Nancy Padberg and Student Trustee Paul Ho toured Irvine Valley College and met with faculty, students, and staff. By the time I ran into them—at about noon—they had been joined by a couple of administrators that Paul had snagged.

As we neared A400, Paul had the bright idea of showing Nancy “our cadaver.” Yes, Dissent readers, IVC’s biology faculty secured their own human cadaver--maybe a coupla years ago. I guess that's why A400 sometimes gets seriously funky.

Something told me that Trustee Padberg would rather pass on the cadaver meet ‘n’ greet. Luckily, class was in session, and the cadaver was occupied. Whew!

Soon, our little group wandered into A200, which houses thirty or forty faculty offices, including the offices of most of the School of Humanities and Languages. It is no secret that Chancellor Mathur has long viewed H&L as a cesspool of devilish connivery, comprising a "core" of troublemakers who have expended prodigious energy over the years in an effort to thwart the administrative career of Goo and the interests “of the students.” Well, that’s nonsense, but the poor fellow believes it. As a consequence, despite its unequalled contribution to WSCH, H&L has some of the lousiest facilities and digs to be found in the district. Check it out!

At one end of A200 is the hideous zone we ruefully refer to as “the lounge.” It sports a linoleum floor, two cheesy desks, a motley assortment of stinkoid chairs, a microwave oven (which occasionally reeks of fish), a crummy little couch, and a large plastic tree. (See picture.) Students seem to use the “lounge” as a study hall. I found a banana there once.

Well, because of its centrality, “the lounge” was an unavoidable part of Nancy and Paul's tour. I don't know what Nancy thought of it, but I bet she was pissed, boy. I wouldn't be surprised if, later, she grabbed Glenn's ear again, and yanked him all the way into A200. She does that sort of thing. And why not?

Everyone was on their best behavior and seemed genuinely glad to visit with Nancy and Paul. People were smilin' pretty hard, but not in a phony way. I have no doubt that Trustee Padberg, too, was persuaded that she is more than welcome, and that she really ought to visit regularly.


I had to leave for my 12:30 class, but it sounds like the rest of Nancy and Paul’s tour was a great success.

I consulted the grape vine and it's sayin' that Paul caught some administrative flack for failing to inform Roquemore about this little visit. Actually, he tried to inform Glenn, but, as usual, Glenn was out to lunch. But by what logic is Trustee Paul obliged to run things by Roquemore? Or Mathur? Who do these people think they are, anyway?

We at Dissent speak for many faculty, I’m sure, when we say that we welcome visits from trustees. It is unfortunate that the board relies on Chancellor Mathur for information, as it seems to. I do believe that the fellow has convinced several trustees that faculty are lazy and overpaid troublemakers who seek to destroy the college. The truth, of course, is far otherwise.

Trustees, please visit! The truth is out there!

2. AGENDA ODDITIES. I’ve had a chance to look over the agenda for Monday’s board meeting. I noticed two peculiarities. First, it doesn’t seem to mention the new and improved “faculty hiring policy” that was hammered out and agreed upon by a committee representing the district and the faculty. It has been approved by the academic senates. All that remains is board approval.

Why on earth has Mathur left it off the agenda?

Dunno. But consider this. At the December board meeting, the board nominates and selects its new officers. If you put two and two together, then you get: trustee Fuentes might be our next board president. Think about THAT.

UPDATE (Nov. 11): Evidently, board president Lang has been apprised of the omission of the hiring policy from Monday's agenda; I have been told that he has offered assurances that the item will be included for Monday.

Second peculiarity: item #19 is mighty curious:

SOCCCD: CONSULTANT FOR PRIVATE INVESTIGATION SERVICES.
Agreement with Norman A Traub Associates for an amount not to exceed $10,000.

I’ve been told that Traub has been hired to look into harassment complaints. What’s that all about? Could be nothin', I guess. Does anybody know?

UPDATE (Nov. 11): I have spoken with an administrator about this; "they" assure me that the hire of Traub is nothing that warrants alarm. One curious fact though: Monday's item concerns a contract that extends from July of '05 to June of '06. If Traub has done work since July, why is the matter up for approval now?

3. PIPER AGAIN. Back in 1998, Trustee Frogue managed to attract the interest of lots of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the rest of the unsavory Liberty Lobby crowd. That came about because, in 1997, the Board had voted to approve a forum on the Warren Commission that involved inviting four conspiracy nuts, including a reporter for “Spotlight” magazine, Michael Collins Piper. But then the excrement hit the fan, and so Frogue cancelled the forum. That pissed off Mr. Piper, who was desperate for recognition or notoriety. It probably didn't help that, in press interviews, I had called him a "crackpot." [Piper's ultimate fate: HERE.]

Piper then wrote me (and Trustee Michliker) a series of letters. In my case, the letters were punctuated by the colorful noun "motherfucker." In June of '98, I read one of these letters to the board to indicate what sort of “scholar” they had voted to invite to Saddleback College. (See Archives, January and June, 1998.) Upon reading Mr. Piper's colorful prose, I said something like, “I know lots of scholars, and they almost never use the term ‘motherfucker.’” That got a laugh. Even Irv Rubin laughed.

But some of these letters included veiled threats. I told the district about it, and so did Marcia. The district didn’t seem to care. When Raghu told the board that he had received "mail threats" (and about a dozen other threats, none of which he kept, he acknowledged, during a deposition a year or two later), they gave the frightened fellow a "security stipend." Me and Marcia: we got zilch, even though we had real letters to show.

As you know, not long ago, I received a letter from Frogue, inviting me to join him for a fried chicken snack and a beer. He was pretty friendly, not at all threatening.

But now I’ve received a letter from one Joseph Forbes of Pittsburgh, PA. I quickly Googled Forbes with “Liberty Lobby” and found that his name comes up on some of the wackier JFK assassination conspiracy websites.

In his letter, he defends Piper, evidently responding to my having designated Piper a “crackpot.” At one point, he writes: “The Jews are in fact extremely powerful and totally ruthless, and their first loyalty is to Israel. It is entirely plausible that they could’ve killed JFK because he opposed Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. The Mossad is tight with the CIA and JFK wanted to destroy the CIA….” --It's the usual claptrap.

At the end of the letter, he declares, “Bauer’s book is well-researched and not a ‘crackpot’ exercise.”

Bauer’s book?

Why are these people such knuckleheads?

—CW

4. PESKY NEW GOALS (Nov. 11):


CRAPITUDINAL UNDERSCORAGE:

At the last board meeting, the new "Chancellor goals" were not revealed. The IVC Academic Senate Prez asked if the public should not be allowed to see them. The board was dismissive.

To date, no one has seen the chancellor’s goals. They remain a mystery.

Well, here's the latest:

On Thursday (Nov. 10), during the IVC Academic Senate Rep Council meeting, the IVC Senate voted to endorse the Saddleback College Academic Senate’s revisions of the board’s “district” and “trustee” goals. The idea seemed to be that these goals, despite the expense in producing them (a consultant, it appears, was paid $6K to help out), are lousy--they sometimes refer to items already accomplished and they generally look as though they were penned by fidgety third graders. So the Saddleback senate acted to offer revisions (and additions) that underscored the new goals' crapitude. On Thursday, the IVC senate decided to endorse Saddleback’s crapitudinal underscorage.

No doubt, the Board will look at these edits and throw them in the trash: "We don't need no stinkin' edits!"

THE SECRET "CHANCELLOR" GOALS:

But after the IVC Senate signed on to Saddleback's edits/rewrites of district and trustee goals, I raised a question. Have we yet seen the new Chancellor’s goals? Senate Prez Wendy explained that it is evidently the Board’s position that the Chancellor’s goals are “not a public document.” District lawyer Warren Kinsler seemed to be her source.

Some senators opined that, even if there were some legal justification for keeping these goals secret, why on earth would the board choose not to reveal them?

So the IVC Acadamic Senate voted (unanimously, I think) in favor of a motion to ask the Board to make the new "Chancellor's goals" public.

This could turn out to be a juicy little story. Be on the lookout for Red Emma's take on the secret Chancellor's goals! --CW

HAVE YOU PERUSED OUR ARCHIVES?
CHECK 'EM OUT!

WHAT'S WITH TRUSTEE PADBERG?

1. Old Dissents (and ‘Vines) to be archived at UCI.

Not for the first time, we’ve heard that folks doing archiving at UCI wish to archive the Dissent. We’ll likely pursue that this time. We’ll keep you posted.

2. NANCY PADBERG NO LONGER WORKING FOR THE COUNTY?

There’s been talk that Nancy Padberg no longer works for John Williams in his job at the County. Anybody know anything about that?

Here’s some background:

Back in 2002, John Williams, a former bailiff, ran for county “public administrator.” With tongue firmly in cheek (or no?), the OC Weekly endorsed Williams:

Slim Pickin’s: Hold your nose and vote for these few good candidates

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR: John S. Williams

Four people are running for public administrator, the county official who manages the estates of losers who die without wills or anyone willing to handle their affairs. Mark your ballot for John S. Williams, who has no experience for the job (he’s a retired sheriff’s sergeant). He also sits on the SOCCCD board of trustees, thanks to heavy backing from the Christian Coalition and since-deposed leaders of a corrupt college teachers union. Williams has served during a tumultuous period that saw the district nearly go belly-up, a stinging state accreditation report, the departure of several longtime employees (including two chancellors and scores of presidents at Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges), the obliteration of policies that allowed faculty and staff to have a say in running their campuses, and the fireworks that surrounded allegations that a since-retired trustee (and Williams chum) loved Nazis. South County voters, who are apparently as blind to all the crap going on in the district as they are to Christian fundamentalists’ assault on all of public education, keep electing Williams. So it’s up to the rest of us to help our southern comrades with a three-pronged strategy: elect Williams public administrator, eat your wills, and tell your heirs to butt out when the county comes looking for someone to administer your estate. Bury this guy in so much work he’ll be forced to step down from the college district. Our kids—even our Ecstacy-juiced, Teva-wearing, Girls Gone Wild-watching college kids—deserve better. (OC Weekly, March 1-7, 2002)

Shockingly, the post-corruption faculty union endorsed Williams too.

(Incidentally, I ran across a page of information that Williams provided to the League of Women Voters of California during his 2002 campaign. Williams here lists his “priorities,” including that he will “OPPOSE EL TORO AIRPORT.” Now tell me, what’s this Corpse Patrol job of his got to do with the airport? Exactly nothing.

Williams also lists his “key endorsements.” Among them: “Armando Ruiz, Coast College Dist. Board President.”

You’ll recall that Mr. Ruiz was one of the few district faculty low enough to play ball with Raghu Mathur and the Board Majority. Not long after he was transferred from Saddleback to Irvine Valley, he became an administrator, a notoriously bad administrator. Naturally, Raghu loved 'im.

Well, while Armando was messing up our colleges, he was messing things up over at the Coast District, where he's been a trustee for years. Recently, he acquired infamy owing to a scam he was running against the taxpayer. I'll let the Committee to Recall Ruiz do the explaining:

“Ruiz has fleeced taxpayers, collecting TWO years of retirement for every ONE year he worked. He also ‘double-dipped,' and now collects BOTH a Board salary and a retired Board member's pension for the same position. In addition, Ruiz deceived voters by using a false ballot designation on last November’s ballot, and has charged taxpayers over $107,000 for ‘conference’ travel during his term—while classrooms are begging for books and supplies.”

While we’re on the subject of boondogglery, I seem to recall some maneuvering at the county that resulted in Williams turning his tiny post into a real gravy train. Does anyone have info on that? Let us know.)

Well, in November of 2002, Williams was succcessful: he won the “Public Administrator" post. But, not long after he started his new job, he caught the attention of the Weekly again:

Anyone who has attended meetings of local boards, councils and commissions is used to the superfluous public ass-kissing elected officials give one another. Taking such manufactured passion to new depths is the SOCCCD board of trustees, which governs Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges. At a recent meeting, board president Don Wagner paused at one point to congratulate trustee Tom Fuentes for being re-elected to a 10th term as Orange County Republican Party chairman. Fuentes had earlier toasted fellow trustee John Williams for being sworn in as Orange County’s new public administrator—the part-time elected official who oversees conservancies for feeble-minded folks who can’t care for themselves and have no next-of-kin.

But what Fuentes did next says a lot about Orange County Republicans, county government and that particular school board: he congratulated fellow trustee Nancy Padberg for being appointed to Williams’ professional staff. The same board awarded a plum district administrative job to the trustee Padberg replaced [namely, Teddi Lorch]—even though her qualifications were questionable. The funny thing...is Williams was first swept into his trustee seat as a reformer who would protect South County taxpayers by ending rampant cronyism on the part of faculty and administrators.

Dissident trustee David Lang has long complained of cronyism practiced by Fuentes, Williams, Padberg, Wagner and Dorothy Fortune—Republicans who cast identical votes so often you’d think they trained at the old Soviet Politburo. We would have asked Padberg if she foresees any conflicts, but she was too busy nominating her new boss Williams to a seat on the California Community College Trustees board of directors. —Matt Coker, OC Weekly, 3/14/03

—Well, the days in which Fuentes, Williams, Wagner, Fortune, and Padberg voted as a block are long over, and not merely because Dot “Central Cal” Fortune resigned (amid allegations that she no longer lived in Orange County). Padberg has revealed a reasonable streak—and a dislike of Raghu Mathur—and one suspects that she has thus incurred the wrath of Fuentes and the rest of his Mathur-loving trustee contingent, which seems to include John Williams.

Well, the word is that Padberg no longer works for Williams. Anybody know anything about that? Again, let us know! —CW