Monday, December 19, 2005

Cronyism & Mirthulence

As you know, at the last board meeting (Dec. 12), Trustee Tom Fuentes, former Big Cheese of the OC Republican Party, expressed a concern that the faculty hiring process up for approval that night might permit faculty “cronyism.”

Ha! I say "HA!"

That Trustee Tom is pointing the fickle finger of Fuentes at faculty “cronyism” is Ha!-worthy in two big respects—beyond, that is, there being no evidence that cronyism taints our faculty hires these days. (Let me know if I’m wrong about that.)

REASON FOR MIRTH #1: First of all, it is yet another instance of the pot calling the kettle black.

Remember when Supervisor Chris Norby's brother Eric (who works at Claremont McKenna College, which has close ties to the Claremont Institute, on whose Board sits TOM FUENTES [Correction: there may be no connection between CMC and CI]) popped up as the Board’s choice to replace Trustee Dorothy Fortune? Fuentes and his Republican cronies tried to pull a fast one, appointing Norby and setting him up for an easy win in the next election. But our faculty union out-maneuvered the Fuensters and forced a special election, scaring Norby off (hence, Bill Jay).

In an article that appeared in March of 2004 concerning an "envelope" irregularity in that election, the OC Register explained that

The envelope flap [who says Marla Jo isn't funny?] is the latest wrinkle in controversy over who will be the new trustee for the district, which operates Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges. The election is to replace former Trustee Dorothy Fortune, who moved.

Trustees appointed Eric Norby, chief of staff to his brother, Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby, to fill the position, but faculty and students complained that the process smacked of cronyism. [Yes, CRONYISM.]

They gathered signatures on petitions to trigger a special election--a move that caused Eric Norby to resign, saying he didn't want the stress of running for office.
(OC Register, 5/27/04)

If you're in Tom Fuentes' circle, you have a way of poppin' up now and again in the world of power and politics that I call the Fuentesphere. And, without cronyism, there is no Fuentesphere, and there is no Fuentean Big Cheesery.

Just look in any corner of our benighted district that involves power or money—say, the IVC Foundation (money). Go to its website-- IVC Foundation --where the organization’s Board of Governors is listed. Oddly, many members of the board have close ties to the local and state Republican Party machine.

Why do you suppose that is?

For instance, “Governor” Anthony Kuo, a former IVC student and Mathur apologist, has for years been closely tied to the County GOP. These days, he’s an alternate on its central committee and a leader in the “Young Republicans.”

“Governor” John S. Fleischman served as the Executive Director of the state GOP. Presently, he is the Deputy Director for Public Affairs for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department--that would be Fuentes crony Mike Carona's Sheriff's Department.

“Governor” Adam Probolsky is a long-time Fuentes associate—indeed, he was on hand to orchestrate Fuentes’ “coronation” as Trustee Frogue’s replacement in 2000. (It appeared that he wrote the spontaneous answers that Fuentes gave to the board's questions that night.)

Naturally, Fuentes was hand-picked by some of his Republican cronies on our board. (Prior to Frogue’s resignation, certainly Williams and Mathur, and possibly Wagner, had close ties to Fuentes.)

Former Foundation director William Christiansen served for eight years as the Executive Director of the Republican Party of Orange County.

Then there’s current Foundation Director Al Tello (admittedly, a very nice guy) and Fuentes’ wife Jolene, and—well, you get the picture.

In the Fuentesphere, crony-impacted organizations create prizes for extra-organizational cronies. IVC's Foundation is no exception. Hence, this sort of thing occurs:

IVC press release (4/4/03): Sheriff Mike Carona to be Honored at Irvine Valley College Foundation Awards Dinner...The Board of Governors of the Irvine Valley College Foundation announced today that Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona will be the guest of honor at the annual IVC Foundation Awards Dinner, to be held at the Irvine Marriott Hotel on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 at 5:30 p.m. The theme of this year’s dinner will be “Securing the Future.”

“We are proud to announce that Sheriff Carona will receive our Hometown Hero Award and will be acknowledged for his contribution to the community,” said Board Chairman Duane Cave.


Natch, sleaze-ball Carona is a Fuentes crony. (According to the OC Weekly (10/6/05), these days, Carona is "struggling through embarrassing revelations about his incompetence, connections to felons, fund-raising irregularities and a sordid mess involving an alleged series of extramarital affairs....")

REASON FOR MIRTH #2. Our Board—or at least it’s various incarnations of the conservative “Board Majority”—has often been accused of cronyism. For instance, who can forget Matt Coker’s colorful description of our board?:

Anyone who has attended meetings of local boards…is used to the superfluous public ass-kissing elected officials give one another. Taking such manufactured passion to new depths is the South Orange County Community College District 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. (OC Weekly, 3/14/03)

What, one might ask, does Coker mean by referring to David Lang as a “dissident”? Well, before the Langster joined the Fuentes-dominated Board Majority, he could be counted on to point out Board Majority wrongdoing, including BM cronyism.

Back in June of 2000, the Irvine World News ran an article entitled: “David Lang…alleges cronyism in college district.” According to the article,

David Lang...told his colleagues Monday he objects to the continued recruitment of friends and political allies for jobs in the district…The trustee said he was appalled at the lack of ethics he contends is damaging the reputation of the district. “One can only hope we can avoid being dubbed the Tammany Hall community college district,” Lang said.

In the same article, Board Majoritarians such as Don Wagner seemed disinclined to accept the “cronyism” charge, demanding that Lang produce a list of names.

THE POSTER CHILD FOR HIRING IRREGULARITIES:

At the last board meeting, Trustee Fuentes seemed to be concerned about wrongdoing and irregularities in connection with hiring in general. (Something tells me he thinks teachers are lazy and corrupt money-grubbing rat bastards. No?)

Perhaps he is unaware that, for many years, our board was the poster child for hiring process irregularities.

To understand this, you need to go back to the late 90s, before Fuentes entered the picture at SOCCCD. In September of 1997, the selection process that had just yielded Raghu Mathur’s permanent appointment as President of IVC was sufficiently irregular that Trustee Lang was moved to write the district attorney about it. Wrote Lang,

A national search was conducted by the board for a new President of Irvine Valley College. Several internal candidates (including Mr. Raghu Mathur, illegally appointed interim president on April 28, 1997, according to Judge McDonald…) applied for the position along with more than 30 others comprising the initial pool of candidates. In establishing the selection process, the historical method was completely discarded, whereby a screening committee was appointed consisting mainly of the shared governance groups at Irvine Valley College to interview and present to the board the top handful of candidates, with their ratings and recommendations. The current process is a complete “white-wash” since the screening committee neither rates the candidates nor eliminates any candidates, and the entire remaining pool (several applicants [voluntarily] dropped out of the process) of 18 candidates were reinterviewed by the full board of trustees, with no consideration of the committee’s input. The reason the majority of the board prevailed upon the chancellor to adopt the revised process, in my view, was so Mr. Mathur would not be eliminated from the pool. Since I am writing this letter prior to the final candidate interviews, I am predicting that Mr. Mathur will be selected on a 4 - 3 trustee vote to be the next president at Irvine Valley College. It should be noted that during the initial interviews the board majority—consisting of the trustees Frogue, Williams, Fortune, and Lorch—purposely upgraded Mr. Mathur’s raw interview scores while downgrading those of the other candidates to insure his position in the final round. It should be further noted that although my disclosure of same would ordinarily be a closed session matter that I would not be permitted to discuss, both initial trustee interview sessions were also illegal under the Brown Act, due to the fact that the board president failed to open these sessions as public meetings and request public comment before adjourning these meetings to executive session. In summary, the entire appointment process was a complete sham, wasting the time of the entire board and, more importantly, all of the interview candidates. From a letter to Mr. Bruce Moore of the District Attorney’s Office, Sept. 3, 1997


All true. But nothing came of this, of course (the OC DA’s Office is a Fuentespherian nightmare), and the board simply went on to add insult to injury. Six months later (3/26/98), the Irvine World News reported that:

The board of trustees of the South Orange County Community College District voted 4-3 Monday to change district policy on the hiring of administrators.

Trustees Dorothy Fortune, Steven Frogue, Teddi Lorch and John Williams [i.e., the Board Majority] voted for the changes despite recommendations from acting Chancellor Kathleen Hodge…to study the issue further.

The new policy allows trustees to review all candidates for top administrative positions even if they have been eliminated by a screening committee [i.e., the search committee]. Fortune added an amendment to include vice presidents in the policy.

In effect, the board majority made official the controversial actions they took last year in appointing Raghu Mathur as president of Irvine Valley College….


But I kinda like that list idea that Wagner came up with. I think we should ask Fuentes for his list, make 'im hold it up in the air. What do you think?

NOTE: I don't know much about Eric Norby--haven't had time to research him. But it appears that he's smart and that he is some sort of scholar for the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna. The latter organization does research and, it seems, has provided friendly data or analyses for the movement to redistrict the state. As it turns out, redistricting (to make races more "competitive") is one of Tom Fuentes' big issues. (See Fuentes interview, 12/20/05).

Here are some factoids about his brother, OC Supervisor Chris Norby. Evidently, Chris owes his victory (over C. Coad) to his opposition to the airport (that would associate him with Fuentes, who battled big-money Republican moderates on that issue). He is a long-time opponent of eminent domain, which seems to lead him to oppose all sorts of projects that big-money Republican support (I think). Finally, he's "famous" for suggesting that we rename John Wayne Airport "the OC Airport"--you know, after the popular Fox TV show. He had to recant that one. Norby recently lost a harrassment suit--he lost big. No doubt, he's appealling. Norby seems to have close ties to the Claremont Institute (a neoconservative think tank), on whose board sits Fuentes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great research!

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...