Thursday, January 12, 2006

Senate Bill 55 passes!


"Then the Law, sir, is a ass!!"

--Bumble the beadle in Dickens' "Oliver Twist"

t appears that Senate Bill 55 (see Earlier blog) passed yesterday. A majority of members of the (California State) Senate Committee on Education voted in favor of an amended version of the bill, which requires that

when the presiding officer of a local academic senate notifies, in writing, the executive officer of a community college district governing board that a motion of no confidence has been adopted by that academic senate with respect to a campus or district administrator of that district, the executive officer of the governing board shall cause that matter to be placed on the agenda of the next meeting of that governing board. The bill would also require the matter to be placed on the agenda of a second meeting of the governing board, to be held no sooner than one month, and no later than 2 months, after the first meeting for which the matter was placed on the agenda in order that the governing board may make certain determinations regarding that matter. (Link: Lowenthal's Bill as passed)

The bill in its original form was introduced by State Senator Alan Lowenthal a year ago (January '04) and was amended apparently by Committee Chair Jack Scott. Reliable sources have informed us, however, that the amended bill should be an improvement over the original bill. Lowenthal voted for the amended version.

The original bill was supported by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges (FACCC). It was opposed by the California Community College Trustees (CCCT) and the Chief Executive Officers of the California Community Colleges (CEOCCC).

According to what appears to be a recent analysis of the amended version of the bill (See Senator Lowenthal--click on "legislation"),

This bill clarifies exiting legislative intent language regarding members of the public placing matters on the agenda of a community college governing board. Specifically, this bill clarifies that "members of the public" includes, but is not limited to, representatives of community college organizations [e.g., reps of Academic Senates].

…Current law allows, essentially, any member of the public to directly address a publicly elected governing body and states legislative intent that any member of the public be able to place an item on the agenda of a community college district.

…Staff is advised that the intent of this bill is to address the situation where a community college academic senate adopts a vote of no confidence but the governing board does not publicly address the issue.

…The way current law is presently written, at best, creates confusion for local districts and, at worst, incorrectly implies that local boards must allow the public to place matters on their agenda (which staff is advised is not the case).

… The Brown Act, commonly referred to as the 'Open Meeting Act', among other things, requires that governing board agendas provide opportunity for members of the public to directly address the board…By adopting this bill's provisions, it is unclear whether we could inadvertently be superseding the Brown Act. [Evidently, later bills take precedence over earlier ones, when there is a conflict between them.] For this reason, staff recommends that, if the committee chooses to pass this bill [it did], the action should be to re-refer the bill to Rules Committee for subsequent referral to Senate Local Government Committee, which traditionally has purview over Brown Act provisions.


I must confess to being a bit hazy on what all of this means. (So, are members of the public entitled to place items on the agenda or not? --Apparently not. But Academic Senates are so entitled, in the case of votes of no confidence.) But, given Lowenthal & Scott's records and their support of the amended bill, it seems that we've got a victory on our hands. (Go to Lowenthal's website.)

You’ll recall that, back in May of 2004, 93.5% of full-time district faculty voted "no confidence" in Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur. (The fellow had suffered overwhelming votes of "no confidence" twice previously, when he served as IVC's President.)

At the time, the two senate presidents presented that result to the Board, but the board declined to discuss it then or later. (I don't think they like faculty much.)

SB 55 passed with a 7 to 2 vote (three committee members did not vote or abstained or were absent).

Among the "no" voters was committee member Bill Morrow, who represents the district starting in San Juan Capistrano and going south.

Morrow, of course, is a Board Majority crony going way back. Here's his picture (he's the guy in the middle) on the back page of the infamous homophobic "same-sex flier" of 1996:



lso, did you happen to read the article in the Times the other day about some new troubles brewing over in FUENTES crony Mike Carona's Sherrif's Office? Check it out. The Times article ends with this lovely paragraph:

George Jaramillo, who was fired as assistant sheriff last year, is facing bribery charges. The son of another former assistant sheriff is awaiting sentencing in a high-profile sexual assault case. The attorney general is investigating complaints lodged by two women who say Carona sexually harassed them. And a reserve deputy who also was the sheriff's martial arts instructor is facing felony charges for allegedly pulling his service revolver on a group of golfers he thought were playing too slowly.

As you know, a few years ago, the IVC Foundation Board of Governors (i.e., the Foundation Board of Fuentes Cronies) gave their pal Carona the "Hometown Hero" award.

In the meantime, Fuentes crony (I think) Dana Rohrbacher has come out in support of his good pal Jack "Sleazeball" Abramoff, inspiring some to speculate that Rohrbacher is hoping that his friendly remarks will inoculate him from Abramoffian squealage. (See recent Times article and the Parsons column.)

Maybe our foundation will be honoring that Abramoff fella soon. And then Rohrbacher!


REATIONISM UPDATE

You might want to check out Bob Park's "What's New?" (What's New?) The latest issue explains:

CREATIONISM: KITZMILLER V. DOVER SCHOOL BOARD DIDN'T END IT. Who thought it would? In Dover, the issue was that intelligent design was misrepresented as science. So why not misrepresent it as something else? In Lebec, CA, a course on the Origins of Life is listed as Philosophy, but it's still intelligent design. The Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, CA is suing the University of California for not giving credit for courses with a "Christian viewpoint." At Calvary Chapel, that's everything but mathematics. In Ohio, they don't bother to disguise it. The Board of Education voted to keep a controversial biology lesson, Critical Analysis of Evolution, that tells students to examine "alternate theories of evolution." Lamarckian perhaps? In a fundraising letter, Discovery Institute founder Phillip Johnson dropped all pretense, "our ultimate goal is to affirm God and defeat Darwinism...to shape public policy in accordance with conservative Christian philosophy and get it into our schools."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Will they make him go away now?

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...