Last night’s board meeting: "no blue mountains"

By 7:00, the board had not yet emerged from its closed session and we in the auditorium waited and complained about the heat.

A rumor flew that Mathur had requested a raise. The nerve of the fellow!

I spoke with a Saddleback College employee who opined that the public sector is so “forgiving.” It’s not like the private sector, he said.

“Mathur couldn’t manage a Taco Bell,” he declared.

Another rumor circulated that Bob King, the new VC of HR, was being suggested for the role of in-house legal counsel. When, less than a year ago, King was hired, many speculated that King would likely end up doing legal work for the district. It was all very conspiratorial.

Obviously, King is not qualified to serve as general counsel for a community college district. He has little experience in the relevant law. What would motivate Mathur to make King general counsel?

Bob sure is interesting though. Did you know that King and his wife run a business called “Legally Nanny”? (Legally Nanny)

At their website, one learns that “At Legally Nanny, we are committed to helping you hire your nanny legally, maximizing your tax savings, and providing you with more time to spend with your family.”

One of the sections of the website is called “getting caught.” Check it out.

Park Ranger Bob Kopecky joked about the “rustic conditions” over at ATEP. He entertained us with stories of his wrestling with unruly air conditioning units and such.`

After a while, the trustees wandered into the hall and, as usual, when they were all seated, a strange tomb-like silence fell upon the room.

Williams launched into a prayer: “Oh Heavenly Father…Give us wisdom…to do what is right….”

Claire was treated to a big fancy “resolution” in praise of her efforts as Saddleback College Academic Senate President. It appears that she is well liked and respected even by administration. She’s “passionate,” said Lang. She’s “a delight to work with,” said Rich McCullough.


During board reports there were lots of references to the national championship recently won by Saddleback College’s surf team. “It’s about time,” said one trustee.

During board report requests, Williams asked for a report on installing “security cameras” all over the place. Fuentes didn’t seem to like the idea.

Bill Jay wanted a report on the possibility of a Saddleback soccer team. He suggested adding artificial turf somewhere for the football team, which would free up the old football practice field for soccer.

He mentioned all the excitement about the World Cup competition and the fact that the U.S. team was “eliminated by Chad of all places!” We all cringed.

Luckily, there were no Chadsters in the room.

Lang, wearing his Accreditation watchdog hat, reminded the board that there exists a process for establishing programs and priorities of this sort, and we don’t want to ignore or circumvent that. Williams countered by saying, I think, that the board gets to add its two cents anyway, cuz it represents the taxpayers. Thousands of 'em.

It's democratic!

Fuentes, seeking to poke a pin in the big blue soccer balloon, joked that the remaining discussion should be carried out in Italian.

In the end, all but Lang supported Jay’s request.

Item 25 concerned approval of “board policy revisions.” Among these was a hard-fought new policy re “employment procedures for chancellor” (BP 4011.6).

Nancy thought the policy was too long. ("There are too many notes in this song.") Lang spanked Nancy for not presenting her points earlier. Williams said that the policy represented “best practices.” Wendy and Gary reminded everyone that the Accreds dinged us for not having a chancellor hiring policy, and governance groups were hoping to cite board approval of a policy during the next round of Accredulosity. Delaying approval of 4011.6 would mess that up.

In the end, the board voted unanimously to approve 4011.6.

There was some discussion of a 120-page report designed to shed light on the organizations proposed for “institutional memberships.” You’ll recall that, last time around, trustee Wagner advocated removing the American Library Association from the list of memberships, owing to that organization’s being a bunch of “liberal busybodies.” Ultimately, Wagner got his way. He's been pleased as punch ever since.

For this round, Wagner wanted more info concerning “4Faculty," an organization that the Saddleback Academic Senate seeks to join. Nobody in the room seemed to know anything aboutt 4Faculty (Ac. Senate Prez Bob C had stepped out of the room.)

In the end, the board unanimously approved the list of memberships. (Still, I don’t get it. If the ALA is a problem, why isn’t the MLA a problem, too? The MLA bodies are pretty busy, too. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Item 28 concerned “personnel actions” recommended by the Chancellor, including a $20,000 raise for Mr. Goo. Evidently, the board was not pleased by that recommendation, and so it was essentially “pulled” before discussion. (See blog above.)

Also pulled was section G, the “change of title” for Bob King, currently the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources. The recommendation was that King’s title would be changed to "VC of Human Resources and General Counsel.” Obviously, the change would involve new duties and a bump in pay.

Well, evidently, the board didn’t like that suggestion either, so they pulled the item.

Don’t worry, Bob, you’ve still got that "Nanny” gig.

The board separately discussed 28F, which recommended approval of a paid leave of absence for Bill Hewitt—so that he can serve as President of the FACCC.

Evidently, trustee Fuentes’ “conscience” required that he abstain from voting on that item, for, he said, he opposed using taxpayer money to support a “private organization.” Approving this item, he said, amounted to a “gift of public funds.”

Others disagreed. The item was approved.

Item 31 was informational only. It concerned “basic aid.”

Williams took the opportunity to suggest that the district should abandon its existing funding model, according to which the two colleges are funded as though the district were on “program based funding.” (Basic aid funding provides us with much more than what would be provided by program based funding, since the former is keyed to local property taxes, and property values in OC are very high.)

Williams asserted that we are a “wealthy district” and yet the colleges are being forced to make painful cuts. We’re here to “support the colleges,” he said. And yet we’re “scrimping.”

Lang defended the existing model. He argued that, in the end, the district needs to make difficult judgments about balancing “infrastructure” and “current operating needs” with “other” needs (new construction, etc.). “We’ve done a pretty good job doing that,” he said.

Jay chimed in to agree with Williams. “IVC is really hurting,” he said.

After a while, Fuentes, a staunch supporter of the current model, joined the discussion, saying, nastily, that, evidently, when the temperature is over 100 degrees outside, it’s “Christmas in July.” He then seemed to say that our district’s current affluence depends on real estate prices, and, right now, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the fate of OC real estate prices. (Maybe i misunderstood.) I think Fuentes was saying that it is a great and perilous error to count on the basic aid gravy train.


Lang skipped ahead to item 40, which concerned “updating” the current district logo. Tracy Daly had taken the board’s suggestions and developed a somewhat modified and colorized version of the old logo. (See.)

She explained that “we’ve moved the sun to the correct side.” The update has a “dynamic” feel, she said. The trustees had the new logo before them.


Padberg didn’t like it. “There’s a tremendous value in tradition,” she said, implying that tradition means never having to say "it's updated." Evidently, in Nancy's mind, Tracy was supposed to add color and leave everything else the same. Even that wayward sun.

Marcia liked the new logo. She said so.

Padberg countered by saying, “I’ve never seen mountains that are blue.”

Marcia responded by saying, “mountains could look bluish. That’s a possibility.”

During his report, SC Academic Senate President Bob C presented a study concerning reassigned time compensation for senate officers around the state. The upshot: especially in comparison with other large districts, compensation for academic senate officers in our district is extremely low.

In the course of the discussion, Bob (and Wendy) noted that these senate officer positions are getting harder to fill, for they are utterly unattractive.

Wendy noted that she and Claire reckoned that they worked about 45 hours a week on senate business alone. That’s on top of teaching and raising a family.

Wendy also noted that, as the district has moved to more inclusive governance, the work of the senate president has grown. In the meantime, compensation for senate presidents has not.

That was about it.

(See also Tracy's Board meeting highlights.)