Monday’s board meeting: machination SNAFU

LAST NIGHT'S nasty little meeting (of the South Orange County Community College District board of trustees) started with Trustee Bill Jay’s bizarre “invocation,” which was actually several minutes of amorphous blather about—no, not the Lord and his benighted creation—but Bill’s 38 years with the district and other decidedly worldly matters. Eventually, the fellow did get back to pious invokery. I do believe Bill then asked the Lord to “serve the students.” But surely that can’t be right.

Soon, trustee John Williams was presented with a tiny toy gun (well, I couldn’t really make it out) for his 15 years of service as a trustee. Irvine Valley College’s new VPI, Craig Justice, was introduced. He beamed.

Trustee Nancy Padberg, pushing for greater transparency, made a stink about some requests for conference money. She seemed to be sniffing around for evidence of John Williams’ notorious spendthriftian junketeering. (The fellow is shameless.)

Evidently, one of the conferences will be held in Canada. So which trustee was planning to go way the hell up there? Inquiring minds wanted to know. Well, it appeared that we just weren’t gonna find out.

Nancy noted, with interest, the assiduous efforts being made to keep this Canada-bound trustee's identity secret. Eventually, Williams got all huffy and brayed loudly that the board was “wasting time” on this issue when more expensive items remained to be discussed! He snorted. Board Prez Dave Lang then said he had no problem with more transparency about who seeks to go to these conferences, given that, as he said, trustees should be “applauded” for going to these darned things.

Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no.


BOARD POLICY REVISIONS:

Eventually, the board got to item 5.2: board policy revisions. There were 32 policies to consider. Now, these policies have appeared on the last two agendas for review, but, last night, they were finally up for approval. For whatever reason, Nancy and Bill waited until last night to voice any objections to them. Nancy wanted to consider each of the 32 policies individually. Bill complained that he didn’t even know who wrote the policies and he was troubled that trustees had had no input in their production.

Lang then explained that this was the third meeting in which these policies have appeared and, as far as he knew, he was the only trustee to offer input concerning them. He plainly took offense at the suggestion that trustees had had no opportunity for input.

But it does appear that Chancellor Mathur, the district's putative chief, runs the place like a partisan sycophantic weasel. That is, he runs the district with his four trustee patrons—Lang, Wagner, Fuentes, and Williams—and he pretty much leaves Jay, Milchiker, and Padberg out of the loop. For what it’s worth, I was at the previous board meetings, and I never got the sense that there was a clear opportunity for trustees to discuss these drafts.

And shouldn’t that be made clear? I mean, obviously, these policies are bound to generate some controversy. And they’re important. Shouldn’t the Chancellor or the Board Prez say, “OK, we’ve had time to look at these, and, next month, we’re gonna vote on ‘em, so do you have any input?”

Mathur just sat during the meeting, twitching his nose.

If you’ve attended board meetings, then you know that Williams, et al., routinely suggest that, if trustees have a question with an agenda item, then they should contact the chancellor ASAP and get their questions answered that way, privately, not during board meetings—which are liable to get bogged down with details. Harrumph!

On occasion, some trustees (Padberg, anyway) have responded to this advice with hostility, hinting that they are uncomfortable communicating with the Chancellor, cuz, well, he’s a lying, scheming, sycophantic weasel. I do believe that Nancy has said so—which, I must say, shows a degree of discernment in the woman that is far from contemptible.

Last night, Nancy seemed to say that there’s too much business being conducted between certain trustees and the Chancellor behind closed doors. The board, she seemed to say, should be engaging in discussion with each other—i.e., during meetings—rather than engaging in private “Q and A” sessions with the chancellor.

She motioned to table the “board policy” item. That failed.

Bill Jay stressed that we will be “living with” these policies for many years, and so it’s important to get them right. There should be a discussion, not just a vote of approval, he said.

Nancy then opined that it was “shameful” to push through important items without first gaining board input.

That set Don Wagner off. You know how he gets. I got off a nice pic of him fuming and spewing. Check it out.

In the end, thanks to Lang’s swing vote, the board voted 4/3 to separate the parts of the item—i.e., to consider each of the 32 board policies separately. Most policies passed unanimously, though Nancy voted against a few of ‘em. Maybe Bill did too.

Naturally, watching the discussion of these items was like watching paint dry.

THROUGH SONG AND DANCE:


After a brief break, Park Ranger Bob Kopecky and his crew made a presentation regarding the recent opening of ATEP in Tustin. Bob showed lovely pictures of the new facilities. He showed charts and graphs. He explained about the ongoing conversations with potential partners Camelot and the “Young Americans,” who, he said, are “spreading the American spirit around the world through song and dance.”

I looked up at him. Was he kidding?

He was not kidding.

The ATEP crew showed a recent KOCE TV news story about ATEP, which was pretty spiffy.

Wagner was curious about Saddleback College’s relative lack of presence at ATEP. What was that all about? Evidently, the problem boiled down to IVC folks carping that some of the courses that Saddleback had proposed would have competed with IVC courses.

Dean Peterson had lots of good chirpy news about the courses slated for next semester.


THE “PEACE DIVIDEND”:

Trustee Tom Fuentes was quiet last night, but he did offer some interesting remarks about the opening of ATEP. He noted that Saint Reagan had “turned the first spade of earth” at Saddleback College back in 1967. And now, thanks to the “peace dividend”—afforded by His Ronaldness—we’ve been able to close military bases (such as the Tustin helicopter station) and build our next college campus.

“I’m very proud of that,” he said.

THE BLOODY ACCREDITATION SHOOT-OUT:

That finally brought us to the item (7.1), which concerned drafts of the Accreditation (midterm) reports. As you know, the Accreditors have dinged us badly—about, you know, trustee micromanagement, administrative instability, the climate of despair—and now we’re supposed to report on our progress in dealing with these problems. A team at Saddleback and a team at IVC have been working for many months to pull all sorts of data and input together, and they’ve produced drafts designed to sooth the savage Accreditation breast. The final reports (one per college) are due in two months, and so drafts have been made ready for review for last night's meeting, with the idea that final drafts will be ready for approval next month.

Whew!

So what do Raghu and his merry band of trustees do? At this eleventh hour, they have produced a nasty little document entitled “Response to the November 30, 2006 Progress Visit Report” that seems designed to piss off the Accreds and the various governance groups. Essentially, it is a rant expressing objections by the Board Majority to the accreditation process and to faculty leadership.

Supposedly, it expresses the “district,” i.e., the board, perspective.

Mathur has ordered the colleges to “incorporate” this “district perspective” document (or its contents) in their drafts.

Really.

It’s not clear to me just how long this "district perspective" document has been circulating. Evidently, it has been floating around among trustees for several weeks anyway.

Once again, however, it became clear that the Board Minority (Padberg, Milchiker, Jay) were left out of the loop. Padberg complained that she first saw this document a few days ago. Marcia acknowledged that she had indeed seen this new “district” document weeks ago, but she did not understand its significance (namely, a document expressing the board POV) and so she did not attend to it.

Wagner, for his part, explained that any discussion of the document will have to occur now, since the final drafts of the two college Accreditation reports must be ready by next month’s board meeting.

Saddleback’s Randy Anderson spoke on behalf of the team that had produced the draft for his college. He noted that the new “district” document contains elements that lack documentation. Oddly, the document seems to address issues that concern, not the present Accred demands, but earlier Accred demands. He expressed concern that, by virtue of adding these new elements, the colleges will be failing to “move forward.”

Mary Williams, representing classified employees, shared Randy’s concerns. In developing the draft for Saddleback, she explained, an effort was made to avoid any further visits from the Accreditors. But these new elements, some of which are inaccurate, will just “cause debate.”


WENDY:

Finally, IVC’s Academic Senate Prez, Wendy G, spoke. She said that when, very recently, she first encountered this new document, she was very “disappointed.” A great effort has been made, she said, to avoid “pointing fingers,” but that’s what this document does in spades. Each element of the Accred report, she continued, should be documented. But now, she said, we’re being asked to integrate elements that are not documented. “That’s a big problem.”

Some of the elements of the document, she said, are “petty.” For instance, it complains that faculty leadership talk loudly amongst each other during meetings. (I’ve not encountered this phenomenon at board meetings, and I attend all of them.) If this is a problem, said Wendy, it has never been brought to leadership’s attention. Why does it appear for the first time in this document? The document refers to faculty filing complaints with the State Chancellor’s Office, and yet, in fact, faculty have not filed any such complaints since 2004.

Wagner looked worried.

The document, she continued, complains that faculty “go to the press.” But, said Wendy, if one Googles faculty leader names, “you won’t find” them coming up anywhere. (You will, of course, find the names of certain trustees.)

Finally, she noted that, if some of these new elements are integrated into the existing drafts, it is not clear to her that she, as Academic Senate President, can sign off on the report.

Whoa!

Wendy then dramatically piled each of the exhibits that the district wanted included, one by one. Each one, she noted, had already been included in the existing drafts. (The only exception was a document that had absolutely no relevance or standing.)

That point made Mathur and Co. look like total a**holes.

Lang responded by suggesting that the district (i.e., Mathur and the Board Majority) was not asking that all of this new material be added “verbatim.” All we want, he said, is inclusion of “our views.”

Wagner reacted quickly to that. Wait a minute, he said. As far as he knew, the idea was to include all this stuff verbatim.

Raghu seemed to be smack dab in the middle of a machination SNAFU!

Wagner carped that Randy and Company’s complaints about the new material’s lack of documentation are “very hollow.” He pointed to alleged examples of documentation deficits in the Accred draft for Saddleback College.

Randy then explained that the authors of the existing drafts have followed Accreditation guidelines, implying that inclusion of this material would violate those guidelines.

Raghu snorted that he knows all about Accred guidelines. He scrunched his nose.

At some point, Wagner started to back off. There was talk of some of the principles getting together in the coming weeks to arrive at new content (re the “district” perspective) that would be acceptable to all parties. “Maybe,” said Wagner, this new stuff wouldn’t have to be included at all.


Marcia Milchiker reminded everyone that our goal is to be accredited, and that’s what the existing drafts from the colleges seek. She asked aloud why, at this “eleventh hour,” this new information was being added.

There are some things in the new district document, she said, that she personally did not want in the report to the Accreditors. If, now, we whip up all of this disagreement, we will only be “shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Padberg suggested that perhaps some trustees (namely, Wagner and his ilk) should simply file a “minority report.”

That’s when she made explicit what was implicit in much of the night’s discussion. She said that the “Board Majority” (namely, Lang, Wagner, Fuentes, and Williams) does not “include” the “Board Minority” (namely, Nancy, Marcia, and Bill).

Well, yup.

Wagner blew his cork over that one. There is “no attempt to exclude input from any trustee!” he fumed. (Methinks the fellow doth protest too much!) But it seemed pretty obvious that certain trustees had been very involved in the production of this new document, and, plainly, the “minority” had not been.

John Williams then grabbed his enormous flanks and hopped up on one of his hobbyhorses. Some trustees, he said, just don’t do their homework!

“As a board member, I’m embarrassed,” he said. I heard a whinny.

Wendy then noted that this new document is supposed to represent the district and board perspective. But, obviously, she added, the document fails to represent the views of all seven trustees.

Well, that was about it. In any case, I’m tired of writing about it.

(To view the meeting, go to Board Video.)