John Williams' well-traveled low road

• SADDLEBACK'S NEW PRESIDENT. I keep running into folks who tell me that Saddleback College's new president, Todd Burnett, just doesn't listen to people. Nope (they say), he's got it all figured out.

As you know, the fellow, while impressive (if being Arnold's appointment secretary is impressive), has no experience as a college administrator (he's worked with policies a lot). So you'd think that he'd be WAY open to advice. Well, he is, but only if he gives it. (This reminds me of something we used to say in grad school: "He who enters with bombast exits with kicked ass.")

Perhaps some of you out there have more favorable stories to tell about the fellow? Do tell!

Prez Todd Burnett consults with small bird:


• Q: O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? A: ORLANDO. In my recent report on the August meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, I mentioned trustee Nancy Padberg's latest effort to reveal trustee excess. This usually means that she's zeroing in on John Williams' expensive junketeering, tie-clip hoarding, and the like. You'll recall that, in the past, Padberg has singled out Williams' trips to Orlando, Florida, on the district's dime—for conferences that, according to the Nance, are no more informative or educational than those available to Williams here in the Golden State.

But I forgot to mention that Williams has a brother in Orlando—you know, a brother he'd like to visit without having to bother with those pesky travel expenses. For a dozen years now, various sources close to Williams have told me that he's a perky kinda guy. Evidently, he's shamelessly perky.

These local "fiscal conservatives" are really something, aren't they?

• CHRISTENSEN V. WILLIAMS. Could someone please enlighten me about this Carl Christensen fellow who's running against Williams for the Mission Viejo board seat? I do believe that he is a Saddleback College professor who retired in 1999. Evidently, he was the president of the Faculty Association one or two hundred years ago.

For a guy running for SOCCCD trustee, Carl Christensen is stunningly clueless. A few months ago, he showed up at a board meeting carping about the dearth of post-WW II history classes offered at Saddleback College. That might be a real issue—I have no idea—but surely it is less pressing than forty or fifty others that even Walter Flosser could name.

On his blog, Christensen inveighs against the exploitation of part-timers and the unfortunate full-time/part-time ratio at the colleges. Well, that's great, but he seemed utterly unaware of the district's Spring hiring of 38 new full-time faculty—which must have done wonders for that ratio—until, that is, I advised him to get up to speed by reading DtB.

His blog does not mention our accreditation problem. Nor does it mention the endless expense of getting ATEP off the ground. It doesn't mention the board's imposing a universally despised Chancellor upon the district community. Until others clued him in, Christensen was unaware of the district's "50% Law" problem.

Why so clueless? Is Tom Fuentes his advisor?

Three weeks ago, he did report something interesting:

I received a telephone call from someone associated with the SOCCCD. In an effort to act as a mediator the person informed me that an incumbent on the Board ... had found my Sample Ballot Statement ... to be "inflammatory". Therefore the incumbent Board member would likely encumber me with the legal fees of a lawsuit unless I removed the Sample Ballot Statement before the deadline.... I told the mediator that I appreciated his efforts to resolve the issue.

I reread Christensen's "statement" and it is about as inflammatory as a cat turd. (I quote it in full at the end of this post, for those who enjoy turd-reading.)

The "incumbent" that Christensen is referring to would have to be John Williams. (Um, who else?) So, evidently, the mysterious "mediator" was telling Christensen that Williams would pursue an expensive-to-Christensen lawsuit over Christensen's "inflammatory" campaign statement that, in truth, is plainly uninflammatory ("flammatory," I guess).

Clueless Carl doesn't seem to know it, but the phone call was a dirty campaign trick.

Naturally, I don't know whether a Williams shill (or indeed anyone) made a call to Christensen about this supposed lawsuit. But it would be just like Williams to arrange something like that.

I first encountered Williams' Karl Rovian side back in 1996, even before he and three others used a misleading and homophobic flier to get elected. In the mid-90s, John and his pals wrote a series of highly truth-challenged letters about then-trustee Harriett Walther and her supposed board misconduct. Walther had a technical and inadvertent conflict-of-interest problem re a board vote granting a tiny contract to the ACCT. Williams and Co. jumped on that and blew it up into absurdly mammoth proportions. You'd swear she'd been receiving valuable cash prizes in manilla folders down in the basement of the Watergate Hotel. I recall being stunned by the bold dishonesty and ruthlessness of that effort. (See the CFPPC letter re Walther's violation at the end of this post.)

(And I won't even go into Williams' infamous attempted secret deal with two IVC administrators back in 1997. I mean, I won't even mention how this inspired a judge to refer to the board's "persistent and defiant misconduct.")

Carl, if you are reading this, there are two things you need to know about John Williams. First, he's stupid. Second, behind his boyish demeanor and his genuine "golly, I was a bailiff and I shur dew luv sports" blather is a guy who often and easily takes the low road. 

He's our crafty cretin, our devious dunderhead, our Napoleon of nincompoops.

Christensen's "inflammatory" campaign statement:

"Formerly a president of the SOCCCD Faculty Association, I retired as a full time Saddleback instructor after 28 years. I believe students should have the quality teaching of carefully selected full time staff. [FLAME!] I believe current emphasis on reducing costs by hiring part timers is detrimental to quality teaching.

Also, Saddleback College offers only one section of US History Since World War II as compared to offering 32 sections of American history dealing primarily or exclusively with American history before World War II. [IT'S A VERITABLE HOLOCAUST!] The argument for limiting classroom access to the recent past is that not enough time has elapsed since World War II for that era to have been analyzed. However, when that one section fills, many students are being denied classroom access to post-World War II events which are the most important events in creating the present world. What is common knowledge to their parents and grandparents essentially remains a mystery to Saddleback students.

I was a sergeant in the Korean War. [OH, THE HUMANITY!] I worked two fire seasons as a Forest Fire Truck Driver for the California Division of Forestry. Prior to Saddleback I taught full time for six years at Mount San Antonio College.

• • •

Re the Walther "violation":

The California Fair Political Practices Commission sent a "Case Closure Memorandum" to Trustee Harriett Walther concerning the charge that she had violated "conflict of interest" provisions. (5/3/95)

The memorandum ends with a paragraph that makes clear that Walther's violation was merely technical and insubstantial (see below).

The faculty union--on behalf of Frogue, Williams, Fortune and Davis--secured this document and quoted from it selectively and deceptively in fliers and ads during the 1996 trustees' campaign. Williams did the same in "letters to the editor."

What follows is the key section of the memo that the union conveniently failed to reveal in "exposing" the existence of the CFPPC document:

However, we have determined that prosecution for this violation is not warranted based on several mitigating factors which include: 1) the vote to approve the ACCT contract was unanimous and apparently would have been approved without Ms. Walther's vote; 2) it appears that Ms. Walther did not believe that she had a conflict of interest with regard to the ACCT contract, and had she known, it appears she would have abstained from the decision; 3) as a telephone research consultant, she did not stand to gain any commission or bonus as a result of the contract; 4) all other members of the SCCD involved in the ACCT contract were informed by Ms. Walther that she had been employed by ACCT, and 5) Ms. Walther has no prior enforcement history with the Commission.