Steve Greenhut, editorial writer for the OC Register, was on KPCC’s “AirTalk” the other day, arguing with Gustavo Arellano about controversies at our district. A friend who heard the broadcast told me that Greenhut merely repeated Tom Fuentes' absurd and stunningly dishonest talking points, recently made in an interview on Red County/OC Blog.Have you read the interviews? Fuentes offers red meat and lies. The district, he says, is threatened by “union labor bosses” and their “liberal” agenda. Virtually nothing is said about our “plague of despair,” and our serious accreditation difficulties, brought to us by Fuentes and his friends.
This morning, Greenhut repeats the performance in his column.
Naturally, Greenhut reveals that he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. For instance, he imagines that faculty seek to avoid office hours and that they pursue “fad programs.” Huh?
To prove that faculty salaries are high, Greenhut cherry picks the unusually high salaries of “the district's real estate instructor” (?) and “[i]ts Spanish instructor” (?). He repeats Fuentes’ old canard about faculty's “36-hour weeks.”
He calls me a “union activist.” I'm hardly that. He wrongly supposes that Carl Christensen is the union’s candidate for the Mission Viejo trustee seat. No, the union supports John Wiliams, who Greenhut identifies as one of Fuentes' fellow anti-union crusaders.
Well, read Greenhut's piece. Judge for yourself.
Steve Greenhut column: An endangered friend of the taxpayer:
Anyone who is not in a coma has noticed that the U.S. economy is in the tank….
Consider what's going on at the South Orange County Community College District, which operates Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and Irvine Valley College in Irvine.
The current board has a fiscally conservative majority, and has been a rare friend of the taxpayer. The board refuses to do what most public education boards do these days – give the unions what they want and then float bonds to pay for the infrastructure the districts need. One of the big secrets of such bonds is that they really are pension and salary bonds. When boards give in to union demands, they use bonds to pay for the infrastructure that they should have been able to pay for without new debt, had they held the line on pay and benefits.
The South Orange County Community College District board has constantly opposed bond issues; managed the district without debt; balanced the budget every year and stood up to the district's surly faculty union. "We are the only community college district in Orange County in the past eight years that hasn't gone out for a bond," board member Dave Lang explained during a recent interview. "You can't find a more fiscally sound college district in the state."
Furthermore, the current board has put the focus on the students, not on the district's employees. The union is furious because the board insists that all professors actually put in the office hours required by their contracts. The district is more interested in keeping the teachers in the classrooms rather than having them, say, take sabbaticals to Europe. The district has focused on expanding its core programs, such as nursing, rather than on fad programs. They've built new buildings and upgraded older ones by managing their funds rather than putting taxpayers on the hook with debt. And – here's the rub – the current board has resisted the faculty union's demand for a 10 percent raise, something that would cost more than $17 million a year if all the district's unions get a piece of that contract. This is good for taxpayers, good for students and good for the vast majority of dedicated faculty members.
Currently, there are four conservatives on the board: former O.C. GOP chief Tom Fuentes, Lang, Donald Wagner and John Williams. There are three union backers on the board: Nancy Padberg, Marcia Milchiker and William Jay. Fuentes, Lang and Williams are up for re-election and are being challenged by the apparent union slate of Bob Bliss, Carolyn Inmon and Carl Christensen. Jay also is up for re-election and is challenged by a conservative-backed candidate, Arlene Greer. If the union picks up one seat, taxpayers better open up their wallets.
…
The district has 230 faculty who earn more than $90,000 a year in base salary. Almost all those employees earn significant "additional earnings" for everything they do beyond their short week – committee chairmanships and so forth. Then they get generous benefits. For instance, the district's real estate instructor earns a total compensation package of $269,343 a year. Its Spanish instructor has a total package of $183,000 a year. A lower-paid faculty member on the list earns a total compensation package of $114,000 a year. This is for a 9 1/2 month year of 36-hour weeks with only 15 weekly classroom hours.
Writing in Red County blog, faculty member and union activist Roy Bauer explained his side of it: "Naturally, the quality of a college cannot exceed the quality of its faculty. … There was a time when faculty salaries in the [South Orange County Community College District]were relatively high. … Further, in case you haven't noticed, living in South Orange County is expensive. But the era of high … faculty salaries is long past. These days, faculty salaries do not compare well with those of other districts in the area, and this means that the [district]is headed for decline."
Bauer and others claim, unfairly, that their not getting what they want will threaten the district's accreditation.
Bauer reveals the union approach in its full glory. First, it's all about them. It's expensive to live here! Well, that's true for everyone, even the taxpayers who foot the bill. Second, the claims are not exactly true. The California Teachers Association's own 20-year earning survey finds that the SOCCCD faculty are the fourth-highest paid out of 72 districts in the state. Third, union backers are skilled at focusing attention on those who do even better than they do. The faculty union wants to be paid at the level of the Mira Costa district, which pays the highest salaries in the state and is no model for fiscal responsibility. And the union uses scare tactics (accreditation) when it can't win the arguments on their merits….
If you go to Greenhut's column, you'll find my response. I've sent a slightly expanded version of that response to "letters to the editor."
UPDATE: several people have commented on Greenhut's piece. With one exception, they blast the fellow.
12 comments:
Write a rebuttal to Greenhut, Chunk, and send it to the editor. They just might print it. In your rebuttal you should also challenge Fuentes to a public debate on the issue. Let's sunshine all of this bullshit so the public can see exactly what goes on at their community college.
In case anyone is interested, the District is now in the 4th Appellate District, Division 3 Case No. G040033 fighting to defend its right to determine what students can and cannot look at when using campus computers.
Hard to say, but they've probably spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees defending this one. They are now arguing Ed Code Section 66301 is unconstitutional. Ha!
Now my dad is going to call and tell me he read this article and I will have to explain to him (again) that the Register lies and distorts - and no, dad, I don't make that much $$$ and I never will but you will never read about that in the Register.
I wish someone would hold that rag accountable - but it is a symbol of the kind of times we live in - people say anything to get what they want.
That's the same Greenhut who bragged (also on Mantle's show) about voting for Steve Rocco, the mentally ill fellow who is now a trustee in Orange Unified - yeah, Greenhut cares about taxpayers and quality public education. Right.
He's irreponsible in the worst way.
I do hope that some of you will write to the OC Reg, explaining the distortions and errors in Greenhut's piece. (I've already done so.) If you go to the article (click on the link), you'll find the email address of "letters to the editor" to the right. --RB
With fools like Greenhut it's no wonder that rag called the register is going under. Fuentes is very evil and will pay for his dirty ways some day.
The Reg has never held people like this responsible for the lies they spew - that's because those lies feed the appetite of their base. They don't print retractions let along apologies - they just sail on, lying through their smug teeth. Fortunately, the Reg is going under.
Our recent close call with the "50% law" should give OC voters pause when it comes to the current board majority.
I don't think OC voters, in general, mind paying teachers a decent wage. What they hate is high administrative/overhead costs in the educational system.
What can one do when a newspaper's senior editorial writer prints deliberate falsehoods - not opinions, but deliberate mistatements of facts? Any legal recourse?
I went to Greenhut during the early phases of my case, thinking that as a "libertarian," he might be interested in free speech using campus computers. I left some very incriminating documents with his office, but he never got back to me.
Anyway, I am now in the nice court of APPEAL on Spurgeon Street in Santa Ana (actually, it is quite cozy over there-- I love it) as a pauper with his fees waived, arguing constitutional law. Nobody seems to care at the moment. We shall see when they come down with their decision. Mathur thinks Cal Ed Code SEction 66301 is unconstitutionally vague! Can you beleive that? I'll be working on that tomorrow. My brief is due the 29th
Greenhut can't even bother to look up the academic calendar and get that detail right.
I would appreciate it if you did not paint the entire Orange County Register news staff with the same brush as Steven Greenhut. We are after all the people who worked 20 hours a day all bloody weekend to tell you where the WILDFIRE was and whether your house was likely to burn down. If the Register goes under, you think the LA Times or the OC Weekly is going to give a fig about your house and whether it burns down? Not a chance. Keep it up doomsayers you may get what you wish for, Orange County's only newspaper going under, and frankly, if you do, you get what you deserve.
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