The June board meeting: brother, can you spare a mil?

Board Prez Don Wagner looked odd, albeit better, without his mustache

Went to the June meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees tonight. Wanna report? I’ll just do this little impressionistic/"camera eye” thing—I can do that quickly—and then I can get back to watching Doctor G. (See Tracy’s highlights.) Trustees looked grim/mean, wanted to be anywhere but there…Don looked super-pasty faced. What’s wrong with 'im?! (Then, an epiphany: good God! No mustache!) 6:33: meeting started. Clerk reported nada from closed session… Three new managers introduced…warm and fuzzies: instructor Fumiko I. honored at the Cherry Blossom Festival, with 30,000 souls, including people from the “Japanese and American communities,” said Glenn…. Mathur tried to show one of his “Did you know?” factoidal video extravaganzas (maybe it was about those cherry blossoms), but this was the night of the techno glitch, so Don ‘n’ Raghu steamed and stewed and slow-burned about that. Upshot: No factoidal video. (“Somebody will pay,” he muttered, his lower lip drooping impossibly southward toward Hades.) Tom Fuentes reported that he gave a commencement address at Agrestic State U (Mathur 'n' Fuentes got honorary sheepskins there), up in LA. —He was proud, like a turd sporting a tiny goose feather…. Nobody mentioned Williams' “scandalously incompetent county official” problem or the still-fresh “PE-for-Geezers courses” flap—Williams kept smiling like an idiot, his only defense. Bramucci and Co. gave a presentation about the colleges' online instruction—looks like, quickly but surely, students are eschewing campus visitations in favor of inertial cyberspace stay-at-home-itude. Do the math! I think we’re witnessing Trad College's gradual extinction, not that that's necessarily a bad thing (it's only accidentally a bad thing). Dean Pat F offered something from the “bottom of” her heart in gratitude of trustees, but it was undignified…. (Some day, we’ll look back, and we’ll realize that it was right about now that COLLEGE IN AMERICA started circling the drain, disappearing like lead-piped Roman bath houses.) “I am a biology professor,” announced Marcia, as Don smiled sardonically…. Gosh, thanks you guys, for giving us more spare bandwidth, said Bramucci: it was "kiss-ass night" down at the Ronnie Reagan Room, I guess.... Free beer for big smoochers. (Well, Mathur probably ordered 'em do this smoochin', so you can't really blame 'em.) “I see lawyers” (in the audience), said funny Don, worried—Yeah, but item 6.3 (ATEP agreement for some firm to provide development services) went through like butta and sans discussion or questions. It’s democracy, baby, which is kinda hollow when the demos (that’s Greek) are a gaggle of apathetic and clueless jackasses who never show up for anything and who, no doubt, will look all hurt when the Big One hits and their Toyotas have eucalyptus trees smack in the middle of 'em. "Why didn't they warn us?" they'll cry. "Fix my booboo!" Well, I'm warning you now. Get ready for the eucalypti. IVC student gov. presented their tentative budget…pretty girl an’ dazed lanky vet taking turns giving dry-as-dust presentation as Helen L hovered like a vampire bat… The Saddleback kids did a slicker job—their treasurer (Ms. Andrews) was as sharp as a tack (chirpy too), and she took the next big techno SNAFU in stride like a pro, even apologizing for others’ f*ck-up…. Let’s make her Chancellor, I shouted (in my mind). Meanwhile, Fuentes squinted so hard that I couldn’t tell if he was asleep, dead, or pissed off. I still don’t know. (Have you noticed all the suspicion about Steve Jobs’ recent organ swap? Hey, you don't know hinky until you've thought through the facts of Tom's "fortuitous" liver switcheroo….and I bet he has an earthquake shelter, too, stocked with liver pills and Glocks...) After a break, consent calendar got spread fast with budda, except for 5.2—What’s this (asked Don) about the proposal to increase the parking ticket amount—and campus cops giving tickets now for lapsed tags and stuff? Is this revenue enhancement? Don’t like it. Big Brother is big and brotherly enough. Somebody out there started 'splainin', but the Wag said No, I wanna hear why the Chancellor here (rivet!) recommended such a thing....Raghu seemed flummoxed...eventually, he burped forth that he was just supporting Prez B's recommendation, is all.... Hmmm—what was that all about? Tension.

Don wanted to know why "our toad" had recommended dinging students for lapsed tags and such

Questioning cops? Williams got all defensive and brandished his 9 mil, which he promptly dropped on Don’s toe. An' he didn’t get Don’s point, neither. It was "philosophical," and John is more copical and idiotical. Poor Don: I almost never agree w/ him, and now this! At least he got two others to vote with him, even if those two beamed in their votes from Neptune. Gary P presented the tentative district budget, and that was sometimes riveting (frogs, toads), sometimes mind-numbing (Glenfiddich, meth)… Basic Aid is gradually disappearing… from 47 mil down to 37 mil in one year!…. Categorical funding will take a big (and categorical!) hit from the state (17% 36%?). So do we backfill with Basic Aid? Yes, yes, yes, said John and Marcia, but “Wait, wait, wait,” said Gary. We’ve always funded the colleges like they’d be funded by the state—it's a philosophical matter—and so if the state cuts funding for this stuff, then that’s what we do, too, unless we want to work with a different philosophy, know what I mean? Plus basic aid is for one-time expenses, so is that the idea here? One time? John and Marcia seemed thwarted, bewildered. John smiled harder. His head cracked open. Nothin' was revealed (i.e., something was revealed, namely, a hollow skull plus a tiny chickpea). “Let’s not overreact,” said Marcia, “until later.” Yeah. We’ll overreact then. Mathur (who had said nothing and who showed up looking like an old fat toad), saw an opportunity (or a fly), and commenced spitting and croaking, cuz he loves playin’ the “wise old” amphibian. “Yeah, better think twice about this, that's for sure.” He managed to wag that finger without revealing it. Everybody stared. Guess so, they thunk. Yup maybe so. But, in truth, Mathur was probably right. (Dang!) Plus, said Raghu, what do you think is gonna happen when we boost EOPS and DSPS and every other kind of PS—while all the other colleges are backin’ off as per state tightwaddery? Why, students will be wheelin’ and break-dancing up to our doorstep from all over the county, is all! Then what? Will we keep paying for this crew while everything else goes to hell in a handbasket? Don't think so! Everyone looked staunch. One thing: the colleges won’t be adding any sections in the Fall, just filling up any extra seats. Won’t be accommodating that influx, no sir. What are we, Santa F*cking Claus? Plus there's that slippery freakin' slope! Pretty much everything after that was quickie/slam dunk. Only: Marcia got all excited about the 18 new faculty—but wait! Actually, only 13 are new; others are replacements. Tom was very interested in that number. That many?! Now?! Didn’t like it, not a bit, judging by his mega-squintery. Yeah, but surely he realizes that it was his boy RAGHU who fucked up the 50% rule, forcing us to hire all these people, ready or not! You squawk when we don't hire; you squawk when we do hire: Are you just here to squawk, Tom? What are you, some kind of Republican? When Lee H announced that he would be a delegate at the big NEA conference (NEA is like the biggest organization in the known universe, and they’re about as sensible and sweet as the BORG), just about all of the trustees ('ceptin’ Marcia, who was examining a bug) stared at him like he was saying, “I plan to have sex with several farm animals atop the Matterhorn in July.” Me too (I mean, I stared, too—not the farm animal thing). (Note: three of these photos from Tracy's "highlights.")