WE ARE EXACTLY 50 days away from the SOCCCD Board of Trustees’ annual “Organizational Meeting.” That’s when the board selects its officers for the subsequent year.
It seems likely that Don Wagner will not seek to continue as Board President, what with the success of his campaign for Assemblyman (70th District). Political observers seem to think that Don, with his many endorsements and his campaign cash, is the man to beat.
He’s got Tom Fuentes, that notoriously crafty Neanderthal and GOP wheeler-dealer, very much in his corner.
That is worrisome. Tom’s not the kind who helps his colleagues with no strings attached. He’s definitely a “strings” kinda guy. And, in truth, though Don and Tom dominate the Board’s “majority” and share similar Neanderthal/Libertarian ideals, in some ways, they represent an important division on the board. Fuentes, true to his crafty and cronyistic nature, is loyal to long-time board toady Raghu Mathur, who, for all his faults, can be counted on to follow orders, no matter how unsavory, and to treat underlings badly, another plus in the sordid Fuentessphere.
Meanwhile, in recent years, Don Wagner has worked closely with faculty (especially with faculty on IVC’s accreditation group), and he’s plainly backed away from the standard, right-wing “lazy and corrupt faculty” worldview, while Fuentes continues to plumb its ugly and clueless depths. Further, as board President, and unlike Fuentes, he’s worked closely with Mathur; he’s likely observed Mathur’s duplicitous ways up close.
Don and Tom, it seems, don’t see eye to eye on "our good Chancellor."
So theirs is a marriage not made in Heaven.
What’s Don got that Tom wants?
These days, Fuentes, who underwent liver transplant surgery a year and a half ago, is frequently described as “reinvigorated.” He does seem more active—perhaps like a guy with a new lease on life. (Or maybe like I guy whose days are numbered.) And he ain’t going anywhere in politics, what with his odious baggage and his Pandora’s closet. So maybe being Board President has finally come to seem attractive to him.
Could be.
So I’m thinking that, starting Dec. 7, just maybe, Tom Fuentes will be the President of our Board.
We’ll see.
