It features the Reg's tired and inadvertently hilarious jabs at "union bosses" (Please, Register reporters, come gaze in wonder at our union bosses.)
excerpted highlights:
...Mr. Mathur's removal is particularly odd now because in recent years he had received praise from the majority of the trustees, and he was near the end of his contract. The board's more fiscally conservative majority, Tom Fuentes, David Lang, John Williams, and Mr. Wagner, have been publicly supportive of Mr. Mathur's job as chancellor, while union-backed board members Bill Jay and Marcia Milchiker, as well as Nancy Padberg, have been at odds with him on a variety of issues.
So what changed?
What seems to have been the catalyst for the abrupt move is a shift in political alliances by Mr. Wagner. During the December board meeting, Mr. Wagner voted, against his former allies, to install Ms. Padberg as board vice president and Ms. Milchiker as the board's clerk, removing Mr. Fuentes and Mr. Lang, respectively, from those positions. Ms. Padberg, Mr. Jay, and Ms. Milchiker voted with Mr. Wagner to re-elect him as board president.
Mr. Wagner declined to discuss the reasons for his vote, citing confidentiality related to the Mathur buyout agreement.
Our discussions with several officials revealed that the gossip meter is on high: Is Mr. Mathur's exit in response to an effort to create a new dean position for a faculty member at Irvine Valley College? Will IVC President Glenn Roquemore now have the inside track for the chancellor position? Or is it all just part of the ongoing infighting?
The decision to remove Mr. Mathur now doesn't make much sense. The district will continue to pay his salary of $237,231, plus benefits, for the last year of his contract while at the same time paying a new chancellor. Why not just allow the contract to expire naturally for this longtime employee?
Most disconcerting is the uncharacteristic move by Mr. Wagner, especially now when he is running to replace termed-out Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who is running for U.S. Senate. Mr. Wagner's newfound alliances may serve him in the upcoming election. Mr. Wagner has been mostly a fiscally prudent, liberty advocate on the South Orange County Community College board and seems to have a powerful grasp of free-market principles – which is why his recent decisions are terribly puzzling.
To read the piece in its entirety and to jump in on the soon-to-be burgeoning comments section, click here.
10 comments:
wow, the Reg isn't letting this one go, is it? I wonder who the "officals" were who talked to them?
Clearly the talkative "officials" were Mathur and his supporters. They are not going gently into that dark night. Watch out.
Break-ups are always so messy!
(Isn't it interesting that Dissent was on this story and its tangled roots before the newspaper?)
oooh, now the Reg is going after Don! Great, just what his invisible and unviable campaign needs.
Is this all about getting Wendy a job?
Whole lotta shaking' going on...
"Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the barn,
Whose barn, what barn, my barn..."
Isn't Jerry Lee Lewis sort of sleazy?
"Union bosses" always makes me laugh.
I (Roy) have added a comment to the editorial. The Reg allows itself to be used to do Tom Fuentes' bidding. Remember Greenhut's attack on John Williams during his trustee campaign? It was quite plain that Greenhut's info came straight from Fuentes. A series of deceptive and conniving actions are what got Mathur fired. Mathur's attempts to thwart creation of a deanship and to thwart one instructor's pursuit of an administrative position are a small part of a larger pattern. Talk to administrators. Most of them know this. If the Reg editorial writers had any integrity, they wouldn't be doing Fuentes' bidding. They'd find out what is actually going on at the SOCCCD. At least one of their reporters knows, but some of these people prefer to go along with the latest conspiracy theory. In the case of the Reg, that theory always traces back to unions. They've got black helicopters, you know. --RB
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