.....IT APPEARS THAT THE SOCCCD board of trustees is planning to set aside $2 million of basic aid money for the purpose of funding further litigation re “Westphal v. Wagner”—aka the “prayer” lawsuit brought by Karla Westphal and a group of Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College faculty, students, and members of the community. (I am among the plaintiffs.).....As you know, the suit was filed not long after some remarkable events in the district, including Chancellor Raghu Mathur’s curious showing of a patriotic video including a message about Jesus’ saving our souls—and Trustee John Williams’ “joke” about non-believers going to hell, which prefaced an invocation. (Both occurred during the Chancellor’s “opening session” in August of 2009.) Prior to those events, Trustee Don Wagner had offered some curious and offensive (to some) remarks defending prayer during his invocation for a scholarship event at Saddleback College.
.....Despite Mr. Wagner’s recent pronouncements to the contrary, the suit is going forward and the district’s defense is liable to be expensive.
.....Evidently, it has been proposed to reserve $2 million for that defense. I base this claim on something I came across this morning while reading the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees. Item 6.2 is “Allocation of 2009-2010 District Basic Aid Funds for Priority Projects.” (The May meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees will be held tomorrow night. The agenda is available online here. Go to the blue box on the right side of the page.)
.....According to the agenda (p. 203),
Currently, there is an uncommitted amount of $13,491,970 in basic aid funds for fiscal year 2009-10. Money is needed for facility projects, legal defense, and technology needs. Recommendations are now being made for projects listed in Exhibit A to allocate these funds.
RECOMMENDATION
The Chancellor recommends that the Board of Trustees approve the allocation of 2009- 2010 district basic aid funds for the projects as listed in Exhibit A.
Here’s Exhibit A:
.....(Click on the graphic to make it larger. The item in yellow says "Legal Defense for Invocation Complaint.")
.....I do wonder how Mr. Wagner will vote on this item. He appears to have made his defense of “prayer in the public square” a centerpiece of his campaign for Assembly.* Naturally, therefore, he hopes that the district’s defense against the suit will continue.
.....One might suppose that $2 million dollars of taxpayer money intended for a community college district should be spent on educating students rather than defending another arrogant act by right-wing trustees who have often used their elected positions for extraneous political purposes......You'll recall that, a few years ago, Trustee Tom Fuentes decided to sacrifice Saddleback College's Study Abroad trip to Santander, Spain, in order to score points with his right-wing constituency who perhaps approved of this gesture against Spain (which had earlier removed troops from Iraq). (Owing to fierce public pressure, the action was later reversed.)
.....On another occasion, Trustee Wagner successfully proposed ceasing the two colleges' memberships in the American Library Association on the grounds that the organization was a bunch of meddling "liberal busybodies."
.....Virtually all college libraries are members of the ALA and rely on the organization in various ways. To this day, however, the libraries of Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College are not members.
*Wagner’s official candidate statement includes the following: “‘The Family Action PAC endorses Wagner. He is a social conservative with a proven record defending faith, family, and freedom. Don is pro-life and supports free enterprise, traditional marriage, second amendment rights, and the freedom to pray in public.’ Larry Smith, FAPAC.” Note: contrary to this kind of rhetoric, "Westphal" does not seek to prohibit "prayer in public." Rather, it seeks to prohibit such prayer as governmental action. As far as the "Westphal" complaint is concerned, Don, as a private citizen, can pray in public all he wants.
24 comments:
Legal defense? Man, these guys are slimy and sneaky.
(love the changing header photos)
I thought Don was a fiscal conservative?
I guess Don's a fiscal conservative only when it comes to education and feeding poor children.
2 million - wow. What we could do with that to educate students instead of praying over them. Shame on the board.
Couldn't 2 million build a basic multi-purpose classroom building? We sure could use something like that. I teach in a converted storage area.
More classrooms please!
Isn't 2 million an awful lot of money for legal defense?
Don't we have more worthy needs to fund?
Love how this stuff comes up in summer when they imagine no one is looking. Typical.
Taxpayers dollars - millions of them - being used so that some elected smuck can tell me to bow my head.
You'd think the college presidents would have something to say about this huge expenditure.
Glen just sent out a college-wide email decrying this propored expenditure, especially in light of the budget crisis. His entire leadership team signed on. It was quite impressive. Go Glen!
The two million could be used to upgrade the shitty portables we teach in. Just a suggestion.
Well, the board's priorities are clear now - and it's not quality higher education. I am surprised but so glad that our college president spoke out about this foolishness.
Scandalous - who will vote this this misuse of public funds? The three fiscal conservatives currently running for office?
Vote for it? Those three proposed it!
9:41, you have a wicked sense of humor. Sometimes, it's downright bizarre.
Look, they paid Greer $25k for some conversation.
This firm just uses these events as a giant billing scam. Some pleadings are generated, they take a few depositions and do some motion work. A decent lawyer with two or three sharp paralegals working full time during the major litigations events could handle this, no problem, for about one third that amount.
How can they possibly justify allocating TWO MILLION DOLLARS for legal defense in their prayer suit?
Where are their priorities?
Settle the suit. Stop offering prayer to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Stop telling your employees -and your students and their families - to bow their heads. Start doing the business of managing colleges.
I suspect that the $2 million is intended to include enough to cover the possibility of the district's ultimately losing--at which point it would be compelled to pay its own costs and the AUSCS's costs. I doubt that AUSCS's costs would be high, since its lawyers work pro bono. So the size of this figure may indicate that the district's own law firm is very costly, like the lawyer provided to Raghu Mathur in his negotiations to gain favorable terms in his "exit." $25,000. Wow.
6:40 AM, I can one-up you. I'm forced to teach out of a broom closet and at night I have to sleep under the stairs!
Roy, how is working pro-bono cheaper than the conventional way? Wouldn't pro-bono ultimately cost more figuring in interest on deferred payments? And don’t tell me attorneys don’t charge interest, you know they charge for EVERYTHING they can, i.e. photocopies at $10 a pop, etc…
3:47, what is the point of the question? First, this is a suit brought by the plaintiffs, not the lawyers, and the plaintiffs, if victorious, stand to gain nothing--except, of course, protection of their rights (and the rights of others who desire not to have the government foist religion on them). This particular suit is being handled by AUSCS, which is a group dedicated to a cause, not to money. If people imagine that this well-known organization is secretly a money-making operation, then their cynicism has reached Tea Party or "birther" levels. FURTHER, it does not matter the degree to which AUSCS provides income for some of its workers, is such is the case. It does not matter because this case was initiated, not by them, but by the plaintiffs, who, again, stand to gain nothing, aside from the satisfaction of having upheld an important principle.
von Tavern,
The point is just that; how is pro-bono cheaper? First of all TMI, Tavern. “A group dedicated to a cause, not to money.” That’s a laugh dude, you actually believe that? Like you believe non-profits don’t make money either? You still haven’t answered the original question.
Pro-bono cheaper than what? Probably cheaper than Greer and all those other lawyers the district has hired through years.
Certainly if the plaintiffs prevail, they get legal costs - just ask WENDY.
And certainly non-profits who champion causes also have budgets and raise money - no scandal there. Just ask AL TELLO - the foundation is a non-profit but take a look at his salary.
Don't feed the trolls people - they just come back for more!
But the trolls are so cute with their pointy little heads and their pointy little beards and their pointy little self-serving ideas!
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