Was Raghu gonna take his ball and go home?

.....

.....I talked to a friend today who possibly shed light on one of the odd rumpuses of Monday night’s turbulent SOCCCD board meeting.
.....On the agenda for Monday’s powwow was an important discussion of ATEP, that eternal lead balloon.
.....Trustees Milchiker and Padberg (et al.) decided to table the item—until July.
.....Why until July? Well, Mathur will be around for the June BOT meeting, but not for the July meeting. It seems, therefore, that they didn’t want Mathur in the discussion. How come?
.....Mathur’s always been ATEP’s biggest booster. (It was supposed to be his ticket to Mt. Rushmore.) And the Saddleback Academic Senate ATEP report—which was sent to trustees prior to the meeting—seems pretty anti-ATEP. So I figured these trustees wanted to shut out Mathur so he wouldn’t insist on promoting the dang thing.
.....There’s one big problem with that theory though. The only trustee (maybe Lang, too) who sought to block tabling the item (i.e., who sought to let Mathur squawk) was Fuentes, and Fuentes has always been the most anti-ATEP trustee. Why would Fuentes vote to float something that he wants to sink?
.....What I was told today makes more sense. Mathur was shut out because he was gonna torpedo ATEP.
.....Why would he do that?
.....Guess.
.....That’s right. If Mathur’s not gonna be around for realization of the ATEPaloola, then NOBODY’S gonna be around for that.
.....Well, that’s the story. Buy it?

Random Dissentecdotes:

• From Religion Dispatches magazine:

“Donald Wagner, president of the Board of Trustees, took offense to their offense. So, in response to the complaints, he threw what amounted to a public hissy fit cloaked as religious observance at the 2008 scholarship award….”

• From Dedicating the RR Board of Trustees Room:

“Tom [Fuentes] said he ‘enjoyed the warmth of [Ronald Reagan's] smiles’ adding ‘I still miss him.’”