The June board meeting (aka "Where's Raghu?" or "Gary Poertner appreciation night!")

WHERE'S RAGHU?
     By 6:15, some of the trustees had finally entered the "Ronald Reagan BOT" room, and I noticed that Chancellor Raghu Mathur’s nameplate (up on the dais) had been covered with a piece of paper upon which was scrawled, “Gary Poertner, Deputy Chancellor.”
     I asked someone where Raghu was. “He is not present,” she said.
     Oh. Obviously, there was a story, but she wasn’t going to tell it. Not to me.
     Finally, board President Don Wagner arrived. The room immediately grew quiet.
     A minute later, the meeting began, with Marcia Michiker, board Clerk, reading out actions taken in closed session: (1) a 7-0 approval of Don Bushe as acting VPI (at Saddleback College) for one year. (2) 7-0 approval of Juan Avalos (?) as Vice President of Student Services, starting in July.
     Marcia’s invocation was relatively unreligious.

GARY POERTNER, RETIRING HERO
     A number of resolutions were read, including one for retiring Vice Chancellor Gary Poertner, a popular guy among trustees, administrators, and faculty, owing to his mesmerizing and sensational combo of two traits: niceness and competence.
     Upon being resolved at (upon?), and experiencing an impressive Standing O, Poertner said, “Boy, that was embarrassing.” He seemed to be breaking out in hives.
     There were no requests to speak (public comments).
     Next came board reports: Bill Jay made a pitch for recognition of those who pursue and often win grants. “Thanks,” he said.
     John Williams yammered a bit about how many hits “Mysite” and other district/college sites were getting. He congratulated Don Wagner for his Assembly seat victory—and Dave Lang, too, for his “spirited campaign.”
     Marcia congratulated the victories of Williams (for OC Public Administrator), Wagner, and Fuentes (GOP Central Committee). She congratulated Dave for a “great campaign.” She noted that everyone on the board seemed to be running for office except for her. Laughter.
     Nancy Padberg reported that she had attended an event in which the city of Mission Viejo recognized Saddleback College’s Veterans’ Memorial. MV, she said, was the first city to contribute to the effort to build the memorial.
     She also asked that the meeting be adjourned in honor of Paul Wagner, who, as you know, died a month ago.
     Don thanked Poertner for his work and noted that he and the district would genuinely miss him. He then took the opportunity to thank his colleagues and "many people in the room" who were so supportive in the last month. Nothing was said about Mathur's absence. My guess is that the fellow was told to go home and stay there.
     Tom Fuentes repeated the usual congratulations and briefly offered his condolences to Don. But he made a big point of thanking Gary P for his work over the years.
     Lang repeated the congratulations (and cursory condolences,) again emphasizing his sadness over Poertner’s departure. (Never underestimate the pettiness of certain people.)
     There were no requests for reports from trustees.

STUDENT GOV BUDGETS:
     Next came the proposed student government budgets. The two Saddleback kids gave a brief and seemingly efficient report. There were no questions. Then came the IVC kids, who, upon receiving absurdly lengthy introductions from Helen Locke, gave similarly brief and efficient reports, though they weren’t nearly as cute as the SC gals, and one of ‘em sported a thick accent that reminded me of bad WW II movies: "Feering rucky, Joe?" But it all went pretty well, I guess.
     Fuentes quipped that maybe Don should take these young people with him to Sacramento to help with balancing the state budget. Har har.

THE CHANCELLOR SEARCH PROCESS/THE DISTRICT BUDGET:
    The usual guy (John Wilbol[?] of Chancellor Searches 'R Us) gave the update on the Chancellor search process. The committee is requiring a writing sample, he said. The committee will be asking 12-14 questions. "Blah, blah, blah."
     The upshot seems to be that there’s significant interest in the position and the search process is on track. The first interviews (of about 10-12 candidates) will occur on Sept. 2 and 3. The committee will likely have recommendations for the board by early to mid September.
     Any questions?
     Tom Fuentes wanted to know how many “recommendations” would be sent to the board. Answer: at least three, maybe more. As you know, Fuentes is a "top down" kind of guy.
     Eventually, Gary P presented the tentative district budget, which will likely be very much like the actual budget, to be presented in August.
     Gary mentioned the nature of the battle over the budget in Sacramento: Dems seek to protect programs; Repubs seek to avoid taxes. The trend, said Gary, seems to be a shifting of responsibilities from the state to local government. Because these responsibilities are costly, what we have here is a de facto restructuring of funding.
     Gary made quite a point of how fortunate the SOCCCD is amid the financial woes of virtually all other districts and institutions. While other districts are moving toward furloughs and such, we’re sittin’ pretty with money in the bank. Across the state, there was a 6% decrease in course offerings last year—but not in the SOCCCD. Nosir.
     We’ve got to keep our situation—our relative fortunatitude—“in perspective,” said Gary. He made a point of naming the people (in his office, I guess) who do the “real work”: Beth, et al.
     As he has done at previous board meetings, Gary showed past and projected Basic Aid receipts. Back in 1999, when we shifted to Basic Aid, we received $5.6 million (that's the "gravy" on top of the normal state taters). By 2009, we received $51 million. This year, it’s $38.6 million, and the projection for next year is $36 million. See the trend?
     Said Gary: OK, any questions? There were a few. In answering Marcia’s question, Gary summed up his feelings by saying, “I’m not worried about our budget at all.” (That might've been a joke; but if it was, nobody got it.)
     Tom Fuentes, looking for things to politicize inappropriately, asked if the district has ever been forced to tap into its “reserve” (which nowadays is set at over 7%). Of course, he knew the answer.
     Answer: not since Gary’s been around (he arrived about eleven years ago as part of the Cedric Sampson package). In “prior years,” however, said Gary, the board did dip into the reserve “and more.”
     A few minutes later, Williams, who is eternally identified with (besides stupidity) the sorry board that engaged in so much reserve-dipping that the district was placed on the state chancellor’s fiscal “watch list,” once again put forth the canard that that action was compelled by the “Orange County bankruptcy.” (Funny, the other OC CC districts didn’t end up on the watch list.)
     Dave Lang seemed bothered at the small amount of the budget going to “capital outlay”—which seems to be code for “new buildings.” It’s especially tiny at IVC, he said. He squinted at a spot in front of him.
     He also took some sort of swipe at faculty, which seems to be a Langian motif, now that the fellow is universally reviled and has been thoroughly rejected by OC voters. He alluded to some carping regarding fairness in allocations that he read in the Saddleback College accred self-study draft. He attributed “disingenuousness" to these writers--or maybe to others. Dunno.
     Gary was asked to weigh in on that issue, but he wasn’t going to bite. “You’re a short-timer, go for it!” joked Wagner. No doing. Poertner remained mute, a statue.
     Nancy Padberg, psychically pointing at John Williams stupid visage, reminded us that, when she arrived (late in ’98), we were on that watch list. Since then, the board has enforced a rule according to which basic aid bucks are spent only on one-time expenses, not ongoing expenses. Further, the amount of minimal reserve moola has been increased. So we’re fiscally healthy! She thanked Gary for his fine stewardship of district finances. Every word was a tiny dart flying toward John's fat head.

ILLITERACY AT THE TOP:
     Next up was the district mission/vision statements. Have you read 'em? Here goes:

Vision:
To be an educational leader in a changing world. [Wow. How' bout, "Love; it's what makes a college"?]

Mission:
To provide a dynamic learning environment and diverse opportunities fostering student success and contributing to the community. [Couldn't they run this by the English dept.? Good Lord!]

Core Values/Guiding Principles:
We invest in our students' success, employees, physical plant, and community, with wise use of our resources. [We invest in our students' employees and their physical plant?]

     Good grief. (Do you suppose Raghu wrote this stuff?)
     These verbal turds were adopted without discussion. It was unanimous. It's a good thing nobody pays attention to 'em.

ACCRED SELF-STUDIES; LANG FRETS:
     Eventually, the board got to the accreditation self-studies for the two colleges. No presentation was scheduled. Any questions?
     Again, Lang piped up. He encouraged trustees to take a close look at the reports. Since he was on the committee for Saddleback, he recommended in particular that everyone read Standard 4 (on leadership and governance), especially 327, 331, and “all the way to 360.” Lang seemed to say that that discussion concerned the resources being funneled to ATEP, our endlessly underdeveloped technical college over by the old blimp boxes in Tustin.
     It sounded like Lang wanted discussion of that portion of the accred report to be agendized soon. Don't know what that's about.

GOOD NIGHT:
     During his report on behalf of Irvine Valley College, Glenn Roquemore offered a series of words about Poertner: “calm, logical, educated, experienced, solid friend.”
     OK. At least he didn't say, "plastics."
     He looked at Gary. “Please keep your cell phone charged,” he said. Laughter.
     Bill Hewitt noted that faculty productivity has gone up significantly this year. He said he had attended a recent IVC accred discussion, and he was impressed with the collegiality on display there.
     Like many before him, he had warm words for Gary Poertner.
     The meeting lasted but an hour and a half. Amazing.