Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Rain


Glenn Ranch Road


Live Oak Canyon Road


Five grand a year just on lunchmeat?

As promised, this morning, the OC Register’s “watchdog” reported once again on our own trustee John Williams, junketeer extraordinaire: College trustee outspends colleagues on travel.

Evidently, the district hasn’t come through with a complete set of records of trustee travel, but it did fork over (incomplete) info for 29 or 30 months: from July 2007 to December 2009.

During that period, Williams spent a grand a month of taxpayer money on travel: $29,578. (We're only talking about his trustee travel here. Who knows how much he spends on Public Administrator/Guardian travel. No doubt he's just as ethical on that job.)

Reporter Jennifer Muir notes that “Four of the six trustees have spent less than $1,000 over the same period.” Gosh.

As predicted, Williams’ justifications are amazingly feeble or specious:
Williams … says the travel is vital to representing the district’s interests, such as ensuring the state doesn’t raid its budget. ¶ He also says it’s important to keep up on other changes in the industry. For example, Williams said he attended a conference on information technology, where he learned that campus wireless Internet systems could be used to illegally download music and movies and expose the district to lawsuits. When he returned, he started the process to fix the problem at district campuses.

Williams said the board’s code of ethics calls for trustees to attend conferences and workshops. That’s true although it doesn’t say anything about travel. … Williams says he traveled more than the other trustees because he was the vice president of the board during the years the Watchdog reviewed, he says. ¶ “It’s like any profession,” Williams said. “Doctors have continuing medical education. As a trustee you have to stay up on things.”

Gosh, by that logic, lots of Williams’ pals on the board are pretty irresponsible! Especially that dang Tom Fuentes, who steadfastly refuses to go to Orlando and other information-rich cities throughout our great land on the district’s dime.

Unethical bastard!

Chancellor Raghu Mathur chimed in to defend his old pal:
District Chancellor Raghu Mathur says he wishes other trustees would be willing to travel as much as Williams. ¶ “I think he’s been given a bad rap rather than being recognized for going and attending and learning and bringing back the info he has gained,” Mathur said. “Other trustees need to step up.”
Yeah, if only those other trustees would just step up, the taxpayer would be on the hook for seven grand a month instead of just one or two. Blast them! Blast them to hell!

Williams evidently told Muir that he does indeed have a brother in Florida, but, sometimes, when he goes to Florida on the district’s dime, he doesn’t even visit the guy!

Muir highlights an 8-month period in which Williams attended nine conferences, “including two in Florida.” But then she tells us that “Details about conferences for the remaining part of 2008 through 2010 were not immediately available. We’ll update this blog as soon as we get them.”

Gosh, I can’t wait.

Muir digs up one highly curious factoid: “the district has spent $12,184 for catering during the board meetings over the past two and a half years.”

Gosh, that’s five grand a year just for lunch meat!

(Be sure to monitor the Reg's always delightful reader comments throughout the day. Here's the first one, from "ocobserver":
OMG. Is this clown back in the news again? Didn’t the supes just backstop his position with the county? Now we find out he’s taking junket trips on the public’s dime? How many trips has he taken as the Public Administrator, Jennifer? Are those records available? Why don’t these clowns ever travel to North or South Dakota? They always seem to go where their relatives live! HAH! Maybe the county should send him to accounting school. According to prior articles, it seems he could surely benefit from a few of those! HAH!)

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

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