Chancellor alleges blackmail in whistle-blower complaint
By JENNIFER MUIR
Orange County Register
February 25, 2010
¶Exactly why South Orange County Community College District Chancellor Raghu Mathur abruptly resigned in January still remains unclear.
¶But one thing is for certain: There was a fight brewing between him and the school board’s president for at least eight months before he agreed to leave quietly (with a hefty severance package and a promise that he wouldn’t trash talk the district if trustees agreed to do the same for him.)
¶Mathur filed a complaint with the district’s human resources department in May alleging that board president Don Wagner intimidated and blackmailed him to create a new dean position at Irvine Valley College, and directed him to fill it with a professor who insiders say is a longtime Mathur rival.
¶He asks the district for confidentiality and protection under state and federal whistle-blower protections.
¶Wagner, who also is one of three Republicans vying for the Assembly seat left open by Republican Chuck DeVore, says the complaint is “nonsense” and that he’s been cleared internally of any wrongdoing.
¶But he wouldn’t say what, if anything, he discussed with Mathur, citing the separation agreement. In fact, part of that agreement involved Mathur agreeing to drop the whistle-blower complaint, says Warren Kinsler, an attorney for the district.
¶That may explain why Mathur also wouldn’t talk to the Watchdog. Technically, Mathur is retiring early — a year before his contract with the district was set to expire.
¶His last day is June 30, but under the settlement, he’ll collect an additional year’s pay of $237,261 plus an additional $25,000 to cover the attorney fees he incurred in relation to the separation agreement, according to a report by my colleague Niyaz Pirani.
¶The agreement also says that neither Mathur nor trustees are allowed to talk publicly or privately about the terms of the separation, and that neither can make disparaging remarks about the other, Pirani reports.
¶So it was a curious when an unmarked envelope containing a signed and stamped copy of Mathur’s whistle-blower complaint arrived at the Register late last week. The envelope also contained some campaign literature, a highlighted Orange County Register editorial and other accusations about Wagner’s moral character that can’t be verified.
¶The Watchdog sent the letter to district officials, who did not dispute its authenticity. District spokeswoman Tracy Daly responded to questions about the email’s authenticity with a prepared statement from Mathur: “After 34 years in the South Orange County Community College District, I have only the highest regard for the board of trustees and the employees who work so hard toward the success of our students.”
¶The complaint alleges that Wagner threatened to fire Mathur if he didn’t support creating a new dean position at Irvine Valley College and giving the job to longtime anthropology Professor Wendy Gabriella (pictured here with Wagner). Gabriella could not be reached for comment.
¶“Over a period of many weeks, he has harassed me over the phone, in emails and in person to deliver the three additional board votes to garner board approval to create the appointment and ensure the subsequent appointment of Professor Gabriella,” Mathur wrote in the letter. “He threatened me repeatedly with dismissal if I did not support his direction.”
¶Under duress from Wagner, the letter continues, Mathur recommended creating the position in April.
¶Irvine Valley College President Glenn Roquemore says that story doesn’t ring true. Roquemore said that for the past two years, he has been trying to restore a dean position that the district cut in 1997, and relax the requirements for that position in hopes of expanding a pool of applicants.
¶In other words, the position was his idea, not Wagner’s. Plus, he says the hiring process at the district makes it virtually impossible to ensure a candidate a job, even if he wanted to.
¶Roquemore acknowledges that Mathur and Gabriella have been longtime rivals. And Wagner says he and Gabriella are friends who worked closely together on the school’s accreditation team.
¶Roquemore admits that in April he called a meeting with Mathur, Gabriella and Wagner and they discussed the new dean position and Gabriella’s desire to move into administration.
¶But he said the purpose of the meeting was so that Gabriella, the district’s academic senate president, and Mathur could reconcile their differences and begin communicating again. They never discussed Gabriella being a candidate for that job, he said. Wagner was there, Roquemore said, because he wanted to talk about candidate requirements for the new dean position.
¶ “That meeting ended shaking hands, and frankly I felt we had overcome a hurdle that had been a decade long and people were shaking hands,” Roquemore said.
¶Two days later, everything fell apart. He got a call from another trustee urging him not to bring the new dean position before the board.
¶ “The fact that I can’t get this dean position is hurting the institution,” Roquemore said. “I know the two individuals are not the ones driving it. It must be the chancellor.”
[If one desires more light, see this. —RB]
