NOTHING earth-shattering occurred at tonight's meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees. Tom Fuentes asked that the discussion of the "nepotism" report be put off until next month. There was some push-back—the board was not pressed for time—but Fuentes got nasty, glowering and repeating his request, and so Wagner relented.
Predictably, much attention was paid to Saddleback College's securing of the Men’s State Basketball Championship. Briefly commenting on the team, the coach said that they weren’t the most talented team there (ouch!), but they worked very hard, etc. T-shirts were distributed. The trustees permitted themselves big smiles and enthusiasm.
Bob Cosgrove, whose tenure as Saddleback's Academic Senate President is coming to an end, again noted the absence of an apostrophe in the golden phrase hovering above trustees' heads: "Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room." Wagner offered a mock slow burn.
During his report, Trustee Fuentes noted that he recently gave a speech at Tulane U (in Louisiana). After his speech, said Tom, a 5-year student came up to him to say, “You are the first conservative speaker that I have had the opportunity to hear in my college studies.” Fuentes intoned that this fact does not reflect well on academia.The discussion of the consultant/committee's recommendations for a few (non-radical) changes in the Chancellor hire brochure caused some sparks between Fuentes and Wagner. Fuentes took the opportunity to issue some (perhaps unwarranted) "told you so's" and referred to the majority's rushing through the process, but Wagner couldn't let that go unchallenged. There's been no rush; everything is going as per plan, he said, echoed by Marcia Milchiker. Very cool.
The report concerning capital and scheduled maintenance needs (over the next twenty years) was "sobering," to use Mathur's term. (Mathur said virtually nothing during the meeting, and he didn't look good.) It appears that we'll need close to a billion dollars (for the twenty year period). That means that we're gonna have to get seriously creative to pull together that kind of scratch. Some guy named "Dante" (sans Inferno) dazzled us with a dozen or so cool (or hinky?) revenue-producing ideas, but, in the end, he seemed to say we'll have to raise taxes just a little bit to make that billion we need.
This board hates the "T" word.
Asked Fuentes, "Is a little bit of tax increase like a little bit pregnant?" He added that he was quite serious.
That didn't go down well. Fuentes glared.
One of the revenue ideas was inspired by something that board already does. If the district were to put aside $20 million of basic aid per year, that would add up to $400 million (in the twenty year period).
Mathur piped up to suggest that the colleges must pursue much more online instruction--something that goes beyond merely adding more classes. Raghu didn't sound like a "bricks and mortar" guy at all.
I'll have more tomorrow. Maybe.
THIS JUST IN:
Capistrano Unified teacher strike is over
The 5-day-old strike standoff between the Capistrano Unified School District and its teachers union ended late Monday, with the two sides coming to a tentative mutual agreement that will end three days of teacher picketing.
“We are really, really happy for our teachers and our schools, to have our family back together again,” school board President Anna Bryson said of the agreement that was reached about 11:30 p.m. “It’s a really wonderful feeling to know our kids will have their teachers.”
Details of the agreement were not immediately available, but Bryson said the school board was pleased with the outcome and that teachers would all return to their classrooms Tuesday....
