Like making sausages

You don't wanna know

     RECOMMENDATION TO NONREELECT? Last Monday night, at about 7:55, there were a few tense moments, for me at least, after board Clerk Marcia Milchiker read out the board’s closed session actions at the start of the open session. Something about the way the announcement—about the board’s decision regarding the tenure of IVC instructors Grimm and Boettger—was worded really threw me. I couldn't tell what she said, and that almost never happens.
     So I ran back to the lobby area behind the Ronald Reagan Meeting Room, where (IVC Ac. Senate Prez and union grievance officer) Kathy Schmeidler, Amy Grimm, Susan Boettger, and two or three others huddled. Kathy seemed to be explaining her understanding of the announcement, which produced yelps of glee. I interrupted, asking her what exactly she thought the announcement was.
     Thumbs up.
     Still uncertain, I walked over to Bob C, Saddleback’s Ac. Senate President, who was standing in the doorway only ten feet away, and I asked him what he had heard.
     The same.
     Whew!
     Just now, I listened to the streaming video of the February meeting, and I determined what Milchiker actually read out:

     “On a six to one vote, with trustee Jay casting the negative vote, the board voted to affirm the district’s recommendation to nonreelect two faculty members at Saddleback College and to reject the recommendation to nonreelect two faculty members at Irvine Valley College.”

     Is it just me, or do others find this “nonreelect” language odd?
     Well, none of that matters now.

Sausages can be fun

     ROCKY SAUSAGES. Today, I spoke with an old friend who is a member of that new college “work group” that’s supposed to figure out where IVC can lower costs and increase revenue. (I’ve already forgotten the name of the dang thing.) I’ve heard several less-than-rosy reports about the group’s progress from another member, who seemed to say that getting information from administration regarding where all the money goes hasn’t been easy. Sometimes, they don't seem to know, he said.
     So, today, I asked my friend what she thought. Is it that Rocky & His Friends don’t keep track of where all the money is spent, is that it?
     “Well, that’s being charitable,” she said.
     That sounded too nefarious, I guess. So she then softened the point a bit, explaining that budget people often screw around with amounts and figures, making things look tidy, keeping something squirrelled away for a rainy day, that sort of thing.
     Otto von Bismark once said that laws are like sausages, that it's better not to see them being made. (Just imagine what gets scraped up off the floor!)
     It's getting clearer and clearer that the point seems to apply to Roquemore and Co’s handling of money, too.