Cocksure

LAST TUESDAY, at the board meeting, I watched the Chancellor carefully. He seemed confident. Cocky even. He was a bit showy about it, if you ask me.

But you never know with Raghu. He’s a funny kind of guy. If he gets smacked around by a superior, he’ll take it, but then he’ll find an underling for him to smack, and then he'll feel OK again. When he’s told that he’s nothin’ but dog crap, he’ll immediately put on airs of top doggery.

That’s our Raghu.

So, he’s cocky. What does it mean? Hmmm….

A Chrysler 300 passin' me on the tollroad last night

Meanwhile...

Everybody gets evaluated, even the Chancellor.

One of the “closed session” agenda items for the December 11 board meetings was “Public Employee Evaluation of Performance…Chancellor.” But that doesn’t mean that the trustees finished their evaluation of the Chancellor then. It doesn’t even mean that they discussed it.

For the January 16 meeting, the board (or the Chancellor?) seems to have adopted a new agenda format and possibly some new agenda-writing guidelines. So I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the only “evaluation” item listed (for closed session) is this one:

Public Employee Evaluation of Performance

These people clearly haven’t embraced the spirit (nor the letter, probably) of the Brown Act. Here, the public discovers only that an employee’s performance is being evaluated. Which employee?

Thank you, SOCCCD board, for cluein’ us in. Your profound respect for "the good people," aka the taxpayer, is once again made manifest.

So are they still evaluating the Chancellor? Is that process complete or not? Who knows.


I’ve heard rumors that the evaluation of Raghu is complete, and it is VERY NEGATIVE. Does anyone know?

If you have any reliable info, please send it our way!

And do try to avoid that junkyard dog over in HS. He bites.

Monkeys build college

SOMEHOW, we managed to overlook the following article from Wednesday’s OC Register. It concerns Saddleback's 'sick building', namely, BGS. Evidently, that building was poorly constructed (and maintained?).

But, of course, Saddleback's "monkey construction" issues don't just concern BGS. The Library’s got serious structural problems too, as does the Advanced Technology and Science Building, and maybe even Science and Math!

Um, I'm beginning to detect a pattern here.

The Business and General Studies Building at Saddleback College officially closed last week in order to allow renovations to rid the building of mold discovered at the end of 2004.

…Prior to that contaminated parts of the business building, about 20 percent of it, were sealed off while the rest of the building remained in use….

[Classes have been moved into] portables, which house 35 classrooms, [and] cover about 50,000 square feet in an area of the campus referred to as the Village.

…The estimated $7 million in renovations to the BGS building, built in 1984, are expected to be complete by the end of the year, said [John] Ozurvich [director of facilities, maintenance and operations]. Much of the building will be gutted except for studs that support the walls and some of the walls will remain.

…Windows that were not fabricated and not installed properly was discovered as the root of the mold problem by allowing water to drain into the walls. There was also an issue with the external roof drainage system. The roof has since been replaced.

…When he used to teach in the building [John] McCotter said he would feel flu-like symptoms.

Returning to the building a couple weeks ago to finish transferring everything over to the portables, McCotter said he felt congested in his head and throat.

"You could feel it as soon as you enter the building, how dirty the air was," he said.

…A redesign of the interior of the library is expected to begin upon completion of the BGS building. Expanding soil caused uneven and cracking floors in the library. The college was approved state funding for the project in 2006.

Similar repairs of uneven and cracked floors in the Advanced Technology and Science Building also caused by expanding soil are expected to begin after the library is complete.

The Science and Math building is currently undergoing soil surveys for similar problems.

OK, now I don't wanna be an alamist, but when I was walking around the BOT meeting room over by Health Sciences last Tuesday, I noticed a crack in the floor over by the majestic "trustee staging area." I peeked down there. Didn't see no monkeys.

But I could see straight down into Hell!

That ain't a construction problem, though. --CW

Just who are these moppets?

You’ll find some fascinating data in yesterday’s Inside Higher Ed. In “Profiling the American Freshman,” we learn that, each year, UCLA researchers survey 270,000 (Wow!) entering undergraduates at 400 colleges. Results of the latest survey are in:

This year’s data show that the first-year students are increasingly politically minded and moving away from the center of the political spectrum. They are far apart on many social issues…. They are concerned about financing their educations and are fully confident in their academic abilities.

One in three students reported discussing politics frequently during their last year of high school…. That’s up from 26 percent in 2004, the last time that question was asked, and represents the highest total in the 40 years of the survey.

Evidently, that figure is high even for an election year. What’s it all mean?

… The proportion of students who identified themselves as being liberal (28 percent) and conservative (24 percent) were the highest in decades….

—Evidence of increased polarization? Yeah, probably. On the other hand, maybe these kids don’t know what the words “liberal” and “conservative” mean! So they pick the shorter of the two. Just a theory.

…Two of three students surveyed said they have “some” or “major” concerns about paying for college….

That third one must be brain-dead. Or just a Bush “conservative.”

…Making more money and getting a better job were two of the top reasons that students cited for choosing to go to college.

And Lake Wobegon lives: Seventy-two percent of men and 66 percent of women surveyed said they are either “above average” or in the “highest 10 percent” of academic ability.

I bet that's true about bloggers, too.

"Drop the knife, honey," they said

MAKES YOU PROUD, doesn’t it? I’m talkin’ about the “professionalism” of our police and police departments.

Today’s Times (Man arrested in Costa Mesa was stroke victim...) reports that a man arrested for drunkenness two years ago in Costa Mesa may have been having a stroke instead.

According to the man’s lawyer, when he was arrested, officers ordered him to stand up, but he couldn’t. When he was hauled off to jail, he was again ordered to stand, but he kept falling down.

The man—a gardener with a Latino name—then spent 10 hours in jail. At that point (for reasons left unexplained), he was taken to Hoag Hospital “where doctors determined that he had suffered a stroke,” according to the lawyer.

And the drunkenness charge? Dismissed, says the lawyer, when the DA’s office determined that the man had not been exhibiting drunkenness. Instead, it seems, the DA determined that the man was exhibiting an inability to use his right arm.

Yesterday, the Times reported on that horrible incident last summer in which cops shot an 18-year-old girl, killing her (Police who shot O.C. 18-year-old...). She had weighed 120 pounds. She had wielded a 4-inch blade.

Had these officers acted properly? The matter went to our DA, the sleazy and corrupt Mr. Tony Rackaukas, who is near the middle of that very small circle of rat bastards sometimes called the the OC “Republican Mafia.” It is a world that embraces cops and their shoot-‘em-up & move-'em-along mentality bigtime.

Naturally, Rackaukas has now determined that officers Park and Randell acted properly. It was “clear-cut,” evidently:

"It turned into a situation where they were really left with no other choice," Rackaukas said.

The officers, according to the investigation by the Sheriff's Department and district attorney's office, were forced into a split-second decision to kill a woman who was far more dangerous than was depicted in news reports.

Well, when the cops arrived at the scene, they already knew that young Ms. MacDonald was wacked out and probably dangerous, wielding a knife.

Here’s my question. Why didn’t they show up with a net and throw it over her? I've seen it done. It's effective!

Nets too expensive? OK, knock her over with bean bags. Too expensive still? I’ve got some big sticks out here where I live. I’ll provide them for free.

But no. She was shot fifteen times:

[O]fficers Park and Randell … ordered MacDonald to give up her weapon. "Drop the knife, honey," they said, according to [Assistant DA] Brent. MacDonald told them, "I'm on drugs, just … kill me." She then ran toward the officers and was shot 15 times when she came within 8 to 10 feet of one of them, Brent said.

At the time of the shooting, an officer nearby was loading a gun with nonlethal pepper-spray pellets and a fourth officer was rushing to the scene with beanbag ammunition.

Now tell me this. If these other guys are around the corner with nonlethal force, why didn’t these two cops on the scene leave and monitor this gal from some safe distance? As I recall, it was in the middle of the night, and nobody was around. So why wasn’t that an option?

My problem here, of course, isn’t necessarily with the officers. It could be with the policies with which they are saddled. Maybe these policies just assume that you’ve got to confront perps ASAP. Maybe they assume that cops don’t scatter or retreat.

If so, why?

Or maybe my issue is with a world in which people just don’t care that people are killed when nets can be thrown over ‘em instead. A world in which a guy is treated like crap while he’s having a stroke.

C’mon everybody. Get pissed off!

Unpleasantness

AS I SAID LAST NIGHT, I missed the first 30 minutes of the board meeting, and so I can’t report on that portion. Luckily, Tracy Daly’s fine Board Highlights (BH) fill in the blanks!

As usual, trustees offered their reports. According to the BH,

Board President David B. Lang congratulated Chancellor Mathur on an outstanding Opening Session, probably the best he has attended in his time on the Board. He thanked Vice Chancellor Andreea Serban, who lined up Dr. Robert Bramucci as a speaker.

Bramucci truly was excellent.

During his report, Trustee Don Wagner said that he’s written a response to a Lariat editorial. Hope they print it. Peevish Don never fails to entertain.

According to Tracy, Trustee John Williams, too, was pleased by the Opening Session, which he judged to be “the best he has attended during his 14 years on the Board.” Williams evidently found the music to be fun. You remember. Elvis, Neil Diamond.

Evidently, during his report, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur said that “enrollment is healthy at both colleges.”

Virtually all the consent calendar items were approved.

Next came the ATEP proposals. (ATEP is the district’s Advanced Technology and Education Park, situated at the old Tustin helicopter station.) According to the BH, the board accepted for review and study “all of the 13 ATEP partnership proposals, in preparation for presentations at subsequent meetings,” namely, on Feb. 1.

See, it’s like this. Park Ranger BOB KOPECKY and his team have managed to attract 13 proposals for what to do with our facilities (or some of our acreage) at the old Tustin base. Everything turns on the quality of these proposals. If just a few of them are worthwhile, well, we’re in business at ATEP. That’s what the Feb. 1 meeting is all about, I suppose.

Hey, everybody, this is important!

LITTLE SAIGON

One proposal comes from EBD (Economic Business Development, Inc.). They’re the “Little Saigon” people I mentioned last night. For some reason, they were given a special opportunity to present who they are and what they propose. According to Tracy’s highlights, they propose

to build a business incubator and economic development center with a $2.5 million EDA grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The facility would be open to small or incubating businesses with educational resources determined by SOCCCD. Students would fill internships on a one-to-one ratio with business professionals and have opportunities for job placement.

I dunno what that means.

The presentation was made by an earnest Asian woman with a thick but not unpleasant accent. Alas, the video portion of her presentation sported its share of PA system gremlins. She made up for that by introducing half the people in the audience, including some Dean from CSUF. She took questions.


Lang worried that this project seemed focused on denizens of Little Saigon. What about South County? As I recall, Ms. EBD said that it’s illegal to zero in on one ethnic group, and anyone will be able to participate. Wagner said that he was unclear about the “educational component” of the proposal. She gave some kind of answer, I dunno. At one point, she seemed to refer to the need to design courses. Uh-oh.

IVC Senate Prez WENDY G zeroed in on this “course design” stuff. Ms. EBD sought to assure Wendy that her organization would consult with faculty. “You are the experts,” she said. Wendy seemed dissatisfied with that. She asked whether EBD would “dictate our curriculum.” That remark seemed to fluster Ms. EBD. She looked a tad desperate. Or maybe just annoyed.

As you know, curriculum is the responsibility of faculty.

Who knows, though. This EBD thing could turn out to be a good thing. Don't forget Feb. 1!

STREAMLINING

Item 5.7 was “Effectiveness of Board Agendas and Meetings.” During the December meeting, Chancellor Mathur showed up with a list of suggested changes to the agenda and the board meetings. Well, they reappeared last night. The board was being asked to approve them.

Naturally, the perpetually staunch Mr. Williams said that they are “long over-due.” But Trustee Marcia Milchiker objected to one of the suggested changes, namely, the idea that, when meetings run long, college presidents and governance groups might be told to turn in written reports in lieu of oral reports during the meeting. Trustee Nancy Padberg concurred, noting that a report that is filed in written form is ipso facto not “made public.”

Another controversial proposal was to diminish the right of a trustee simply to pull items from the consent calendar (i.e., the set of usually-routine items that are approved wholesale) for further discussion. Trustee Don Wagner chimed in to say that the changes that Mathur proposed were not as drastic as some trustees supposed them to be. Trustee Tom Fuentes reminded the group that trustees were supposed to provide feedback (about these proposals) to the chancellor between the last meeting and this meeting. Had these naysayers done that? Trustee Bill Jay said that he had made his objections to some of these ideas at the last meeting, so what further feedback was he supposed to provide? Williams chimed in to repeat one of his favorite idiocies, namely, that board meetings are meetings of the board, not of others (e.g., Academic Senate Presidents).

UNPLEASANTNESS

At one point, Mathur commenced saying unpleasant things. He said that Trustee Padberg’s requests for reports seem to “waste our time.” He and his staff produce a report, he said, and then “nothing comes of it.” He seemed to be suggesting that Padberg wasn’t really interested in gaining information, that she was somehow playing politics most foul.

Raghu seemed pleased with himself. His body smiled.

I suppose that all of this had something to do with Padberg’s history of shining light upon inconvenient truths. Take the case of trustee travel expenses. Not so long ago, Nancy asked for a report on trustee expenses for one year. The resulting report evidently (I never saw it) embarrassed John “Orlando” Williams. She then asked that the report be expanded to cover five years. The Board Majority ruthlessly voted the request down.

Gee, if some trustees are abusing the system, shouldn’t the public be made aware of it?

Eventually, the board got to Mathur’s recommended changes regarding the ability of trustees to remove items from the consent calendar. Padberg noted that that item was “directed at me.” She declared, defiantly, that she would continue to pull items from the CC, when, that is, she feels that questions about them are warranted.

That seemed to set Don off. You know how he is. “Yes,” he said, this is “geared at you, Trustee Padberg.” He seemed to join Mathur in accusing Nancy of asking “rhetorical” and “political” questions about board items.

“Frankly,” he said, “we’re tired of it.”

Nancy defended herself, noting that mistakes can be made in constructing the CC such that her questions might well be warranted. She alluded, too, to the Brown Act.

Williams, a man with no imagination and even fewer gray cells, seemed to say yet again that certain trustees (Padberg) should “do their homework.” Some trustees, he said, show up to meetings “unprepared.” Jay and Milchiker took Nancy’s side. But they didn’t have the votes to stop approval of this recommendation.


The board eventually turned to the proposal according to which the college presidents and governance groups can have their (oral) reports cut when meetings run late. Predictably, the minority (Jay, Padberg, Milchiker) argued on behalf of the presidents/governance groups. And, just as predictably, the majority (Lang, Wagner, Fuentes, Williams) argued on behalf of Mathur’s trustees-über-alles proposal.

Wendy G asked: what if the Academic Senates have an important issue, and then the board meeting runs late. Does this mean that the senates are just out of luck? That their concern will not be voiced?

No problem, said Dave. They can still turn in their written reports.

“OK,” said Wendy. That “OK” sure sounded a lot like “you, sir, are a jackass.” But I could be mistaken. My hearing isn't so good.

Fuentes, who had hung back, finally had had enough. With obvious annoyance, he declared that “anyone can fill out” a yellow form to make a public comment! So “what is all the debate about?”

I smelled sulphur.

In the end, the Board Majority got their way.


Another recommendation concerned the notion that trustees should contact the Chancellor before a meeting, should they have a question about an item. Nancy, I think, argued that she should be allowed to bypass the Chancellor to ask staff for information. This caused Wagner to play the M card. “That’s micromanaging,” he roared. “When we start freelancing, we get ourselves into trouble,” he declared.

The recommendation passed.

After this “agenda” shootout, Mathur made some remarks that were seriously pompous. I haven’t the will to describe them.

Next came Andreea Serban’s presentation concerning “Transfer Rates” for IVC and Saddleback College. It was excellent. Tracy provides a link to Serban’s full report in her Board Highlights.

I hope to provide a review of some of her findings in a future post. —CW

Generating heat

JUST GOT BACK from the board meeting. Nothing major occurred, far as I know (I showed up a half hour late, so maybe someone went postal, but I didn't spot any bodies).

One thing for sure, though. This is one dysfunctional board. They were sniping at each other all night. They were hissin' and spittin' and lookin' ugly too.

At one point, Trustee Don Wagner seemed to point to Trustee Nancy Padberg and call her a "trollop." Well, no, but he did say that she was the one causing lots of problems with the agenda and with clueless yappage, and, boy, is everybody sick and tired of it, he said. You know how Don gets.

She gave 'im the stink eye, which is a terrible thing, accompanied by a hollow Padbergian laugh. Yikes!

It's hard to believe that these two--Don and Nancy--blew in together, back in '98, basing their candidacy on opposition to the "El Toro Airport" (ha!) and funding their campaign with corrupt rat bastardular Old Guard union cash. Back then, they seemed like twins, even though Don's a good deal taller. But, sheesh, I think Don and Nancy need to be kept on opposite sides of the building from now on. Plus Don better watch his back.

These days, everybody's got ATEP on the brain, and, on Feb. 1, there'll be a special meeting in which various proposals (for partnerships with SOCCCD at the old Tustin base) will be discussed. At tonight's meeting, a group that had submitted one of the proposals was allowed to make a half-hour presentation. Technical difficulties messed it up pretty good--there was a weird Morse Code of buzzing. I gather, though, that the proposal was something about incubating small businesses down in Little Saigon.

Lots of fed money is involved. I mean LOTS. Shitloads.

I think the Academic Senate Presidents got a little leery, though, when the Asian woman who did the talking for this group spoke of the special courses that would be taught. Who would generate these courses exactly? I mean, who's in charge of course development, anyway? You guys?


Vice Chancellor Serban gave a great report on student transfers, in effect making a case for the burning of the Register building down in Santa Ana. I think a mob's headed there right now, shouting: "Transfer rate? We'll show you our stinkin' transfer rate!"

Well, let's see, what else happened? At the December meeting, Chancellor Raghu Mathur showed up with an armful of nasty little suggestions as to how to streamline board meetings, and that generated lots of heat. Somehow, those same suggestions and that same heat showed up for this meeting.

On and on they went. Should the college presidents and the governance groups give reports, or should they just shut the **** up? The Board Majority (Lang, Wagner, Fuentes, Williams) opted for the latter. The minority preferred the former.

John Williams brought talking points--two of them, cuz he's got a very small brain--and he repeated them interminably: (1) Let's give Raghu's ideas a shot, why don't we?! (2) Nancy Padberg sure is a trollop!

Well, no, he didn't say that 2nd one, but he sure was thinking it. I believe that the 2nd talking point was that this is a meeting of the board, not of those other guys, so screw 'em. Besides, I wanna go to Orlando and spend some taxpayer money!

Well, that's my report. Hope it helped. I'll have more tomorrow, when I've recovered from the effects of one super-cold beer on one super-tired brain.

And Spanky: you know. Be good, be happy.

Carp, carp, carp

I WALKED through the A200 “faculty lounge” this morning at about 9:30, and what did I find? Aha! Furniture! True, it was wrapped in hideous stinky plastic. And yes, it sat upon the world’s harshest, ugliest, linoleumist floor.

BUT THERE WAS FURNITURE! NEW FURNITURE!

An hour and a half later, I was back, and they (whoever they are) had unwrapped and positioned the furniture. I stopped and beheld the scene. “Well, it’s a start,” I said to myself. I went to get my camera. In the hallway, I ran into Mr. M, who said, “Thank you, Mr. Squeaky Wheel!”

“You’re welcome,” I said. In truth, I have been but one of a chorus of squeaky wheels, and by no means the squeakiest. Rebel Girl, for one, has squealed and screeched numerous decibels higher and longer than me.

I happened to catch the eye of a nearby denizen who complained that the furniture was “ugly.” “Plus,” she added, “what about that horrible unmatched tile on the other side of the room!”

Well, yes, there’s that. Who would even think to do this and call it “tile replacement”? A monkey, maybe.

And plainly we need an area rug. That linoleum is shitulistic. Vomitous, even. Sure, sure.

But step back and receive the gestalt. Experience the spankin-new-roomedness of the scene! Is it really so bad?

“Yeah, now that we’ve got some decent furniture, the walls, in contrast, look like total crap,” said Mr. D, peevishly. “We’re gonna have to paint ‘em, that’s what!”

“Yeah,” said someone else, unpleasantly.

OK, I guess so.

Carp, carp, carp.

I found a quiet moment and, alone in the room, I sat upon one of the chairs.

“Not bad,” I said. “Not bad at all.”