Adam's stink

I WAS SO PLEASED with the appearance of the “Voice of Orange County” two weeks ago that I chose not to mention the slightly negatory, but arguably insignificant, fact that VOC is partnering with the execrable Adam Probolsky, a right-wing pollster and pal-o'-Fuentes.

You remember him. He was the guy running up and down the aisle when the fix was in to select county GOP chief Tom Fuentes as Steve Frogue's board replacement (July 2000).

Two weeks ago, VOC’s Editor-in-Chief Norberto Santana Jr. explained that

I’ve known Adam – a prominent Republican central committee member – for years and respect his polling work as well as his insights on the mechanics of politics….

Probolsky is very much a part of the Orange County Republican mafia. But it wouldn’t surprise me if, despite that, he is also a good pollster. So, OK, whatever. Let’s not talk about it anymore.

Yesterday, I happened to watch Rick Reiff's “Inside OC”—on KOCE. (See it here.) Reiff’s guests were Irvine Councilwoman Beth Krom, VOC’s Norberto Santana, and—Adam freakin’ Probolsky!

D'oh!

I sure hope Adam’s stink doesn’t rub off on Norberto.

If VOC's alliance with Probolsky weren’t bad enough, the always undistinguished Matt Cunningham (Red County) whooped and hollered about it today:

Voice of OC/Probolsky Poll on OC Sheriff's Race Out Tomorrow

I think the VOC/Probolsky poll is a great idea – it gives OC it's own version of a Field or PPIC poll. For politicos it will provide welcome insight into the status of various races, and a convenient alternative to scavenging results from closely held private polls. Watch for it to start exerting an independent gravitational pull on candidate campaigns and fundraising.

Yeah, whatever.

Today, VOC’s senior writer, Tracy Wood, offers an interesting piece concerning the OC Treasurer’s office:

Is an Elected Treasurer the Best Thing for Orange County?

(As you know, trustee Dave “Quisling” Lang is running for OC Treasurer. Five years ago, right about the time Lang inexplicably switched sides re the support of the odious Raghu P. Mathur, it was rumored that Lang, a bean-counter, had set his sights on the Treasurer's office and that an alliance with trustee Tom Fuentes—Mathur’s biggest booster—would be helpful with regard to that ambition. In the recent board struggles with regard to Mathur’s fate, Lang has quietly “stood by his man,” i.e., Tom Fuentes, voting with him against the infamous "settlement.")

Some, such as Fred Smoller, a political scientist at Chapman University, believe that the Treasurer's office should be appointed, not elected.

Well, as they say, there are two sides. Wood lays it all out.

The piece ends on a bummer note:

[H]ow will voters know if their next treasurer is another John Moorlach [who seemed to work out] or another Chris Street [a pal of Fuentes, who clearly did not]? They won't, argues Smoller.

"We truly don't have a watchdog media, we do not have a competitive political system, we do not have an engaged electorate," he said.

In the June, 2006 election, only 27 percent of Orange County's registered voters cast ballots, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Said Moorlach, "At the end of the day, you get the government you deserve, isn't that the saying?"

Yeah. It sure is.

D'oh!

(Retro photo: OC Register.)

Like a sloppy undergrad

UC Berkeley bloated, wasteful, consultants say (San Francisco Chronicle)

For a world-class university studded with Nobel laureates and innovative research, UC Berkeley manages its finances a bit like a sloppy undergrad, a new report suggests.  

The campus could save about $75 million a year by streamlining purchases, concentrating job duties and laying off "redundant" managers, according to consultants hired last fall to help the school become a leaner operation.
. . .
The campus has five big areas of bloat, according to Bain & Co., the Massachusetts consulting firm being paid $3 million to identify waste. 

The biggest, say the consultants, is too many managers. The human resources department alone has one manager per 63 employees, compared with an average of one per 127 employees across other universities.
. . .
The school spends $17 million on academic advising, but even students don't think the money is well spent. 

"School and department advising is terrible," wrote one undergrad responding to a survey from the consultants. "I never trust what I am being told."….

Fallout From Calling Off Bill Ayers Talk (Inside Higher Ed)

The University of Wyoming, which called off a talk by William Ayers, the one-time Weather Underground leader who is now a leading education researcher, is facing new criticism over the move. While Ayers has been canceled before, Wyoming officials were frank about their concerns over political fallout from a visit (as opposed to claiming security or scheduling problems). As a result, a Colorado lawyer, David Lane (also the lawyer for Ward Churchill), announced that he will sue the university for free speech violations unless it invites Ayers, theAssociated Press reported. The suit would be filed on behalf of a student who wanted to see him talk on campus.

Documents Reveal Secrets and Scope of China's On-Campus Police Informants (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Internet documents have emerged detailing how China's security apparatus recruits large teams of campus-based spies to inform on students, prevent outbreaks of unrest, and squash dissenting opinions.
. . .
At Dezhou University each spy is expected to report "three or more items of valuable security information" each month in exchange for a regular reward, with "a great reward" for especially valuable intelligence….(continued)

Liars

My county pen pal emailed me today, reminding me that his efforts to secure OC Public Administrator/Guardian John Williams’ timesheets have run into a roadblock, namely, the assertion that “elected officials do not have to fill out timesheets.” (Williams seems to spend an extraordinary amount of time travelling at taxpayers' expense. One wonders if his records for his two gigs—he's also an SOCCCD trustee—add up.)

Pen Pal sent me a page from a law book evidently cited by the "no can do" County people. I looked at it. It made no sense to me.

Pen Pal notes the following difficulty with the County’s argument: OK, elected officials don't have to keep timesheets; but 75% of Williams’ pay concerns the “Public Guardian” part of his job, and that part is not an elected position; it is appointed.

OK, sounds good, Mr. Pal.

Pen Pal is also pursuing older records (of Williams’ travel/expenses) from the SOCCCD. At this point, he has only received relatively recent records, which we have posted here on DtB. Those data alone paint a remarkable picture.
Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the Voice of OC (VOC) today reports similar trouble that its reporters have experienced, attempting to gain access to public records for a story on federal foreclosure relief dollars:

The Law Behind a Recent Public Records Showdown

Writes VOC’s Adam Elmahrek,

I needed to review records relating to [Santa Ana's] foreclosure relief program and had contacted Shelly Landry-Bayle.... Landry-Bayle wanted me to set up an appointment to review the records ten days hence.

Landry-Bayle did not specifically cite the provision in the CPRA that allows an agency ten days to respond to a request for public records. She just said that the first available time she had for me to view the records was in ten days.

I couldn't wait that long. And [my colleague Tracy] Wood, who has fought public records battles in California for decades, said I didn't have to. Cities are allowed a 10-day response period to respond to records requests when the request requires that they gather records that aren't readily accessible, Wood said….

Wood's position is based on the section of the law stating that "Public records are open to inspection at all times during the office hours of the state or local agency and every person has a right to inspect any public record..."

So Wood and I decided to go to city hall during normal business hours and demand to see the records. We were met by Santa Ana Assistant City Attorney Lisa Stark, who told us we had to make an appointment for another day. We held firm, citing the relevant section of the law.

Stark was none too happy with our response, and, citing Santa Ana's policy on public records, repeatedly insisted that we come back another day. But after realizing that we weren't going anywhere she relented and brought us the records within an hour.

Later, Elmahrek and Wood put the question to CPRA expert (and VOC consultant) Terry Francke, who wrote back:

There is no provision in the California Public Records Act (CPRA) authorizing a public agency routinely to tell requesters to "come back in 10 days”….
. . .
… [T]he Act states that state and local government records "are open to inspection at all times during the office hours of the state or local agency and...except with respect to public records exempt from disclosure by express provisions of law, each state or local agency, upon a request for a copy of records that reasonably describes an identifiable record or records, shall make the records promptly available...

It also states that no provision of the Act, including the 10- and 14-day periods, "shall be construed to permit an agency to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records."….

Rat bastards.

Pen Pal reminded me that Colleen Callahan is running for Public Administrator at the next election. She seem to really have Johnny's number.

SEE ALSO

• The California Public Records Act
• Pocket Guide to the California Public Records Act

Original Mother’s Market relocating by summer (Reg)

A schadenfreudian moment ("Hey, even we aren't that f*cked up!")

Plagiarism Spawns $146-Million Ghostwriting Industry in China, Report Says (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Although China’s university system has long been known to be racked by plagiarism and ghostwriting, a study by a professor at the University of Wuhan, in eastern China, has shown how rampant the practices are, the Associated Press reported.

Commercial sales of ghostwritten dissertations and journal articles were worth nearly 1 billion yuan (or more than $146-million) in 2009, a 500-percent increase over 2007, according to the study, by Shen Yang. And businesses produce only a small portion of the plagiarized papers in circulation.

Professors and senior academic staff members frequently use graduate students to ghostwrite papers, publish junior colleagues' research as their own without citation, or pluck material from published sources.

No way to treat people

This morning’s Inside Higher Ed reports an instance of the sort of thing this blog has railed against: The Fix Was In. IHE refers to an article in South Carolina’s “The State,” which reports

In a move that's been called unprecedented, [U of South Carolina] canceled all bids to hire an architect for its new $90 million Moore School of Business so a donor could pick a design firm of her own choosing.

While no state spending rules were broken, four Columbia firms and their national partners spent months of labor and an estimated $100,000 each hoping to win the project before the school abruptly canceled the bids in a two-sentence memo sent April 2.

Instead, the business school's private foundation will pay an estimated $4 million or more to a New York firm chosen by the school's benefactor, Darla Moore.

Moore, a Lake City financier for whom the school is named, sits on the foundation board. The firm chosen, Raphael Vinoly Architects, was a finalist for the contract but was not going to win it, a source close to the bidding told The State newspaper.
. . .
"In the history of the AIA, it is a rare event that a project is advertised and that our members go though the process of trying to get shortlisted and to have that pulled from the public process," [Adrienne Montare, president of the South Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects] said "I'm not sure there is a precedent in the state."
. . .
She estimated the firms would have spent about $100,000 each preparing their proposals.

"It can be very, very expensive," she said. "And it's all done in hopes that you will be short-listed and the state procurement process will be adhered to."…. (continued)

This sort of thing—where good faith competitors, including the “winner,” are simply taken out of competition at end of the process—is rotten enough. But imagine a hiring process (say, for an administrator or faculty) in which the fix was in from the very beginning!

That's seriously rotten.

SOCCCD

Even when a dishonest process manages to hire the best X for the job, it's still dishonest; it's still a morale killer. Who wants to work at such a place, where good people are treated so foully? I'm not referring to the current SOCCCD Chancellor hiring process, though I am concerned about some potential hiring processes.

Reminder: a couple of months ago, the SOCCCD board decided to move forward with the Chancellor hire ASAP. Further, the President of the SOCCCD board of trustees offered strong reassurances that the Chancellor hiring process will be fair and professional. I am not aware of any reason to doubt those statements. Since then, the district has decided to hire a consulting firm and has done so. (They chose Community College Search Services.) The consultant no doubt will have some sort of presence or involvement even in the early stages of the process. How that will square with the district's Chancellor hiring policy (4011.6) remains to be seen.

Losing ground

Study Finds a 1.2 Percent Increase in Faculty Pay, the Smallest in 50 Years (New York Times)

Academic pay has been squeezed by the recession, according to the annual salary survey by the American Association of University Professors.

Over all, salaries for this academic year are 1.2 percent higher than last year, the smallest increase recorded in the survey’s 50 years — and well below the 2.7 percent inflation rate from December 2008 to December 2009.

The survey found that average salary levels actually decreased this academic year at a third of colleges and universities, compared with 9 percent that reported lower average salaries in the previous two surveys. Private and church-related universities reported shrinking average salaries more often than public institutions.

And the academic pay situation may be even worse than the survey indicates, according to John Curtis, the association’s director of research and policy.

“A lot of faculty are losing ground, and the data probably underestimate the seriousness of the problems with faculty salary this year, because we’re only looking at full-time faculty and, as we’ve seen for several years, there’s an increasing number of part-time faculty, who are not included,” Mr. Curtis said. “Also, the survey doesn’t capture the effect of the unpaid furloughs a lot of faculty were forced to take this year, because the numbers we have are the base salaries agreed on at the beginning of the year, not the actual payroll results.”….(continued)

SEE ALSO ~  The Worst Salary Year (Inside Higher Ed)

This seems appropriate somehow: a dog catching a big fish.

"Stop having sex," suggests typical OC Reg reader

Jan Norman of the OC Reg, who writes on "small business," is running a readers poll regarding the “most important issues”:

Poll: What’s the most important issue?

240 Register readers have taken the poll thus far (at the time of this writing).
Here are the results (in percentages):

31% The Economy
29% Unemployment
19% Federal budget deficit
8% Environment/global warming
7% Healthcare
5% Terrorism
2% Situation in Afghanistan

Naturally, these percentages might not represent Register readers in general. Presumably, both groups (Reg readers and those who took the poll) skew "conservative."

For comparison, Norman provides the results of a recent Gallup poll of American voters:
Percentages: “extremely” or “very” important:

The economy: 93%
Unemployment: 87%
Healthcare: 84%
Federal budget deficit: 78%
Terrorism: 76%
Situation in Afghanistan: 70%
Environment/global warming: 46%

Looks like Reg readers tend to disagree with much of the rest of the country concerning the importance of “Healthcare” as an issue.

Naturally, some Reg readers left comments. Unsurprisingly, they tended to carp about the absence of "immigration" as an issue option. Sometimes, they got, um, colorful about it:

c1143 says:
Where is the “Strengthen the border” issue???
English Defence League says:
immigration?
Gary S says:
Without private sector jobs, there will be no money to pay for all of these new programs that are being forced down upon us by our imperial masters.
Taro says:
Why wasn’t immigration included in the survey???
Those illegals are taking the jobs away from American citizens....
antarez says:
I totally agree, Wait till Obama tries to force this Amnesty BS next. Time for us to vote out all his supporters in the next elections before he can totally ruin the Country.
Spring. says:
Its been proven over and over, illegals only take jobs that normal americans dont want. Even in the recession, i know people that dont have a job, but they dont want to go in gardening or McDonalds. Thats their problem. So as far as im concerned, i dont care about illegals, besides, the government knows they are benificial, they will NEVER do anything to stop it.
rjs says:
it is SCARY out there, THE COSTS OF TAKING CARE OF LATINOS AND WHAT THEY GOBBLE UP !!!!!! STOP HAVING SEX, there will be nothing left in a few years !!!!!!!