LIES! LIES! LIES! --the May '97 Board Meeting

[Many issues arose during the May 1997 board meeting. The transcripts below concern only: (1) the announcement of the IVC Academic Senate vote of “no confidence” in the board, (2) Trustee Frogue’s remark about “liars” in the room; (3) Trustee Frogue’s response to the announcement of the results of the vote of “no confidence.”

Please note the blatant ad hominem employed by Trustee John Williams against IVC Academic Senate President Kate Clark.]

May 19, 1997
Meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees

[IVC Academic Senate President Kate Clark's statement during the public comments portion of the meeting--and her subsequent brief exchange with Trustee Williams]

President Clark: It is not a pleasant circumstance that brings me to this podium this evening--to report that the entire Irvine Valley College faculty has, by a vote of 63 to 24, declared "no confidence" in this Board of Trustees because of quote "repeated actions taken which indicate its unwillingness to participate in the spirit and intent of shared governance" end quote. Contrary to claims made by Ms. Miller-White, for those of you with political understanding, this represents a disapproval rating of 72.5 percent of the faculty. The referendum was introduced from the floor of the Representative Council and had language crafted by all members present. It was submitted by a vote of 18 to 2 to 2 to a vote of our entire faculty in an open and fair election monitored by our elections committee. The Academic Senate--and, at IVC, that is the entire faculty--has spoken and when the Academic Senate speaks it is prudent for this district to listen. A vote of no confidence is understood to be a most grave action not undertaken lightly. The last vote of no confidence taken by IVC faculty was registered against former President Ed Hart in the early 1980s. It is to be considered by all an overwhelming signal to the college, to the district, and to the community we serve that severe problems persist and cry for remedy. The Academic Senate is the duly constituted voice of the faculty, recognized as such by law, by Title V, by your own board policies. As the IVC Academic [Senate] President, I am the individual designed to speak on behalf of the faculty as a whole. I carry to the various meetings I attend the visions, the concerns, as expressed by the majority of the faculty through open, democratic processes. I have always attempted to be scrupulous, when I speak, to distinguish when I represent Senate actions, when I speak the sentiments of the faculty as a whole, and when I carry the voice of concern raised by some but not discussed as a whole. If I must be a cautious speaker, then I ask you as board members to be cautious listeners and to distinguish between decisions reached and delivered by the authentic voice of the faculty--the Academic Senates--and the whispered rumors or innuendoes of those who approach you outside the process. They do not speak for faculty as a whole. They cannot, and their appeals or their petitions must be weighed accordingly. The Academic Senate by law is more than just an advisor body. Your failure to understand that principle and our partnership reflects the very depth of your lack of understanding about AB 1725. We have brought our entreaties before this body as requests for meetings and orientations. We have been stifled in our attempts to bring such requests before you as a docket item. Our requests to you for legal remedies have also gone unanswered, and we tire of asking. The plebiscite just taken at our college is no longer request; it is a public demand that you work with us to rectify the ills that plague this district and to restore both the obligations and responsibilities delegated to us by law and your own adopted board policies 2100.1.

Trustee Williams: The Brown Act allows a brief interaction with a public speaker: President Clark, did you state to any employee of this district that, if you didn't get those things that you wanted, that you would shut down IVC?

Clark: Never.

Williams: OK, thank you.

[Later in the meeting, trustees Lorch and Frogue repeat the charge against Kate. Evidently, the story that Kate had said they she “would shut down IVC” was reported to trustees by Raghu. Judging by the unreliability of similar charges offered by Mathur over the years, I think Kate’s reputation is safe.]
…..
TRUSTEE FROGUE’S REPORT:

My report will be brief. I did provide (a bit [indecipherable] report) here about certain things that have been going on here. I did want to announce that I did this afternoon talk to the Governor's Office and I did ask him to call a conference of the Presidents of the Community College Districts of California to review the problems with AB1725, the relations with the Academic Senates. I think it's reached a --we've reached a point here where the Academic Senates might not have confidence in us, and frankly I don't think we have much confidence in them, and it's something, it's a problem I think we should perhaps reach some agreement on. So I've put in a call and I will be following it up with a letter.

We have the same type of problem here that we've had over the last three years here. And we've seen it in this last week here, where lies get printed in the newspapers...It's called "blow back." It's the oldest game in the book. You plant something in the newspaper that's false--I've suffered this type of stuff personally from people in this very room: repeating lies. The lies, just by getting printed get--"Well, it was printed; it therefore must be the truth." We see the same type of thing here with the fact that the CCLC was going to investigate. Never happened, never happened. They spin this stuff--people (can be?) inventive, conscientious, and creative liars and the truth seems to be whatever lies they think they can get away with. And it's time that maybe a little bit of this stuff stops.
. . .
We were at the conference in Washington, D.C. We had part of the first day there off and I visited the Arlington National Cemetery and the eternal flame...Walked down a little bit. Eighteen inch cross: the grave of Robert Francis Kennedy. There was a young family with a child there; the little child asked, "Who was Robert Kennedy?" And the wife turns to the husband, "Who was Robert Kennedy?" They didn't even know. And to those of us who lived through that, it's relatively shocking.

I turned, however, and there's an inscription on the wall that left me transfixed. And it said that every time a person stands up, and stands up to, that which is wrong, they start a small ripple, and if enough people stand up against what is wrong, they can truly cause a wave to form that will change the world. It was the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen. Very inspiring and something that we can all learn from and profit from.

[Later in the meeting:]

Trustee Frogue speaks of "rigged elections"

Trustee Frogue: Thank you Miss Miller-White...As far as kettles and pots, here, I think it's—

Miller-White: Black is a good color.

Trustee Frogue: (indecipherable)...and it's beautiful, too, but, uh, as far as the reputations of those governance units in our District, maybe it's, it's not the best color--we should be striving for openness.

(Miller-White: "[indecipherable] is fine.")

Frogue: ...I think it has been fine. I have been, uh, you know, a member of CTA for thirty years and even had an Academic Senate at the school that I teach and I follow the...[indecipherable]. I do believe under the (virtue?) of this Board that the Academic Senate meets.

I've seen rigged elections. (Indecipherable) votes of no confidence--I've seen rigged elections in one of the colleges. I've seen it twice, personally, personally--with rigged elections. And so when, uh, people talk about--you know, uh--votes of this or votes of that, I just think you have to take it with a grain of salt. Moving along...(Roy Bauer begins to speak over Trustee Frogue: "Are you saying that...") The California...School Employee Association...

Roy Bauer: [Again:] Excuse me. Are you saying that the referendum was rigged?

Trustee Frogue: No.

(?): Then what are you saying?

Trustee Frogue: I'm saying that there've been rigged elections in the past.

(?:) By whom?

Trustee Frogue: The Academic Senate of Irvine Valley College [mixed voices. Frogue responds to something:] I just said it. There have been rigged elections...

Bauer: Was it [i.e., the vote of no confidence] rigged or not?

Trustee Frogue: Rigged elections at Irvine College in the past...

(?:)By whom?

Trustee Frogue: The Irvine Valley College Academic Senate.

Jan Wyma: We've been called liars here tonight; we may as well get it out in the open.

Bauer: Who is the liar and what's the lie?

Wyma: (We're having?) a public meeting and you call our faculty liars.

Trustee Frogue: I said there have been rigged elections at Irvine Valley College. I've seen them. Twice. You want me to name names? [Indecipherable mixed voices.] The evidence is in the record.

(?): It exonerated the Senate.

Trustee Frogue: Pardon me?

(?): The record exonerated the Senate.

Trustee Frogue: The record did not exonerate the Senate.

(?): I'd like (you?) to name names.

Trustee Frogue: The record...We can, if you'd like [mixed voices, indecipherable; reference is made by someone to Frogue's speaking of liars.] No, I didn't call anybody "liars." I said there were rigged elections.

Bauer: You, sir, are a coward.

Trustee Frogue: No, I'm not…I'm saying that there were rigged elections--for the fourth time.

Bauer: Who's a liar? [Mixed voices, indecipherable; general chaos.]

Trustee Fortune: Point of order. This sounds like an Irvine Valley College faculty meeting--(in other words, I would wish you'd move [us] along?).

Trustee Frogue: Yes, Yes. I understand.

Saddleback Community College District goes on "priority 2" watch list

 WATCH LIST (1997). The South Orange County Community College District was placed on the state chancellor's "priority 3" fiscal watch list way back in March, 1996. In November of '97, however, it joined two other districts statewide by being placed on the more worrisome "priority 2" watch list, owing mostly to a dip in budget reserve to only 1.2% and five straight years of deficit spending. 

 Self-styled "fiscal conservatives" John Williams and Steven Frogue served on the board during this entire period. They had also consistently supported faculty salary raises. 

 At the time that the district was placed at priority 2, 88% of its budget went to salaries and benefits, allowing it to have--by far--the highest pay scale in the state. The state-wide average for salaries and benefits was 83%. 

 In a November '97 editorial, an alarmed Irvine World News asked, "who has been watching the store in the South Orange County district...?" 

The IWN also remarked upon the Board Majority's vaunted July '97 reorganization, which was alleged to have saved the district big money: "[W]hile the four-member board majority was patting itself on the back for saving a purported $1 million by shaking up the administrative structure of IVC, the real figures show any savings were no more than a quarter of that, not counting legal costs the move engendered. Taking into account those legal hassles, the move likely will end up costing the district money." A careful examination by the IVC faculty senate later revealed that the reorganization in fact cost the college money. The district was finally removed from the watch list in the Fall of '99.

Studying the Lessons of Steven J. Frogue

Studying the Lessons of Steven J. Frogue: 

Profile: The teacher and Saddleback trustee does not retreat from controversy that his views generate 

 (LA Times, Nov. 25, 1996) 

By Michael Granberry  

Studying the Lessons of Steven J. Frogue : Profile: The teacher and Saddleback trustee does not retreat from controversy that his views generate (LA Times, Nov. 25, 1996)

Link to

Studying the Lessons of Steven J. Frogue : Profile: The teacher and Saddleback trustee does not retreat from controversy that his views generate (LA Times, Nov. 25, 1996; Michael Granberry)

Excerpt:

     Frogue has been accused of denying the Holocaust, according to a former board member and several former students who say his comments about Jews and those who died at the hands of the Nazis cross over a line of ethics, propriety and recorded fact…. 

     “I believe Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the ADL,” Frogue said in a half-whisper during a recent interview on the Foothill High campus. 

     Asked to repeat his assertion, Frogue said, “That’s right. . . . I believe the ADL was behind it.”

See also Froomkin's OC Reg article about Frogue

Adventures in Advertising: The real purpose behind gay-baiting at Saddleback College

By R. SCOTT MOXLEY

Orange County Weekly,

November 15, 1996

Adventures in Advertising: The real purpose behind gay-baiting at Saddleback College

By R. SCOTT MOXLEY

      LOCAL POLITICAL observers are calling it the "most scurrilous and vile" campaign ad of the season, and it wasn't the deft handiwork of U.S. Congressman Bob Dornan, Orange County's most infamous negative campaigner. No, the ad—which critics say was designed to tap anti-gay sentiment—was sent by a college-faculty association on behalf of a slate of three conservative candidates and one Democrat vying for seats on the governing board of the Saddleback College District [since renamed the "South Orange County Community College District"]. Three of the candidates supported by the controversial ad-including the Democrat-won.

        According to the four-page mailer, same-sex marriage advocates are plotting to "TAKE CONTROL of your tax dollars and your community colleges." The ad-sent to thousands of South County Republicans during the election's final three weeks-rails against domestic-partner health benefits and discussions of gay and lesbian lifestyles in college classes or seminars.

        "Don't be misled by ultraliberal political groups. Keep Saddleback independent," read the red, white and black mailer. "Reject tax-paid health insurance for same-sex 'partners.' Vote to protect [their emphasis] the integrity of Saddleback Colleges."

        But while same-sex marriage, domestic-partner benefits and gay-related curriculum are certainly inflammatory wedge issues, they had nothing to do with the nonpartisan race for trustee slots at Saddleback, the state's sixth-largest community college district with 33,000 students and an annual budget of more than $70 million.

        "Personally, I am open to the idea of domestic-partner benefits," said Lee Rhodes, one of those blasted in the anti-gay mailer. "But it just isn't on the radar screen of pressing issues we face."

        The nasty rhetoric obscured the real struggle: which group of trustees is likely to be more generous with teachers at the district's two community colleges, Saddleback in Mission Viejo and Irvine Valley in Irvine.

        The anti-gay mailer was paid for by Taxpayers for Responsible Education, a political-action committee (PAC) established by the Saddleback Community College District Faculty Association. The "taxpayers" are mostly Saddleback Community College faculty eager to elect a board that will cut a better deal with teachers when their contract comes up for renegotiation this year.

        Michael Channing, the association's treasurer and a Saddleback College English professor, said that he was unaware of the ad's content before it was mailed. "I really don't want to be associated with this," he said.

        Channing declined to answer further questions and referred inquiries to Sherry MillerWhite, president of the association. She could not be reached for comment. The faculty-controlled PAC reported spending $44,000 through Oct. 19 on behalf of ultraright-wing incumbents Steven Frogue, John Williams, Democrat Dorothy Fortune and Don Davis. Only Davis lost.

        "The ad was manufactured lies and misinformation," said David Lang, a CPA who ran on a slate with Rhodes, Dianne Brooks and Suzanne Moraes. The ad targeted the slate for defeat; only Lang survived. "It's disgusting and shameful that they would involve the gay community in this [election], but it shows the lengths they will go to control the colleges."

        But the most interesting beneficiary of the mailer was Fortune, who was a presidential delegate for Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

        "I had nothing to do with writing it, mailing it or paying for it," Fortune said after the election. When reminded that her picture and biography appeared in the ad, she said, "I'm sorry, but I was not in the loop at all."

        Members of the Laguna Beach Democratic Club, to which Fortune belonged, were outraged by the ad and voted to strip their endorsement from her campaign in the final weeks. The club issued a statement decrying any candidate who attempted "to kindle fear and hatred in voters as a technique to garner support."

        "Fortune may not have mailed it or paid for it, but she certainly was open to her campaign benefiting from it," said Anne Cox, club president. "I spoke with her at length after the ad came out and explained how betrayed people felt about its tone and message. But she made it clear her goal was to win the election-obviously at any cost."

        Rhodes, the incumbent trustee and fellow Democrat whom Fortune defeated, called the brochure "despicable" and, along with Lang, charged that someone forged their slate's campaign brochures by inserting a statement that they were actively pushing for domestic partner benefits at the colleges.

        "That flier appealed to the worst in human nature by trying to incite certain elements in our community that are susceptible to hatemongering and hysteria," said Rhodes, a retired biology professor associated with Saddleback College for 28 years as a teacher and trustee. "The piece could not have been further from the real education issues at stake. It was just an underhanded smoke screen."

Sherry Miller-White: the end justifies the means, evidently

     The faculty union's flier—distributed to tens of thousands of Republican households—is widely credited with securing Williams, Fortune, and Frogue's '96 election victories. At the time, union consultant Pam Zanelli—later, the chief district PR person—recommended exploitation of the "domestic partners" issue, even though (a) the opposing trustee slate did not run on this issue, (b) CTA, which provided the chapter with campaign funds, officially favors domestic partner benefits, and (c) domestic partner benefits are properly a union, not a trustee, initiative. The flier contained figures concerning the cost of domestic partner benefits that bore no relation to reality. None of the beneficiaries of the flier—including long-time Democrat Dorothy Fortune—ever disowned it.

     Union president Sherry Miller-White's decision to use the Zanelli-inspired flier naturally produced an outpouring of outrage from faculty. In response, the leadership began its campaign of simultaneously defending its action and blaming Zanelli for it. According to the post-election union newsletter, "The Faculty Association was forced to compete in the past campaign because life as we know it was under threat...[T]he Faculty Association, in desperation, turned the campaign over to a professional firm. All the information and literature of the PIE group was turned over to the professionals who developed the campaign...[T]he professionals said that many Democratic and Republican races across the nation were debating [the domestic partners issue] and that the public should not be kept in the dark about the full PIE agenda...." Also in the newsletter, Miller-White writes: "During the election, we were all in a fight for our existence as we know it. With all of this at risk, it became my responsibility as president to do the best I could [to] prevent this from happening...The unfortunate recent campaign war was necessitated solely by those opposing or threatening our contract. Even though the job as President of the faculty association is extremely difficult and requires a lot of self sacrifice, knowing that our immediate future is secure makes it all worth while."

Typical FA newsletter of the time

     During a forum in January of '97, Sherry Miller-White explicitly acknowledged having approved the flier, even though it was, she said, "too homophobic for me." Nevertheless, she explained, the use of such tactics was necessary to protect "life as we know it." She refused to apologize for her decision, thus providing members no reason to suppose that she would not use such tactics again. Indeed, during the trustee race of '98, Miller-White and her cronies helped secure the victories of two anti-teachers union candidates, using a flier that argued, absurdly, that the two would help stop the El Toro airport.

Willing to say or do anything to protect "life as we know it"

ARCHIVES: the infamous "SAME-SEX" flier & how we got to this sorry state

WHENCE THE HOMOPHOBIC FLIER?

The Old Guard's Sharon MacMillan

By 1996, a small group of unscrupulous faculty—including the shamelessly ambitious and incorrigibly conniving chemistry instructor Raghu Mathur—controlled the faculty union (the "Faculty Association"). So unscrupulous were they that they campaigned for their right-wing candidates—including Holocaust denier Steven Frogue (see Register article, April '95)—using the utterly phony "same-sex" benefits issue. 

The union was forced to use the flier, said then-union Prez Sherry after the election, in order to protect "life as we know it."

The union got these people elected; for their trouble, the unionists would get board support for continued high faculty salaries for senior faculty. Junior faculty were not similarly benfitted. Some scores were settled, too.

And so, in December of 1996, the era of the conservative "Board Majority" began. The Old Guard got what they wanted—for the time being. But their "victory" was the beginning of a painful and precipitous decline for the two colleges and the district. The BM concentrated its efforts on dismantling the machinery of "shared governance" (a concept that emerged from the historic "AB1725" legislation of the late 80s). Phoney accreditation reports were written, Old Guard schemers (Runyan, Mathur, Woodward, et al.) became administrators, and the Old Guard's long-time foes sought cover.

LAUGHING STOCK

Soon, the district was the laughing stock of the state community college system. SOCCCD was placed on the state chancellor's "fiscal watch" list—Williams blamed this on the OC bankruptcy, despite other OC district's avoiding that particular fate—and its colleges were given accreditation warnings, owing largely to sustained board "micromanagement"/lawlessness and administrative instability. To make matters worse, the Citizens Commission on Higher Education used SOCCCD to illustrate the need to eliminate locally elected boards of trustees.

Meanwhile, Mathur and the Board attracted tremendous negative media attention, thanks to their absurd and offensive actions and policies, as when Mathur banned signs and graphics from faculty windows and doors at IVC, or when Frogue planned a "Warren Commission" seminar, complete with assorted anti-Semites and conspiracy nuts.

Most faculty were horrified by what their union was doing, and thus many sought reform. For a very long time, reform efforts were successfully thwarted by such Old Guard tactics as refusing to provide copies of the union's bylaws, barring reform faculty from meetings, and proclaiming Old Guard-busting union elections to be null and void! In the course of these struggles, troubling irregularities re the union's bank accounts came to light. They were never fully explained.

Ultimately, the CTA entered the picture and, after years of struggle (CTA wasn't really much help), the Old Guard's stranglehold on the union was broken.

REFORM TOO LATE

But, by then, the union had managed to elect two more right-wing trustees. These two—Wagner and Padberg—campaigned, with union money, on the phony "stop the airport" issue (college trustees had no say in this issue). "Wagberg" were associated with "Education Alliance," a Christian Right organization run by the author of the infamous union-busting proposition of 1998. Without doubt, Wagberg moved the board to the right and even further away from the spirit of "shared governance." (In recent years, it appears that Padberg has drifted toward relative reasonableness, leaving Wagner and Fuentes—Fuegner—to anchor the board in abject right-wing evil.)

So, by late 1999, though the Old Guard was out, and reformers controlled their union, the Old Guard's chief legacy—an utterly anti-faculty board—was firmly in place.

THE FINAL PIECE

But matters got worse. When Frogue resigned in the summer of 2000—thereby providing the Board Majority with an opportunity to hand pick his replacement—notorious arch-conserrvative and Chair of the County GOP Tom Fuentes joined the board. Again, this was done with the help of the Old Guard, some of whom came to speak in favor of Fuentes at board meetings.

Natually, as an incumbent, Fuentes sailed to election victory in 2000.

At about that time, Raghu Mathur, who had already suffered two massive votes of "no confidence" at IVC, was chosen by the board as the district's new Chancellor.

Thus it was that, thanks to the union Old Guard—Mathur and his crew of disgruntled misfits and money-grubbers—the district came to be overseen by an anti-faculty, anti-intellectual, and anti-union board—and led by an unprincipled Chancellor who will say and do anything to keep his "bosses" happy. —CW [RB]

Click on graphic to enlarge

From The conservative board majority