Board Takes Action to"Postpones All Employment Hiring" at June 12, 2019 Board Meeting

"A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity." -Dalai Lama

(Caveat: Sausage making is not for the faint at heart)

Regardless of board politics, we have a fiduciary responsibility prescribed by state statute to be transparent in our process which should be taken with gravity.

On June 12, 2019 at the Regular Board Meeting of the Rio Hondo College, in closed session, the board took action to "postpone all employment hiring till the August 14th Regular Board Meeting". You may not know this because the motion and the vote was not adequately reported out and recorded in the minutes. The minutes did say that each of the four hiring was "tabled" which was not accurate. There is a difference between table and postponement (Robert's Rules). Since then, I have "noticed reconsideration" to bring back the minutes for clerical correction to remedy the violation. The hires postponed are:

 Full-Time, Tenure-Track, Sociology Instructor
 Full-Time, Tenure-Track, Chicana/o Studies Instructor
 Dean, Behavioral and Social Sciences
 Interim Grant Manager, Outreach and Concurrent/Dual Enrollment

Nevertheless, the motion and vote is as follows (which is public information and the Board has a statutory responsibility to report out)

It was moved by Trustee Valladares and seconded by Trustee Lomeli to "postpone all employment hiring till the August `4th, 2019 Regular Board meeting".
Votes:
Valladares: Yes
Lomeli: Yes
Santana: Yes
Garcia: Yes
Mendez: No

My reasoning for my "no" vote is that any delay in the hiring of faculty for the Fall semester would have a negative impact on students as the respective faculty member needs time to prepare for Fall classes. In addition, the postponed Dean position should not be delayed since the District is experiencing an issue with the failed new centralized method of scheduling and must revert back to the old method led by each department. This large error will cost the college millions in lost, miscalculated, FTES. Each department is scrambling to correct the error to prevent any further hemorrhaging in FTES/funds. Delaying the hiring of a Dean is detrimental to the respective department, faculty, staff and students. We can not afford any delay in the appointment of a dean which the superintendent was ready to recommend in June. A postponement is shortsighted.

Squirrelly Process
Nonetheless, the positions were officially "postponed til August. However, an odd thing occurred at the July 10, 2019 regular meeting of the Board of Trustees, two of the four positions postponed appeared on the closed session agenda for hiring. Ok, so the board postponed and then unpostponed? Not really, after the board took action to postpone only the board (as a whole) can undue that action (reconsideration) not any single board member. So it occurred despite any basic (legislative-Rules) process.

The peculiar thing is why only the two were unpostponed and hired? Why leave out the Dean position and the grant manager? I don't know. I could speculate but i'd rather not get into any board members mens-rae.

There it is in full transparency.


Agenda for June 12, 2019

Why I Resigned as Board President on 6/12/19

Don't you recognize a selfless act when you see one?

I resigned as Board President of the Rio Hondo College Board of Trustees at a regular meeting on Wednesday, June 12, 2019. Admittedly, it felt good to resign and I feel accomplished. For full transparency, i will tell you why. Instead of being constantly attacked by a board member and checking her undue influence on the Superintendent, I choose to step aside and let others lead hoping the mean spirited vindictiveness will cease.


In sum, I met my main objective which was to assure that Rio Hondo College hired a good and unbiased Superintendent/President. This was not an easy task. It was filled with skirmishes, clandestine chicanery and pitch battles. It was known a year out that two board members, possibly four before the change in the board, and a group of employees that they had predetermined who they were going to hire as the next superintendent/president. The votes and structure was all in place before November. The champagne bottles were poping. However, the group was careless in who they brought into the scheme not realizing that leaks will always occur when a sinister plan is in play. People like to talk. The gang talked about stacking the search committee but with twenty-three members they were unable to acquire a majority. Mistake one.

The remaining two conspiring board members proceeded with their end of the scheme. First, was the development of questions from the board. The process agreed by the board was that the development of the interview questions was to occur in closed session, as normal usual, free from any employees and administered by the Search Firm only. The first move by the conspirators was to bias the questions with a movida to change from questions to requiring the candidates to make a presentation on "equity". First hint on who they were helping by skipping questions and just asking for a presentation. Defeated. The two board members tried to force it on the board twice to only be defeated. After the board agreed on its questions, it was understood that the search firm would type it up for the board to review and make any changes, and print on the day of interviews. It was agreed that the search firm would would walk over to HR and copy them for the board.

So on the day of interviews the search consultant copied the interview questions and a dean walked into our closed session and handed them out. Some found it odd that a dean would be handing us our confidential questions. Members of the board noticed that the interview questions now included a rubric scale one to five with specially designated boxes for notes. What's this I asked? The dean said, "this is how we do it at Rio Hondo". I said, excuse me but I've been here for over twenty years and we have never done it this way. Besides, the board agreed on the instrument of interview questions and finalized them this morning. Who gave you authority to change our instrument? His reply, "I did". Who are you and what gives you the right? Dean you need to leave right now. Cease and desist! He replied, I have to be here, im the EEOO. I said, no you are not, the consultant is by contract. I went to the Superintendent/president to inform her that I asked the dean to leave and you need to make sure he does. Superintendent/President replied, "oh..i didn't know he was in the room or what he was doing there". Nice try but no. He never came back.

So, the interview questions were heavy on equity due to two board members. We knew why but so be it. At the end of all interviews came the accolades for the predetermined candidate of the conspiring board members. The truth was that their candidate bombed and bombed big. The two highlighted the smallest positive attributes. The selection phase came and the two were dumbfounded that their candidate came in close to last. It was straight forward objective on who were the best candidates and theirs wasn't. So the two continued to fight to place their chosen candidate on the top ranking and it failed each and every time. The two continued to put obstacles up throughout the process and came up short.

Then the board discovered that staff had the interview questions in their possession the day after we developed them. Why would staff want a copy of the interview questions? You may have guessed. It turned out that the search firm had forwarded the draft interview questions to staff without the board knowing and staff explained that "that's how we do it here". Very suspicious, right?

It gets more intriguing. The board also found out that after our interviews, and before the board made any determination of candidates, staff had scanned all its interview notes. It was caught by a board member who noticed that the questionnaire paper was unstapled and restapled. Did someone unstapled the instrument, made copies and restapled? Perhaps the intention was accidental and "that how we do it here"? You got to think.

The chicanery didn't stop there. They continued to the last day.

Now, I resigned because I did what i needed to do for my college. I kept the process as objective as possible. We hired a good decent Superintendent/President who will start after July 10th, 2019. Oh..one more thing. The current superintendent/president will be retiring on June 30, 2019 and I thank her for all her years of service. I'm grateful for her contribution to Rio Hondo College, truly. However, voted four to one that the Vice President of Academic Services will assuming the duties as superintendent/president till the New superintendent/President assumes the position. I know she will serve us well.

It's back to farming for me. Transparency, right?

Safety & Security at Rio Hondo Delayed

In January 2019, the Board of Trustees initiated a Safety & Security Assessment by contracting a former police chief and former arson investigator to perform an independent assessment of Rio Hondo College. This was primarily in response to the gun incident at Rio Hondo College that occurred months before and which left many wondering if the college was safe. This coincided with a change in the board composition where new board members were calling for an intensive review of safety and where incumbents board members wished just to put that in the past without any further inquiry.

The superintendent was reluctant against any safety assessment where the gun incident might be investigated. The gun carrying dean claimed that the superintendent allowed him to carry the gun on campus without notifying the board of trustees. The superintendent made herself clear to the board president that she was adamantly against any inquiry related to the gun incident and that she would strike out any focus from the scope of services. However, the board directed the superintendent to allow the assessment firm to do a full comprehensive review of safety and security at Rio Hondo College without any interference. In private, however, the superintendent demanded that the safety and security assessment occur only after she leaves which was counter to the board’s wishes and directive. The safety and security assessment passed five-zero on the board. The urgency was clear from the board.
Two months passed, and the superintendent stalled and delayed the signing of the contract of the assessment firm. She further delayed the contract and gutted the scope of the assessment thus obstructing a full independent evaluation. She now prescribed that the investigators only talk to two people on campus; the VP of Finance and the HR Director. All other communication was prohibited.

Five months passed until the two investigators of the assessment firm informed the board president of all the delays, stalls and gutting of the contract. The Superintendent was unresponsive. The board president met with the superintendent to ask about the status of the contract and she claimed ignorance. She did not know about the status. When asked further for a status update, a week later, she indicated that the contract “wasn’t ready”. Six months later, after the original contract scope had changed and the delayed continued, the contracted investigators communicated to the board president that the delays had now limited the scope and time frame. Where the original scope was for twelve months now they have only six months to do a year’s amount of work, if the contract ever gets signed.
On or about June 10th 2019, The board president received an amended contract to forward to the superintendent since she was unresponsive. The board president met with the superintendent to discuss the status of the contract and modification requested by the firm given that six months had passed and still no contract had been signed. In discussion, the superintendent agreed that a years’ worth of work must now be done in six months warranted a modification. The conversation about the importance of safety and security was mutually agreed and that the assessment was needed. The Superintendent informed the board president that the modification will be placed on the consent agenda by her recommendation. However, the story of the safety and security assessment was told differently by the superintendent at a board meeting.

The bottom line is this, Rio Hondo College students and employees deserve to study and work in a safe environment. After the gun incident and other reoccurring circumstances like stalking, now is the time to conduct an independent safety and security assessment so that we can identify our weak points and strengths to begin to address them. Why should we wait till a serious safety crisis arises? The stall and delay were a tactic to prevent any scrutiny of the gun incident. The delay was successful. The assessment will not be conducted while the sitting president is in office. However, the assessment must continue without delay or obstruction. Our students and employees deserve to be safe.

A History of Holding Up Shared Governance at Rio

April 2019: Recently. "What do you know about Shared Governance?", she asked. Well...as a paralegal student [1990's] at Rio I did a semester long independent studies course on AB 1725 reviewing the legislation, committee reports, California's Code of Rules & Regulations, Rio's policy and that of other colleges.. As a student trustee, I participated in the College's review of the shared governance policy leading to the inclusion of students. Soon after, I organized two state-wide student conference on Shared Governance. That's what I know and I've forgotten nothing.

(Campaign material from Rio student leadership days. Ran for Policy Director for the California Student Association of Community Colleges. I won.)

Rio Hondo College: A Past Practice Doesn't Make it A Good Practice

"That's they way we have done it" is a typical statement used to justify not following a written rule, procedure or policy.
Recently, on Friday, March 8, 2019 I sat on the Special Awards Committee, BP 1500 that states that "by March 1, a committee composed of the Superintendent/President of the college, the president of the Board of Trustees, the president of the Academic Senate, and the president of the Associated Students" will meet to recommend a Fellow of the College.

Two issues arose quickly; 1) the committee is meeting beyond the March 1 deadline and 2) where is staff(csea)? Staff are excluded on the committee by policy. I could not turn the other cheek and ignore the two serious issues for expediency. Rio Hondo College is government, a branch of the State of California and designed to be locally governed to represent local communities. This is a serious responsibility which the people and communities we represent demand transparency and accountability. How could I look the other way and say "well..that's the way we've done it for years". Responsible government requires us to follow our own rules and policy.

Board Policy 1500 has existed since 1977 and renewed in 2014.

So, in discussing it with the committee we had two choices: 1) not have a Fellow this year or 2) changed the date for the committee and add staff to committee. We choose number two. We agreed at making two small amendments that are temporary so we can consider the fellow yet understanding that this policy needs a comprehensive review after graduation. We made our amendments and "referred" (or committed) our amendments to the Planning and Fiscal Council for "review". Under Robert's Rules of Order the process to refer or commit gives you two choices: 1) refer without any specific direction leaving it open or 2) refer with the question (amendments) put forward for review. Choice number two is specific directions to the referred committee (PFC). The direction is that the Special Awards Committee proposes to make a temporary and small amendment to allow it to recommend a fellow to the board by changing its meeting deadline prescribed by BP 1500 and add staff to committee.

The policy overall is inconsistent and not cohesive. A summary of issues with the policy includes:

1) the Special Awards Committee for the Fellow's deadline is too restrictive.

2) Staff (csea) are excluded from the Special Awards Committee for the Fellow in gross violation of shared governance.

3) The nomination form for Fellow and Distinguish Service is not compliant with the policy and misleading.

4) Distinguished Service Award does not state that the Awards Committee, whom recommends the Fellow, also recommends the Distinguished Service Award but it does in practice. No committee exist for this award.

5) There is no deadline for Distinguished Service Award and can be awarded anytime.

6) Policy states that the Distinguished Service Award recipient must be "member of the Rio Hondo Community College District" which is a resident requirement but rarely has this been followed.

7) We do not have a staff (CSEA) award bestowed by the District. As it exist in policy, the "Classified Employee Award" is a state award that staff recommends a nominee and the Board endorses.

8) The deadline is the state deadline which all the above must occur by March 10. No nominee has been forwarded.

9) The Distinguish Faculty Award does have a nomination deadline of "third Friday in February".

10) The "Selection Process" for the Faculty award contains two sub-committees: 1) Academic Senate and 2) Superintendent/President of the college, the president of the Board of Trustees, the president of the Academic Senate, and the president of the Associated Students to "affirm" the first committees choice. This year (2019), the first committee has forwarded a nominee to the board, however, skipped the second sub committee. Policy not followed.

My intent, is to hold Rio Hondo accountable to its established policies. We need to follow policy or change it. The idea that "that's the way we do it here" contrary to policy is unacceptable. Yes, people say that questioning how we've done things, out of policy compliance, creates a "toxic environment". What I've learned and observed is that the stalwarts of bad practices react toxic stating the the questions are toxic. What is right?