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?