HERE WE GO AGAIN

It’s December… Are YOUR Board Election Petitions Filed?

 So many of you have been checking in lately we guess it’s time to ramp MW back up. We stayed out of all the shenanigans last spring, since our original goal was to share info about trustees and candidates prior to the last BOT election. So THAT went well.

 Here we are, with three seats open. Will this election be a game-changer, or bring more of the same? As much as we hope for a breath of fresh air, we predict same old same old.

 Nothing better (more influential, high-profile, or interesting) has come along for Mr. Poshard, so we predict he will run for the seat he was appointed to. Trustee R. Hancock was overheard saying to a variety of people that the board “had to” choose Mr. Poshard, since he helped them pass various bond schemes when he was a legislator. We can’t figure out why he wants to get down in the mud with this crew, but the allure of public office seems irresistible.

 Mr. Brewer was overheard last spring saying 40 years was enough and that he was not going to run again. If only. Where else could he experience the sanctity of the closed session? (NOTE: the person who posted the video of his ridiculous statement has been fired, after the administration pulled off some clever maneuvering to dismantle the union which protected her.) But really, does anyone think he wouldn’t have just as much influence as a private citizen (they are hiding Mr. Peterson somewhere, but his blueprint is still being followed despite mounting evidence that his absurd plan for saving the college from itself is a complete disaster)? So who cares, really?

 And Ms. Hancock. Like Ms. Graff, pretending to support the beleaguered teachers, but in the end voting lockstep with the evil cabal of Mr. Brewer, Mr. Rendleman, Mr. Kilquist, and her bro-in-law (and father of JAL administrator) Mr. Hancock. So again, who cares, really? Except her nephew?

 Do you know someone who is running? Please post! Tell us where to send money!

BLINDLY STUMBLING TOWARD THE FUTURE

What will John A. Logan College look like in the future?  This summer?  This Fall?  Two years from now?  Having fired (we at Muddy Williamson are not constrained by terms like RIF, layoffs, converted contracts; if you're unemployed, you've been fired) 55 people, most of them faculty, how does the school carry on?  Many of those fired were tenured professors.  If the make up of the faculty is to be so radically changed, will this be the same school?  Some of those dismissed were renowned for their teaching, student leadership and scholarly authorship.  Rumor, and the attitude of the administration, indicate that quantity and specifics of the individuals selected for dismissal was of a purpose.  That purpose was to work their way through some with less seniority in order to get to some the administration would prefer disappear.  Rumor has it that at least one board member has been bragging that they got rid of some "bad apples".  If true, the stated reason for the firings was a lie. 

Interim President Ron House has said that it is their intention to call back as many of the 55 as possible.  Thirteen people were called back Tuesday night.  The reporting is garbled.  WPSD TV-6 apparently had a different reporter on hand, as did the Southern Illinoisan, who sent their Perry and Franklin counties reporter.  Putting it kindly, the Southern's article, in this morning's paper, was gibberish.  However, assuming that at least the quotes are accurate, or close, Interim Vice President of Administration Larry Peterson, crows about the reorganization, put in place after the ouster of former President Mike Drieth, but says nothing about the massive faculty layoff.  Of those brought back, few were faculty.  Of those staff mentioned in the article, some were to fill newly created positions.  Nothing brings on the ire of taxpayers and legislators like growing administration at a time of budget constraints. 

Peterson refers to checks and balances, with an astounding lack of self awareness.  Everyone at the school acknowledges that he is the de facto president, with Ron House a figurehead. Given the top down, good old boy, nature of the administration of John A. Logan, checks and balances are a joke.  The institution is currently run by Don Brewer, Bill Kilquist, Larry Peterson and Jake Rendleman, reporting lines be damned. 

Interim President House says there is no timeline to recall faculty but that there is a two year window, during which it can take place.  Two years is a long time not to know where the mortgage payment is coming from, what to do about health insurance or whether to enroll the children in school the next term.  It's also a long time for a college to have it's core faculty gone.  While there are reports that most of the recalls were in the biological sciences, not so much for social sciences (none) or English (none). 

Course staffing aside, who will run the college in two years?  If memory serves, the Logan Board said a permanent president would be in place in nine months.  The clock started ticking in October.  That would mean July.  How will they get quality candidates to apply?  To come to Illinois?  To dive into the chaos that is now Logan?  To work for a micromanaging board?  In the wake of the mysterious firing of Mike Drieth?  Larry Peterson is also an interim and supposedly done in December.  Board chairman Don Brewer's term will expire next year.  Who will inherit the shell they have made of the College and what form will that shell take?

BUSINESS AS USUAL

Well, the agenda is out for the next board meeting and there are MORE administrative positions being created and bestowed upon those who didn’t apply for them. This has happened repeatedly, and yet NO ONE SEEMS UPSET. Why are the teachers and staff not rioting in the streets??!! 

Jobs filled so far with NO search: President, Vice President for Administration, Dean, Associate Dean of Admissions, Director of Cirriculum (sic—that means the college didn’t spell it right on their website, but no worries, they have a HIGHLY QUALIFIED person in charge of “cirriculum” with YEARS of experience in that area, if by “years” you mean “zero years”), Director of Advisement (same number of years of experience in advisement) and now Director of Term Faculty.

So, they (whoever “they” are) take someone out of Continuing Ed (which doesn’t seem to have suffered any budget cuts, unlike almost every other cash-strapped school in the state), and drop her in as the person who signs off on new part-time teachers. Hmmm. Part-time President House said the college will replace full-time teachers with part-time ones who are JUST AS QUALIFIED, and the person who will determine that was given a job she didn’t even have to apply for!! Nothing fishy about THAT!

Another fishy item on that agenda is the “closed session minutes” one, most likely related to the complaint filed by Everyone’s Favorite Student Trustee. The Open Meetings Act is pretty clear that those minutes have to be kept for months, so they can’t be voting to destroy them like they do pretty regularly. What are they up to? Right, business as usual…

TRANSPARENCY, SECRECY AND SNOOPING

The ongoing controversy over the actions that the John A. Logan College Board of Trustees took, behind closed doors, March 3, continues.  This Sunday, the Southern Illinoisan mocked the Board's claim of the "sanctity" of the executive session, pointing out that if students were to behave as Ms. Husch claims the Board did, the students would be in violation of the student conduct code. 

According to Ms. Husch, another Board member said, “You want to talk about poor decisions? Well, here’s the poor decisions of Brandi,” as the Board member presented a folder with evidence of past mistakes Husch had allegedly made.  What was in that folder?  More importantly, where did the information come from?  If it was academic, and part of her record, accessing the information was a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.  If it was of a medical nature, it would be a HIPPA violation.  If it was of a criminal nature (no matter how small an offense) how would a Board member obtain such information?  Some arrests and convictions are public records and can be obtained by anyone on the Internet.  Some police reports can be obtained via FOIA.  However, if they were obtained outside standard protocol required of any citizen, then that brings up some questions.  Were they obtained by calling friends within law enforcement?  If so, and if this violated any laws protecting a citizen's records, the violators must be exposed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  Would any current Board members have the opportunity to do such a thing?  Who could it be?

Lets, for the sake of argument, assume two things.  One, that Husch is telling the truth and, two, that the information in the folder was obtained legally.  Revisit the description of the action in that room. 

• "this same board member then produced a folder that documented some...past personal mistakes."

 

This public body spends tax dollars.  It employees hundreds of people.  A folder was produced for the purposes of intimidating a fellow Board member.  Husch was a student trustee; her vote was merely advisory.  If they would do that to her, what might they do to other Board members?  Has this happened in the past?  Has it influenced votes?  Has the use of folders with incriminating information been used outside of Board meetings?  Have members received visits at, or phone calls to, home? 

 

Maybe this was the first time.  Even so, can the message be lost on other Board members?  Get in line, or we'll embarrass you.  If this kind of intimidation has taken place, what about other kinds?  Has the employment of family members been threatened?  Has the employment of Board members been threatened through the political connections of the dominant Board members? 

 

This is serious stuff and the citizens, tax payers and voters of the John A. Logan Community College District need to pay attention.  Oddly, as serious as this is, the Chairman's and the legal counsel's reactions have been laughable.  The word "sanctity" will become lore in southern Illinois.

 

Patrick Hewson, the College's legal mouthpiece, told WPSD-TV that "When things are discussed in executive session, things can get heated".  Well, yes, sometimes when people get excited they raise their voice.  But, do they spontaneously produce a folder of documents?  Hewson, in his full statement said that the Board relies on Roberts Rules of Order, and it is this, not the law that should silence Husch.  Really?  Roberts Rules of Order prevents the transparency of a public body?  Roberts Rules of Order isn't taken that seriously in an 8th grade student counsel.  Hewson says members have an obligation to remain mum, just not a legal obligation.  But, isn't that the only kind a lawyer is paid to opine upon?

WHAT SHAMEFUL THING DID THEY DO?

Public bodies are allowed to go into executive session for a limited amount of reasons, usually to discuss personnel issues.  This is to protect the personnel being considered for hiring, promotion or dismissal, not to protect the politicians from embarrassment.  The recent controversy surrounding student trustee Brandi Husch leads one to believe that the John A. Logan Board of Trustees exceeded the limits of what they may do in executive session.  Ironically, they are now attempting to use that very shroud of executive session secrecy to protect themselves from ridicule, or even a description of their actions while in executive session.  

As members of the public we would assume that there is a sense of decorum and seriousness that these elected officials keep during executive session.  This expectation would certainly apply to the session in question.  The Board was discussing the dismissal of 55 loyal employees.  That's all they were supposed to be discussing.  

Ms. Husch claims she became the subject of their discussion.  That is off limits.  She is an elected official.  Secrecy and the "sanctity" of the session does not apply to discussion of her.  Even the Board's own attorney unintentionally admitted as much.  When asked if, when discussion veered away from the topics on the agenda, there was a "legal obligation" to refrain from revealing the content of discussion, he responded that there was "an obligation".  Well, he's the lawyer, but we can all see that, beyond his spin, his real answer was 'no'.

He responded to Ms. Husch's accusations, on WPSD-TV Channel 6, by saying, "When things are discussed in an executive session, things can get heated,"  Perhaps.  But the "executive session" exception to the Open Meetings Act wasn't designed to hide heated discussion.  It is to protect employees and potential employees, who are under discussion.  Those who were supposed to be under discussion, March 2 were the 55 employees whose livelihoods were at risk.  If the discussion strayed off into one of Ms. Husch, then it was not she, but Chairman Brewer and the remaining members of the Board who were in violation.  And maybe not of the "sanctity" of the executive session, but perhaps in violation of the Open Meetings Act itself.  

All of this leaves unanswered questions.

• What exactly happened in that room March 2?
• What Board members bullied and shamed the student trustee?
• Did Chairman Brewer fail to act to stop this activity?
• Did other members attempt to stop it?
• If not, why not?
• Bullying and shaming sound an awful lot like intimidation and extortion.  Is the Board's legal counsel saying that such "heated discussion" can take place, behind closed doors, that may affect hiring and firing of staff and the votes of Board members?

BULLIES AND THUGS

If Sarah Graham's report, in the Southern Illinoisan is accurate, the John A. Logan Board of Trustees is scared. Gavel-banging, interrupting, fake-indignation scared. Lawyering up scared. What could have happened in the sanctity of that inner sanctum that they have to work so hard to hide it?

 

They have a long history of destroying verbatim minutes.  They also have a long history of intimidating, bullying and threatening. Here’s hoping they picked the wrong young woman to try to hush up.

 

If Brand Husch isn’t in a position to sue for emotional distress, at the very least she should be talking to Lisa Madigan’s office and probably the state college board. And she better FOIA those minutes before they have a chance to vote to destroy them.

 

Interestingly, tonight, the "Freedom of Information" link on JALC's home page, goes not to a FOIA page but to the Free Support Services Available page.  The Freedom of Information page is here, as is Logan's FOIA Officer's contact information. 

Leap Day may be remembered as Black Monday

The mismanagement of local and state politicians has hit the area hard today.  There are rumors that Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Southern Illinois is closing.  If true, this is a tragedy that impacts young lives, when they are most vulnerable.
 
Bad news at John A. Logan College is not a rumor.  Notice of Recommendation of Reduction in Force letters went out to dozens of employees.  Two special meetings of the Board of Trustees will be held Wednesday, March 2.  The first will be at 5:30, from which the Board will go into executive session.  The second is at 7pm.  The agenda for each meeting provides for public comment.  To be considered are the elimination of 15 non-teaching professional staff, 35 full time faculty and 5 Teamsters.  That's 20 people who support students or teaching and eight non-tenured, and 27 tenured, faculty. 

As a union spokesman told the BOT, at their last meeting, this is not all the fault of the state (though, surely, most of it is).  Some of Logan's financial problems are of the Board's own making.
Regardless of who is to blame, it is cruel and unnecessary to put the entire college through the trauma it is now experiencing.  The part time temporary president and a part time temporary vice president are making decisions that will have far reaching consequences that will outlast their theoretically short tenures.  All employees are operating under a cloud and, while one assumes that only a fraction of those who received letters will be eliminated, everyone holding a letter tonight has to assume the worst.  The unions, the public, alumni and local legislators should hold the administration and the Board's feet to the fire.  There needs to be a rationale, publicly given, for each position eliminated and for why each individual has been singled out.

Right now, everyone has to assume the worst:  that some will be lost regardless of length of service, quality of service or prestige brought to the College.  Some may be lost as old scores are
settled.  In all cases, careers will be disrupted, families uprooted and institutional memory lost.  ...All this because a college got cute with credit hours, and finances, and two generations of
legislators neglected their jobs.

Logan BOT ducks responsibilty

With 40 to 60 layoff notices on the way and students waking up to the reality of a potentially decimated college, the John A. Logan College Board of Trustees looked everywhere but in the mirror for a culpret on which to afix blame.  According to Channel 3, last night's board meeting brought out a newly assertive faculty union and tearful and frustrated students.  It did not bring out anymore self awareness on the part of the Board, as they blamed every other politician, past and present, from local reps to the governor, for the financial pickle they're in.