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Public Records Suggest Southwestern College Used Public Funds Frivolously
From Community College League of California training for new community college presidents, referred therein as CEOs: "Do I have to agree with and accept the recommendations of individual or collective constituent groups? "The short answer to this question is 'No.' The CEO has responsibility for making decision or making a recommendation to the board of trustees. "The longer answer is that the CEO must remember that he or she is an extension of the board of trustees and therefore upholds the spirit and intent of laws, regulations, and board policies. Using consultative processes to consider actions and make decisions will contribute to a more positive environment and strengthen how decisions are implemented. While agreement may not always be possible, constituency understanding is enhanced by providing written rationale or opportunities to discuss issues. How to foster understanding varies depending on the significance of the decision and to whom it applies." http://www.ccleague.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pagei… ---- Compare that training material for new California community college presidents and the current stance of a majority of current SWCCD board members regarding faculty and students at Southwestern College. What the League fails to mention is that students ARE part of the electorate that put board members into office, and the board owes its allegiance to the People of California first and foremost, starting with the electorate. In light of that League guidance, I don't see SWC saving its accreditation without a radical shift in SWCCD governing board politics, starting with the president of the College.— October 26, 2010 9:37 a.m.
Public Records Suggest Southwestern College Used Public Funds Frivolously
Yes, it appears that the omitted facts in the SWCCD mailer and apparent endorsement of incumbent board members cannot be any sort of violation in the eyes of those who have a construction and bond-ratings agenda foremost while ignoring accreditation deficiencies that administrators, faculty and students at practically every other community college campus in California managed to get settled in the last two decades of the last millennium. Given the timing and content (or lack of it) in the district's electioneering mailer, the district's noise about an apparently forwarded email looks like a diversionary smoke screen. One wonder if SWCCD is just a sockpuppet for the Community College League of California. http://www.ccleague.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pagei…— October 26, 2010 8:41 a.m.
Public Records Suggest Southwestern College Used Public Funds Frivolously
RE #77 and http://www.10news.com/news/25123558/detail.html : All kinds of things have been happening at and around SWC, it seems. As an outsider who has young relatives with not-yet-transferred credits at SWC, I now have a clue where the "intimidation of faculty" angle is coming from. One time at Fort Benning's infantry school right after Vietnam, I found myself with a rifle loaded with live ball ammo -- not blanks -- on a narrow range with trees and other things to hide behind, where brand new almost-infantrymen like me had to fire, advance, and provide cover fire while other fire-team members moved forward to cram a grenade into a bunker like we were playing Rollerball, and I remember thinking at the still-innocent age of 17: "#&@^$! One of us is gonna get shot in the back doing this and have his whole #&@^$ day ruined!" One of us did manage a few days later to blow his right hand off while not using a small anti-tank rocket launcher correctly, but that's another story about what we Regular Army types referred to generally as "good training"... Going to war creates situations like that all the time, and in the war of words going on at SWC since the accreditation self-study reports around 1996 and 2003, SWC failure to implement open shared decision-making processes and structures as required by WASC (while first failing to agree how to define what those things might be or look like) has seemingly worn people down until some have started shooting themselves in the foot. Sun Wu Tzu says the successful general arrives early to take the high ground first and awaits his opponent to arrive late and attack out of breath and out of balance. Sun Wu Tzu also says that no people benefit from the hardships of long drawn-out conflicts. If AFT is sending out thermonuclear hand grenades in the form of emails to computers that happen to be local District property, then AFT needs to reconsider how close its local representatives are if the union reps casually drop them on the ground and blow themselves up in the process of living and breathing AFT. Stuff happens. Hoorah.— October 26, 2010 4:57 a.m.
Public Records Suggest Southwestern College Used Public Funds Frivolously
RE bond ratings by rating agencies: Generally, ANYTHING that raises investor concerns about a government unit's willingness and ability to service its outstanding debt is a concern at the ratings agency as well. The bonds are sold in anticipation of tax or other revenues to pay the bond-purchasing investors back. If a government unit is found to lack professional competence and public confidence, those are major negative factors. Positive factors include public willingness to raise taxes in the government unit's jurisdiction. It turns negative as unsustainable if there are too many taxes imposed in too short a time. More positive factors mean a higher bond rating and less interest paid out from a greater investor expectation of getting paid. More negative factors mean the interest rate goes up, meaning less for operations and improvements of facilities. IMPORTANT POINT: when faculty and student inputs to avoid a dumb decision are ignored, ultimately this takes district money away from students via negative bond rating factors. The fact that WASC probation Recommendation 8 was up in the first group of things to be addressed AND SWCCD has really nothing to say about it says something about a lack of available funding for student programs and course offerings. IMPORTANT POINT: If accreditation has already been blown, then students need to take mitigation measures to keep their earned units from being devalued at other WASC institutions if they can't graduate before the end of next semester, as a WASC move to terminate accreditation may hit shortly after that given the current "progress" being reported by SWCCD. I see a slow-moving train wreck coming. It won't be pretty. It's been happening since 1996, when the first set of wheels fell off the tracks. To get back on track and prevent the crash, everybody needs to get on-board to not only write pretty words to WASC but also make the necessary changes in the administrative culture. Unless there is already an alternative admin-faculty-student consensus on all of the right things to do right now, the various accreditation subcommittees may not have time to finish their work AND get everybody dancing to the same happy tune by the March 15 inspection visit by WASC. Hopefully I am totally wrong about that, but the truthy comments made above show me there is no such consensus.— October 25, 2010 11:23 p.m.
None
RE #13: I think this is why appellate courts try not to second-guess the trial judge's impression of witness credibility during testimony in the trial judge's courtroom. I would say that this story was written AFTER the arbitration decision, and therefore the successful advocates were Bradd Milove, Brian Miller, and Paul M. Jonna, attorneys for Martha Campbell. At least that seems to have been the opinion of the arbitrator about Campbell's attorneys and their presentation of the evidence. Apparently any theory involving Campbell entrapping Williams by conspiring with Romo to lose her investment in a transaction not connected to any short sale by Campbell but to Romo's undeveloped property was not credible to the arbitrator.— October 25, 2010 10:17 p.m.
Is Proposition C Just a Green Light for Developers?
RE "Four different comments from four different identities, this being the only comment they've ever left in the Reader": Nice catch. Any odds on all of those identities sharing the same birthday, like today? At wikipedia, there's special recognition for the best sockpuppet hunters, where a sockpuppet is a second, third or other account of the same editor/vandal, usually leading to a banned account and enshrinement on "The List". Like MsGrant and Surfpuppy say, the Refried One does damn fine work!— October 25, 2010 8:57 p.m.
Is Proposition C Just a Green Light for Developers?
In adition, PHR is small compared to the City of San Diego, another potentially negative bond rating factor. PHR has no sizable commercial tax base, another negative factor. The entire proposed tax base is residential, and there will be a percentage foreclosure transfer of debt responsibility to all residents remaining after all foreclosures are completed in PHR. PHR may need to establish a pre-collected reserve of sufficient size to show both willingness and the ability to repay GO debt. Any GO debt will have to actually be sold in a market that grows increasingly leery of possible municipal defaults in the country, anticipated to occur with increasing frequency in the next 2-5 years. If there is a default, then Fitch Ratings may be forced to downgrade all municipal GO debt nationally to compensate for their April 2010 "recalibration" upgrade based on no municipal defaults up to then since the Crash of 2008. All of these factors mentioned in these two comment posts relate to concepts presented and discussed from the Fitch Ratings documents found in the October 11 city council debt servicing training sessions.— October 25, 2010 8:25 p.m.
Is Proposition C Just a Green Light for Developers?
Whether a community facilities district exists or not, and regardless of what I feel or don't feel about Prop. C, PHR residents should be informed of activities in PHR and in the City of San Diego which may have an impact on any bonds that have been or will be issued. Since PHR is in the City of San Diego and given the statement about an existing tax assessment district in PHR is true, then everything the City Council does needs to be weighed as to the effect on PHR GO debt. For instance, if Proposition D fails, the rating agencies would generally perceive this to be a negative factor that could lead to a lowered rating on the City's (and therefore PHR's) GO debt, raising interest rates on any borrowing done to finance payments against that debt. Generally, the passage of C on D's failure wold not outweigh the negative factor impact of the City containing the PHR tax assessment and bond-issuing district upon PHR debt. In other words, a pro-C ballot position must be accompanied with a pro-D position or a portion of the sale of the bonds will just end up going back as increased debt interest payments. I'm not voting for D because its revenue will pass through the City of San Diego general fund and most likely be used as settlement money, damages, and/or Court sanctions and awarded costs in KESSLER V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO (See Reader articles and blogs by Don Bauder on this whistle-blower wrongful termination matter, where Defendant City lost its motions for summary judgment and deposition protective order). While PHR residents may be prepared to tax themselves specifically for schools and libraries, anything paid to the City must also be contingent on going to exactly and only those project or you are just helping to cover all of San Diego's budget shortfall, especially if D does not pass. If it is the DEVELOPER who informed you that PHR projects will not cost the City of San Diego anything, then ask if the City of San Diego has already sealed the deal by passing an ordinance directing that all revenue from any PHR tax assessment district go only to that district's infrastructure projects and bypass the general fund; otherwise, PHR debt is only going to help cover the city-wide budget shortfall, again especially of D does not pass.— October 25, 2010 8:14 p.m.
Public Records Suggest Southwestern College Used Public Funds Frivolously
KEEPING SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE CREDITS IF ACCREDITATION IS LOST Southwestern College is now on a 5-month clock to losing its accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges commission on community colleges. While it is possible for Southwestern College administration, faculty and student representatives to meet the deadline in March 2011, the political issues of district governance over the Chula Vista campus have soured... [continued at...] http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/encanto-gas…— October 25, 2010 6:43 p.m.
Update San Diego, 10/25/2010
The best college class for learning about exactly why one must eat one's vegetables is Physiology. Besides the diabetes potential harm, most people don't know that any single vitamin deficiency has an effect on a corresponding white blood cell type (and there's a lot of them), either by causing that specific type of white blood cell not to mature and function correctly, or not to be found in the blood except at levels too low to be of help. It isn't an easy read, but I recommend any recent edition of GANONG'S REVIEW OF MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY as it shows how we should function normally, and also what happens to us when we decide we can survive on Pixie Stix.— October 25, 2010 5:19 p.m.