Dorothy Fortune’s Bankrupt Views

I hope Dorothy Fortune’s hand isn’t broken from patting herself, and the other trustees comprising the majority of the South Orange County Community College District board, on the back for supposedly ending “decades of wasteful programs, structures and expenditures.” In typical fashion, Fortune’s Orange County Voices column March 1 is replete with misinformation.

The board majority’s decision to arbitrarily replace the chair administrative model at Irvine Valley College with a dean model actually increased administrative costs at IVC by shifting individuals from Saddleback College. The paltry net savings achieved by this action was not used in the fall of 1997 to offer 10% more classes. The additional classes resulted from normal enrollment growth.

Fortune also cites the abuses of faculty “release time.” This time allows faculty to perform valuable administrative duties fundamental to the success of the institution, such as accreditation, governance, and development of special programs to serve students.

The recall campaign involving Fortune’s ally, Trustee Steven Frogue, should really focus on the inherent conflict of interest between trustees and the institutions they are supposed to serve. No trustees should teach or sponsor courses in their own district. No trustees should use their position to punish individuals who don’t share their political viewpoint.

Fortune repeatedly cites the board majority’s cost-saving efforts. The district has more than a $70-million budget; about 90% of expenditures are for employee salaries and benefits with the district on the state fiscal watch list.

It is interesting to note that Fortune, along with the majority of trustees, voted for a costly new faculty contract, with no financial input regarding its long-term implications for the district.

The board majority has forced into retirement or chased away many skilled members of senior administration that helped IVC and Saddleback College achieve stellar reputations within the California community college system.

Such reputations are at risk under the board majority’s slash-and-burn mentality. South Orange County citizens should be concerned about maintaining the quality of our educational institutions, not mindless cost-cutting.

DAVID B. LANG

Trustee

South Orange County

Community College District

* I feel compelled to defend a higher-education community deeply offended by South Orange County Community College District Trustee Dorothy Fortune’s remarks.

After only 15 months under Fortune’s tenure, our college district--once considered the “jewel in the state community college system”--has been plunged into chaos and subjected to international ridicule.

There is more to come. A new administrative hiring policy scheduled for confirmation March 23 will invalidate a long-standing collegiate district policy which offers all college constituencies a voice in the selection of administrators. This subversion of the hiring process comes at a crucial time.

Since April, the district has lost its chancellor, its vice chancellor of fiscal services, both college presidents, both college vice presidents of instruction, and Irvine Valley College’s dean of economic development. Why?

Virtually every administrator at both colleges was pink-slipped by the board majority which Fortune lauds. Given the current climate, how will we attract candidates with the vision, integrity and autonomy essential to our district’s welfare? And given the proposed hiring policy, who will apply?

Even more distressing is Fortune’s allegation that proponents of Trustee Steven Frogue’s recall don’t have the colleges’ interest at heart.

Students have testified under penalty of perjury that Frogue has denied the Holocaust and made racially bigoted comments in his classes. Their affidavits were read into the public record at SOCCCD board meetings. How can Fortune claim that Frogue is merely exercising academic freedom when she, like I, heard their testimony?

She, like I, received the unprecedented Human Relations Commission’s communication finding Frogue’s “comments and actions are inappropriate, abhorrent to defenders of truth, respect, and tolerance, and offensive to all residents of Orange County.”

Are not the costs to the district intolerable if SOCCCD continues to gain a reputation for bigotry and abuse of power in its leadership?

Why doesn’t Fortune take Frogue to task for his failure to condemn overt racists and neo-Nazis speaking in his defense at board meetings? Does she not find it scandalous that their hateful diatribes have tarnished out meetings?

MARCIA MILCHIKER

Trustee

South Orange County

Community College District

* Trustee Dorothy Fortune, who was elected in 1996, portrays the board majority as heroic fiscal conservatives who are determined to save the district from years of overspending and mismanagement.

She neglects to say, however, that the decisions that have produced our financial troubles were made by the current board and a previous board that included Steven Frogue, John Williams and Teddi Lorch!

Further, recently, the “fiscally conservative” board majority, unlike the three “spendthrift” trustees she criticizes, approved a generous faculty contract that, according to district experts, will likely bankrupt the district.

The ugly and surprising truth is that Fortune, Frogue, Williams and Lorch are the darlings of the faculty union, which got the four elected, and which will do anything to secure higher salaries, even if it means supporting trustees whose blunders and outrages have made the district the laughingstock of the California community college system.

ROY BAUER

Professor, Irvine Valley College

* Dorothy Fortune depicts herself and her fellow board members, Teddi Lorch, John Williams and Steven Frogue, as the saviors of our community colleges, fighting against the dark forces of self-interest and (gasp!) outsider Jews.

Unlike Frogue, she has not been accused of anti-Semitism, but her statement that the recall drive is “supported by Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Defense League officers, most from Los Angeles County,” smells suspiciously like an appeal to the age-old stereotype of the Jew as outside troublemaker.

She might otherwise have observed the other “outsiders”--neo-Nazi types who have come down from Los Angeles to every monthly board meeting to support Frogue and spew vitriolic racist views.

As for her assertion that the recall is driven by the self-interest of faculty whining over lost “release time,” I have only to say that her evaluation is conveniently selective.

The majority of the people who meet weekly to work on the recall have never had any “release time”--indeed, about half are not employed at all by SOCCCD (nor, I may add, are they employed by the Anti-Defamation League or Jewish Defense League).

Moreover, the board majority, which includes Fortune, far from being free from the taint of special interest groups, had their campaigns supported and financed largely by the teachers union. The leaders of the SOCCCD teachers association stand to gain from the proposed contract voted for by this board majority, which includes an annual $2,500 stipend for 75 professors who have PhDs, while providing not even a cost of living increase for the teachers without doctorates.

DEBORAH EVANS

Mission Viejo

* I am a mathematics professor at Irvine Valley College who is very concerned about the proposed faculty contract.

In a district full of faculty members who earn at the top end of the pay scale, administrative positions have recently been cut under the guise of financial necessity.

In what smacks of payback, we are offering even more to certain faculty whose base salary is easily in excess of $80,000. Beyond that, more salary is earned for choosing to teach the two sections of summer school.

The base salary is for 10 months of teaching 15 hours of class per week and attending one committee hour per week. Many of these faculty then choose to teach large lecture classes in excess of 45 students and also overload (beyond 15 hours per week) to greatly augment their salaries to be well in excess of $100,000 per 10 months--in some cases, in excess of $120,000. It is my contention that this faculty greed is at the expense of the students.

A look at the new contract proposal shows the balance of the increased pay at the top end of the salary scale. The benefits to new hires have been reduced.

Newly hired faculty members will be able to transfer in only five years of teaching experience, not the current 11 years. How do we attract the best and the brightest if we don’t allow their experience to count? This new contract is irresponsible on many levels and certainly greedy.

NANCY EVANS

Irvine