Once again, the California State University system got the raw end of the stick from the “Educ-Hater,” as he put the kibosh on being up front with our university communities.
As padding to the cozy closet deal struck with our benevolent CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and UC President Robert Dynes on the Higher Education Compact of ’04, the transparency demands of the California Faculty Association were denied the gubernatorial quill.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a resounding “no go” to Assembly Bill 1413 last week that, put simplistically, would have required CSU executives to actually attend the meetings that they claim to attend, especially the ones where money is discussed. His rejection will inevitably echo through the halls of higher education for the next decade and beyond.
The CFA request was fair, prudent and necessary in allowing the public to “watch the mutts.” As reported in Wednesday’s Daily Forty-Niner, AB 1413 would have made the CSU Board of Trustees “[A]pprove all contracts while in public sessions during which they were awarding benefits.”
It’s easy to understand why administrators don’t wish to attend meetings that propose items like increasing executive compensation. We can’t have watchdogs hanging around when they throw money at each other, now can we? That would be like being spotted waking up in the morning.
How do we respond to the repugnance of “ghost professorships,” when those who are supposed to attend meetings with their proposed spending schemes on the dockets are no shows? Without the transparency the CFA pushed for, administrators are allowed proxy attendance, meaning they just need to put any warm body on a barstool.
The governor is using his pen to kill higher education and wants us to be witnessless victims. This sideshow provocateur knows more about manipulating the public than P. T. Barnum.
He knows how to avoid raising taxes by calling them fees (new drivers license fees), knows less about undocumented immigrant student needs (the California DREAM Act veto) and less about higher education costs (attended Santa Monica City College tuition free) than any actor to ever become California governor.
The weight lifter is addicted to political steroids.
Who else but the Kindergarten Cop could have such a negative impact on the educational system than somebody who realizes that paying a group of quasi-intellectual administrators to play deaf, dumb and blind is a money-saving technique?
Rejecting AB 1413 was nearly as hurtful as the governor’s evaluation that it was “rendered and redundant.”
His veto is as “rendered” as the byproducts of his pork-belly spending policies and big business pandering. His contempt for public higher education is as foul as the sneaky agreement he made with our chancellor behind closed doors with the Higher Education Compact.
Asking for accountability from the most prolific pimp in the state is as futile as asking his spendthrift protégé, Speaker of the House Fabian Nuñez, to eat at Burger King.
In refusing the see-through element of public access offered in AB 1413, Schwarzenegger tramples every open meeting law in the state, including the Bagley-Keane and the Ralph M. Brown acts. That, apparently, is what’s “redundant.”
Who was it that issued a press release last year proclaiming, “Access to information about the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental right that we must preserve at all costs?” It was the Educ-Hater, of course. But nevermind, CSU communities; Schwarzenegger knows you are weak and puny.
You will continue to schlep along, taking it where “the sun doesn’t shine” – right next to your soon-to-be emptier wallets.
