Patriot Rally (there are good people in this world!) and more on the community college thing

The rally was held at San José's Discovery Park. Yes that's the World's Largest Monopoly game board. The light rail station is at the back.

I wish I had photos to share, but I spent a nice fall afternoon with about 200 like-minded patriots who came together to talk about the plight of the San Joaquin Valley farmers who have had their water turned off because two environmental experts said that irrigation was bad for the delta smelt, a pretty worthless little bait fish.

So to keep the delta smelt happy, the water that farmers need for their orchards and fields has been shut off. And for the most part, democrats in Sacramento and Washington have utterly ignored this whole issue.

Small towns in the Central Valley are dying. Some are suffering a near 50 percent unemployment rate. Fourteen percent of the produce we eat in the U.S. comes from the Central Valley. When farmers cannot farm, they cannot employ farmworkers, let alone taken care of their own families.

There was no media coverage in this overwhelming liberal area. I’m not surprised one bit

The Patriot movement isn’t about Republican or Democrat. It’s about upholding what the U.S. constitution says. It’s about less government intrusion. There were conservative independents, Republicans and Libertarians at the rally.

Why the media insists on calling this gathering of people “teabaggers” (and then they snicker at the double meaning like Beavis and Butthead) is beyond me. All these people really are is a gathering of individuals who remember what a great place America can be, and want to restore this nation to prosperous times based on sound economic principles.

My mother joked and said I was too old to go protest, and then reminded me not to resist arrest. Not a cop in sight and some members of the group walked around the park and picked up garbage that had been there before we were! I parked my car at the light rail station and rode the 3 miles into downtown.

Back to the community college thing …

One of the local televisions stations presented a two-part report about how mismanaged the community college district’s funds have been since August 2005. I watched in disbelief as I learned that things were worse than what I knew about! The reporter showed a large table full of documents, all public information and there for the asking, and started weaving his story.

In August 2005 the District had $14 million in the bank. Today, it’s cutting programs left and right, firing employees, cancelling classes. All while the chancellor, who is on leave of absence until the first of the year (and who will retire on June 30), is earning $300K a year, has a travel and expense account, yet still is reimbursed for coffee and Mentos! Yes, she asked for reimbursement for a pack of Mentos! I presume she did receive the money back, too.

I knew she did lots of traveling. When I first started doing some of the PIO job, I was informed as to her availability, for how long she was gone, and at first, where she was. I didn’t know about the Scotland thing in until the news report.

I’m not even going to get into sexuality and race here. Any person of any race or sexual orientation could have done what was done in this case. The community college district paid for a membership to an exclusive club called the Capitol Club, $5K for the chancellor, and I presume her life partner and the two community college presidents. There was a receipt for a $1200 dinner at said Capitol Club.

She promoted her life partner into jobs she was minimally if at all qualified for. I very nearly applied for a job working for this person, but there was a little voice in my head that said “Don’t do it. The great state benefits are not worth what you will go through. No one else can work with this woman. You get along with her now but every day … maybe not.”

As it is, that department is probably no more and I’d be unemployed again.

I think what bugs me most is how flawed my thinking was when I accepted the contract job. I could have charged up to $150 an hour for my services. Seriously, that was the going rate. But I felt that any dime not spent on me would be spent on students. Boy was I wrong! Any dime not spent on me was spent on travel!

I think of two marketing pieces I wrote trying to persuade employees to sign up to make automatic payroll deductions to the SJECCD Foundation “for students.” I went looking for heartwarming student stories, convinced people to give money so those students could get an education and give back to the community. What I was really doing was unwittingly stealing from those good people. I had no idea that their donated money would be used for recruitment trips to Thailand (where they didn’t recruit one single student!) and a trip to Scotland to see a K-12 program (That’s not higher education, why do college administrators need to study K-12? Anyone?).

If I were still working there, I'd have written those pieces about two weeks ago.

Watch the reports for yourself. Tell me you aren’t angry about it, even if you don’t live in the Bay Area.

Chancellor's lavish spending questioned

Chancellor's lavish spending went beyond travel

God works in mysterious ways, and I am thanking Him yet again …

I’ve written ad nauseum about my disappointment in not being hired for a public information officer job for a community college district—a job that I met every single job requirement for. I did much of the job for over two years, and had been promised the job by the chancellor of the district and her assistant, whom I now know to be her lesbian life partner.

Instead of me getting the job, a less qualified Latina was given the job and the job description was rewritten, taking duties that she was unable to do, away from her so she’d fit the job description.

I knew this district was living high on the hog. When I accepted the contract job, it was “name your price” to take the position. I grossly underbid and under billed, thinking what I was doing was the right thing to do when you work in education. Seems I was the only person doing that …

In today’s local paper, a second article has popped up about the chancellor of that district and the misuse of funds, how her salary grew by 47 percent while programs and classes were cut.

The chancellor announced her retirement “due to health reasons” effective at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2010.

Today’s story about a possible misuse of funds is here: San Jose area community college chancellor enjoyed big benefits as class offerings shrank

I’ve known about this for a long time. In the summer of 2006, the district sent a contingent of board of trustees members on a marathon trip to China and Vietnam, in the name of “recruiting” students. That same summer a contingent was sent to the Salzburg seminar, and every year since the district has sent several instructors and deans. In December 2007, a contingent of students and faculty went to Vietnam for a week. The chancellor and her life partner were scheduled to go until there was a public outcry by a small but vocal group of Vietnamese, objecting to a trip to communist Vietnam. I know this because I was going to go and blog about it for the district, but I didn’t have the money to self-pay at the time, as my beloved elderly cat became ill and needed vet (and my) care.

The chancellor is also very fond of co-sponsoring education conferences that further a liberal and one-race agenda (Hispanic). I know about two or three while I was still with the district.

In January of this year, the chancellor and a group went to El Salvador in the name of “service learning.” Both colleges in the district have service learning programs. One of the colleges sends a group of students every two years or so to do public works programs in impoverished towns in Mexico and Central America. This particular trip was more of a vacation for the chancellor and her contingent, described by the chancellor as “going home,” though she’s American-born.

It’s no secret I’ve been struggling big-time as far as work is concerned this year. The PIO job would have paid $80K a year plus great state benefits. I am lucky if I earn $25K this year. I am five months behind on my student loan payments, can barely pay my utilities, and have lost 17 pounds because I can’t afford to buy food and have three meals a day. But you know what, I have my integrity, I did not take advantage of a situation where everyone else was milking the cow and taking advantage of taxpayers’ good will, and perhaps I will get the last laugh after all.

I promise to write about the patriot rally I attended on my birthday, but this one comes first. Thank you Lord for looking out for me, even though I had no idea you were looking out for me …