Board agrees with Grand Jury
Auburn Journal
By: Loryll Nicolaisen,
Staff WriterThursday, May 4, 2006 12:27 PM PDT
Sierra College trustees agreed with Placer County grand jury findings that trustee Aaron Klein's complaint about Kevin Ramirez, former college president, was "premature."
Trustees said in the draft response to the grand jury report that Klein, with the belief that Ramirez had done wrong, "should have first requested a dedicated closed session with the full board to discuss the matter before involving outside agencies or going public with the complaint."
Trustees opted to "partially disagree" with the grand jury report in saying Klein's complaint against Ramirez "has helped the college to establish a higher standard of (Fair Political Practices Commission) compliance," a revised draft of the board's response reads.
The grand jury report states charges made by Klein against Ramirez, the then-Sierra College president, were "utterly without merit" and asked for an apology from Klein for harming Ramirez's career.
In the complaint filed against Ramirez on Dec. 20, 2004, Klein stated that Ramirez violated campaign finance law, using a "money laundering scheme" by accumulating funds from the Sierra College Foundation and directing them on to the Measure E bond campaign.Although the grand jury recommends in its report that Klein "should apologize to the college community and the public at large for filing charges," no apology has been given in the board response or by Klein, who is also required to submit a response to the report.
Although college staff and supporters have expressed their outrage for Klein's behavior, he remains adamant he did no wrong.
Klein said via e-mail Wednesday that he was happy to have the written support of his fellow trustees."I am grateful that the board of trustees disagreed with the grand jury's assertion that my complaint had no merit, and stated that my complaint has helped me raise the level of legal compliance at the college," he said in a written reaction to Tuesday's meeting. "I'm glad the board agreed that it is important to follow the law."Klein also gave a reason for his lack of apology.
"When I was elected, I swore an oath to uphold the laws of the state of California," he said. "For doing my sworn duty and upholding the law, I cannot apologize."
Johnnie Terry, Sierra College academic senate president, had a mixed reaction to Tuesday's meeting, when interviewed Wednesday.
Terry said he was happy that trustees demonstrated what he believed to be a real effort to collaborate and respond as a whole to the grand jury report. He was also happy to see the board's response was to the college community as well.He was unhappy, however, with "the legal maneuvering" of the board's response and its choice to state "what would have been prudent to say, not what had been honest to say" in the report response.Terry said he wanted to see "the response to what took place, which was a mistake that needed an apology.""It seemed like a dishonest response to the campus community," he said.
Sierra College trustees have whittled down their initial draft response to a Placer County grand jury report to reflect more concise language that they "partially agree" and "partially disagree" with the majority of the grand jury's findings.
The preliminary draft response, originally prepared by Sierra Joint Community College District trustees and subcommittee members Nancy Palmer and Scott Leslie, was revised and cut down to five pages during Tuesday's board meeting."
I thought that having all that verbiage in there wasn't necessary to answer the grand jury's questions," trustee David Creek said Wednesday. Creek provided copies of a suggested draft revision at Tuesday's meeting that included cutting back a number of paragraphs throughout the draft.
The board has until mid-June to submit its formal response to the grand jury report released in March.
The Journal's Loryll Nicolaisen can be reached at lorylln@goldcountrymedia.com
posted by Aaron Klein MUST Resign @ 9:40 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi Blogspot owner,
I do not intend to post this as a comment. I would like you to have this information to upload to your site. Below you will find a) A letter from the college president, Dr. Morgan Lynn, to the individual board members describing the behavior of board president, Jerry Simmons. He has pursued the silencing of the Academic Senate President, the disciplining of the Classified Senate President and the replacing of the part-time Journalism professor. What do these three individuals have in common? They all spoke up against the grand jury response on the part of Aaron Kline, Nancy Palmer, Scott Leslie and Jerry Simmons. This series of emails was made public by a rightfully angry board member. Upon receiving this letter, Jerry Simmons replies to all board members and to the college president requesting that this description of his behavior be discussed in closed session under the rubric of evaluating Dr. Morgan Lynn's behavior. Instead of accepting responsiblity for his bad behavior, he is blaming the President's behavior of "pointing it out." There is a board meeting this Tuesday night. Everyone should know this.
Hello everyone,
Morgan Lynn asked me to send the following memo to you on her behalf:
Dear Board Members,
It saddens me to have to write this message to you, but it is my responsibility to inform you about the recent directives I have received from Board President Jerry Simmons. As your Interim Superintendent/President, it is not my responsibility to control the behavior of an errant board member - it is yours.
Yesterday afternoon, Johnnie Terry, President of the Academic Senate and Professor of Philosophy, came to my office, visibly upset. He told me he received a message from Jerry Simmons through Winsome Jackson, President of the Sierra College Faculty Association (SCFA) and Professor of Political Science - essentially that Johnnie needs to "back off." Additionally, he was told that Jerry said he (Johnnie) is making the entire Board increasingly angry - Trustee Dave Ferrari was mentioned by name as someone who was growing tired of Johnnie, and that Johnnie is not doing the job that the Academic Senate President should be doing. Later that day, I received a phone call from Jerry during which he indicated to me that he planned to meet personally with Johnnie and give him a "chill message."
In the course of that same conversation, Jerry asked me to discipline Anthony Gill, President of the Classified Senate and classified staff member, for sending out the attached flyer via campus e-mail. This is the second time Jerry has directed me to discipline Anthony; the first time through Sue Fisher in a conversation on Thursday, April 27, 2006 at approximately 1:00 p.m. I informed Jerry that we cannot single Anthony out for discipline, since we have not disciplined any other employee for violations to Board Policy on the use of College equipment for College business only. Jerry then asked me to send an e-mail to the entire campus informing them that the next person who violates this policy will be disciplined. I have no intention of sending such a message. Jerry is not the College President and we don't need this kind of micromanagement, not to mention that we do not treat our employees in this manner.
On another occasion, after Part-Time Faculty member Kent Pollock's Op Ed piece appeared in the Auburn Journal newspaper, Jerry phoned me and after accusing me of "feeding information to the media" suggested that Kent Pollock should be disciplined. He indicated that "Šthe College newspaper is awful and if Kent were doing his job instead of writing Op Ed pieces, the paper might be better. Perhaps we should hire someone else as the student newspaper advisor." I told Jerry I didn't think he wanted to go there. Kent is represented by SCFA and we have bargained evaluation procedures. Further, Kent is a former executive with the First Amendment Coalition.
Jerry asked me to send e-mail to the entire staff stating that the Grand Jury Response had been completed and that we are all happy to put this behind us. I did send that message to all staff and to you, as I too wish to put all this ugliness behind us. Jerry stated that his motivation for this request was so that individuals would not show up at the next Board meeting and speak to it. I told Jerry we can't control public comments.
These directives aimed at squelching the free speech rights of others are disturbing to me and if made public could be very embarrassing to the Board. I trust you will all do the right thing.
Sincerely,
Morgan
Morgan and Board Members:
Frankly, I think this email misrepresents both the tone and substance of these conversations. However, I do think it is important for the full board of trustees to discuss them.
I am very concerned that employees are using college resouces for political purposes, regardless of topic. Morgan has sent numerous messages to the college community asking this to stop, but it continues. My point is not to single anyone out, but rather to ensure that state law is followed. If employees refuse to follow numerous specific instructions to refrain from such activities, what is the solution? The Superintendent/President is responsible for enforcing board policy and state law, and I was simply asking (not instructing or ordering) that she do so. I received a complaint from a college employee on this topic, which I will forward to the board later. I simply was calling in response to that complaint to inquire if anything was being done to address these violations of the reminders from the President's Office.
In regard to the situation with Johnnie Terry, I simply would like to have a discussion with him to ask that he consider the implications of his recent comments on our potential to pass a bond measure. I don't have any intent to give him a "chill message". Johnnie and the other shared governance leaders agreed prior to the board voting to put the bond measure on the ballot to do everything they could to see it succeed, including making positive statements about the bond. This was agreed to in the meeting with the bond subcommittee that was composed of Dave Creek, Aaron Klein and myself. Many of you probably saw the recent comments in the Sacramento Bee article in which the Bee reported that our bond campaign was deeply troubled. I simply wanted to see if we could gain cooperation to talk about the positive aspects of the bond and the wonderful projects that it would fund.
In regard to Kent Pollock, I am concerned about his article, but not because of his views. I am concerned that his article referenced an attorney-client privileged conversation relating to how to respond to the grand jury report. Since only senior administrators and myself were on that call with Ann Murray, it concerns me that this information was shared with anyone, particularly a rank and file faculty member. Morgan indicated that she didn't know how he got this information, but that she had shared information about the call with the Senate leadership. Presumably he obtained that information from one of the Senate leaders. In any event, violations of attorney-client privileged conversations are serious because once breached, anything the attorney provides as advice is no longer confidential.
I would suggest that this item be added to the Board agenda as a closed session item under "Evaluation of Interim Superintendent/President" because each of these items deals with the relationship between the President and the Board and the role of the President/Superintendent in implementing state laws and policies of the Board. I am happy to defer to the wisdom of the full board on how to handle these matters, and hopefully you all will have some wisdom to share. Perhaps Morgan is right that nothing can be done. In any event, I think it would be good to "clear the air". We all truly want Sierra College to succeed, and I know that together we can figure out how to handle these thorny issues.
Jerry
Board Members,
In my mind, Morgan is exactly on the mark in her message.
Jerry has no business whatsoever to pressure people on our staff to hew to his view of what is right and his actions to me are outrageous and repugnant.
I do not want this item discussed in a closed session but in open session so that everyone can hear about these incidents.
To that end I am sending Morgan's message and Jerry's response to Johnnie Terry, Anthony Gill and other staff members so that this outrageous behavior on the part of our board president is known to all staff.
I will suggest to Morgan that at any time she feels that Jerry's requests of her are even slightly unreasonable she contact another board member to be a party of a re-discussion of the matter, or that she bring it to the board in open session. This is a matter of board president performance evaluation not president/superintendent evaluation.
I believe that I have demonstrated a willingness to work collegially with the board and staff, but I cannot countenance further outrageously inappropriate actions on the part of the board president.
Dave Creek
Dear Board Members,
It saddens me to have to write this message to you, but it is my responsibility to inform you about the recent directives I have received from Board President Jerry Simmons. As your Interim Superintendent/President, it is not my responsibility to control the behavior of an errant board member - it is yours.
Yesterday afternoon, Johnnie Terry, President of the Academic Senate and Professor of Philosophy, came to my office, visibly upset. He told me he received a message from Jerry Simmons through Winsome Jackson, President of the Sierra College Faculty Association (SCFA) and Professor of Political Science - essentially that Johnnie needs to "back off." Additionally, he was told that Jerry said he (Johnnie) is making the entire Board increasingly angry - Trustee Dave Ferrari was mentioned by name as someone who was growing tired of Johnnie, and that Johnnie is not doing the job that the Academic Senate President should be doing. Later that day, I received a phone call from Jerry during which he indicated to me that he planned to meet personally with Johnnie and give him a "chill message."
In the course of that same conversation, Jerry asked me to discipline Anthony Gill, President of the Classified Senate and classified staff member, for sending out the attached flyer via campus e-mail. This is the second time Jerry has directed me to discipline Anthony; the first time through Sue Fisher in a conversation on Thursday, April 27, 2006 at approximately 1:00 p.m. I informed Jerry that we cannot single Anthony out for discipline, since we have not disciplined any other employee for violations to Board Policy on the use of College equipment for College business only. Jerry then asked me to send an e-mail to the entire campus informing them that the next person who violates this policy will be disciplined. I have no intention of sending such a message. Jerry is not the College President and we don't need this kind of micromanagement, not to mention that we do not treat our employees in this manner.
On another occasion, after Part-Time Faculty member Kent Pollock's Op Ed piece appeared in the Auburn Journal newspaper, Jerry phoned me and after accusing me of "feeding information to the media" suggested that Kent Pollock should be disciplined. He indicated that "Šthe College newspaper is awful and if Kent were doing his job instead of writing Op Ed pieces, the paper might be better. Perhaps we should hire someone else as the student newspaper advisor." I told Jerry I didn't think he wanted to go there. Kent is represented by SCFA and we have bargained evaluation procedures. Further, Kent is a former executive with the First Amendment Coalition.
Jerry asked me to send e-mail to the entire staff stating that the Grand Jury Response had been completed and that we are all happy to put this behind us. I did send that message to all staff and to you, as I too wish to put all this ugliness behind us. Jerry stated that his motivation for this request was so that individuals would not show up at the next Board meeting and speak to it. I told Jerry we can't control public comments.
These directives aimed at squelching the free speech rights of others are disturbing to me and if made public could be very embarrassing to the Board. I trust you will all do the right thing.
Sincerely,
Morgan
Morgan and Board Members:
Frankly, I think this email misrepresents both the tone and substance of these conversations. However, I do think it is important for the full board of trustees to discuss them.
I am very concerned that employees are using college resouces for political purposes, regardless of topic. Morgan has sent numerous messages to the college community asking this to stop, but it continues. My point is not to single anyone out, but rather to ensure that state law is followed. If employees refuse to follow numerous specific instructions to refrain from such activities, what is the solution? The Superintendent/President is responsible for enforcing board policy and state law, and I was simply asking (not instructing or ordering) that she do so. I received a complaint from a college employee on this topic, which I will forward to the board later. I simply was calling in response to that complaint to inquire if anything was being done to address these violations of the reminders from the President's Office.
In regard to the situation with Johnnie Terry, I simply would like to have a discussion with him to ask that he consider the implications of his recent comments on our potential to pass a bond measure. I don't have any intent to give him a "chill message". Johnnie and the other shared governance leaders agreed prior to the board voting to put the bond measure on the ballot to do everything they could to see it succeed, including making positive statements about the bond. This was agreed to in the meeting with the bond subcommittee that was composed of Dave Creek, Aaron Klein and myself. Many of you probably saw the recent comments in the Sacramento Bee article in which the Bee reported that our bond campaign was deeply troubled. I simply wanted to see if we could gain cooperation to talk about the positive aspects of the bond and the wonderful projects that it would fund.
In regard to Kent Pollock, I am concerned about his article, but not because of his views. I am concerned that his article referenced an attorney-client privileged conversation relating to how to respond to the grand jury report. Since only senior administrators and myself were on that call with Ann Murray, it concerns me that this information was shared with anyone, particularly a rank and file faculty member. Morgan indicated that she didn't know how he got this information, but that she had shared information about the call with the Senate leadership. Presumably he obtained that information from one of the Senate leaders. In any event, violations of attorney-client privileged conversations are serious because once breached, anything the attorney provides as advice is no longer confidential.
I would suggest that this item be added to the Board agenda as a closed session item under "Evaluation of Interim Superintendent/President" because each of these items deals with the relationship between the President and the Board and the role of the President/Superintendent in implementing state laws and policies of the Board. I am happy to defer to the wisdom of the full board on how to handle these matters, and hopefully you all will have some wisdom to share. Perhaps Morgan is right that nothing can be done. In any event, I think it would be good to "clear the air". We all truly want Sierra College to succeed, and I know that together we can figure out how to handle these thorny issues.
Jerry
Board Members,
In my mind, Morgan is exactly on the mark in her message.
Jerry has no business whatsoever to pressure people on our staff to hew to his view of what is right and his actions to me are outrageous and repugnant.
I do not want this item discussed in a closed session but in open session so that everyone can hear about these incidents.
To that end I am sending Morgan's message and Jerry's response to Johnnie Terry, Anthony Gill and other staff members so that this outrageous behavior on the part of our board president is known to all staff.
I will suggest to Morgan that at any time she feels that Jerry's requests of her are even slightly unreasonable she contact another board member to be a party of a re-discussion of the matter, or that she bring it to the board in open session. This is a matter of board president performance evaluation not president/superintendent evaluation.
I believe that I have demonstrated a willingness to work collegially with the board and staff, but I cannot countenance further outrageously inappropriate actions on the part of the board president.
Dave Creek
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