Government + secrecy = stupidity

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/10/10/opinion/editorials/19_41_5810_9_07.txt

By: North County Times Opinion staff

Our view: MiraCosta board's secret meeting partly to blame for president's bloated buyout

Samuel Johnson once said, "Where secrecy begins, vice or roguery is not far off." He seems to have forgotten stupidity. In fact, it's a fair bet that most of the stupidity conducted by your elected representatives on your behalf happens in secret.

Our latest reminder of this eternal truth came in revelations that two MiraCosta College trustees secretly met with former President Victoria Munoz Richart just days before they approved her extravagent golden parachute.


On Oct. 4, the North County Times' Philip K. Ireland reported that MiraCosta College Trustees Rudy Fernandez and Carolyn Batiste met June 8 with Richart, her attorney and the retired judge who mediated the dispute between them at the San Diego offices of the college's lawyer. The participants signed some kind of "confidentiality agreement." The three trustees in the board minority -- Gloria Carranza, Judy Strattan and Jacqueline Simon -- say the board never voted to approve the meeting and that they were kept in the dark about it.

A college official told Ireland that the meeting was convened to discuss Richart's claim that some board members' comments about her amounted to a public evaluation of her performance. In other words, the board was being accused of violating the practice of conducting the president's job evaluations in private and Richart was threatening a lawsuit.

Truth is, we don't know exactly what transpired at the meeting -- that's secret. It's probably a safe bet, however, that the trustees hatched their plan to sell out the taxpayers they were elected to represent in this heretofore secret meeting. Just 11 days later, the board reached an agreement -- in the dead of night -- that allowed Richart to walk away from the college and begin her life as a woman of leisure, along with $1.5 million of North County's tax dollars for her trouble.

Defenders of the board may argue that because the matter involved a potential lawsuit, the board had the right -- in fact, the duty -- to meet in private, and they would be right. But that's not what happened here.

Instead, it appears that two board members, either on their own or in conjunction with other board members, made a decision to begin severance negotiations outside of normal, legal channels, such as the formal "closed session" of a board meeting. That dumb decision inevitably led to the stupidity that followed almost two weeks later, when the full board was presented with the bill for Richart's now infamous buyout.

Of course, we've come to expect this sort of news from MiraCosta, which has spent two years mired in the "Palm-gate" scandal and its aftermath. There's been enough blame to go around : Richart's imperious style created too many enemies, but the faculty resistance to the investigation she needed to conduct was itself overblown.

But the more we learn about the Richart buyout, the clearer it is that the college district's board bears most of the responsibility for the school's recent embarrassments. Similar conclusions have fueled a recall campaign against board President Charles Adams and Trustee Gregory Post, who along with Fernandez and Batiste comprise the board majority.

We understand the impetus for the recall, but ultimately disagree. Recalls ought to be reserved for when there is evidence of criminality or malfeasance. And in this case, a recall isn't necessary.

For one, Adams will cede the board presidency on Dec. 1. A recall could also cost the district as much as $1 million that could be better spent on actual education.

Finally, if voters are as unhappy with the board as recall proponents assert, they'll have a chance to change its course next year by dumping Batiste in favor of a reform candidate, while re-electing incumbents Carranza and Simon from the board minority. With Strattan, a new majority would then be able to set the board agenda.

Before then, however, the board should promptly make one change that would halt its stumbles in secrecy. They should vote to lift the ban on speaking to the media that muzzles board members other than the board president, now the elusive Adams. Why should the duly elected representatives of the voting public be routinely silenced?

Without dissenting voices, without the scrutiny of public deliberation and decision-making, governments tend to tilt toward stupidity and worse. Decisions made in the dark have a funny way of costing taxpayers a lot of our hard-earned money. This summer's MiraCosta mess appears to be no exception.