Comment / By Sue / June 24, 2010, 6:07 p.m.

I’m tired of the claims that faculty do not have the interest of the students at heart. I know a dozen or so faculty members at CR—most involved in the current “battle”—and without exception they devote time and effort to their students that it above what is expected. Limiting enrollment is mist likely connected to class size and resources. And, smaller class sizes benefit students most directly through more personalized instruction. CR teachers are devoted to students, and the administration’s claim to the contrary is just one more example of their lack of connection to faculty and students.

Comment / By davee / June 24, 2010, 7:43 p.m.

I got an AA degree from CR-That and $4 will get me a latte… It’s all about money honey-learning for knowledges sake is still available-Took 2 years astronomy cause it was so cool-California is so messed up-we are lucky we have classes there at all that are not $85 per unit. Oregon is $75 /unit for JC-Jersey was $112/unit 20 yrs. ago! Wake up and quit voting people to Sac. who spend spend spend…

Comment / By end of story / June 24, 2010, 7:47 p.m.

CR is a great, inexpensive community college; end of story.

Comment / By Suetoo / June 24, 2010, 7:49 p.m.

Don’t confuse the writings of one shit-head board member with the thoughts of the whole board. The board should not be taking sides, but remaining objective. The faculty have been wildly successful as evident by student satisfaction surveys. A bit overpaid at the high end, perhaps, but nevertheless, doing well what they were hired to do.

Comment / By Faculty, but not a Senator / June 25, 2010, 8:35 a.m.

The Academic Senate of faculty at CR has always maintained the highest standards of ethical behavior and has tolerated public scoldings and abuse from Trustees at almost every single Board meeting since Marsee was hired, and even some abuse that occurred while Crabill was President. This has NOT been reported to the press because faculty have not wanted to sully the College’s reputation, but this behavior has been witnessed by many, and within the College community this hatred for faculty is well known. As for secret meetings, the Board and the President should examine carefully their own behavior. I say, bring on the invesitgation- call in the Grand Jury- call in the DA- let’s see who is having secret meetings. Truett, show us when and where the purchase of the Garberville was EVER a matter of public discussion. Talk about secret meetings and decisions? At what meeting did Marsee buy your soul?

Comment / By truthtalker / June 25, 2010, 10:39 a.m.

@”Faculty but not a senator”: “At which meeting did Marsee buy George’s soul?” Who knows. Hope Marsee got a good deal though. Poor old delusional thing (Truett) wasn’t worth much to start with… Blue book value on what’s left of his soul is dropping radically every day.

Comment / By Faculty, but not a Senator / June 25, 2010, 11:41 a.m.

What is most interesting to me about Turett’s claims, is that insiders know that the faculty have been collecting evidence of the Board and the President violating the Brown Act, consistently, and frequently. Faculty were considering going public with charges but decided not to. As for secret meetings, it’s no secret that the future direction of the college was actually decided at a secret meeting, in November 2008, the members and minutes of which have never been released. More secrets are hidden in expensive consultant reports that have never been made public, never on the Board agenda as discussion items open for public comment. Only selected portions of some, portions favorable to the Marsee “vision.” Truett, would your dealings with the college also be open to public scrutiny? SoHum voters, is this vicious and petty attack something that you would agree with and support?

Comment / By DavAlan / June 25, 2010, 12:56 p.m.

What is the purpose of a college chancellor really, other than to get paid 1/4 $ million / year for being a useless figure?

Marsee? Richmond? do you two idiots have a clue?

Comment / By Me_too / June 25, 2010, 1:51 p.m.

The Board needs to be recalled. They are useless and rubberstamp everything that Marsee sends their way. The school will be bankrupt by Winter. Sorry community, but CR might close it’s doors soon!

Comment / By Jonathan / June 25, 2010, 2:08 p.m.

What are the costs associated with each student as part of the faculity pay, retirement and bennefits packages? Does anyone have the numbers? Staff and Faculty and Admin…unions… costs?

Anyone… Anyone…

Comment / By Inverse Jonathan / June 25, 2010, 3:03 p.m.

Imagine an Inverse Jonathan: Inverse Jonathan supports the hard-working faculty and staff at our area’s institutions of higher learning. Inverse Jonathan knows that HSU has undergone years of tough budget cuts, and faculty pay at HSU was cut 10% due to furloughs over the last year. Inverse Jonathan isn’t reflexively anti-union. Inverse Jonathan keeps busy at StreamGuys minding his business and rarely has time to be lurking, trolling, and criticizing others for what they are paid. How about you, regular Jonathan?

Comment / By Jonathan / June 25, 2010, 3:28 p.m.

sadly Jonathan was never regular on many levels, but this Jonathan still has the same question that nobody seems to answer.

Comment / By Observer / June 25, 2010, 4:35 p.m.

Union salaries are available to the public. CRFO’s contract has all the details of how they get paid.

http://www.redwoods.edu/HumanResources/CRFO-Final-Contract-2007-10.pdf

Comment / By Gina Marie / June 25, 2010, 5:49 p.m.

OK, Jonathon obverse or inverse, here is an attempt, tho my figures are estimates. If you have one faculty member teaching five classes (that is considered full time) of 25 students each, each student would represent one FTE=full time equivalent. For each FTE, the college gets from the state $4,565, so for 25 students, full time equivalnet funding from the state, is $114,125, and that’s for only one semester, if you double it, since all full time faculty teach two semesters each academic year, that’s $228,250. Of course, the college also gets some funding from other sources that I don’t know about. And the funding calculations involve many other things, like “growth” funding, which was frozen, and “categorical” funding which was partially cut and partially folded into the general funding. Of course, administrators don’t teach classes, and so don’t generate any income at all, and all get paid way more than faculty, and some get perks like housing allowance, free airline tickets, free lunch at the Ingomar, etc.

Comment / By Jonathon Speaker / June 26, 2010, 8:26 a.m.

228k = one class of 25 students seems like a good chunk of change. If that professor taught 4 courses…

Is inverse Jonathan a French Football fan?

Comment / By Filibuster / June 26, 2010, 9:48 a.m.

The average 2008-09 salary for a full-time instructor at CR is $77,100/yr. Average benefits for a full-time instructor are $17,100/yr. (Benefits include employer’s social security contribution, medical, and retirement.)

Source: NEA Higher Education Advocate, Spring 2010, Faculty Pay 2008-2009 Issue

Note that many — perhaps most — instructors at CR are NOT full-time. They are part-time temporary. As such, their salaries are considerably lower, and many do not get benefits because they are not teaching a large enough % of time.

Comment / By Filibuster / June 26, 2010, 10:16 a.m.

For comparison, fCalifornia, average salary for full-time instructors at 2-year institutions is about is $81,700, with average benefits of $19,850.

Nationwide, average salary for full-time instructors at 2-year institutions is about $62,000. Benefits average $17,700.

But California is a lot more expensive place to live than, for example, the South, where salaries are around $45,000 - $55,000.

Comment / By Gina Marie / June 26, 2010, 11:32 a.m.

Fact is, the CR faculty were in the lowest ten statewide about 10-15 years ago, and with a booming economy, was not getting quality faculty. Faculty are recruited nation-wide, and will apply where the pay and benefits, and living and working conditions, are best for them and their families. You would do the same. So, at that time, both the union and the administration agreed to a big boost in pay, that brought CR up to within a reasonable range statewide. Since then we have been able to attract and keep some really smart, capable, well educated, hard working, excellent faculty. Since then, annual raises have been modest- around 2% on average. There was a year the union agreed to a freeze in step due to the budget crisis. CR is in the middle ranges compared statewide. What I don’t understand, is how faculty pay relates to accusations of Brown Act violations. It looks like a blatant smear tactic. Like, everything about faculty is bad and wrong. Like, let’s throw out whatever hysterical and wild accusations and see what sticks. Why? What’s the point? Why attack your own employees? Isn’t that inherently self-destructive? Shouldn’t we be trying to work together?

Comment / By student / June 27, 2010, 10:45 a.m.

If the board is so concerned with student well being, why was it decided to cut RTS bus passes? Not everyone can afford to drive to the Eureka campus. But, I guess when you are making six figures a year, you wouldn’t realize things like this.

Comment / By TruettLogic / June 28, 2010, 12:22 p.m.

If the college is looking for money to fund more classes, it should consider the medical benefits that the Trustees receive. The Trustees, such as Truett work about 5 hours a month (the rest of the time they have “off”). It’s a pretty sweet deal to get medical coverage. How much money would suspending these health benefits provide for classes and services? I’d like to see the numbers. If the Trustees are truly serving the community, and not in it for the benefits, this would be a small sacrifice on their part. What about it George?

Comment / By Questions / June 28, 2010, 12:38 p.m.

Didn’t the Trustees approve all of the salaries being discussed? Hasn’t Truett been a trustee for some time? Isn’t Truett admitting to making poor decisions as a Trustee? Where was he when these salaries were approved?

Comment / By cr so sad / June 28, 2010, 8:24 p.m.

So, George Truett is leading the charge? I thought Bruce Emaud was President of the Board of Trustees, maybe not enough balls?

Is George Truett the point man for both, Jeff Marsee president of CR and Bruce Emaud the President of the Board of Trustees? Thanks George you are a D A …

Yes, there should be a wide spread investigation of all things going on at College of the Redwoods! From the lowest office worker to the President’s of College of the Redwoods and the President of the Board of Trustees.

Come on Del Note County, Humboldt County, and Mendocino County, you are both the stake holders and the ones who support College of the Redwoods in the form of taxes and bonds, do you really have enough money to just throw it away?

Two things to clean up. the BP Oil Spill and College of the Redwoods.

CR is like a bad case of ringworm, the disease keeps spreading and everything in the middle keeps dying.

Comment / By Follow the Money / June 29, 2010, 1:25 p.m.

Well earlier this year the Board did not bat an eyelash at massive increases for administrators: VP Carson got a $6.6K raise; Dean Green got a $1.7K raise; Dean Girchik got $12.7K raise; Director Fielding got a $10.8K raise. Plus we have VP Bettenhausen still on payroll, but not doing any work at $120K; Director Wells at $130K; Deans Lynch, Anderson, Brown, Ly, Janis getting $101k - $120K AND their steps are about $5K EACH YEAR. (Yeah, that’s right, K = thousand) And, how much is Marsee spending on lawyers to lie to the Board and wring concessions from the unions, and how much already spent and planning to be spent on consultants who don’t consult with anybody except the president ???? At least $250K to date. The money is there for what Marsee wants to spend it on and that is not the students, whom he wishes were all online and not the employees, whom he has stated before witnesses, that he would like to fire them all and hire all part timers.

Comment / By ya, butt / June 29, 2010, 7:36 p.m.

Marsee has a nice smile

Comment / By Diogenes’ Dog / June 30, 2010, 9:47 a.m.

Did George Truett take this action as an individual? Did he make this very splashy and divisive move with the consultation and participation of his Board colleagues? At their meeting next Tuesday, July 6, will they state their support of Truett’s scurrilous messages to the press and DA’s? Is there no other recourse to mismanagement of a community college district than to wait for and hope for better trustees to be elected?

Comment / By insider / June 30, 2010, 12:15 p.m.

I know for a fact that not all the trustee’s agree with Truett. And yes what about all the administrators salaries? Why didn’t he put that into the mix? How does the Board handle a loose cannon, one that has caused the district so much dammage? No one has mentioned Acrediation…How will this sit with them on their next visit? In october?

Comment / By me_too / June 30, 2010, 3:24 p.m.

It’s obvious that CR won’t pass accreditation. It will be a good wake-up call for the community. It’s time to recall the Board! They do nothing more than rubber stamp everything. They don’t have a clue and it looks like they don’t care!

Comment / By open the books / July 1, 2010, 6:30 a.m.

I personally welcome the DA and the Chancellor’s Office to investigate the many misdeeds at CR—most especially Marsee’s and the Board’s illegal misuse and hiding of publicly accountable funds. If Truett actually gets his request for a formal investigation, it will surely come back to bite him. He will come to regret his reactionary shortsightedness and his blind hatred of the institution he is supposed to protect.

Comment / By CR BOT / July 1, 2010, 8:30 a.m.

Big Man on Campus George Truett from SHUM one day wakes up, smokes some green and reports to the world on the Brown Act … Nice work George!

Comment / By You’ve got to be kidding / July 2, 2010, 8:27 p.m.

Clearly, Truett doesn’t understand what he’s done here. He’s put CR in a genuine double bind. The senate is NOT a body independent of CR but an integral part of the college’s governing structure (very unlike CRFO, the faculty union). By asking the DA to investigate the Senate, Truett has, in essence, asked the DA to investigate the college itself. But part of Truett’s job as an elected trustee is to steadfastly protect the college from legal liability. So, then, now Trustee Truett and all the other board members are legally and ethically obligated to provide the college and its employees the best legal counsel available to defend itself against whatever legal actions the DA pursues in response to Truett DA request (just as it would be obligated to do anytime someone pursued legal action against the college). Truett wanted to go after faculty, I suppose, but with his usual dimwittedness went after the college itself by mistake. Is this really the best Garberville has to offer?

Comment / By Where’s the rest of the BOT? / July 2, 2010, 8:32 p.m.

I’d really, really, really like to know where the rest of the board stands on this kind of destructive, unprofessional behavior. I just can’t believe board members like Richard Dorn, Sally Biggin, or Barabara Rice think Truett’s actions are appropriate. But when the board remains silent, it’s hard to know where the individual members stand. It’s going to be up to them, quite frankly, to call out Truett and make clear that what he’s doing is harming not helping the college.

Comment / By It happened / July 2, 2010, 11:13 p.m.

The titanic is sinking! Wake Up Board Members! This is about all of us.

Who’s being selfish here?

Comment / By Gina Marie / July 3, 2010, 12:57 p.m.

It would be helpful if the Journal would publish the full text of Truett’s letter to the DA’s and to the editor of the Ft. Bragg newspaper.

Comment / By Diogenes’ Dog / July 4, 2010, 12:05 p.m.

Here you go. Minor peculiarities in syntax at first made me think the writer did not speak English as his first language - that this was a spoof. But Truett has not denied being the author. “Cut Students First? Editor— The Academic Senate of College of the Redwoods has broken the law. This group of CR professors has held one or more illegal secret meetings, with no opportunity for public comment. In one of these secret meetings, they endorsed a CR budget proposal to limit enrollment. Their “effective solution to the problems” of the budget proposed by the administration would deny classes to over 1,000 students. Yes, these are tough fiscal times, but should students be cut first? Both employee unions (faculty and classified staff) are asking for salary raises starting this July 1. A 2010 survey shows that full-time CR professors who have worked twenty-one years make $104,301. That salary ranks seventh from the top among 72 California community college districts. Their contracts are for 10 months only (they work for 10 months out of 12 months with summers off). On top of that they get a $10,000-plus medical, dental, and vision benefit that covers them and all their dependents. The taxpayer- funded benefits don’t end there. The co-presidents of the Academic Senate presented this proposal of cutting students to the board of trustees at the April meeting. The CR president Jeff Marsee and the board of trustees have twice rejected passing a budget with such drastic cuts in seats for students. Let the CR Board of Trustees know where you want the cut to come from (476-4170). Ask the Mendocino County District Attorney to investigate this violation of the law. George Truett, member CR Board of Directors Garberville” [Fort Bragg Advocate-News, June 24, 2010]

Comment / By Angry@CR / July 6, 2010, 9:36 a.m.

Board Meeting July 6th.

http://www.redwoods.edu/District/Board/agenda/July%206%202010%20Packet.pdf

Comment / By Follow the Money / July 7, 2010, 10:47 a.m.

“tough economic times” made tougher for CR by Marsee’s spending spree on consultants, attorneys, and over-cap enrollment. I think the Senate was recommending that the District no longer fund the over-cap enrollment, which is different from “Cut students first,” it’s more like saying, ‘let’s not enroll students that we can’t afford” and risk losing or disappointing them with poor quality, crowded classrooms, lack of access to labs, computers, library resources, tutors, counselors, etc.

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