First, the $57,000 was just one of a number of bids for the jobs. No way I am going to vote for that, I doubt if my colleagues will also. The Adminsitration is not going to recommend that company. So you should amend your post because its not accurate.

2) No general fund money will be spent on this. No funds will be drawn away from classes, students or employees. The funds will come from special funds from the state chancellor’s office specifically for employee recruitment. It can not be spent on classes for students, scholorships, or funds for employee pay.

3) I was supportive of having an interim chancellor and voted as such at the last board meeting but a) there weren’t the votes for that and b) the person I felt could fill the job convinced me that we owed it to the students, the employees and the community to go out on a search first. We have until the end of June before Chancellor Hernandez retires which should give us sufficient time to complete the search. If the Board isn’t satisfied with the results, I’m prepared to push for an interim chancellor again at that time.

4) If we are soliciting outside applicants than a search firm provides significant benefits to the search. Remember, RSCCD is the size of a big corporation and we are not necessarily looking to hire people who are out of work or looking for a job at the moment. They do the back ground checks and interview people . They work with a search committee, comprised of faculty, administrators, students and a community member to review all the candidates, narrow the field and recommend a final list to the Board.
We had a search consultant involved in the hiring of SAC President Martinez and SCC President Vasquez, as well as Chancellor Hernandez. If we end up with someone local, so be it but with funds that won’t come out of our general fund we owe it to our students, employees and our community to try and find the best.
I appreciate Alex’s advocacy for students. He did a wonderful job on raising funds for the summer program. I just want to make it clear that I don’t know of anyone who says they want the $57,000 company and that company’s price would be the only one where general fund money would be impacted. No way I will support that company’s bid.

This is in your recent Board agenda:

Approval of Search Consultant and Timeline for Chancellor Search Action

It is recommended the board select an executive search firm to assist in the recruitment and selection process of a new chancellor. It is recommended the board approve the timeline for the chancellor search process and authorize the Executive Vice Chancellor of Human Resources and Educational Services to chair the screening committee and coordinate the recruitment and selection process with the selected search firm.

Are you saying that the Board is going to do all this and not spend any money? Why not appoint an interim Chancellor and thus have more time to research candidates?

And why use a search firm at all? Why not just post the job on usjobs.gov and caljobs.gov and see who applies? The SAUSD conducted a search to replace Al Mijares and they ended up hiring his former assistant, Jane Russo, even though she did not have a doctorate in education. So much for their national search…

The problem is that the college board elections are at large. You have to be rich, or backed by special interests, to win.

If the elections were ward specific you would not have this problem.

Also, we had two fine Latino candidates last year, but other Latino leaders in the area backed their opponents.

Under such circumstances it is impossible to win.

Negative? I find what these students are doing to be most positive.

These students care about their school and are actively engaging their school board for positive change.

Too often we do nothing in similar circumstances – but these kids are standing up for what they believe in. I am very proud of them.