A new grand jury report finds an alarming level of dysfunction among the elected trustees running the East Bay’s Peralta Community College District, including “incivility and harsh treatment” of administrators, racial insensitivity, secret meetings about public business and interference in day-to-day operations.
The report
by
the Alameda County civil grand jury, released Monday, paints a devastating picture
of elected officials failing the 50,000 students enrolled at the four campuses
overseen by the Peralta district: Laney and Merritt colleges in Oakland,
Alameda City College and Berkeley City College. Total enrollment is 19% lower
now than a decade ago, a loss of 12,000 students.
The grand jury called its report “Broken Board Governance and
Bad Behavior.” Among its findings:
• On July 18, a majority of the seven-member board secretly met
with academic leaders to discuss business, “excluding the public and three
trustees who would have disagreed with the purpose of the meeting.” The meeting
violated the state Brown Act, the grand jury said. Another trustee conducted a
similar meeting the next night.
• “We documented numerous instances of board members publicly
bickering, finger-pointing and exhibiting hostile behavior during meetings”
from 2018 through 2020. Examples included a “closed-door exchange when a board
member ‘screamed and yelled’ at an administrator (who was) doing their job. ...
In another instance, a board member accused an administrator of being
untruthful, causing that administrator to leave the meeting in tears.”
• Between 2018 and 2020, the trustees interfered with Peralta
chancellors’ recommended appointments and the hiring of managers who had been
vetted. These actions “irreparably damaged” the relationship with the
chancellors and “compromised the fair and independent hiring process.”
One chancellor, Regina Stanback Stroud, abruptly resigned in
August 2020 after less than a year on the job, saying she couldn’t work with
the board. Her blistering resignation letter listed 11 allegations against the trustees, including
hostility toward Black administrators.
The grand jury identified none of the trustees or employees it
referred to in the report. Elected board members serving during the time of the
complaints and who are still trustees are the board’s current president,
Cynthia Napoli-Abella Reiss, Vice President Nicky González Yuen, Bill Withrow,
Linda Handy and Julina Bonilla.
“I remain committed to leading the Peralta Community College
Board of Trustees and to working closely with the chancellor on issues
identified in the report,” Napoli-Abella Reiss told The Chronicle.
Peralta’s interim chancellor, Jannett Jackson, issued a
statement thanking the grand jury for its “constructive criticism” and said the
trustees “have already begun deep work” on fixing the problems.
The grand jury offered a range of recommendations for repairing
the college district, including requiring individual performance evaluations of
the elected officials, to be discussed during public meetings.
The grand jury said it began its investigation after eight
formal complaints were filed about the trustees in early 2020, alleging a range
of misconduct or a “broken board culture.”
It heard from witnesses who said trustees regularly blocked
chancellors’ efforts to fill key administrative positions, “hurting morale,
contributing to staff flight and jeopardizing services to the students.” Others
echoed Stroud’s allegations that some trustees were particularly abusive
verbally toward Black administrators.
“By many accounts, key administrators were fleeing Peralta or
not drawn to apply to work there, in part because of governance instability and
board misconduct,” the report said.
Witnesses also said a trustee made side deals with a faculty
union that undermined the district’s labor negotiations.
“Ultimately, the students these trustees are supposed to serve
lose out,” the grand jury said, citing “an unhealthy atmosphere for a student
population that so deserves a first-rate education.”
Even as the state warned that Peralta was in danger of insolvency and losing its
accreditation, the trustees “failed to use a team approach to solve the
problems,” the report said. Instead, the trustees engaged in “infighting, and
some treating executive leadership as the enemy, while battling for control
amongst themselves.”
County civil grand juries in California meet for one-year terms
and are made up of residents who apply for the post or are nominated by a
judge. They select which local government agencies and departments to
investigate.
San Francisco Chronicle
By Nanette Asimov
June 23, 2021
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