Stanislaus University Palin Contract Stolen, Says School President

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California university president said Wednesday a portion of a contract between a school foundation and Sarah Palin for an upcoming speech was stolen from a campus administrator's office last week.

California State University, Stanislaus president Hamid Shirvani said the five-page document was taken from a recycling bin inside the office of Susana Gajic-Bruyea, vice president for university advancement.

"Susana threw the pages into her recycling bin in her office some time ago," Shirvani said in a phone interview. "Somebody either broke into her office to get them or it was somebody who had access to her office."

Shirvani has asked police in the Central Valley city of Turlock to investigate the matter.

The contract is at the center of an escalating controversy at CSU Stanislaus.

The state attorney general's office announced Tuesday it would investigate the university and its foundation for their handling of the contract related to the June 25 speech by Palin. Authorities said the investigation has nothing to do with Palin herself.

The investigation sparked a new round of calls for greater transparency and financial accountability in organizations embedded within California's public universities, particularly given the size of their assets.

"Prudent financial stewardship is crucial at a time in which universities face vastly decreased state funding and increased student fees," Attorney General Jerry Brown said while announcing his investigation.

The university told state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, it did not have any documents related to the speech and said it had referred the matter to Matt Swanson, board president of the California State University, Stanislaus Foundation.

Swanson sent letters to Yee and The Associated Press stating that Palin's contract had a nondisclosure clause. He also said university foundations and other auxiliary organizations were not subject to the same public records requirements as the university itself.

Swanson has not responded to requests for comment on the investigation. He has said the Palin event would be funded entirely by private donations.

The investigation was launched after two students said they had found pages of the contract in a campus trash bin.

Ashli Briggs, 23, one of the students, called Shirvani's theft allegation completely unfounded.

"It's a sad day when the university is accusing its own employees, it's own students of committing a crime," she said.

Comments

[KayJay90]

12:23 PM on 05/12/2010

New information -- 151 internal emails recently released -- has intensified the attention of state legislative and judicial leaders toward campus president Hamid Shirvani of CSU Stanislaus, who is also the chairman of the CSU Stanislaus Foundation, who first promoted an invitation to Sarah Palin to speak there.

CSU Stanislaus Foundation contracted to have Sarah Palin be the keynote speaker at their CSU Stanislaus 50th Anniversary Gala, despite the objections of many learned, respected, long-tenured educators at CSU Stanislaus.

http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/05/fear-and-loathing-in-turlock-csu.html#dsq-comments

The layers of arrogance, obfuscation, incompetence, vilification, deceit in the Sarah Palin CSU Stanislaus speech contract, and the Foundation's use of professional shill-messaging consulting firms to shape public statements and the direction of blog commentary is appalling -- but not truly surprising.

These characteristics seem to precede Sarah Palin in every phase of her private and public life, and her post-political life as a novelist, interviewee, repetitive speechifier, and quasi-celebrity.

[meena140]

03:15 PM on 05/06/2010

Nearly 900 Records on Palin's Campus Visit Surface:
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Nearly-900-records-on-Palins-CSU-Stan-Visit-Surface-92968799.html

[PUAAN]

04:07 PM on 04/23/2010

I'm sorry, I have a hard time with the concept that something can be "stolen" from you AFTER YOU HAVE THROWN IT AWAY. And that's not even considering the fact that the thrown-away, stolen documents never existed in the first place. Hooooooey.

[bwilder]

10:56 PM on 04/17/2010

Link to full text of Palin's speech in Ontario Canada yesterday (4/16)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/an-intimate-evening-with-sarah-palin/article1537275/

Read it if you dare...or if you are an insomniac and meds don't work for you.
Personally I' take a double dose of Lunesta before I'd read this again!
Ugh! and OMG! How someone can talk for soooooooooo long and not say
a single thing is truly amazing.

A little example for you
"But too, my first five years of life were spent right there on the border of Canada, right next to you all, but further away." HUH?

[DoinMyHomework]

12:44 AM on 04/21/2010

sounds exactly like something Dubya would say... maybe she is the savior of the GOP

[venice6]

06:18 PM on 04/16/2010

this woman is like a bad penny, just keeps showing up somewhere and bringing bad luck.

[goodmorningsunshine]

05:52 PM on 04/16/2010

She shouldn't be invited to do the speech at the university in the first place when she could have benefited more by enrolling as a student.

[sf girl]

02:10 PM on 04/16/2010

Seems like the kind of document you would shred, not throw away, particularly considering how much scrutiny the school is under these days.

[Professorofdesire]

11:44 AM on 04/16/2010

Cal State presidents are usually not so stupid as to believe that they can deflect a controversy with a chicken poop claim like the one that this guy is trying to perpetrate. Let me tell you folks. If tried to give the Cal State system an enema, the Stanislaus campus would be one of the logical choices for where to put the plunger.

[Justdontgetit]

11:20 AM on 04/16/2010

How can a contract be stolen if it doesn't exist? Oooops. Guess it did exist.

[mysidrob]

10:20 AM on 04/16/2010

It pretty sucks that this is happening at CSU stan. I grew up in the valley, and this school has been the impetus to many successful people because it was attainable to people who might have otherwise not pursued higher education further away from home. My thoughts: Palin is coming, get over it. As long as people will pay, she will remain a sought out speaker for events. I don't see what she could possible contribute, but to each their own, and if the foundation brings in a profit despite what they pay her, it is more money than they had before. Her requests are idiotic, but if you were in that position who's to say you wouldn't be asking for items like SUVs and water. What makes this entire situation bad, isn't Palin, but the fact the University has put its integrity on the line by evading the issue, and blatently lying. If you're a public institution, operate openly and transparantly. Don't let down everyone you represent.

[OB08]

01:25 PM on 04/16/2010

Students in California are hit hard with increase tuition. Before this came to light the university was paying Palin with university money. Monies that should go to scholarships. Since this was exposed the university now says that Palin's speech is paid for with private donations. Something is not right here.

[OB08]

01:28 PM on 04/16/2010

ooops....should be Syracuse students and all students for that matter.

[holysist777]

06:34 PM on 04/16/2010

I agree, most of her request are not any different from other speakers request. Even at religious events now the Guest Speaker has a list of demands and most of them are paid up front. My only question is, what is the University hiding? This woman draws crowd they are getting paid by the people attending. What's the problem with telling the truth. Unless this private money is coming from FOX, FOX, or A Person working for FOX, Something Fishy can't wait until the real exposure of this contract is revealed.

[wilson0004]

10:06 AM on 04/16/2010

Whether it was stolen or not, it shows what Sarah Palin is truly about. She is a greedy, money hungry person. She has made over Twelve Million Dollars, since the 2008 elections. That is totally obscene. She is out for herself only. I truly believe this kind of activity had to come out once and for all. It needs to show the country what she really is.

[myturnnow]

04:10 AM on 04/16/2010

What a waste of good money. I wouldn't pay a dime to listen to her.

[Harrier]

02:33 AM on 04/16/2010

Sorry I don't understand the issue. The contract must exist. There is a copy with both parties and electronic copies on the CSU computer system. That is the law. If and employee put a contract in the recycling bin instead of filing it properly, it is the fault of the university. In the world of contracts, once paper hits the recycling bin or trash, that paperwork is not owned by anyone. Regardless if someone broke in, by definition, nothing of value was taken otherwise it would have been properly filed. California state law forbids shredding of contracts for years. The contracts is owned by taxpayers and not the school. If the university was trying to hide the contract, they are breaking the law.

[hippie4ever]

01:34 AM on 04/16/2010

California's very own Little Watergate.

[Siebenstein]

02:24 AM on 04/16/2010

yeah, over something as rediculous as the Hilla from Wassilla, lol

[XME]

12:58 AM on 04/16/2010

Well, presumably the recycling bin in her office is EMPTIED (aka, recycled!), and since she claimed it was "some time ago", it's certainly possible that it was no longer in her office when it was "taken", thus not stolen. If you don't want someone to get a hold of something, you shred it!

[JessWonderin]

01:04 AM on 04/16/2010

but we overlook . .

How can something be "STOLEN" if in the words of the University President "no documents EXIST"???

so HOW did something that didn't exist, suddenly exist in a VP's OFFICE???

[kiddub]

01:08 AM on 04/16/2010

Is she not responsible for oversight of the foundation and its administration?

I agree, the University looks terrible, but a lot of it can be explained through incompetence.