Thanks to the resourceful dumpster diving of two CSU, Stanislaus students, Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs, the public was finally able to get a glimpse behind the curtain of Sarah Palin Land. Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Jerry Brown has promised a thorough investigation. These two young people should be commended for their civic mindedness and citizenship.
Apparently, the CSU, Stanislaus administration and its University Foundation had a secrecy agreement with the group representing Sarah Palin, the Washington Speakers Bureau, for her upcoming speech at the college's 50th anniversary commemoration. Her contract with CSU, Stanislaus stipulates that it be shielded from public scrutiny even though she is known to charge upwards of $100,000 just to show up.
It turns out that since the University Foundation is part of a public university it cannot shield itself from the inquiries of members of the California State Legislature. On March 31st Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) requested Palin's contract under the Public Records Act, and about a week later the CSU, Stanislaus administration claimed that the Palin contract was nowhere to be found. On April 7th, Senator Yee called for an investigation. Two days later Ms. Lewis and Ms. Briggs made their grisly discovery in the administration building's dumpster.
What the two women found were intact pages of Palin's speaking contract with the CSU, Stanislaus University Foundation. They also found large garbage bags full of shredded documents.
The few pages of the contract the students were able to piece together are revealing. If you ever needed evidence of whether or not Sarah Palin is a "rock star," this is it. Palin apparently has as many riders in her contract as Aerosmith. They include "round-trip, first-class commercial air travel for two between Anchorage, Alaska, and event city," (not an unreasonable request). But it also stipulates that if first-class accommodations cannot be arranged "a Lear 60 or larger" will suffice.
There are some damning tidbits on the few surviving pages of the nine-page, mostly shredded, document. The contract stipulates that all arrangements must be secret (which sparked Senator Yee's interest) and a "one-bedroom suite and two single rooms in a deluxe hotel" must be provided. In addition, it strictly limits all photographs and audio and visual recordings of the event and only allows for one highly orchestrated photo-op. It even includes a diagram dictating how the furniture is to be arranged for the photo session. There's also a request for two bottles of water and bendable straws. What, no bowl of yellow M&M's?
The incident raises some serious questions: Did the CSU, Stanislaus administration lie to a member of the State Senate when it claimed it didn't have Palin's contract? And if so, is this the kind behavior we should expect from the stewards of public taxpayer funds? Senator Yee has proposed a prudent remedy in the form of Senate Bill 330, which would require University Foundations to practice the same level of transparency as do the universities themselves.
Sometimes it takes college students going through dumpsters to shed a little light on the kinds of problems that exist at our public universities. In recent years administrators' salaries have grown more than any other employees, often earning them far more than the governor and state legislators. Many of them seem to have lost sight of the public mission of the California State University system. It's not to aggrandize a tiny overpaid minority but to educate the state's workforce so that California can continue to be a source of innovation and world leadership.
What do people associated with a university have to learn from Sarah Palin? Does Palin even believe in public higher education? For $100,000 she'll deliver her stump speech that we've all heard about a million times about how everything was just great in this country under her hero George W. Bush before the "radical" President Barack Obama was elected. The CSU, Stanislaus University Foundation could get Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin to come to the school and say the exact same thing for a fraction of the price.
There is now only one option available if the CSU, Stanislaus administration wants to save face and that's to let Palin speak - somewhere else. The University Foundation cannot afford even the appearance of impropriety. Given its public role, it should be held to a higher standard than the average private corporation. If some private group wants to hire her, so be it. But public institutions have an obligation to serve the public, and that means the public's right to know. The Palin incident illustrates everything that's wrong with the business-oriented way the CSU system has been managed in recent years. It's somehow fitting that the administrators' "accountability moment" might come via two students rummaging through a garbage dumpster.
Follow Joseph A. Palermo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/N/A
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
The layers of arrogance, 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.
According to the CSU Chancellor’s Office, 20 percent of its $6.7 billion budget, or $1.34 billion, is held in their 87 auxiliaries and foundations, and out of public view.
“SB 330 would remove the cloak of secrecy that prevents the public from understanding whether significant amounts of educational funding for public colleges and universities is being spent for the benefit of all Californians or just a privileged few,” said Jim Ewert, Legal Counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
“In just the last month alone, the scandals involving these foundations have expanded significantly to reveal that money has been used inappropriately for personal expenses, questionable loans, no-bid contracts, and executive perks for college administrators,” said Taiz.
“If government agencies can spin off front groups to handle their income with no transparency, those who provide that funding will never know quite where their money goes,” said Terry Francke, General Counsel for Californians Aware.
http://cloudminder.blogspot.com/
• Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez recently acknowledged his campus is being investigated by the Attorney General in relation to inappropriate expenditures of campus auxiliary money, including $200,000 to remodel President Gonzalez’ kitchen in 2007. Additionally at Sacramento State, $6.3 million of public funds was transferred to University Enterprises Inc., a campus auxiliary, to backfill losses from a property acquisition.
• Campus leadership at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo appears to be under the influence of a well-heeled donor. In October, Cal Poly eliminated a guest lecture at the request of executives from the Harris Ranch Beef Company, who threatened to withhold $500,000 in support for a new campus meat-processing center. Emails recently obtained by the San Luis Obispo Tribune also found that Harris Ranch may have also forced the resignation of a faculty member who taught a course on sustainable farming. Harris officials are now requesting a meeting with Cal Poly administrators to determine whether or not they will continue with their donation.
SB 330
The UC and CSU have often evaded the public records act by shifting some responsibilities to foundations and other auxiliary organizations operating on campuses. Several recent examples demonstrate the need for increased public oversight and accountability provided by SB 330:
• At Sonoma State, a $1.25 million loan issued to a former foundation board member two days after he resigned. He is now defaulting on that loan, which leaves less money in the foundation’s endowment for scholarships and other more important causes.
• At Fresno State, a no-bid managing contract was given to a foundation member for a theatre complex in which he held a financial interest. In addition, the Fresno Bee newspaper was denied information in 2001, specifically concerning the identity of individuals and companies that received luxury suites at the Save Mart Center arena. The denial resulted in CSU v. Superior Court (McClatchy Company), in which the Court opined that although it recognized university auxiliaries ought to be covered by the CPRA and that its ruling was counter to the obvious legislative intent of the CPRA, the rewriting of the statute was a legislative responsibility.
http://cloudminder.blogspot.com/
WHERE is the impropriety in a private citizen raising money for a state institution through a private foundation?
The fact is, this is a fundraising scam by Yee and Jerry Brown, desperate to close a yawning gap with Meg Whitman in the California gubernatorial race. There is nothing "public spirited" about what is going on here. It is more partisan hackery by a blissfully incompetent California Democratic Party.
Thanks to Democrats, my native state is about to go belly-up. Indeed, I can think of only two institutions on the planet more corrupt and incompetent than the California Democratic Party: the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the Chinese Communist Party!
Oh, wait. At least the Chinese know what they are doing. Unlike, say, John Yee and the California State Assembly and State Senate. No one can say that the Chinese Communist Party has driven their country to bankruptcy!
Meanwhile, John Yee and Jerry Brown point at the "shiny pony" called Sarah Palin in a transparently desperate attempt to distract the voters in California from the catastrophe that is happening all around them.
California Democrats: still looking for the right place to put the hearse in a two-car funeral.
How can DOCUMENTS the University PRESIDENT said "DID NOT EXIST" . . . be "stolen"???
The Foundation is operated out of UNIVERSITY OFFICE,
uses UNIVERSITY PHONES,
uses UNIVERSITY PUBLIC PAID STAFF,
has the Pain and Foundation WEBSITE HOSTED on UNIVERSITY servers,
and since President Shiravai has taken the helm,
the Foundation fund raising has DROPPED from $10 MILLION
to LESS than $4 million,
while losing many competent PROFESSIONALS, who haved resigned from the Board
and been replaced by UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS and STAFF . . .
hardly an "arms length" looting of public funds . . .