Did not go gently

I had hoped that the last post was going to be the last post about the outgoing BoT at COD. Unfortunately, the vanquished were not content to go quietly into the evenings of their trusteeisms.

Four of the six members of the College of DuPage Board of Trustees who voted on Thursday to, among other things, offer an unnecessary and unjustified contract extension to the president, bulldoze through the outstanding highly contentious board policies, and hire another landscaper even as the current landscaping that they selected is scarcely complete, will not be present when next the board meets to conduct business in May. Thus did they thumb their noses at the community that had voiced its disapproval of this board by its emphatic defeat of the two incumbents that bothered to run. Now the work of the new board will be hamstrung even before it is able to begin its work to repair the damage wreaked by the old one.

The board has tried to paint itself as operating with greater transparency and fiscal responsibility. Instead, its activities, even to the very end, have been characterized by opacity and subterfuge; while the wasteful dalliances with multiple presidents, parking lots, policy manuals and so forth, have resulted in not only reduced services but also increased costs to students.The mission of education has been diverted. Let these men be gone and not before time; but let not their acts be forgotten.