The Siege

Report Card Arrives Early

This article begins a multi-part series exposing the dysfunctional, mismanaged and, in some respects, criminal nature – philosophical, practical, moral and legal – of the Office of Student Life at Santa Monica College as it operates (or, rather, doesn’t) under the ultimate jurisdiction of Dr. Robert “Bobbie” Adams, vice president of student affairs, but actual day-to-day management of Assistant Dean of Student Life Deyna Hearn and Student Activities Advisor Benny Blaydes.

This series represents a months-long investigation by this writer, a student at the college who, in the absence of any other inquiring journalist or of a sufficiently informed activist (with the exception of one key student), unfortunately cannot avoid covering certain circumstances and events in which he is also the activist.

Topics to be explored will include:

• What students who shoulder leadership responsibilities at SMC should be able to expect from the college versus what they actually receive.
• Student Life advisors’ lack of “real” qualifications for teaching and/or modeling leadership for students and why these advisors should be reassigned.
• Inadequacies of the college to empower any legitimate, relevant and empowering forum for a cross-campus dialogue of the students and with the greater SMC community.
• “K-14” excuses used at SMC which vitiate student awakening and delay their participation as citizens.
• Why the Corsair student newspaper, as it currently operates, is mostly irrelevant to the vast majority of SMC students.
• This year’s record of accomplishment by Associated Student (AS) and Inter-Club Council (ICC) officeholders.
• Bureaucratic hurdles undermining clubs and how to fix the problem.
• Failures of Eileen Miller, SMC campus police chief, to insure the safety of people on campus and to implement a timely and responsive mechanism for the intake of citizen’s complaints as required under California Penal Code Section 832.5. (The SMCPD falls under the jurisdiction of Dr. Adams and the office of student affairs.)
• Conflicts of interest within California’s Education Code insofar as it calls for representatives from a community college’s administration to be advisors to students.
• SMC sentinels/gatekeepers who keep students in tow.
• Why AS elections for board members has been a colossal failure and what needs to change.
• Delay, delay, delay – a favorite SMC administration tactic for avoiding dealing with student issues.
• And more…

Criminal you say? Yeah, that’s right.

The preamble to California’s “Ralph M. Brown Act” (California Government Code Sections 54950-54963, aka the “Brown Act,” enacted in 1953 to not only guarantee the people’ rights to access and participation in a deliberative democracy, but also to eliminate particular abuses by governmental representatives, such as so-called “workshops,” “study sessions,” and retreats held in private) declares that:

“In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.

“The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”

These sentiments, meant to insure the rights of the people, remain virtually ignored by Santa Monica College’s Office of Student Life, particularly by Hearn and Blaydes (who, in addition, collectively assume decision-making authority not truly theirs, too often by default, due to their persistent failure to clearly advise students that the authority belongs to them), and by the associated student board of directors who continue to deliberate so much of the business of the SMC student body out of view of the people, though under the eyes of the Hearn and Blaydes who should advise them otherwise.

(Multiple requests were made to the offices of Adams, Hearn and Blaydes to arrange interviews for this article. Hearn and Blaydes failed to respond in any manner and Adams’ assistant, Bill Moore, said “Dr. Adams declines to be interviewed by you for your article.”)

It cannot be said by any of the aforementioned parties that they remain ignorant of the existence or seriousness of the Brown Act, as this writer has made a regular, sometimes dramatic, point of reminding them of their obligations under the law.

Section 54959 of the Act states that:

“Each member of a legislative body who attends a meeting of that legislative body where action is taken in violation of any provision of this chapter, and where the member intends to deprive the public of information to which the member knows or has reason to know the public is entitled under this chapter, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

This too has been brought to the attention of student life advisors and A.S. board members multiple times.

Up next:

Part Two – How to Ignore the Brown Act When No One is Watching

This entry was posted on Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 12:22 am and is filed under Political, SMC Governance, SMC Community, In Loco Parentis, Associate Student Board of Directors, Inter-Club Council, Clubs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.