First of two parts
Re “PCC Board Says It Does Not Care What the Public Thinks of Rocha”
[Editor’s Note: See relevant letter from Pasadena City College following this essay.]
[img]1769|right|Dr. Mark Rocha||no_popup[/img]In the seven months that the newspaper has been tracking the troubled tenure of Dr. Mark Rocha as president of Pasadena City College, the 500-word letter at the end of this essay is one of the most unusual documents to be filed in this strange out-front drama.
Minutes after the above-cited commentary was published early Monday afternoon, a letter was emailed from PCC’s general counsel, Gail Cooper.
Within the last 24 hours, it has been charged by a many-times validated PCC source that Ms. Cooper committed a major error in the second sentence of her complaining letter to the newspaper.
Said our source:
“Ms. Cooper writes: ‘In this article, you quote the full text of a statement made during public comment at one of its regular business meetings last Spring.’
“This is not true,”says our source. “The quote you used by Trustee Baum was from last week! I don't know what Ms. Cooper is talking about. I do not know what is six months old in your article.”
Ms. Cooper asked the newspaper to remove the story, not on grounds of inaccuracy, because it was not, but because she deemed it detrimental to a campus attempting to recover from a stemwinding controversy over Dr. Rocha. She noted several times the college has moved on from raucous events of last spring when campus protests and formal no-confidence votes by student and faculty organizations peaked and such feelings have continued to dog the president.
Dr. Rocha – who left his previous two college positions bathed in controversy and upheaval – appeared then and now to have a single ally on the entire PCC campus, the august and all-powerful personalities of the Board of Trustees. They have reacted to an avalanche of outcry against him and his disputed methods, by piling more and new money into his bank account, and extending his contract once again, this time to 2017.
Why? Who knows? The reason cannot possibly be job performance in a time when PCC’s enrollment is declining.
As the immensely unpopular Dr. Rocha begins his fourth year in the CEO’s chair, he is and has been regularly reviled by student and faculty leaders.
(To be continued)
Headline: A Letter from PCC’s General Counsel
Dear Mr. Noonan:
This letter addresses your article referenced above and requests, on behalf of the Board of trustees of the Pasadena Area Community College District (“District”) that you remove it from the Front Page Online website and any other internet sites.
In this article, you quote the full text of a statement made during public comment at one of its regular business meetings last Spring. While we appreciate your right to speak as a journalist and do not question your opinion or the opinions of those you quote, the continued publication of this comment is detrimental to Pasadena City College.
We also ask you to consider the facts underlying the comments. The Board’s process for evaluating Dr. Rocha is set forth Board Bylaw No. 1680 which can be viewed on the Pasadena City College website (see link to Board of Trustees). The Bylaw does not provide for a comprehensive evaluation (with input from campus constituents) until the fourth year of service.
The Superintendent/President’s performance evaluation is private personnel information and is confidential. Versaci v. Superior Court (Palomar Community College Dist. (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 805. Accordingly, as much as members of the faculty may complain that they were not involved in this year’s evaluation of Dr. Rocha, the process is not discretionary.
The context of the comment is collective bargaining, and in particular, the change in the District’s calendar to three terms with no Winter intercession. It is no secret that the District and the Faculty Assn. have been embroiled in contentious collective bargaining for more than a year, and that the Faculty Assn. lays the blame for the change in the calendar at Dr. Rocha’s feet. However, we also note that you did not publish the statements made by several prominent members of the Pasadena area community who spoke to the Board at both the May 1, 2013 and the July 17, 2013 regular business meetings. These individuals took time from their busy professional and personal schedules to come to campus at night to ask the Board to continue in its goals for structural change to the college to meet the needs of our growing student population in terms of student access and success. These individuals beseeched the Board not to yield to the Faculty Assn.’s demands concerning Dr. Rocha or to their unreasonable demands in collective bargaining.
Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, the simple fact remains that the campus has moved on from last Spring. The District and the Faculty Assn. have met in renewed attempts to work out their differences. Your article, with content now more than six months old, only serves to move the college backwards and hinders our efforts to improve the campus environment and relationships.
Therefore, on behalf of the Board, I am asking your assistance. Please remove the above referenced article. Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. If you would like to discuss the foregoing, please do not hesitate to contact me. My direct line is – .
Very truly yours,
Gail S. Cooper
General Counsel
