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By Staff Editorial
By Staff Editorial
Childish banter and explosive temper tantrums; this is what you’d find in a kindergarten classroom, not a Board of Trustees meeting.
They are the people who decide the fate of the Riverside City College students and faculty.
So it’s back to kindergarten with the five members on the board who are fighting like two year olds over a toy. You have to admit, is this what you want to hear about the people who are in charge of your fate as a student?
The board’s recent spats would include a spat between Grace Slocum and Chancellor Salvatore Rotella’s debate over his position as chancellor. Especially now, since Rotella will be staying on until his replacement is found. It seems like she doesn’t like that idea because she has not agreed to it. She feels that the board has not taken control over the succession plan and that they are just going with the flow of things.
So when we don’t like somebody we do not act like little kids by name calling and have screaming matches at each other. All because someone decides to vote against the flow? Can you say grow up please?
Another lovely spat would include Slocum butting heads with President Mark Takano, who stripped her of her committee memberships on the board.
Elected officials should act responsibly and courteously. The way they are conducting themselves is not what society would deem appropriate of our college leaders.
All the board members need to grow up and start working together. Just becasue someone doesn’t want to go with the flow does not mean a war should be started over it. A hard concept that may seem to some but tough cookies. The board may not like each other but they need to deal with it. It’s their job. People every single day deal with others they do not like, and you rarely see them having shouting matches or angry outbursts.
If everyone could make the people they didn’t like disappear then the world would be pretty much… empty.
The board has a tough decision to face with the accreditation of RCC and the separation of all three campuses in 2008. You would think that would be enough to bring a group of people together, especially the ones in charge, but this just seems to be another controversy for the group to fight over.
Three longtime members of the board have their terms come to an end in the fall. Those would be Kathleen Daley, Jose Medina, and Slocum.
Medina said he would be running again, while Slocum and Daley will not be running for a position. They must be fed up with the fights as much as we’re sick of hearing about them.
Do they want to be thought of as whiny little kids who throw temper tantrums because they don’t get their way instead of the respectable adults they are?
Now the members can blame each other and tattle tale about who did what to whom but that won’t help anyone. They have tough decisions to make in this up coming year and it doesn’t look like they are going anywhere but apart. A whole new board should be chosen. People who are active and won’t put up with going with the flow, but who will change things.
If you look at it, adults in office should not act like children. Plain as that.
If they want to keep fighting, have someone give them a wrestling ring and let them duke it out. When they are all done we’ll see what we can salvage from the leftovers and hopefully have a board that is committed to helping the college and not to arguing with one another about petty things.
