Junior College Reserrved Seating

From Illinois Leaks: COD Board Room, Oct 2014, showing the 11 seats available for the public – what they considered “adequate” opportunity to attend the meeting.

From Illinois Leaks:
College of DuPage Board Room, Oct 2014, showing the 11 seats available for the public – what they considered “adequate” opportunity to attend the meeting.

When I read this article in Illinois Leaks, it so reminded me of the McHenry County College Board room.

At one point there were signs on virtually all of the chairs in the front row of the MCC Board room indicating that they were reserved for college employees.

There are three rows of seats, so there was usually somewhere one could find to sit, except when the Board was planning to do something outrageous (think saddling taxpayers with a $25 million minor league baseball stadium when minor league baseball teams are lucky to stay in business five years).

I don’t know if Presidents like Walt Packard ordered employees to attend the meetings to keep taxpayers from getting a good seat, but Illinois Leaks has found that to be the case at the College of DuPage.

We were ordered to attend the meetings and sit in the reserved seats.”

That’s what one retired employee told Illinois Leaks.


Comments

Junior College Reserrved Seating — 2 Comments

  1. Great article by Illinois Leaks (formerly Edgar County Watchdogs).

    Likely not a coincidence the same reserved seating at public board meetings stunt was pulled at COD and MCC.

    In the April 7, 2015 Consolidated General Election, there was a changing of the guard on the College of Dupage Board.

    Prior to that election, there was one reformer, Erin Birt on the 7 member board, and the board chair in particular, and others, made the reformers life difficult.

    Three reformers were elected to the Board on April 7th: Charles Bernstein, Frank Napolitano, and Deanne Mazzochi.

    On incumbent, Allison O’Donnell, did not run for re-election.

    Two incumbents failed to get re-elected, Kim Savage and Nancy Svoboda.

    So now the COD board has a majority of reformers.

    The straw that broke the camels back and outraged voters was the $762,000 buyout package for COD President Robert Breuder.

    It was apparently Brueder that arranged for the special seating areas at board meetings.

    Do we really need a state law that special seating areas and reserved seats cannot be set up at public board meetings, other than the section for the board and administration members whom are facing the public?

    Maybe we should consider having only board members face the public, with the administration relegated to the public audience.

    It’s a Board meeting, not a Board / Administration meeting.

    Diminishes the separation of powers if the board and senior level administration is a combined unit at board meetings.

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