Part XVI: Cleveland Community College Board of Trustees –June 9, 2017 Meeting Report– –July 11, 2017 Meeting Agenda– Board Attorney to Attend Closed Session-Most likely to Discuss Thornburg’s threatened Lawsuit!!! —-Report by Robert A. Williams

"Perhaps it is time to just pull the plug on Cleveland Community College and Cleveland County students go to Gaston College, Isothermal or Catawba Valley Tech in Hickory."...Robert A. Williams Editor's Note No 1.: The minutes of this June 9, 2017 CCC Board of Trustees Meeting has not been "officially" posted yet. This is an old trick to delay the public from knowing what transpired in the meeting for at least a month, usually two months, under the guise of not putting out the minutes until they are approved by the Board. I often wait on reporting what happened in the various Board meetings taken from my own notes in order to "catch" the Board if they try to change the minutes to cover-up what really happened. Both the Commissioners and the School Board often do this, especially if someone speaks up in the Public Participation part of the Agenda with a complaint. The minutes, an official record, often leaves off much of what the speaker has to say. During this first CCC Board of Trustees Meeting that allowed citizens to speak, three people spoke up during the Public Participation and I want to see if the CCC Board Meeting minutes have left anything out regarding what these citizens had to say. This article will generally describe this June 9, 2017 CCC Board meeting, the first that I have attended, and note the general actions that transpired. Another article, when the minutes are approved and posted, will be forthcoming. Editor's Note No 2.: While writing this article a colleague discovered while "searching" the Community College website records and found , in a secret file of draft public records, the draft minutes of the June 9, 2017 Board of Trustees meeting as well as a draft agenda of the July 11, 2017 Trustees meeting. I suppose some would accuse us of "hacking" the CCC Computer system and "interfering" and "meddling" with the CCC administration. I say we discovered an illegal secret hiding place of CCC public records and are publishing the truth to citizens and taxpayers. I say we found a public document that should have been properly addressed in the first place. Editor's Note No 3: The draft minutes actually are pretty accurate, although some of former CCC Board member Patsy Rose's statements are wrong. Especially the so called "historical note" the CCC Board is putting out about Patsy Rose's service on the CCC Board of Trustees. This Historical Note, obviously intended to case a doubt on Mrs. Rose's service, did not include the fact that Mrs. Rose had resigned with two years left on her last term on the CCC Board. Also, if you go back to one of my previous article, I included the exact text of Mrs. Rose's prepared document, all of which was not read because her time was out. Editor's Note No 5,: CCC "surrogates" are spreading false statements around Cleveland County and elsewhere that the donors to CCC are not ashamed of the mess at CCC and do not want their names taken off any buildings and I am making that all up. Read for yourself Mrs. Rose's prepared statement AND included in the draft minutes that I will attach at the end of this article, which clearly shows that Mrs. Rose has publicly stated and officially noted in public records that, due to the mess at CCC, she would like to have her name removed from the building at CCC. Folks, read this for yourself. Do not believe ANYBODY that defends ANYTHING that has gone wrong at CCC. The actions by high level CCC administration that have been discovered to be unethical, immoral, probably illegal and just plain wrong dictate that some heads need to roll. And roll soon. Read on. Prior to this June 9, 2017 CCC Board of Trustees meeting the Trustees had passed a motion to allow citizens to speak to the Board for a maximum of three minutes. The Board made a big deal out of this like they were doing something great for the citizens of Cleveland County. State Law requires all such board meeting to have a Public Participation session on their agenda and provide minimum requirements. The CCC Board of Trustees had finally decided to obey that law and adopted a MINIMUM standard for Cleveland County Citizens. Same as the Commissioners and the School Board. ("Minimum standards" are the key words here. All in all the CCC Board of Trustees obviously regret the fact that the longstanding shenanigans that they overlooked for years have been discovered. The gridlock on the CCC Board is just an attempt to hang on until Cleveland County citizens get tired of hearing about this mess and turn their attention to something else.) So, I decided I would attend this meeting for the first time on June 9, 2017. Other citizens also decided to attend. To the best of my knowledge, this June 9, 2017 CCC Board meeting was the first time ever to have members of the public attend their meeting-much less speak. It was totally obvious the CCC Board of Trustees were not prepared to be have witnesses, members of the public, in attendance. The meeting was shown on the CCC Website as beginning at 12:00 PM in the Schenck Board Meeting Room in the Jack Hunt Building. Since I didn't know exactly where this room was, I got there around 11:30 AM and scouted around a bit. I found a map of the Jack Hunt Building and found the Board Meeting Room was on the second floor. I climbed the stairs to the second floor. School was out so not many people were around. I walked up to two ladies I saw through an open door and asked for directions. They gave me directions and I introduced myself to these ladies and they introduced themselves to me. From the conversation that followed it became obvious that both of these ladies were very disappointed in the way CCC was being ran. Then I walked a little further and found the Schenck Board Meeting Room area and walked into what was an anteroom (reception room) for the main Boardroom. I was still early and nobody was sitting at what I thought was the receptionists desk. So, I looked around a bit, saw the Board Room door was open and walked toward that open door and saw some folks milling around. I walked past a fancy food serving area where steam was coming out of a number of covered serving trays. The food smelled good and I thought "these guys and gals are treating themselves to a nice catered meal at taxpayers expense." Then I entered the Boardroom proper. It was a relatively small room that surely was NOT intended for members of the public to attend. Then I saw the big fancy elongated oval Board Room table. The table was highly polished, set with fine china, spotless lily white cloth napkins, fine silverware and what appeared to be crystal water glasses. All being set and arranged by a number of waitresses who had CCC ID tags around their necks. Everything was first class. No box lunches, plastic utensils and a bottle of water for this Board of Trustees crowd. Also there, but still early, were several Board members that I recognized, Dr. Thornburg, Dr. Kennedy (all attractive in her little black dress), CCC staff members, the waitresses still setting the table, and a few others that I did not recognize. I had entered one side of the Boardroom and exited out the other end, circled back around to the reception area where others were coming in for the meeting. I met Ginger Bullock, Mike Falls, Patsy Rose, Dr. Dale Guffey and others as they were coming in to attend the Board meeting. It was totally obvious that nobody at CCC was expecting "visitors" to their Board Meeting. It was obvious that there was not enough seating in the Board Room for many visitors in the first place. It was obvious that the 12 Noon time scheduled for the Board meeting was actually the time the Board was going to sit down for their fancy, almost formal, meal. All us visitors got to watch the straggler Board members come in and get ready for their fancy meal. The covers were taken off the serving trays and I got a first hand view of what was on the menu. Large round and thick meat loaf cakes, broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes with gravy, rolls and peach cobbler for dessert. The meeting was scheduled for exactly 12 noon, but exactly at 12 noon the Board of Trustees, Thornburg, Kennedy, other CCC Staff and an invited visitor from the State Community College Agency began their meal. All us lowly citizens and taxpayers got to wait outside. But we were polite and nobody wanted to be rude and go inside while the muckedy-mucks were eating their fine meal. For a bit anyway. I got to thinking about all this. State law clearly states that all public business must be conducted in the open. It is called The Sunshine Law. And when a majority of agency board members get together to conduct business, members of the public are allowed to attend. So I thought, what, besides the law, was to stop this Board of Trustees from conducting their business during this fancy meal? Nothing!!! And this Board didn't much follow state law anyway in the way they conduct their business. If they had, all the mess at CCC would have been cleared up years ago. So, at 12:20pm and the mucks were still eating, I quietly went into the Board Room and took a seat at the far end of the room. And sure enough, just a few minutes later, I hear the meeting being called to order at the other end of the table. To hear better I take my folding chair to the other end of the room in an obvious display that I intended to hear what was going on. About that time, Board Member Allen Langley, to his credit, suggested to Chairman Greg Melton that all the other visitors (members of the public) be invited into the Board Room. About 15 people file in, more seats were brought in and the meeting resumed. At this point, since I have reviewed the attached draft meeting minutes and found them relatively accurate regarding what was said, I suggest readers be sure to read those minutes that are found at the end of this article. But first, before you read the draft minutes, there are a few things that were left out of the minutes and a few things to remember: 1. Comment. Notice that some of the public participants words appear to be improperly transcribed. Patsy Rose's statements included words "weld, weld" and other examples where Mrs. Rose did not say "weld, weld." Something is amiss there. And in a few other places. Please go back and read my previous article that included Mrs. Rose's prepared remarks. Also, other speakers words were also misused or misrepresented. Most likely to confuse the record of what they said. 2. The minutes leave out a critical point from the statements Mr. Williamson, the State Community College invited visitor. Mr. Williamson stated if need be an "interim President could be appointed in one day." This omission was most likely left out so the record will show that replacing Thornburg could be done immediately if the CCC Board really wanted to move that fast. Also note that in a previous article I presented an email between the CCC Board Attorney and the Board that Dr. Thornburg had retained attorney Bob Yelton and a lawsuit was threatened. Also note that the agenda for the July 11, 2017 includes a closed session where Attorney Meekins will be addressing the CCC Board. I predict this closed session will be about Thornburg's threatened lawsuit. I would also not be surprised if the CCC Board pays off Thornburg in a big settlement. Taxpayers will be screwed again because the CCC Board has refused to do their duty in effective manner. So much for gridlock. 3. The June 9, 2017 CCC Board meeting did not include any changes to the time, date or schedule of any future meeting that is required by law before making such changes. The draft agenda for the July 11, 2017 shows the meeting starts at 12:30 PM, which would be an illegal change of meeting time. This again shows that the CCC Board does what they want in spite of what state law says. Obviously the CCC Board wants their meal and eat the meal in private. As for me, the law allows me (and the public) to attend meeting when a quorum of Board members are present and I intend to be in that Board Room at 12:00 PM (noon) sharp. If the Board just sits there and eats their fancy meal, I will bring a brown bag lunch consisting of a can of Beanie-Wienies and a bottle of water and just join in. I suggest others do the same. The "discovered" minutes of the June 9, 2017 meeting as well as the "discovered" agenda for the July 11, 2017 CCC Board meeting are attached below for your convenience. Come on out to the July 11, 2017 meeting and join us. PS: If the CCC Board of Trustees ever wises up they will stop their fancy meals at taxpayer expense; eat their meals somewhere else, separately, and before they come together to conduct CCC business; start following the law regarding open meetings, start following the law in scheduling of rescheduling meetings, stop gathering in private, and move their meetings to another room where it is convenient for public attendance. Otherwise, they should all resign and let those that appoint them appoint someone who will conduct proper and legal meetings. PS 2: Right now the CCC Board of Trustees have elevated themselves to become the major scandal at CCC. Information has come to me that some of the issues and scandals of today were problems 12 years ago. I don't expect the citizens of Cleveland County have the patience to allow CCC problems, issues and scandals to go for another 12 years before the Board takes action. Perhaps it is time to just pull the plug on Cleveland Community College and Cleveland County students go to Gaston College, Isothermal or Catawba Valley Tech in Hickory. [gview file="http://citizensforgoodgovernment.org/online/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2017-6-6-bot-minutes-draft-updated-1.pdf"] [gview file="http://citizensforgoodgovernment.org/online/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/July-11-2017-Agenda-Board-of-Trustees-Meetings.pdf"]

Part XVI: Cleveland Community College Board of Trustees –June 9, 2017 Meeting Report– –July 11, 2017 Meeting Agenda– Board Attorney to Attend Closed Session-Most likely to Discuss Thornburg’s threatened Lawsuit!!! —-Report by Robert A. Williams

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