Editorial:

Bill Stewart was sworn in as board member of Southwestern Community College in December 2012. In March, three short months later, he resigns from the board citing a lack of transparency, apparently in regards to budget information related to contract negotiations, and Shared Governance.

This resignation is disappointing on so many levels!

We can start with the election process, which probably spanned a good eight months of his time to campaign, the time and effort of volunteers who believed in him and poured their time and sweat into his election, and all the money donated to him and spent on his behalf during the election process. Then there are the voters who put their faith in Bill Stewart to represent them on the College Board, their vote is now wasted.

We are disappointed that Stewart only gave the process such a short period of time before pulling the ripcord on his term in office. We do not know if Mr. Stewart was either naïve or just didn’t understand the political process, but with governance, change doesn’t occur overnight, it is a long drawn out process that requires the support and understanding of the Board majority. Governance does not march to the desire of a single individual, and for good reason.

Mr. Stewart’s reasons for quitting, published in the campus newspaper, “The Sun,” lists that his primary concern was with the process of contract negotiations between the college and Union negotiators, and he felt an inability to gather complete and full information regarding the budget. He was also disappointed in the Shared Governance within the college.

While we share Mr. Stewart’s frustration in regards to obtaining budget information, and we agree with him that this information should be available to him, transparent not only to him but to the community on whole, we are disappointed that Mr. Stewart appears to have taken on the role of representing the teacher’s union in these negotiations. This probably comes from his 21 years as a community college professor. While he has every right to have empathy with the teachers, classified workers and their representative unions, Mr. Stewart was elected to represent the community and be a watchdog over taxpayers’ monies. Contract negotiations, again, are long, laborious affairs, in which negotiating teams are tasked with pounding out a fair and equitable contract that goes before the Board for ratification.

It is not the Board members’ role to facilitate the negotiations.

As to Mr. Stewart’s second issue of Shared Governance, it was his campaign promise to create an atmosphere on campus where Shared Governance could find a foothold as he saw it and to foster this concept to fruition. Prior to his election, Mr. Stewart knew the state of affairs with Shared Governance at Southwestern and the challenges he would face. To say that after three months he is disappointed with the Shared Governance on campus is disingenuous of him. Mr. Stewart campaigned on the promise to bring about Shared Governance, not to pass judgment on it and abandon his cause.

Now the remaining Board Members must decide to either hold a special election which could cost up to $800,000 which makes this cost prohibitive, but due to the fact that it will almost a full term, an election is probably the democratic way to go. The other option would be to appoint a community member to the board, which is cost efficient but lends itself to board biases. We should find out next week which direction the board will take.