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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne, while the University of Oregon tends to dominate the attention of Eugene and even the state, Lane Community College is nevertheless a critical part of our community's educational and vocational landscape. For more than 60 years, the college has been providing classes and educational opportunities to the region, but in that time, there may have never been a more tumultuous period than what the LCC board is going through now, with accusations of racism and bullying being hurled about in every direction, even experts brought in to calm the tensions have come away worried about the board's ability to trust one another. Indeed, the college's own independent student newspaper, The torch has been highlighting the board's problems. Today on the show, you'll hear from a reporter of another paper, the lookout Eugene Springfield, who's been following this story for months. Mike McAnally, contributing editor for the lookout Eugene Springfield, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us.
MIKE McINALLY: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: My first question is, really, what the heck is going on with the Lane Community College Board?
MIKE McINALLY: It's a good question. And there, I think, are a couple of things to keep in mind. And first of all is the background in which all of this is happening. If you go back and look at things that have happened with the board over the last couple of years, really, what you see starting to emerge is this fundamental question about what is the proper role of the board, right? I mean, to what level does it get involved in governance decisions? And there's a four to three split right now on the board that I think in some ways, kind of informs everything else that's going on. This particular chapter of the story started when Lisa Fragala, who was a member of the board, resigned in October. She had been elected. She was elected to the legislature in November. She was the seventh member of the board. And then the board, on a number of occasions, tried to appoint a replacement, which they are certainly allowed to do, and they deadlocked many times, three, three. But the issue kept percolating from some of these November board meetings up through, up through January, up to eight, up to February, March issue. It came up again and again and again. Now at some point, the way the board operates is that they meet the chair and the vice chair of the board meet with the president before every board meeting to have an agenda setting meeting. And at the March 27 meeting, again, the chair at the time of the chair of the board at the time, Zach Mulholland, raised the issue again, said he wanted to bring it up to the board. There were apparently some disagreements, and not everyone thought that was a good idea. Mulholland apparently raised his voice, started using profanity
to such an extent that it was a Zoom meeting and the other participants all basically ended the meeting at the same time backed away on April 2 at the board meeting that followed that meeting, the Vice Chair, Kevin all Tucker, who was at the agenda setting meeting, read this letter where he lambasted Mulholland for his behavior, specifically at that meeting, said he used sexist, racist language that was dismissive and bullying,
and that's where the matter sat for another month. There was no this was at the three- or four-hour mark of a long meeting. The board has long meetings. The issue kind of sat there at the university, because of this complaint that Altucker had read and some related complaints that had been filed, the complaint involved all of the board, except for board member Julie Wiseman. There were three or four separate complaints. LCC decided they needed to have an outside counsel investigate. They came up. The outside counsel came up with a report that looked at four of these complaints. Three were substantiated by the attorney, including the one involving Mulholland conduct at the March 27 meeting. So, there were other complaints, aside from what you just described, there were four complaints in all. One was not substantiated. The other ones involved an interaction between the student and Mulholland during the April 2 board meeting that occurred during a break where a student felt that basically Mulholland conduct had been bullying and dismissive toward her as they discussed an issue. That had occurred earlier in that April 2 meeting. The other complaint involved a March meeting where the complainant, this was an anonymous complaint, alleged essentially, that the board, with the exception of Wiseman, had been dismissive and disrespectful of comments that the President, Stephanie Bulger had made at that particular meeting, and the tone of that was that these board members wouldn't have treated Bolger if she was a white woman, and of course, she's a black she's a black woman.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Sure, sure. What has Mulholland said about all this?
MIKE McINALLY: Mulholland has said he told the investigator who was looking at the case the attorney, the outside attorney, the LCC, brought in, he has said that he doesn't think he meant to be abusive or bullying, that he was just speaking out of passion, that he was arguing his point with vigor, and that he didn't intend or he doesn't see his conduct as being abusive or bullying in any way. He has also, however, said he's told me this, that he has apologized to some people who have been involved in some of these incidents. He has faced a number of requests to resign, one from the NAACP. Another one came recently from Board Member Julie Wiseman, when I was talking to her, and he has said pretty clearly that he is not planning to resign.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm wondering too, is there an official position from Lane Community College about all this? Are they supposed to weigh in on something like this?
MIKE McINALLY: When I asked Lane specifically for comment on the attorney's report, they declined to comment. They were saying, it's the matter now in the board's purview.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I understand too, that at a at a board retreat, some of this came up and to the point where, I think in one of the articles that you've written, and you've written several about this, and really gotten in depth, you know, even, even the facilitator said, you all have some really, really significant challenges. Can you talk a little bit about that?
MIKE McINALLY: Yeah, the retreat, which the board does occasionally, to kind of set their goals for the next year and to look ahead at some issues that they might want to deal with, the actual complaints that were being investigated by the attorney never came up during the seven-hour retreat, hmm, but what did come into focus, pretty clearly, was that four of the board members now, for the current staff, they've in the elections, they finally filled that seventh open board position. Four of them really kind of pushed back on the facilitator’s arguments that the board really needs to focus on 10,000-foot sort of governance. Okay, they shouldn't get involved in micro-managing. But a number of board members, most notably, I think, in this in during the retreat, the board chair Austin full Nagy argued, you know, we have a right as a board and a duty as a board, to weigh in on substantive issues like the decision that the college made recently to suspend its licensed practical nurse program, or some of the questions surrounding some of the budget issues that they have to go through. And there was some fairly heated give and take between some of the board members and between this facilitator and the board members. And that was the session, and this was again, a seven-hour retreat. And I urge people not to watch all seven hours, but they certainly can if they want. But that was a retreat at which that big division on the board on that particular issue really came into focus, at least for me, although I do suspect you go back and look at some of the things that have happened in the last couple of years, it was sort of emerging as an issue over the years.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know a lot of people are sort of familiar with board government, governance. You know, a board hires and fires a chief executive, the president in this case. And I'm sure many people realize a lot of times that the chief executive is supposed to do the governance, but it sounds like this has sort of metastasized over the years.
MIKE McINALLY: I think, yeah, the debate over that particular issue about what precisely the board's role really has sort of metastasized over the years. That's a good way to put it.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, what has, if anything, Dr Stephanie Bulger, talked to you about, What has she said publicly about what's happening? Because obviously it seems like, at least, certainly with your reporting, she has been the subject of much of this?
MIKE McINALLY: Yeah, and she is not. We've asked for a comment from the University, and she has declined to comment. It is, it is telling, though, that in the investigators report, the investigator, the lawyer, sort of summarized some of the comments from her interviews, and she has said, and I'm quoting here from the report, that she's described decreasingly collaborative relationship with board leadership over the past three years. Some problems started during an earlier term, when Austin Fölnagy was board chair, he was reelected to a term at their July meeting as the current board chair. She said there's also a tendency she noted during the year that Zach Mulholland was the chair that Mulholland was dismissive of bullying in these agenda setting meetings and so forth.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I imagine it's hard to sort of, I don't know, quantify or qualify a term like bullying, but do you have any idea of what the specifics around that word in these meetings could be?
MIKE McINALLY: I mean, obviously one person's definition of bullying might be very different from another's, but we're also talking about, as you've pointed out, Dr Bulger is an African American woman. You've also said that some of these complaints have centered around a very serious charge of racism, I just didn't know if you had any kind of, you know, ways to sort of contextualize how that word bullying and the word racism may come into play here with racism. As you look at the report from the investigators, racism comes up most frequently in the context of that she believes and other board members and folks who have watched the board interaction with the President over the years, she believes she's not treated in the same way that a white man would be in her position in terms of bullying. A lot of the accusations focus on raising your voice using profanity in some of these meetings, if you go to a board meeting, you know, there is, there is pretty clearly some tension, if you just look at at body language and the occasional the occasional remark, you know, and to be fair, a lot of the things that the board decides are decided on a unanimous basis. But, to watch this and to and to see it start to play out a little bit from the retreat onto, I think we'll see some interesting things happen at the September board meeting that's been interesting to watch.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, pulling that thread a little bit to see the tension. Is it seemingly most of the board having tension with Mr. Mulholland? Or how do you see it? Are there? I don't know, cliques’ factions within the board, as best you can ascertain.
MIKE McINALLY: Yeah, it's a little too early to tell. Okay, but if you went to the July board meeting, you had four members who I think are more closely aligned with each other, sitting together, and you had the three board members who are sort of in the minority sitting together with actually an open seat or two between them.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Is there a process by which the board can remove a member?
MIKE McINALLY: The board cannot, because all these members, and I might mention, they're all unpaid volunteers, basically, because they're elected officials, the board cannot remove any of them. Now, recall election could be held, and you see some talk about that, but we'll see if that. We'll see if that goes anywhere.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, and college staff, there's no mechanism for them to do anything other than what they've been doing, right?
MIKE McINALLY: Correct.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay. So, this is all happening in the shadow of some pretty big budget challenges for the college. Can you kind of talk about that and how this all sort of fits together?
MIKE McINALLY: Well, the board still, the college still needs to do some budget cuts that have been identified for this year. And I think something like $625,000, something like that, needs to be taken out now their budget this year. And I think one of the things that aggravates some of the members on the board is that, to my knowledge, has of today, the college has not identified where those cuts are coming from. Okay? Now the college also needs to go through a three-year process of some fairly significant budget cutting, partially, well, largely because they want to build their reserves, or what they call their ending fund balance, end of year balance up to the level that is called for under actual board policy.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, if you could, despite all of these personality challenges and some of these accusations, I mean, has the board been able to function, i.e., within the budget context. Are they still able to do the work that they're supposed to do, especially in light of pretty significant budget challenges going forward?
MIKE McINALLY: They approved a budget for this current fiscal year. There they show every sign of working with the college to work through this budget cutting process for the next three fiscal years. So. Yeah, and again, you know, most of the decisions that they have are handled in a seven zero vote. I think you might see some, you might see some moves coming in the next few months where the board, or at least some members of the board, want to maybe go back and take a look at exactly what level of decision, level decision making they want in these decisions, should they have had a vote, for example, in the decision to suspend the LPN program, the chair, the current chair, Austin, full Nagy, when they were approving the budget for this fiscal year, offered, you know, three budgetary motions during the meeting at which they were they approved the budget. All three of those failed on three, three votes, because at that time, they had six members. I think you may want to, I think you may see some members of the board start to agitate, or continue to agitate, for more of a role in those kinds of budgetary decisions. Now, the facilitator they had at their July retreat said, you know, that's not really your board. You don't really want to micromanage. That's not your role. But we'll see how that plays out.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, in doing your research for these stories, and this is kind of my last question about the board, is, is this new, this kind of tension that happens? I don't know if you've been able to sort of dive into research. I don't know. I don't know much about the LCC board. Has there been a time like this in the last maybe 10 years or so, where you've had this kind of tension certainly bubbling out into the public view?
MIKE McINALLY: I've only gone back for the LCC board. I mean, I started with lookout in late March, but I've only gone back three or four years. Okay, in previous stops at different news operations, I've covered some school boards from time to time, certainly edited a bunch of school board stories. Yeah, in terms of the level of tension, this is sort of unprecedented for me. I haven't seen anything quite like this.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, it seems that way. Well, you brought up the Lookout and where you've been. This is my first opportunity to talk to someone from the Lookout. I kind of wanted to just welcome you. And also, how are things going to talk about, sort of what the Lookout is doing, new kid on the block, as it were…
MIKE McINALLY: The idea for The Lookout Eugene Springfield is a spin off from a similar operation that Ken Doctor, journalist and journalist and journalism consultant launched in Santa Cruz, California four years ago. It's been pretty successful. The idea basically, is to replicate in a web format and newsletters online format. You know, everything that a good community newspaper should do. And you know, we've, we've had some growing pains in the four months or so since we've launched. But you know, we're up to 15 journalists, editors, a photographer, just hired someone to cover the ducks beat and I think part of them, for me, at least, having been laid off from a couple of newspaper jobs over the last five years, there's a real pleasure in being present in a functioning newsroom, again with actual journalists. That's a buzz. People who haven't been in that situation can't understand it. It's just a wonderful place to be in a newsroom like that, which has so much energy. You know, I know we're ahead of where we were we thought we would be, in terms of paid membership. It's kind of supported through advertising, paid membership, and a certain level of donations. It seems to be going great, and we've been able to do some wonderful work. And just the sheer, the sheer jolt you get by walking into a reasonably well staffed newsroom. I mean, the last couple jobs I had, we were working in places where the parent company had closed the newsrooms entirely, and so to be able to back in that environment is just incredibly rewarding.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, and I can imagine too, maybe you had to wrestle with this in your decision to join the Lookout. It's a tough world out there for local news newspapers. Specifically,[MD1] , what brought you here? Because you've worked at a lot of different newsrooms. You know? What was it about? Again, newspapers in your blood, obviously. But what was it about this that kind of excited you?
MIKE McINALLY: I tell you what. That's an easy question for me to answer, because especially going through the experience, it's been a tough time for community newspapers, in particular, with shows of them closing their doors since the turn of the century. I was really intrigued and excited by the idea of, here's a different way to maybe make a community news operation sustainable over the long run. And I thought, you know, I don't know how many more years I have as a working journalist, but I thought I really wanted to be part of something like that, to see if I could play a role in making that work. And I have believed, I guess I am, a true believer, in the importance of journalism from whatever, from KLCC, from wherever. Sure, good journalism is so important to good communities, and I've always believed that, and to be able to be part of basically what is a startup working off in maybe a different model for sustainability, that was incredibly exciting for me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah. So my last question, Mike, is, where do you see the Lookout fitting in overall and I'll put it both locally, but also statewide, in that ecosystem. And I should point out to people who may not know, I mean, you are a very serious newsroom, especially with your The lookout, Santa Cruz won a Pulitzer Prize. Talk about sort of where you think you fit in.
MIKE McINALLY: I don't approach it as you know, we're feeling, I don't approach it like Eugene is a news desert, because it certainly is not. But I do, I do approach it as you know, what are the things that maybe aren't getting done in terms of providing a quality community journalism product? You know, by the time I got to my first LCC board meeting, it was clear to me that they had not had a journalist in the room for months, you know, and that you see newsrooms getting cut back and cut back and cut back. It just gets so hard and so difficult. I see us fulfilling just that, that basic role of, you know, everything that you know, a strong community newspaper used to be able to do and I don't see us necessarily competing with any of the other media outlets in town. I think there's room for all of us. And I think, frankly, the more news outlets, the more news voices you have in the community, the stronger the community is going to be.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Mike McInally, he's a contributing editor for the lookout Eugene Springfield, thanks so much for coming in and talking.
MIKE McINALLY: My pleasure. Thank you.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org.
Tomorrow, on the show, we'll talk with an OSU professor who's found that temporary public support saw huge gains in breastfeeding among low-income mothers and healthier outcomes for kids. We'll also check in with KLCC summer interns and talk about their reporting for the community. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon On the Record. from KLCC. Thanks for listening.
