Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/07/2009 1:01:29 AM PST by WayneLusvardi
Perhaps a living parable for our current times of financial crisis was acted out on January 16, 2009, when faced with a *double bird strike* of U.S. Air Flight 1549 over New York City. Pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger radioed to the area flight controller that he was putting the air craft down in the Hudson River and simply announced to the passengers to *brace for impact!*
The Pasadena City College Board of Trustees could learn a lot of how to handle its impending financial crisis of an imminent shut down of state funds from the way Captain Sullenberger had to manage this crisis test. In an example of gross irresponsibility, at the Board meeting of January 21, 2009, the Pasadena junior college Board of Trustees had the willpower to pass a measure to develop a global warming action plan but failed to second a motion to develop a contingency plan for the inevitable curtailment of state funds facing the school due to the California budget crisis. See PCC Board of Trustees January 21 Minutes of Meeting, Agenda Item 3-H, Budget Discussion, here: http://www.pasadena.edu/MeetDocs/board_9751_C.pdf :
The junior college Board's inaction can be likened to continuing to fly U.S. Air Flight 1549 on auto pilot after the bird strike. It is like refusing to take quick action to manually steer the air craft to a soft landing while also failing to warn the passengers or readying the crew to deploy life rafts. The reason pilot Sullenberger was able to pull a soft landing off was because he had trained for it his whole life and had a plan in his mind on where to safely set the plane down. He lost the plane but not the passengers or crew. Unfortunately, both our investment banks and our government institutions are failing to have contingency plans in place in the event of a financial crisis. Instead they prefer to depend on the Federal government as an ultimate bailout insurance. This has resulted in a disaster.
Asked by media reporters what he attributed his successful soft landing to, pilot Sullenberger humbly said words to the effect that he was just doing his job. But investment banks, bank regulators, legislators, and heads of government agencies apparently aren't doing their job - case in point the Pasadena City College Board's inaction on devising a budget contingency plan months ago.
Pasadena City College now has no plan in place for furloughs, salary reductions, class rescheduling, or other measures to assure some 20,000 plus students that they will be able to complete current classes. This is a typical bureaucratic response to a crisis - you can't be blamed if you do nothing.
It is little surprise that Pasadena City College finds itself in this impending predicament. It's President, Dr. Paulette J. Perfumo was previously faulted when she assumed her position in 2007, for buying an extravagant $54,000 gas guzzling Cadillac and billing the college for it via an $800 per month car allowance and additional gas credit card. Reportedly, her car payments are only $500 per month.
So the implied message to the public is: we're running this institution for our perks, not for performance. This is the same message we're reading about daily out of Wall Street and out of Washington, D.C. It is partly a problem of negative public perception as well as willful negligence.
This is the same problem that most Presidents face when starting a new war. They have to get rid of the old bureaucratic generals and replace them with warriors, witness General Patraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
It is time to be unforgiving. The elected Board of Trustees of Pasadena City College should be recalled or censured for dereliction of their duty. It is time to convene a Board of Inquiry just like the Federal Aviation Administration does after an air plane accident. It is time to say little and to take quick decisive action. Let's retrieve the black boxes and the minutes to the meetings of the PCC Board of Directors and make some findings. Let's suspend President Paulette Perfumo and put a crisis manager in place immediately.
This isn't time to approve highly symbolic plans to fight global warming. It isn't time to be politically correct and be loved by our constituents and those we are supposed to serve. It isn't time to go into damage control mode with our public relations departments. We don't have time to misplace blame on those who have reported the bad news such as this writer.
We have to act now. Recalling the PCC Board of Directors and replacing President Paulette Perfumo would be a step in the right direction. Do it like the military does it - just remove them from command.
This will send a message to other agencies that they cannot rely on a Katrina-like dodging strategy of letting things go to hell in a hand basket and then scapegoating President Bush, Governor Schwarzenegger, the taxpayers, Proposition 13, or God for our unpreparedness and irresponsibility. This is a prevalent childish tactic of the liberal-left and it should be put into an irreversible death spiral and allowed to come to a crash landing.
Even if Pasadena City College President Paulette J. Perfumo and her Board were powerless to do anything, why didn't they issue a statement to the public to prevent negative public perception? Why didn't they issue a statement at least to their students? Why didn't they initiate cutbacks, furloughs, pay reductions, and other measures long ago in preparation for the inevitable budget reduction that came from living in a financial bubble so long?
In California, the state budget deficit does not come from stingy taxpayers or busted financial investments but willful mismanagement. It is a willful attempt to run expenditures up much higher than allocations to force a much higher balanced budget. It's legislative extortion and an end run around California Proposition 13's prohibition against raising taxes without a two-thirds vote of the legislators or the electorate. This extortion attempt is taking cover behind a nebulous national financial crisis but it is all of California's own making.
If the State budget was adjusted for inflation and population growth since 1998 it would have had a $9 billion surplus this year. Did the Board of Trustees think that the bubble of taxation they were depending on would persist forever? Perhaps like Governor Schwarzenegger who believes that bonds are like a money tree, they believed that budget shortfalls can be plugged with bonds. That is what the City of New York did in the 1970's, fund social and educational services with bonds, and it went bankrupt.
It's time for a management change in California. It's time to do for tough talk and actions to bring our metaphorical air craft to a soft landing. It's time to put manager's in place who can say *brace for impact!* *Brace for budget impact!*
Same old story. Isn’t it strange that educators can’t seem to comprehend history or basic math?
These aren’t educators...thats the fascinating discovery that we are now making. They are “used-education sellers” (similar to used-car sellers). Your kid isn’t getting anything special at his local college anymore...other than great beer, babes, and Friday night parties.
As a father of 2 daughters in college, thank you for posting such a comforting reply. I will rest easy now with that on my mind and them 50 miles away in a dorm room. At least I hope they are in their dorm room at 415 AM.
Your post contains a lot of truth, they really aren’t getting anything special. And, I wouldn’t tell them this, but I thoroughly enjoyed the beer, babes and parties. I had as much fun in college as anywhere I’ve ever been. I think it would be smart for me to stop here. Sometimes Mrs. Jubal looks at my posts, and while she is aware of my previous activities, it would seem prudent not to antagonize her. I have found I don’t enjoy my cooking, or being celibate. —JM
when I was in college, I worked two jobs, 7 days a week, and took 12 units each semester. Two years of that and I had NO time for any extra curricular activities. I sure missed out on a lot.
Thanks for making me sad. :( I am alive and well these days though, might not be if I had partaken in those kinds of activities.
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