WSCC's President Dillon Not Meeting Stipulations, Requesting Another Closed Session

[XLFD]

WSCC Board to Name an Interim President, Discuss President Dillon's Inability to Meet Stipulations

The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) reports that the board packet for the upcoming WSCC Board of Trustees meeting is going to choose an acting president, because their previous plan of assigning various executive tasks to Scott Ward, Lisa Stich, and various board members (with Thom Hawley as spokesman), could not handle all the tasks which basically required signature of an executive could not be completed.

The meeting is held on Monday, September 15 at 4 PM and will likely name Ward as acting WSCC president, to complete the deficiency.  The expectation is that Scott (Ward) will return his regular position in the future, said Hawley in his position as spokesman.

 

Chuck Dillon, Who Drove a College Vehicle While Superdrunk According to Blood Tests, Requests Secrecy to Discuss His Violations of Reasonable Board Stipulations

The board also has scheduled a closed session to “discuss the evaluation of the president.”

Hawley told the City of Ludington Daily News that the closed session is at the request of Dillon who, according to terms of the leave, is supposed to meet three stipulations:

• successfully complete a residential, alcohol treatment program, to be followed by a fitness for duty examination;

• waive physician/patient privilege in favor of the board of trustees and instruct that all records/progress notes be released to the board chairman and

• return the college automobile to campus where it will remain parked until further notice.

“Not all of the stipulations have been met and, at the request of Dr. Dillon for a closed session, there will be a review and information update with the entire board,” Hawley stated.

  

Hawley did not elaborate on what stipulation(s) remain unmet.  Dillon will find out more about his legal punishment on Wednesday in the 85th District Court in Manistee, the city he ended up at in his meandering drive from Elberta.  This hearing will also be closed to the public according to the court.

 

In analyzing the situation, one notes that the stipulations seem reasonable and certainly easy to follow if you are attempting to keep your well-paid job and status as college president.  Assuming he has agreed to vacate using the college vehicle he drove that night, Dillon must either be refusing the treatment program or refusing to release the medical records to the board chairman. 

 

I would guess the latter one simply because of Dr. Dillon's insistence on closed meetings and courtrooms.  Any of his medical records disclosed to the chairman would become public records and available via FOIA, and it is not readily clear whether they would be able to use the physician/patient privilege to exempt the records from the general public.  

 

Neither is it clear that they can legally call a closed session to "discuss the evaluation of the president".  The Open Meetings Act (OMA) allows in MCL 15.268(a) a closed session "to consider a periodic personnel evaluation of a public officer if the named person requests a closed hearing".  Otherwise special, non-periodic evaluations of such officers is not addressed in the OMA.

 

We should be grateful to the Manistee Police Department for doing such a professional job at the stop and recording the interaction from both responding police cars.  We have already posted the original video released from the stop in the video section, but here is the second one which shows his erratic driving and a closer, different angle of the sobriety tests.  This could conveniently go away from the public eye and court system if these recordings of a super drunk college president driving a company car for many miles didn't exist.   

 

  

If President Charles Dillon wants to keep his secrets and do what's best for the college, he should consider the option of not keeping his position of trust and ride his own car off into the sunset.  Or find a designated driver to help him do so.

[Willy]

If he were smart and that appears not to be the case, he would have gotten this situation over immediately. He should have plead guilty and took his punishment, do his treatment and any other requirements. In other words get this over with as fast as possible. Now the public will be reading about this on a regular basis as this progresses thru the courts and revue process. 

[AQUAMAN]

Well said Willy, but his arrogance and authority complex appear to be getting the best of him. X, your last video clearly shows a dashcam that I find very condemning to Dillon. If you watch the college vehicle, he almost hits that white pickup in the right lane on 2-3 occasions. He swerves in the curves over the center line between the southbound traffic. Then when he makes the right turn to the shopping center, I noticed his rear right tire hits the curb pretty hard too. That's when the cop appears to have the lights and siren on him to stop. I can't see any reason in the world, given all this damning evidence, how Dillon could ever think he isn't guilty. 4-2-3-1 on the countdown, from a Dr.? Can't even count in reverse order on that small requirement? Like Willy said, he should do his college and community a favor and just step aside, and get this over with fast! 

[XLFD]

The swerving and curb-thumping is exactly what I took the still shots in for the second & third pictures with the red arrows in them. 

It will be pretty bad when WSCC gets in the top 20 of partying colleges by dint of the college's president.  I already hear the references to "Wasted Shore" and a chorus of folks that are concerned with the college's reputation if Dillon continues as president.  You can't blame them when the guy does something this foolish.  President Dillon could have easily crashed the college's SUV into a vehicle full of people, bikes or pedestrians and the classiest thing to do would have been to step down immediately. 

Now he might wind up hurting his effective 'drinking buddies' in the WSCC Board as they try to keep him in that position, and definitely the status of the college. 

[XLFD]

Today I attended the WSCC Board of Trustees regularly scheduled meeting.  It turned out to be a long affair, lasting about 2.5 hours, although the last hour or so was with the two closed sessions for collective bargaining with the teachers (where both sides seemed happy with the outcome) and the President DWIllon problem, these being held after most of the regular business was conducted-- which was rather heavy because of it being the first meeting of the college year. 

A couple of things that may concern folks who are concerned with the bottom line of WSCC is that the fall enrollment is down 10%, yet oddly enough they voted to make a part-time IR position into a full-time IR position and devote $50,000 more to a IR related service that seemed (like the IR position) to be a newfound luxury not a necessity. 

The closed session was called to order to discuss the evaluation of President DWIllon (on his insistence), and the board went into closed session without Dr. DWIllon or anybody else present.  They came back about an hour later and unanimously voted on terminating President Charles DWIllon’s pay while he is on administrative leave and to consult an attorney on DWIllon’s status with the college.  They would not elaborate on this outcome at the end. 

I was impressed with the meeting until the end.  Transparency has been ran over by Dr. Charles DWIllon, and I believe there has been a significant violation of the OMA that went on this evening.  This wasn't a periodic evaluation, no college or university evaluates their president at the beginning of the school year, and thus whatever was discussed to come to their eventual conclusions wasn't legit by the OMA with the reason given.

[XLFD]

 Historically, DWIllon has been evaluated by the board in the May meetings only in an 'annual responsibility' to the district, not in September or any other month.  They had made no change in conducting evaluations at the previous special meeting where they went into closed session "for the purpose of discussing his recent conduct", which also isn't a proper reason for going into closed session, and came back with three stipulations (the ones DWIllon isn't following):

From the May 19, 2014 meeting, where a closed session was held to evaluate President Dillon: 

As part of its annual responsibility to the WSCC district, the Board has evaluated the performance and character of President Dillon. The consensus of the Board is that the President consistently exceeds the expectations of the Board in the fulfillment of his duties in an honest and ethical manner, and once again, commends President Dillon’s performance over the past year. We look forward to a successful 2014-2015.

They made nearly the same statement on May 20, 2013:   

As part of its annual responsibility to the WSCC district, the Board has evaluated the performance and character of President Dillon. The consensus of the Board is that the President consistently exceeds the expectations of the Board in the fulfillment of his duties in an honest and ethical manner, and hereby commends President Dillon’s performance over the past year. We look forward to a successful 2013-2014.

[Willy]

X, what does IR stand for. It sounds like the board is considering the termination of Dr. Dillon in my opinion. Reliving him of a paycheck is just the beginning of that process.

I think Dillon got off easy considering how drunk he was and the fact that he was willing to travel such a great distance in a condition I call a drunken stupor while risking the lives of all the pedestrians and motorists who were in his path.

[XLFD]

I hadn't my notes to access to remember what the IR stood for.  Now that I look at them it stands for Institutional Researcher.  Jill Sweet will be the new full time IR which according to wiki "Institutional researchers collect, analyze, report, and warehouse quantitative and qualitative data about their institution's students, faculty, staff, curriculum, course offerings, and learning outcomes." 

Basically a statistician who is going to suck up over $100,000 a year in wages and benefits at this public institution.  I wonder if she will report objectively on her own necessity to the college, LOL.

I predict if they don't ditch DWIllon, they will wish they had. 

[XLFD]

In the Manistee County Courthouse this morning, Dr. DWIllon pleaded guilty to OWI (not the superdrunk charge) and given $925 in fines (about 1/7 of his usual paycheck) and two years probation, no jail time, beyond the overnight stay he already had.  DWIllon was also ordered not to consume alcohol or drugs, or go to places that serve alcohol by glass during his probation, unless he is doing it for work — for instance a meeting at a restaurant. 

[AQUAMAN]

Yesterday, 9/30/14 the COLNews gave another update on the WSCC Dillon scenario. There will be another mtg. of the board at 4pm on 10/2/14 to hear the legal advice of the college's attorney from GR. That article also stated the salary of Dillon as $149K/yr., and that he just got another $5K raise of recent, and was to be at the helm until 2018, 4 more years. I wonder too if this is a "closed session" or not, the LDN did not specify either way. 

[XLFD]

Thanks, Aquaman, I missed that.  Here is what the MCP reported:  

The fate of West Shore Community College President Charles Dillon’s job may be decided Thursday afternoon. The college’s board of trustees will hold a special meeting at 4 p.m. During that meeting the board will hold a closed session where it will review the legal opinion of its attorney regarding the president’s current contract.

The board meets in the board room in the Administrative and Conference Building on the main campus.

http://www.masoncountypress.com/2014/09/30/college-board-to-discuss...