Hodge, trustees spar again on KOMA allegations

Board of Trustee member Benjamin Hodge. Image courtesy of Bret Gustafson.

A war of words continues in the wake of an executive session information leak by Benjamin Hodge, trustee. The latest battleground was the Board of Trustees meeting on March 26. The trustees were united in their disapproval of Hodge’s actions following the meeting on Feb. 19.
Following that meeting, Hodge gave a list of potential budget cuts to a reporter from The Kansas City Star, later justifying the leak by accusing the college of violating the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA) by distributing the budget list in an executive session.

Don Weiss, trustee, admitted that as a result of the incident he no longer has the necessary trust to perform effectively. “Bonds of trust within the board [are] broken,” Weiss said.
“The board is now dysfunctional.” At the March 26 meeting, some trustees openly wished for an alternative to Hodge. “Either this kind behavior has to change so that trust can be restored or we have to have a change in the board membership,” Weiss said. Hodge lost his bid for re-election on April 7, failing to capture one of the four open seats.

Led by Shirley Brown-VanArsdale, trustee and board chairman, board members objected to Hodge’s accusations of board violations of the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA) during Calaway’s personnel evaluation meeting, which Hodge characterized as a KOMA grey area. “I was blown away to see my name in a blog for something that I was not… aware could possibly be construed as [a violation of] KOMA,” said Brown-VanArsdale. “It was not a violation.”
Seeking confirmation, Calaway and Brown-VanArsdale asked Mark Ferguson, college attorney, for a legal opinion on Hodge’s allegations.

“After a complete review of the … allegations
by trustee Hodge, it is my opinion that no violations of KOMA occurred on Feb. 19, 2009,” Ferguson wrote in a prepared report. In addition, Ferguson investigated the propriety of Hodge’s release of a budget document Calaway provided during the closed session.

“The handout should not have been shared with anyone outside the executive session,” Ferguson said. “Employee names were mentioned. More importantly, because the handout discussed specific criterion for the president’s evaluation.” That handout included a list of budget cut options, some of which were published
on PrimeBuzz, a Kansas City Star blog.

Hodge made the allegations after Calaway sent an e-mail to college staff in response to many inquiries about the leaked information. “I resent allegations that the board did anything that was in violation of Kansas statute,” said Lynn Mitchelson, trustee and board vice chair. He stressed the importance of maintaining confidentiality during employee evaluations.
“I resent the fact that one of the trustees is so immature and irresponsible, that they will take any document that they are given… [and] use that to their own political advantage,” Mitchelson said.

One trustee felt some sympathy for Hodge following the March meeting. “I think he felt like he was under attack,” Rayl said later, referring to Hodge. “To a certain extent I felt kind of bad for him, because he was definitely under the gun.” One of the biggest injustices about this entire situation is the time and energy the president has used to combat the allegation, according to Brown-VanArsdale.

“The hours that this president [spent responding] to this is disgusting,” Brown-VanArsdale said, referring to Hodge. “Anyone [who wastes] that much time certainly doesn’t deserve to have a role as a board member. There is a code of conduct… that has not been followed.” Some board members feel there was no grey area for the closed meeting budget
handout.

“I think that is a load of crap,” Hodge said later in an interview. Hodge also rejects the board line about a code of conduct. “I don’t call it the code of conduct. I call it the code of thought,” Hodge said. “I am concerned that parts of it are unconstitutional.

I give [it] very little credibility.” Then Hodge fired another accusation at the board: another alleged KOMA violation, this time through a letter to the editor signed by four trustees. He was adamant that the board violated KOMA just four months ago. He said he wished he had remembered the incident during the board meeting.

“[They] signed a letter to the editor that was published by [The Kansas City Star],” Hodge said. Ferguson acknowledged the letter as a technical violation, Hodge said. According to Hodge, those four members were Weiss, Mitchelson, Brown-VanArsdale, and Stewart, and they met in private, a violation of the KOMA.
“I told a couple of them privately [at that time], ‘Just so you know, you broke the law,” Hodge said. “But I’m not going to embarrass you publicly.’”

Tad Coles is special to The Ledger.