State Center Community College District board of trustees voted during it meeting on Feb. 3 to punish trustee Eric Payne by having him participate in “appropriate online training seminars and workshops” to improve his “boardsmanship and the effectiveness of his representation of constituents.”
The board rejected the harsher punishment which would have banned Payne from publicly representing the board for one year. The vote came after a private third party investigator, Nicole Miller and Associates, Inc. found evidence that the allegations made against him were true.
The allegations against Payne were made in a Sept. 24 memorandum from Chancellor Bill Stewart to the then Board of Trustees President, Patrick Patterson. The memorandum outlined seven separate incidents of alleged misconduct by Payne.
The allegations included, inappropriately pressuring the Reedley College president and dean of instruction to select a candidate he preferred for a position; contacting the college accrediting body and making “baseless and misleading” report of a concern, and substantially plagiarizing from other sources in an opinion column he wrote for the Fresno Bee, among other things.
“On the area of copying people’s materials and passing it off as your own, that’s just a horrible example for students,” Stewart said. “If a student did that, they’d be called to task for it; the employees of the district should set a higher standard than that and abide by it.”
According to the investigation report released by Nicole Miller and Associates, Inc. only three of the original seven allegations against Payne could be fully substantiated.
A list of other allegations that arose during the investigation of Payne’s actions also could not be substantiated to the extent reported by Chancellor Stewart and other witnesses.
“If it is found out by the acting chancellor that the board member, like Mr. Payne, is not supporting the acting chancellor’s future employment,” said Larry Schapiro, Eric Payne’s attorney, a similar witch hunt by the acting chancellor can occur against that trustee.”
Schapiro continued to question the motives for the investigations, characterizing it as Stewart’s attempt to get Payne “out of his hair”.
“That almost everything raised by the acting chancellor against Mr. Payne was found to be untrue gives an indication of the political nature of what has taken place,” Schapiro said.
The Nicole Miller report goes on to state that Trustee Payne appears to “lack respect and consideration for following established procedures.”
And that Payne is “generally found bothersome by those employees of the SCCCD and was not well regarded as a trustee.”
Despite Payne’s attorney’s contention that the investigation against him was a “witchhunt” led by Dr. Stewart, the chancellor offers a different explanation for the events.
“None of this stuff happened between me and Trustee Payne,” Stewart said. “There were other people coming to me with complaints, complaints I am obligated to investigate.”
