04-18-2010, 07:41 PM
Quote:I was asked to give my opinion on this issue and I just don't know how I could possibly afford to go out to California and investigate, not to mention the fact that I am not a member of the press or an official investigative authority within the State of California.I urge all forum members to read this article and make your own judgementViewpoints: Issue isn't Palin, but public institutions
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Buzz up!By Bruce Maiman
Special to The Bee
Published: Friday, Apr. 16, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 13A
So the city of Turlock now has its own tiny Watergate â one way to describe the state investigation into the alleged dumping of documents connected to Sarah Palin's speech at California State University, Stanislaus, scheduled for this summer.
It's never the actual act; it's the cover-up, right? In this case, it might be a little bit of both.
We have all the right ingredients: Politics, celebrity, money and power.
We have a cash-strapped CSU system raising tuition amid student protests, and everyone asking everything from "Why is Sarah Palin speaking there?" to "How much is she getting?" to "How did parts of her contract wind up in the Dumpster when, supposedly, a contract never existed?" What's missing from this tale? We might have an answer if we weren't looking in the wrong end of the telescope.
Let's face it: If Al Gore were getting paid $100 grand (Palin's reported speaking fee), we probably wouldn't get the same level of faux outrage we're seeing now (since Gore is nowhere near the rock star Palin is), but we'd still see a fair amount of faux outrage from the other side.
We might not be hearing from State Sen. Leland Yee, prominent Democrat from San Francisco. Somebody else might've picked up the cudgel and started hammering away.
The CSU Stanislaus Foundation, of course, raises money to try to help students and help the school's image. After all, they're bringing Sarah Palin in for a fundraiser.
Is the foundation going to make money off a deal that pays a speaker $100,000? I don't know, but that question, and the incident blowing up around it, delivers us inadvertently to far bigger questions that Yee, CSU (and UC) have been debating for a long time in very dry hearings: Exactly what is the relationship between a given foundation â or some other private entity like the boosters â and the school itself? Where are the lines on where public universities and their foundations spend their money? What about the transparency of these foundations and our inability to fully fund our institutions? Those are fair questions, especially when you're cutting back on students, teachers, classes and services.
True, the foundation isn't spending public money, and CSU officials argue that because Palin was approached by a private, nonprofit organization rather than the school, it was under no obligation to hand over documents or tell anybody how much Palin was getting.
But there's an element of impropriety when at first you deny the existence of said document and one magically appears in a Dumpster. OK, it's not all nine pages and her name isn't on it, but it is printed on letterhead from the Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents the former governor, and I don't know anyone else in Alaska worth bringing in for a fundraiser, do you? Then we go from the Dumpster to someone stealing the contract out of an administrator's office. So the contract that didn't exist not only existed, it was in your possession all along. That doesn't smell like a cover-up? In this day and age, you can't even go to the bathroom without someone suspecting a cover-up. (Please: No Larry Craig jokes.)
So why the denial? The relationship between private foundations and the public universities they support is a familiar question in other states, one that Yee's Senate Bill 330 tries to address in California. The bill would subject foundations to the same disclosure rules as universities. Currently, they're considered private businesses that don't have to make their documents public.
These are policy matters, and the questions, though legitimate, are boring. We don't ask these questions at high levels of visibility because we don't care.
Sarah Palin, though â she's like that dancing bear. She attracts eyes, ears, controversy, ratings â she brings visibility. When you've got someone who sparks that kind of attention, you can bet Leland Yee will try to bring up Sarah Palin, her fee and a Dumpster filled with shredded documents. Why not? It's a Page One story, a politician's dream.
Is that opportunistic grandstanding? Well, if we cared enough about all the questions surrounding our cash-strapped colleges and universities, maybe he wouldn't have to grandstand. If the actors involved â the colleges and the various foundations â didn't drag their feet on resolving this matter, maybe he wouldn't have to grandstand.
So he's piggybacking on a publicity magnet while the klieg lights are hot, hoping to put some pressure on an issue that is a no-brainer.
Sarah Palin is not the issue. Let her come speak. Who cares? But if my tax dollars are being spent on a university that lies about the existence of even a private contract, then I care, and scrutiny of all parts of our publicly funded educational system becomes a topic well worth discussing.
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