Daily Herald's false equivalency between old and new COD Board's governance

The Daily Herald October 27 editorial 'It's leaders' responsibility to 'move forward' at College of DuPage' is misleading as to the extent of wrongdoing that led to the firing of President Robert Breuder and two financial officers. If one wasn't cognizant of the rampant waste of millions of dollars in corruption, mismanagement, ego mania and fraud that has plagued the College of DuPage during the 2009-2015 Breuder administration, one would gather from the Herald that the new 'Clean Slate' Board is just as responsible for COD's current stained reputation as the old Board that enabled all the shenanigans. Nothing could be further from the truth. The primary complaint from community folks opposing the Clean Slate majority correcting unconscionable abuses of power and citizen tax money, is that they are 'Tea Partiers' using the governing crisis to take over COD, privatize it, wrecking havoc on the educational process. I've heard that directly from old Board members and their dwindling supporters in the community. The Herald almost totally glosses over the abuses that led to the citizens' retiring two old Board members in April, and the new Board's prompt and dramatic reforms that have swept away the Waterleaf Restaurant and the House accounts used by President Breuder and his enablers to gorge at the public trough, among other abuses. My wife and I have attended every Board meeting since the Breuder gravy train was derailed by his own hubris in sending a damning email to the Board revealing his cynical 'pay to pay' hustle to grab millions in tax dollars for his Xanadu edifice. Never has the new Board wavered from a laser like focus on substantive reforms. Divisive interaction indeed occurred, but considering the 100% stonewalling of reforms by the three holdover members, we're surprised the acrimony was not significantly greater.

For the Herald to say "the impression any reasonable observer of COD's recent affairs would have -- is that the college cannot continue to be run the way it has been for the past several years, up to and including the present day" demeans the hard and sometimes contentious process of reform. An overwhelming majority of the faculty and the COD taxpayers would certainly disagree with that conclusion. Regarding COD, the Daily Herald is simply not a reasonable observer.