Wednesday, May 09, 2007

How to make Whine from Sour Grapes while Grinding an Axe.

Someone calling themselves "A Concerned Las Vegas Citizen" is attempting to anonymously torpedo one of the three remaining candidates for NHMCCD's open Chancellor position to replace John Pickelman and the only candidate that is not an NHMCCD insider. They are sending a a compilation of articles from the Las Vegas Sun written by one Christina Littlefield in an effort to discredit Richard Carpenter, Ed. D, the President of the Community College of Southern Nevada, around to a number of board members and media contacts.

The articles cited is as follows:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2007/may/06/566631269.html
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2007/mar/26/566686711.html?littlefield
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2007/apr/04/56671472.html?littlefield;

The person claiming to be a concerned Las Vegas Citizen used
mypacks.net which is a email masking service for Earthlink customers. The email additionally had routing information in the header that indicated origin in Montgomery County Texas. Now whether that email actually originated in Las Vegas or Montgomery County Texas is open to question, this may be in fact an artifact of the masking process. However, we can consider the veracity of Ms. Littlefield. Ms. Littlefield is not an uninterested observer here, she has an axe to grind as well.

Seems Ms. Littlefield's mother works at the Las Vegas Permit office. Mr. Gilbert, the VP of the college and in charge of facilities had submitted plans for the Telecommunications building that Ms. Littlefield is complaining about, to obtain permits for it's construction. Her mother denied/delayed the permits for reasons that are unclear but would appear to have been frivolous. Mr Gilbert appealed the denials to Ms. Littlefield's mother's supervisor. The permits were approved by the supervisor and Ms. Littlefield's mom was disciplined for denying them. Ms. Littlefield then proceeded to go over Mr Gilbert's head in an attempt to get him fired and started trying to trump up charges that he was in collusion with a college contractor and was receiving kickbacks etc.. Dr. Carpenter admitted that Mr. Gilbert's use of a contractor on his personal work that was also doing college work looked bad and might have the appearance of a conflict of interest, but that it did not rise to the level of malfeasance and stood by him. This infuriated Ms. Littlefield. Prior to this taking place Ms. Littlefield had written glowing things about Dr. Carpenter, suddenly (and coincidentally?) everything she was writing was negative. Is this a vendetta? It would appear to be.

And Another Thing.... (5-12-07)

Dr. Carpenter cleaned up a lot of corruption and "good ol' Boy" networks in Vegas, He also streamlined the operations and eliminated a lot of waste. Along the way a lot of sacred cows got slaughtered and barbecued, and not a few rice bowls got busted, but the college is far better for the effort. So it is not entirely impossible that someone who has an axe to grind may be collaborating with one of Steve Head's or Diane Troyer's supporters in order to try to torpedo him. If that is the case (and that is the flavor I'm getting from this.) then instead of making me ask questions about carpenter, I have to start thinking maybe he is really the guy we need and the corrupt and incestuous organism that is NHMCCD is working to destroy an invader.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dirty tricks at the college district date back 2 decades with restricted polling places, excessive expenditures on unworkable pet projects, cronyism within the board of trustees, and hundreds of lawsuits to quash to rights of the voters to know extent of all of the dirty tricks. This is no surprise, as it's probably someone there trying to save their useless job.

May 09, 2007 3:46 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Ain't dat interesting! They don't have the stones to stand up and say who they are? Hmmmmm. Who do we know up in Montgomery? Guess we can find a few things to send to our local papers on some of the er.. "inhouse" talent up for consideration of Chancellorship.

May 10, 2007 11:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2007/may/11/566682240.html?carpenter

If we don't get this guy, then we really have an inept board....

May 11, 2007 6:28 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

What else is new that our elected officials abuse the public trust? Bloated administrations serve no purpose other than to build empires, and it's a very sad commentary that a broad national search for a new Chancellor could bring no better candidates to the table than the same Pickelman crew that endorsed the illegal/thwarted May 2006 election.

Disgusting! Perhaps Mr. Carpenter does not care to affiliate himself with a crooked outfit like NHMCCD. Can't say as I blame him.

May 13, 2007 5:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Red,

At least Christina Littlefield published her stuff in the pages of the Las Vegas Sun. This character assassination of her is straight from Carpenter, where else would it come from? That's how this guy operates and he loves to fish in troubled waters, so you guys are a perfect target. Wasn't me that sent those messages either. You don't have to postulate a local source for them –- Carpenter attracts bad feeling wherever he goes, and it's not for fighting corruption.

The Gilbert business has gone way beyond the articles you cited, I mean the Nevada AG has raided the offices at CSN. Search on "Richard Carpenter" at the Las Vegas Sun site if you really want to know how this is shaking down. They're all but running him out of town.

Frying pan into the fire, man. You'll be finding out soon.

-- Mickey
.

July 10, 2007 9:31 PM  
Blogger Thunder said...

Interesting the article goes on to say:

"The unions clashed with Carpenter and the new administrators, particularly Dean Kay Moormann. The unions say Moormann and Carpenter wanted to expand the program to nonunion groups, but use the union s' proprietary curriculum to do so. The unions wanted Zelenik left in charge."

NOW I SEE WHY THE BOSSES ARE UPSET!

Seems like it's not fair and equal to allow non union students to learn a trade without paying their dues and being obligated for life to their keepers! WELCOME to TEXAS a "Right To Work State" and we also give equal opportunity to learn here too. Seems to me that the UNIONS were using CCSN to bolster their standing at the Public's expense......

July 12, 2007 8:06 AM  
Blogger Jungle3452 said...

Thunder,

You seem to have misunderstood the meaning of "proprietary materials".

My humble analogy to your statement:

That rich guy's house down the street is so much bigger than mine and his refrigerator has nicer features than mine such as sub-zero and twice the capacity. Best yet, it's filled with lobster, fillet mignon, and exotic chocolates and wine. I believe I live in a "Right to Eat World". I am just going to go to the guy's house, because I deserve to eat better food without paying. The food should be for all, not just for him. This is only fair. Any one that tries to stop me, such as a policeman he might call, is not understanding my right to eat. This is my equal opportunity to eat, like everyone else, especially the guy down the street.

Replacing the pertinent words in your own statement:
Seems like it's not fair and equal to allow his non-family member to eat his food without chipping in my share and being obligated to pay every time I eat this guy's food. WELCOME to EARTH, a "Right To EAT World" and we also give equal opportunity to EAT here too. Seems to me that that guy is using POLICE to bolster his standing at this neighborhood's expense......

July 12, 2007 12:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Texas Red Ink

For what it's worth, some well meaning if unsolicited advice, please take or leave. I wish only good for you guys individually and professionally, and exactly the same for your district, no harm.
If you don't want the peripatetic new funnyman getting carte blanche to screw you up I suggest you do what's possible to derail his traveling team coming down slowly but surely to join him. Otherwise, the day may come and I hope I'm wrong since there's no glory in being right, you'll wish you hired a devil you know Diane Troyer, Steve Head, whoever these are. I don't work in your district and couldn't pick them out of a hypothetical two-man/two-woman line-up. I'm from Las Vegas, and yes, I think you've been derelict in your hiring homework. But this is understandable if you couldn't stand the inside candidates. I've been there. I don't wish anything bad on you guys and have no reason to. I just hope you'll be smart enough (we were not) to make him work with YOU GUYS day-to-day and not just import and surround himself with hand-picked parasites he knows but you don't. That's how he does his worst damage. If you do let him, he will freeze you guys out. He may talk a good game but he doesn't care about your district or your schools anymore than ours. I suppose he's possibly been scared straight by what's still aggressively "going on in Vegas" where things are supposed to stay but aren't staying quite as neatly this time. Good for us, bad for you. But anyway, my best wishes are being sent your way for as good as possible a year at NHCCMD. Also, this took me a while and some courage to write, even if I'm not signing it. So please at least just think carefully through what I said, and if you decide to ignore it, have solid reasons that are concrete and not just emotional. We all make too many bad decisions based more on emotion than fact. You guys have all the facts you need either right in front of you now or very easily found with a tad of investigation.

August 05, 2007 6:04 PM  

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