Echo Times

Issue date: 12/9/09 Section: News

Signs around campus, like the one pictured above, caused tension during the COM trustee election.

A final tally of absentee ballots last month confirmed Diana Conti as the newest member of the College of Marin board of trustees, while Wanden Treanor and Barbara Dolan retained their seats; but the political dust has not completely settled from the Nov. 3 election. In particular, a mailer sent close to Election Day by the United Professor's of Marin Political Action Committee has some crying foul.

Perhaps no one more so than former board vice president Annan Paterson, who finished fourth out of five candidates, and will not return for a second term. She and Treanor were both targets of the mailer, the latest shot fired in an ongoing feud between UPM representatives and several board members, replete with back-and-forth allegations of misconduct and an unresolved labor dispute.

Paterson, a Novato school psychologist appointed to the board in 2007, said she did not know why the PAC chose to contest her re-election bid, but added the tactic itself caused her greater consternation than whatever effect it ultimately had on the election.

"What I'm more concerned about is the impact [the mailer] has on faculty and students in the eyes of the community at large because it was so unprofessional," she said.
Sent to 20,000 people in Marin county, the PAC mailer claimed Paterson and Treanor, "mismanaged tax dollars, and squandered huge sums on needless legal battles-even against their own highly regard faculty," among other things.

Treanor and board President Phil Kranenberg, who was not up for reelection, challenged the ethics and truthfulness of the PAC's end-game activity, while Conti told the Marin IJ that she "did not support negative campaigning."

The PAC did have to pay a late filing penalty of $40 for the mailer, but in a written response to the Echo Times, PAC chairman Arthur Lutz disputed criticism of the organization.

"We feel we acted responsibly and provided a worthwhile service to the citizens of Marin by informing the voters that trustees Treanor and Paterson were ill-serving our students, our faculty and our community," Lutz wrote. "It is understandable that Ms. Paterson and Ms. Treanor are upset with our PAC because as a result of our campaigning one of them lost their seat, and the other lost some power. However, rather than blame their losses on dirty politics, Ms. Paterson and Ms. Treanor should look to the failure of their own past performance as trustees."

Continued...

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