Continuing Corruption at HCC

My scanner is finally working. lee
December 30, 2007

Subject: Corruption at Hillsborough Community College

HCC gets its first (don’t call it a) dorm
When more than 100 students moved in to Hawks Landing on Wednesday, they became the first ever on-campus residents of Hillsborough Community College. The freshly painted apartment complex on the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough Community College comes with support services such as advising and educational lectures, a computer lab, clubhouse with game room, fitness center and a pool. All told, there are 420 beds in 120 fully furnished units. But don’t call it a dorm. Florida law prohibits community colleges from using state motley for dormitories. So the college is leasing the land under the complex to the school’s foundation for $1 a year, and the foundation has a 30-year deal.

Is this posh pad what the Board let the administration kick out the Head Start kids to give their space to this commercial enterprise? The administration culprits seem determined to turn the college into a under-the-table payoffs commercial scam.

The board doesn't protest; nor does the faculty; nor does the faculty union. This lie-down-and-die panorama is shameful.

I understand there are two board members who are black. They are Uncle and Aunt Toms unless they interfere in such actions as turning the Head Start kids--predominantly minority--out to make room for a posh apartment house that escapes the dorm no-no by offering a luxe apartment complex instead. How wicked. And the board actually sat there and rubberstamped this obscene plan?

I resisted the gossip heard from a former HCC history professor that Dr. Stephenson's husband had racked up big losses on the online poker games. Now I think it may be a credible story. I infer her need to pay these gambling debts off may explain her conduct in allowing the college to become a pass-through for payoffs with subcontractors. She needs money in excess of her obscene salary one could conclude.

Advice to people reporting the corruption: Don't assume one alert will do the trick. State and even federal agencies just want to rock on in bureaucratic ease. What you have to do if you want them to react to your complaints is to keep sending them messages. Repeatedly. Relentlessly. Send your last message again and ask what they have done to rectify the problems. Weekly inquiries are good. They will sooner or later respond to shut you up.

Also, ask your senators and congresspeople to find out what the status of your complaint is. Ask repeatedly. They are public servants, not royalty. Be a flea under their skin.

Send messages hither and yon; send them often. Send them to agencies such as the state community college bureaucracy. Ask it to do a compliance review.

Say, if nothing else, "What is the status of my complaint?" The squeaking wheel gets the oil. Send these messages to all the contacts to whom you have sent your complaints. Send them everywhere. These rascals who scam public institutions such as community colleges and school systems hate publicity. Turn over the rocks and let the public see the bugs running for cover.

And don't neglect to send a copy to the governor and the BOT for HHC. Ask them to do something. Say that's what they were elected or appointed to do. It is. The BOT has traditionally sat like potted plants. Its members want to just rock on, be cozened and fooled by the administration, and get a nice entry in their faux resumes.

Complain to the governor that the board is not doing its job---which it isn't--and ask that he end the extant members' tenure and appoint board members who are concerned about the students and the community's wellbeing, not with going along with the administration because it cozens them and they prefer to be comfy, rubberstamping nonentities.

Complain to the governor that the board has made no efforts to touch base with faculty, students, and staff but has put itself in the hands of the GK money-under-the-table gang.

I begged the board a few months ago when we were fighting for the book-store employees not to be kicked out to make an effort to do an end-run around the GK scalawags and set up interviews with faculty, staff, and students. The board hasn't--it has instead continued to collude with the administration's skullduggeries.

Board membvers have not done what the the governor has supposedly charged the board to do: to see to the wellbeing of the entire college, not to feed the greedy impulses for graft of the GK minions.

Send copies to tash@sptimes.com and Palmer@sptimes. com, publishers of the Times and Tribune. The two newspapers' neglect of the criminalizing of both HCC and the school system is a shameless abandonment by the press of HCC's school family and the school system's family to the crooks at the top in administrations of both.

Send press releases hither and non pointing out what is going at HCC in the hands of the HCC-GK crooks and a collusive, supine board.

Nobody ever said democracy is easy. But it's the best system we common people have to make sure that a few crooks don't bivouac in the upper regions of the bureaucracy and take over the institutions such as education which are supposed to serve us common people.

Write! Complain! Never give up. That's the great privilege that the First Amendment gives us. Nobody will rescue but yourself. lee

Go to leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot. com to see how bad things are in the school system. I have filed charges with the Florida Bar Ethics Commission against the board attorney Gonzalez. He got his job fifteen years ago without competition (violates Title VII, which his firm says it is expert in) and made about ten million dollars off the taxpayers. His firm savaged Doug Irwin, the whistleblower who reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in waste in the building department and then had the school board and administration crucify him. He won, thank God, and retired.

lee drury de cesare
former professor of English; former faculty-union president


I work for Hil Community College and have witnessed massive corruption. Please review Florida Auditor

General’s report on HCC ( fiIesI200B-038.pdf) The November 2007
Operational Audit didn’t dig deep enough regarding Finding No. 2, Finding No. 3, and Finding No. 5.

In Finding No. 2, the college has been lax regarding and purchases and construction contracts. On a regular basis, HCC CFO Barbara Larson ( has been involved in questionable deals ranging from awarding no- bid contracts (i.e., Keystone Ventures) to massive cost overruns on numerous construction projects (please contact HOC trustee Nancy Watkins)- all with no line item justifications. For years, HCC employees have known that several HCC administrators (and their relatives) have been, and currently involved in accepting honorariums and “consulting fees” from contractors.

In Finding No. 3., HCC Director of Auxiliary Services Steven Shields j in directing diversion of funds from on-site vendors. Finding No. 3 is very typical of vendor operations at HCC : vendor reporting gross sales of $15,076 (which is massive underreporting of sales), auditor should have looked if that one particular vendor operated in the red for 2006-07 fiscal year: subtracting wages and cost of goods from gross sales. One vendor, Sodexho, has made personal payments made directly out to Shields’ assistant Darson Sullard. Jr., and when an internal HCC accountant anonymously reported fiscal fraud to HOC administrators, the only thing administrators did was conduct an internal witch-hunt (led by HCC HR director Sue Flaig ( to out the internal whistleb Please contact Steve Shields and make information request on financials from on-site vendors: Sodexho, Lackmann and Lanier.

Shields is involved in both awarding of contracts and managing contracts, which is a conflict of interest. Also, 07 Operational Audit did not review College’s internal bookstore operation, which ‘funnels” profits directly to an bank account which can only be accessed by college president Dr. Gwendolyn Stevenson.

In Finding No. 5, audit exposed questionable purchasing card transactions.

Of note, the auditor general’s No. 2006- 065 Operational Audit also listed questionable purchasing card transactions. Purchasing card abuse is an on-going problem atHCC. Oneadmi “edut tédth,” which were in fact x-rated DVDs, and another administrator used purchasing card to make multiple purchases at a theme park.

A senior staff assistant at district told me that Dr. Stevenson and Larson weren’t concerned about the findings listed in the Operational Audit. Larson commented to Stevenson how the media focused primarily on SGA’s spending, which according to Larson, was “no big deal.” SGA spending is no big deal when you consider massive corruption from bid- rigging to kickbacks from contractors and vendors all to foster financial gain to top HOC administrators.
Please review 1012006 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) reaccreditation of HCC and how SACS’ findings differ from Florida Auditor General’s report. Reason being, HCC administrators and their department heads regularly fabricate and/or “lose” requested files to hide and cover up questionable dealings. The conspiracy is very complex and very difficult tc prove since contractors/vendors will not admit making payoffs to do business with HCC.

Sincerely,

GK Insider

HCC gets its first (don’t call it a) dorm
When more than 100 students moved in to Hawks Landing on Wednesday, they became the first ever on-campus residents of Hillsborough Community Coflege. The freshly painted apart ment complex on the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough Community College comes with support services such as advising and educational lec tures, a computer lab, clubhouse with game room, fitness center and a pool. All told, there are 420 beds in 120 fully furnished units. But don’t call it a dorm. Florida law prohibits commu nity colleges from using state motley for dormitories. So the college is leasing the land under the complex to the school’s foundation for $1 a year, and the foundation has a 30-year deal
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