NIC Security Issues Addressed - President Swayne Put on Administrative Leave - Liberal Meltdown Reaches Critical Levels
It was not a good night for the Liberal Establishment at the December 8th special meeting of the North Idaho College Board of Trustees.
Just a few minutes after the meeting began, the new chairman of the board, Greg McKenzie invoked an executive session that lasted almost 3 hours.
Speaking exclusively with Idaho Tribune reporters, chair McKenzie said this was “the first time the Director of Security was brought into executive session to brief the Board.”
On August 22, 2022, security director Alex Harris provided a security update, and was asked by trustee Banducci about what could be done to improve security.
Harris replied “I would love to have that conversation either in executive session or in a workshop, to talk about the eight eight plus years since I've been in charge of security and tasks with training and the responsibility of that.” He continued “For reasons I think you can understand […] I don't know if this is the appropriate place to talk about the details.”
Banducci agreed, saying “No it's probably not. We don't give away our game plan.”
Speaking about last nights meeting, chair McKenzie said that this shows “the level of care and interest of this Board compared to prior Boards,” when it comes to student saftey.
The topic of school safety, and armed security has been an issue brought up at board meetings all over the county for some time, with Lakeland hiring a full time armed police officer, and after the unsolved quadruple homicide in Moscow, Idaho, this is a step that is deeply appreciated by members of the community.
The rules governing executive session are outlined in Idaho Code, Title 74-206, and based on Harris’ remarks in August, this move was not only appropriate, but necessary.
Art Macomber Onboarded as Legal Counsel
The local liberal activists and the media, however, have chosen to focus on another issue to stir up outrage among their base.
After the election of trustee Mike Waggoner, Mark Lyons, legal counsel for the college tendered his resignation. At the previous board meeting on Monday December 5th, this caused some consternation, when President Swayne refused to sign the letter accepting his resignation and onboarding Art Macomber as his replacement.
Macomber drew up his own fee agreement, because Lyons had already deserted the college.
This move seems to have been designed to obstruct the board from being able to onboard a replacement. Thankfully, however, Macomber was able to overcome this.
At last night’s meeting Macomber said “I am now of the opinion that he [Lyons] is working against NIC, that he wants NIC to fail. Maybe he just wants me to fail.”
Macomber noted that Lyons had not provided him access to files that he requested this past Tuesday.
President Swayne Placed on Administrative Leave
Following the executive session, Macomber recommended that President Swayne be placed on administrative leave, in order to “investigate things that have arisen of concern that impeded our accreditation success.”
The board voted in favor of the motion, and Swayne was placed on administrative leave.
As a reminder, the entire reason that accreditation was in jeopardy in the first place was because of two letters of complaint sent to the North West Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). Those complaints (Letter One, Letter Two) originated from the Kootenai Task Force on Human Relations, an organization which was founded by ex-trustee, and current Coeur d’Alene city counselor Christie Wood.
The truth of the matter is that the people threatening NIC’s accreditation are the very ones who are “warning” that the college is going to lose it; if Conservatives take control.
This isn’t a “warning” – It’s a threat.
Liberal activist and serial election loser, Teresa Borrenpohl, actually followed Trustee Banducci out of the meeting to his car, shouting at him. I guess this is what love, peace and tolerance looks like.
Remember kids – “North Idaho Rejects Hate!”
God knows what Macomber will turn up in his investigation, but rest assured, the Kootenai Cabal and the Press will cover it up, and spin it to find a way to blame Conservatives.
