CPR: University of California Regents have bought UC President Janet Napolitano’s story about how her office came to interfere with an audit of its performance ordered by the state Legislature, with regents saying they were disappointed by the scandal but prepared to move on after reprimanding Napolitano.
But there could be more fallout on two fronts: in the Legislature and in the governor’s race, where the frontrunner, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, is an ex-officio UC regent.
That’s because Napolitano’s story seems so implausible. According to an independent report prepared at regents’ behest by former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno and the Hueston Henningan law firm, after state Auditor Elaine Howle sent surveys to UC campuses in October 2016 asking for their assessment of UC’s Office of the President, Seth Grossman, Napolitano’s chief of staff, and Bernie Jones, her deputy chief of staff, put out the word that they needed to review the responses. This was done even though Howle had emphasized the responses were supposed to be confidential. Subsequently, three campuses – UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and UC San Diego – revised their responses to make them more favorable to Napolitano’s office.
But Napolitano told the Legislature in May, and Moreno’s investigators more recently, that while she approved the plan to have her office review the responses, she did so because she wanted to ensure the responses were correct – not because she wanted to protect her image. She also said campuses had requested help.
Moreno’s report did not suggest the UC president was lying. But it found no evidence that campuses sought help with their responses. And it noted that UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal said that he was chewed out by Napolitano for his campus sending in a response to Howle without running it by her staff. UC Santa Cruz’s response was the harshest of any campus, giving Napolitano’s office one “poor” and three “fair” ratings out of the 10 categories in the survey questions. After Blumenthal’s telephone conversation with what he described as a “furious” Napolitano, UC Santa Cruz changed the “poor” and “fair” ratings to good and upgraded three “good” ratings to “exceptional.”
Napolitano said she remembers her conversation with Blumenthal as being routine, not angry. But Blumenthal’s account is consistent with other findings in the Moreno report, such as Napolitano’s declaration in a text message that Howle was on a “witch hunt.”
The two aides cited in the Moreno report resigned a week before the report’s release and declined substantive comment on the allegations against them. read more
Leave things the way they are. Replacements for Brown and Nopalitano are going to be much worse. Man, I feel for wise, disciplined, and responsible citizens of the state. Greatly outnumbered by the opposite.
The doughy sow is not only an extreme leftist but a crook too? I have to marvel at the sheer brass of these people, never sweating about being brought to justice.
Jerry Brown is termed out and cannot run in 2018. This scandal may affect the governor’s race, but will have no effect on Brown. THe Republican party is essentially a non-factor in California politics, so the next governor will be whomever the Democrats nominate, which will probably be Newsome.
This may or may not be a scandal, but it will have no effect on the California gubernatorial race.
“Napolitano’s story seems so implausible”
That’s the ticket! Make ’em investigate the story, not the problem.
Big fat corrupt diesel dyke.