So, it appears as though the Board of Regents are holding a special meeting today in Rio Rancho to again discuss President John Counts contract. According to this Daily Press article, several of the Regents realized their hasty decision extending the president’s contract might lead to unintended consequences: namely, Counts could receive a retention bonus twice!

This is an example of why the Regents should take the time to notify the community of their intentions, initiate a true dialog with residents in the area (and faculty and staff) and provide clear agendas with specific objectives. Something like this would have been avoided if others knowledgeable about contract issues had seen the proposal beforehand.

Sadly, the meeting will not be held in the Silver City-Grant County area – the Regents are meeting in Rio Rancho. IF you can manage to swing by the WNMU Administration building, and IF you can do that at the exact time of the meeting, and IF there’s enough room for you to sit in the ridiculously small Serna Conference Room, you can attend the meeting by phone. If not, you’ll have to hope a local reporter can make it to the meeting and report on it for you – they didn’t bother to implement any of my earlier suggestions.

Oh, and it looks like Regent President Tony Trujillo is still upset about the situation, and won’t attend the meeting. He questioned whether the original vote was legal (!) and said he thought the other regents may have discussed the vote before the Dec. 12 meeting.

I’ll have more on this when I hear about it.