So didja hear the one about the group of lawyers who couldn’t figure out the Open Governmental Proceedings Act?

The WVU Board of Governors, under the direction of Steve Goodwin, Lawyer, has been notorious for ignoring West Virginia’s open meeting laws.

My guess is that they’ll keep right on doing so until the media, and people like us call them on it. But mostly the media.

The Board is to be commended, however, for finding an interim Provost and interim President who are both older than John McCain. That couldn’t have been easy.

Parry Petroplus and His Many Conflicts of Interest

Is there a more conflicted member of of the WVU Board of Governors than Parry Petropolus? I don’t think so.

Any time a member of a governing board is selling something to the organization he governs, he has a direct financial conflict of interest. His fiduciary obligation to make the best decisions for the organization is in conflict with his personal interest in self-enrichment. It’s a fundamental no-no.

This is one of those things that seems so obvious to me that I automatically assume everybody just gets it. But everybody doesn’t. So listen the hell up. The real story behind all of this — Garrison’s rigged search, the fake degree, all of it — is one of business owners exploiting the phenomenal growth at WVU and in Morgantown for their own personal gain.

It’s one of the oldest and easiest ways in the world to make money. If you know ahead of time where government is going to build, and if you can get out in front — a fortune can be made. Just ask Oshel Craigo. And if you can arrange for the higher-ups who just so happen to be your buddies to throw a few contracts your way, or work out a sweetheart deal or two for you — and hey, someone has to finance all that construction! — you can become rich beyond your wildest dreams.

This is what has been going on in Morgantown over the past few years. That’s why businessmen like Parry Petroplus, Mylan Puskar and Doug Leech — all former clients of Mike Garrison, by the way — were totally in the tank for him years ago. And that is why Morgantown’s so-called business leaders were so quick to circle their wagons around their boy Mike Garrison after he totally lost the plot. And If you recall, they were practically the only people to defend him.

And why not? They gave West Virginia’s flagship university to a 38-year-old political hack with no qualifications for a damn good reason. They turned WVU’s enormous budget into Mike Garrison’s personal slush fund, and literally stood to make millions off the guy.

Just think about that. Parry Petroplus adding another layer of gold plating to his mansion with our tax dollars and our tuition. All while most of us struggle to save money for gas.

But hell. Even if you don’t agree with my populist rhetoric, or even if you’re foolish enough to think it’s all on the up and up in Morgantown, I’ll make it simple: Parry Petroplus’s fiduciary obligation to make the best decisions for West Virginia University is in conflict with his personal interest in self-enrichment. Period.

He should not be a member of the WVU Board of Governors.

Are You There, Steve Goodwin? It’s Me, ACCOUNTABILITY

It’s important to remember that all of the recent “troubles” at WVU — from the shame of Heathergate to the dust-up at the Health Sciences Center — were put in motion by the actions of a single person: Steve Goodwin, the man who rigged the presidential search for Mike Garrison. So what price will he pay?

And we do know that the search was rigged. While it was obvious to anyone who cared to notice that the fix was in for Garrison, we’d still hear from the occasional apologist who insisted that we were “conspiracy theorists that needed to have our heads examined,” or my personal favorite, “just jealous of Garrison’s success.” If anything useful has come out of the Rodriguez depositions, it’s that what we knew all along is now part of the public record: power-players in WVU’s political community knew that Garrison’s rise had been preordained years ago. There’s just no denying it now.

But when confronted with questions about the integrity of the search process, Steve Goodwin repeatedly lied to the the public and the media. His quote to the Dominion Post was

“Your story is bullshit, and you can quote me on that. For you to continue to write this stuff is irresponsible.”

It’s this part of the story that has always angered me the most — not that Steve Goodwin rigged the search for his daughter’s ex-boyfriend, but that when confronted with the truth, he was utterly indignant and unrepentant. Over and over. How DARE we peons question Little Brother Goodwin’s actions?

It’s not just that Stephen P. Goodwin is a goddamn liar. It’s that Steve Goodwin is a goddamn liar who thinks that he knows better than we, the people do about what’s best for West Virginia. How dare we little people, with our shitty jobs and mortgages — how dare we substitute our collective judgment for that of Stephen P. Goodwin?

That, my friends, is what he really meant when he said that our story is bullshit.

But whatever. Small groups of wealthy, elite men who think that they know better than the people they’re supposed to serve are a phenomenon as old as politics itself. But as we’ve seen, an informed and engaged citizenry can keep the monster in check.

But here’s what I want to know — will the media EVER hold Steve Goodwin accountable for repeatedly lying to their faces, and lying to the people of West Virginia? The very man who rigged the search for Mike Garrison — the very man who thought that his own judgment was superior to a legitimate search process — is set to remain on the Board of Governors for 2 more years.

________________

The media does know now that the search was rigged. A few people very close to the search have talked, and it doesn’t take a genius to think of few more who would be vulnerable to an overture. I understand that it takes time to build a story, but after a while, you have to wonder how long they plan to sit on something of this magnitude?

I Hear Things…

I too have been hearing Peter McGrath’s name being floated around as a likely candidate Interim President since last week. He’s the leading candidate for the job.

But one thing everyone also might enjoy knowing is that Brian Noland — the Boy Chancellor himself — has been lobbying hard to be the next president of WVU. He’s very serious. It’s a job he thinks he was born to do. No wonder he wants to raise the president’s salary.

Think about that — yet another inept higher education official FORCED upon us by the Goodwins who thinks he should be to be president of WVU.

But. Before I go writing a post about how “when life gives the Goodwins lemons, they make lemonade,” know this: Noland currently isn’t being taken seriously by anyone. He’s got a nice 6-figure job and all, but he’s almost universally considered a joke. I currently have a small, tortoise shell kitty in my lap that has a better chance of being the next President of WVU than Noland does. My guess is that the BOG won’t stand for a tanning bed in Blaney House. So relax.

But just the fact that Noland thinks he’s qualified for the job — Brian Noland, who become Chancellor of the HEPC via YET ANOTHER Goodwin orchestrated rigged search. Jesus.

In West Virginia, nothing is more overrated than an honest day’s work.

Smells Fishy

I’m often confused by what is and isn’t considered unethical in the medical profession, but I have to say — Dr. Julian Bailes selling fish oil directly to his own patients seems tacky as hell to me. It it sounds more like something you would buy off the back of a horse-drawn cart in the 1800’s instead of from a multi-millionaire neurosurgeon and university professor.

Now I don’t doubt that fish oil is good for you — but I’d rather get my fish oil from actual fish instead of expensive pill form, thank you very much. I mean, unless the pills have a ginger-miso glaze and come with a bag of mesclun mix. If that’s the case, I take it all back.

I first heard about Bailes and his magical fish oil elixir potion after the Sago disaster — and to hear the media talk, you’d think it was the fish oil alone that saved Randal McCloy’s life. Forgive me for doubting that. But if you’re curious, Bailes takes cash or check, made payable to him. Classy.

It gets a little better though. Bailes was introduced to the business of fish oil peddling by none other than Dr. Barry Sears, creator of the Zone Diet, and major player in the 40 BILLION dollar-a-year diet industry. Sigh.

Like I sort of hinted at before, much of what is considered acceptable practice in the medical profession looks a whole hell of a lot like payola and kickbacks to many of us. But if Julian Bailes wants to hawk dietary supplements ala “Doctor” Phil, I guess it’s nobody’s buisness but his own.

And I’ll bet business is good.

_______________

Bonus — The American Medical Student Association grades medical schools on conflicts of interest. WVU gets a D.

IDK, My BFF Spike Maynard???

“A couple dozen e-mails” between state Supreme Court Chief Justice Spike Maynard and Don Blankenship exist, a Supreme Court official testified Wednesday.

That Supreme Court official was Steve Canterbury, who was Spike Maynard’s campaign director in 1996, and all but Spike’s de facto campaign director this year (from his desk in the State Capitol, mind you).

So when Canterbury says “a couple dozen,” you can be pretty sure that that just means dozens, dude. Dozens of emails between Chief Justice Spike Maynard, and an individual who happens to have had a 40 million dollar case pending before him.

I’m not going to say that I dropped the ball, but. Back in October, I wrote (yet another) post where I expressed how I tend to spontaneously vomit whenever I think about the multi-million dollar smear job Don Blankenship used to install the patently oafish Brent Benjamin on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. I called the post “IDK, My BFF Don Blankenship?”

But then a funny thing happened.

Thanks to a few brave souls, I began to learn — remember, really — that Spike Maynard literally is Don Blankenship’s BFF. They’ve been friends since childhood. People at the Court talk about how Blankenship calls his office daily, and if Maynard isn’t there, he said “that’s okay, I’ll call his cellphone.” During secret court conferences, Maynard would leave to talk to Don and get his approval on his vote. Then he’ll come back in the room and say, “yeah, it’s okay, I can vote that way,” or “no way, there’s no way I can do that.” He’s even been known to say “my constituents didn’t sent me here to do that.

Mike Garrison might have been my white whale, but I’m here to tell you that Spike Maynard loosing his reelection will have a much more significant effect on the whole of West Virginia. For reasons I doubt you understand.

Spike is was the most corrupt justice on the most political supreme court in the United States. But thanks to the voters, he’ll soon have to surf for internet porn on his own dime, and on his own computer, just like the rest of us.

Walker, Bullshit Ranger

Those of us who knew all along that Mike Garrison wasn’t the second coming of Derek Bok have had one thing going for us: Garrison’s henchmen, while ridiculously well compensated, have yet to make a single good (much less savvy) public relations move. It has been a Tour de Force in the art of FAIL. This is what I mean when I say that these people aren’t even good at political corruption.

If Mike Garrison were to have asked me (yeah right) — or a whole hell of a lot of other people — for advice back in December or even April, we would have all said the same, obvious thing: Craig Walker has got to go.

But with the exception of Heather Bresch, Craig Walker is the one person who has come out of this utterly unscathed. He didn’t even get shuffled around.

Regardless of what his role in the whole thing really was, he was the most obvious person to take the fall. He was Garrison’s proxy in the meeting, and could have served as his proxy in the aftermath. I strongly believe that if they would have rolled out Craig Walker as the sacrificial lamb back in the Spring, Garrison would survived this.

If Macia was given the ax too, Garrison’s survival would have been a certainty. He would have been on his way to the United States Senate, instead of a bullshit position at Mylan.

Time will tell if Walker is really leaving. God knows that he won’t have to worry about a cut in pay. That’s not how WVU operates.

Today’s To Do List: Laugh!

The Fifth Column comment section right now serves as proof that quantity and quality are 2 separate things. But every once in a while, we get a keeper. Read, learn and imagine:

“By the way, I heard that Parker Brothers just licensed Clueless: The Mountaineer Whodunit? game. Our friends at Parker Brothers think it will be the biggest thing since Morgantown Monopoly, the game where people try to get WVU to buy their property so they can build a hotel right next to it. If you’re lucky you land on “Waterfront Place” with enough money to buy it and build a hotel on it. If you’re unlucky you land on “WVNET” and the Governor makes you sell your property to another player. The only thing missing from the Morgantown version: there’s no “Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Millions of Dollars” card.

I was especially disappointed to hear that Parker Brothers expressed no interest in the Stewart Hall version of Sorry! though. They didn’t like it that everyone in Stewart Hall seemed to move forward, never backwards, in our version despite resignations and reassignments. Plus they didn’t think the name was realistic because no one in Stewart Hall ever seemed to be Sorry!” - Happy Keller, 8:07 p.m.

Now if only someone among us possessed mad Photoshop skills…

You Can’t Buy Credibility

By now, you’re seen today’s media reports about the possibility of WVU doubling or tripling the salary of the next president “to attract quality candidates.”

Please tell me I’m not the only person finds that laughable.

I’m all for paying people what they’re worth. I really am. But money doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the fact that it’s going to be extremely difficult for West Virginia University to attract quality candidates to its top job.

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: no hot prospect on the national college-president market is going to damage his or her reputation by playing punching-bag for the next David Hardesty or Mike Garrison. Period.

The whole world knows Mike Garrison was a hack and a crony who cheated to get the job. And right now, the whole world expects the next president of WVU to do the same. Quality candidates? After Mike Garrison, WVU will do well to attract qualified candidates.

The West Virginia University Board of Governors has hell of a lot of work to do if they want to counter this perception. But they have yet to prove if they’re interested in doing that at all.

Joe Manchin: Ass Puppet of the Big Bad Soft Drink Industry

Part of the motivation behind Joe Manchin’s Health Sciences Center power grab is pretty simple: he wants to get rid of the pop tax. You might not even be aware that there is an excise tax on soft drinks in West Virginia, but there has been since 1951. And all of it — about $15 million — goes to operate the HSC in Morgantown. The tax, which is paid by the manufactures and distributors of soft drinks, currently runs at about 1 cent per half liter, and ends up providing about a quarter of the HSC’s budget.

But why does Joe Manchin want to get rid of the pop tax? Here’s a clue: it’s not because Average Joe is lying awake at night thinking for ways to save West Virgina’s strapped taxpayers 1 cent on every half liter of Mountain Dew Code Red they buy. Hell no.

Joe wants to get rid of the pop tax because it’s a $15 million giveaway to his good friends in the — stay with me here — powerful (and largely out-of-state) soft drink bottling and distribution lobby. These guys have a lot of money to throw around, and they’ve thrown a lot of it at Joe. They’ve lobbied him hard over the past few years to get rid of the pop tax. And Joe is finally set to give his dear, rich, out of state friends in the soda lobby a 15 million dollar payoff.

That’s right. Joe Manchin is ready to sell out the WVU Health Sciences Center to out-of-state soda bottlers.

What a great guy.

To be clear though, I can easily imagine a scenario where I’d be all for getting rid of something like a tax on soda. But this ain’t it. Good luck even quantifying the effect the pop tax has on the average West Virginia family.

And I’m guessing that Manchin won’t be losing any friends at Marshall, or even at WVU’s medical center in Charleston, since they don’t see a penny of the pop tax money. And maybe that is unfair. And maybe it’s also true that WVU hospitals should fork over more of their cash to help run the HSC instead of continuing to lean on the taxpayers year after year. But I assure you, Joe Manchin doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about any of that. I doubt if it’s even crossed his mind.

This is nothing more than a brazen giveaway to Joe’s wealthy out-of-state friends and donors in the soft drink bottling and distribution industry. They are the only people who really want the pop tax gone, and they’ve spent big money to make it happen. And it looks like they’re going to get what they want.

_________________

THE RULING PARTY:

If you Google “pop tax,” the third return you get is an article about how much the pop tax sucks by former state Republican Party chairman and current West Liberty State College President Robin “Rob” Capehart. Yet another example of Manchin’s policies and interests lining up perfectly not only big business, but West Virginia Republican power players.

It’s also worth noting Caphart got the West Liberty job via another rigged search, to the objection of just about everyone besides Joe Manchin. Democrats in Manchin’s own administration were told to cool it.