Two College of DuPage meetings scheduled on same night - again
For a third time, trustees on the deeply divided College of DuPage board have scheduled two meetings on the same night.
The meetings will start at different times Wednesday, but the agenda is the same.
It is unclear if all six trustees will be present at either meeting.
Trustees Dianne McGuire, Erin Birt and Joseph Wozniak announced Sunday they had scheduled a special meeting for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Student Services Center on COD's Glen Ellyn campus, to address routine college business.
The three have been boycotting board meetings for more than a month, in part, because they want to have an organizational session held to pick a new chairman of the board. There has been a vacancy on the board since former chairwoman Kathy Hamilton stepped down Dec. 13.
After the announcement for the special meeting was made, Deanne Mazzochi, the board's vice chairwoman, said she and the two other board members - Charles Bernstein and Frank Napolitano - were looking forward "to all opportunities to get the college's business done."
"We appreciate any positive, productive discussion that can be had amongst all six voting trustees," she said in an email sent to the Daily Herald.
But on Monday, a second special meeting was scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Student Services Center.
The agenda, which is identical to the 5:30 p.m. agenda, included a note that said the 7 p.m. meeting was necessary because of the possibility a quorum may not be possible at 5:30 p.m., due to prior scheduling commitments. The note also suggested holding a later meeting would avoid disrupting a student life fair being held in the center's atrium Wednesday.
This is the third time two COD special meetings have been scheduled on the same night since the beginning of the year.
McGuire, Birt and Wozniak were absent from 7 p.m. special meetings they scheduled Jan. 7 and Jan. 14. They decided not attend the meetings after Mazzochi, Bernstein and Napolitano scheduled earlier meetings the same night - first at 6:45 p.m. Jan. 7 and again at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 14.
On Jan. 14, McGuire said she believed the 6:30 p.m. session "undermined" the meeting she, Birt and Wozniak scheduled, and accused Mazzochi of "dirty political games."
In addition, McGuire, Birt and Wozniak boycotted regular meetings Dec. 17 and Jan. 21, as well as a special meeting called by the other three trustees Thursday, Jan. 28.
"I urge them to come so we can get important college business done," Mazzochi said during last Thursday's meeting.
Mazzochi also said last Thursday she was planning to schedule one more special meeting before the Feb. 11 deadline given to the board to select a replacement for Hamilton. If the six trustees can't agree on someone by then, the chairman of the Illinois Community College Board will pick the new trustee.