MPC Board of Trustees shifts time of key meeting about Tribley’s contract.

Monterey Peninsula College faculty were all set to speak out about their displeasure with MPC’s president at the Board of Trustees meeting at 11am Wednesday, a time that had been posted for weeks.

Friday evening—the last day of the semester and start of a holiday weekend—those plans were changed.

An email went out to faculty at 6:46pm, from the office of Walt Tribley, MPC president and superintendent, announcing that the meeting time had been moved up an hour, to 10am, Wednesday, May 31. The trustees are meeting on the Marina campus, 289 12th St., Marina.

The trustees will be gathering in closed session at 10am, but California’s open meeting law requires the board hear any public comment on the posted topics of the session.

In this case, the topics are negotiations with the teacher’s union—which came to a halt in early May with no raises proposed for permanent faculty—and Tribley’s performance evaluation.

On May 9 the board held a special meeting to discuss Tribley’s performance, right after it was announced he had applied for a job at another California community college district. It was a divided meeting, with faculty telling the board they no longer trust Tribley, and administrators praising him.

The board announced it would continue its discussion of Tribley’s performance at the May 31 meeting.

Faculty members had hoped to influence the board to discontinue Tribley’s contract—which is supposed to end in one year—in light of issues at the campus, including MPC’s two-year accreditation probation.

However, one of the items during the regular session of the meeting, which begins at 1:30pm, is a motion under new business: “Be it resolved, that the employment agreement with Dr. Walter Tribley to serve as Superintendent/President, effective July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2021, be approved.”