MY TURN: Zero is a placeholder
A zero is a placeholder. It has no value, but it does serve an important function. It temporarily occupies the position of another person or thing. Our elected board of trustees at North Idaho College currently contains two placeholders, Zimmerman and Corkill, elected in 2022. They were recruited by the North Idaho Republicans (NIR), a group not even affiliated with the official Republican Party in Idaho. This makes them shining examples of “Republicans in Name Only,” or RINOs. Their presence on the board has had little, if any, positive effect on the accreditation crisis. The other three trustees, aka “the conservative majority,” recruited by the official Kootenai County Republican Party (KCRCC), have given voters a good return on their trust. They’ve done the very heavy lifting. The conservative contingency has moved the college out of 12 years of consistent decline in enrollment and will soon return the school to good standing with the accreditation board.
For the past year, Chairman Mike Waggoner has led the efforts to stave off loss of accreditation, and he has acknowledged that NIC needed big changes long before the college was ever sanctioned. In a recent interview with The Kootenai Journal, Waggoner said, “Those changes started in 2021 with the board replacing the management (then President MacLennan). This was strongly resisted, but it has worked. We need to thank those members who made the original changes. They are Todd Banducci, Greg McKenzie and Michael Barnes.”
Elected in 2022, Waggoner made good on a campaign promise to use his experience as a manager in a Fortune 100 company to ‘change the culture’ at NIC. According to Ken Burke, a consultant from the Association of Community Colleges, Waggoner deserves a lot of credit for the progress that has been made toward resolving the accreditation issues at NIC. Burke, along with his colleague, Dr. Debbie DiThomas, have been conducting board training for the past two years to advance the board and to advance the college. Mr. Burke, speaking at the August NIC board meeting stated that, “This college outpaces almost every college on a national scale … and your board deserves credit for the pride that our community feels for this college. Significant progress has been made, we have evidence of it that we can document, and based on this progress, we anticipate that a positive report will be given to the accreditation authority. We feel confident that we will retain our accreditation … and a return to good status by the federal deadline, which is April 1, 2025.”
For 12 years, Christie Wood, Ken Howard, Judy Meyer, Joe Dunlap and Brad Murray ran the college. For one year, Pete Broschet, David Wold and John Goedde ran the college. Under all of their management, enrollment declined steadily and they did not take action. All of these folks were supported by the same people who gave us the North Idaho Republicans (NIR), who I remind you, is NOT a party recognized in Idaho. By contrast, in the last year, with Waggoner, Banducci and McKenzie in control of things, college enrollment at NIC is once again going UP. Twenty-year-old policies have been updated. Agendas are now relevant and best practices are being followed.
It would be nice if we could now just say, all’s well that ends well — except we are being asked to consider electing three new candidates backed by “Save NIC.” “Save NIC” and “Save NIC Now” are groups made up of the same people that gave us The North Idaho Republicans. If they win even one of those seats, we will be back to square one, only this time we will have three zeros on the board instead of two. To keep the college going in the right direction, we must vote to continue to move in the right direction. We need to vote for the three candidates recommended by the KCRCC: Lyons, McKenzie and Angiletta.
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Anne Patterson is a Coeur d'Alene resident.