The following messages are first a message from Rene Rodriguez, VCCCDRA President, to Bernardo M. Perez, Chair, VCCCD Board of Trustees; and second a message from Bernardo Perez to Rene (to which Rene was responding.)
On 04/12/2020 10:18 pm, Rene Rodriguez wrote:
Bernardo,
Thank you for your email of April 2 in response to my email of March 26, the date of your Special Board of Trustees Meeting. As you know, this pandemic has had us scrambling for basic needs, and it is quite wonderful how relatives, friends and neighbors are all pulling together, at least locally, in this time of crisis.
I sincerely hope that you, the Board, the Chancellor and your families are faring well in Ventura County, where cases of the coronavirus appear to keep increasing, but so far in apparent manageable levels.
I must say that it was comforting, and timely, to receive the message from Anthem sent to us by Katy Lyon, informing retirees and all employees, how they are covered for COVID-19 tests at no cost through May 31, and how we can go about getting these tests if we need them.
On the subject of this email, COVID-19 appears to present another opportunity for all of us to contrast how Anthem is approaching this crisis as opposed to the CalPERS plans that the District is proposing.
In this regard, let me share with the Board that on March 25, the Executive Board of the Retirees’ Association met for the first time using GoToMeeting online conferencing software, and successfully conducted its meeting for about the same approximate time it would have taken a face to face meeting. Some of the Exec Board members had computers with cameras and mikes, while a few had computers but communicated orally with a regular telephone. It all worked out fine.
I mention the above because you may have misunderstood my intention of a “meeting” with the Board. I was not referring to a physical meeting such as the one you had at your Special Meeting on March 26, where Board members and the Chancellor showed up at the District Board Room, and everyone else communicated by connection through the Zoom conferencing software.
Our proposal for a meeting with the Board of Trustees would mean that everyone, including Board members, would be safe in their own homes, communicating through their computers, smartphones, or regular landline telephones.
We feel that such a conference call meeting would be far more effective than just sending you materials, which would take us much more time to put together, and would be much more cumbersome for you to have to read, and not carry the weight or impact that we are trying to have.
This is meant to be a thorough presentation conducted by Gary Johnson, Marta Freixas, and myself, as condensed as we can make it, covering the main problems that we find with CalPERS, in contrast to the Anthem plans, and explaining the reasons that we are opposed to the move to CalPERS. You need to be as well informed about this as we are before making a final decision.
I would be happy to set the meeting up with GoToMeeting software that would take a minimal amount of time on your part to set up. Yes, I would be “hosting” the meeting technically, but you would have control over the meeting since this essentially would be a Board of Trustees meeting.
Which brings up the question of making the meeting available to the public. We could also make a GoToMeeting available to the public. We would have to know how many “observers” Zoom allows, and we would make sure at least that number could log in to the meeting, and you can handle the public comments part of the meeting as you did on March 26. We could provide the details as to how the public could log in to the GoToMeeting for your staff to announce as they normally do.
It appears that you are anxious to move forward with CalPERS, but we think it is incumbent upon you to understand what we think you are getting into.
Rene
On 04/02/2020 5:03 pm, Bernardo Perez wrote:
Dear Rene,
First, I hope that you, your family and all members of the Ventura County Community College District Retirees Association and their families are well and will remain healthy during this pandemic.
I am formally acknowledging your requests for the Board of Trustees to convene a Special Meeting with the leadership of the VCCCDRA. You state the purpose of the meeting essentially would be to provide the Board with a detailed comparison by the Association of the proposed CalPERS and current Anthem/Blue Cross health plans.
The Board of Trustees remains interested in hearing and responding to the questions and issues identified by the Association. However a live meeting during the COVID-19 pandemic is not possible. I suggest, indeed respectfully request that you provide your information and comparison in writing. I will then forward your information to the full Board for consideration. A response to your questions and concerns could then lead to a remote meeting with parameters agreed to by the Association and the District.
On behalf of the Board, it is our preference to continue working with the Association to ensure and to give you confidence that we know and understand your issues and how they might be addressed. I believe you can agree that we have been forthright with the Association over these past two years in sharing possible plan changes and providing access to all information from CalPERS with support from Burnham and Human Resources. I hope that we are aligned with regard to an approach of dialog and compromise to address potential changes.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Respectfully,
Bernardo M Perez, Chair
VCCCD Board of Trustees