The Clatsop College Board of Directors votes unanimously Tuesday to place a $5-million bond measure on the November ballot to help pay for campus renovation and new construction at the present 16th and Jerome Avenue campus. If the bond measure passes, the five-million brings the total campus kitty up to roughly $27-million.
Board member Karen Mellin announces her resignation last night, then leaves before the board’s 6-0 unanimous vote. Mellin in part cites difficulty in working with Dr. Greg Hamann, whom she compares to an “autocrat” who surrounds himself with "favorites," as Mellin says is voiced by an evaluator in a college survey. Mellin says employees express low morale in the survey, yet Hamann and the Human Resources Director are unresponsive to those concerns. Mellin says Hamann discontinued the college’s annual employee recognition dinner and hasn’t even made an effort to remember employees’ names.
Mellin also recounts how diversity of opinion is met with opposition. She cites the specific example of being chastised by Hamann and board member Rosemary Baker-Monaghan last year when Mellin spoke publicly against the “campus on the cowpasture” in Warrenton that was the subject of the last bond measure that eventually failed. Hamann and Baker-Monaghan said the board as one body should speak as one voice once a decision is made. Mellin has advocated for renovation of the existing campus; ironically, that’s the subject of the $5-million November bond measure, which would augment other funds raised for the campus project.
