A2POLITICO: Biting the Hand That’s Under the Impression It’s Feeding You

By P.D. Lesko

THE EMAILS WERE clear: the PR rep. at Washtenaw Community College was not amused that The Ann Arbor Independent published an article about Dr. Gus Demas, a $500/day consultant hired by the college’s president. The college’s PR rep. complained bitterly to a group of high-level administrators  (including Demas) that the newspaper had refused to publish her comments about Dr. Demas in the story as a primary source. She neglected to tell her colleagues that the newspaper had asked for an interview with Dr. Demas and she had not arranged it. Washtenaw Community College officials also refused to allow their own student newspaper to interview Dr. Gus Demas.

The college’s faculty, who used the Freedom of Information Act to get documents related to Dr. Demas’s work and compensation, put out a report which concluded they couldn’t figure out what Dr. Demas is doing for his $500 per day, plus mileage. It’s fair to point out that the faculty are at war with WCC president Dr. Rose Bellanca, and Demas was Bellanca’s mentor whom she employed shortly after being hired at WCC. Be that as it may, the college isn’t doing itself any favors by keeping Dr. Demas under wraps.

I said as much to the PR rep. in an email requesting an interview be arranged. According to my sources, Dr. Demas is a particular bug-a-boo among those who believe Dr. Rose Bellanca is Marie Antoinette incarnate, cake, gold milking bucket and all.

When The A2 Indy’s story came out in August, minus Dr. Demas’s perspective, comments, responses, etc…because the PR rep. did not arrange an interview, WCC’s PR rep. sent a series of emails to VPs at WCC and Dr. Demas covering her own professional posterior. In one email she assures WCC officials, including Dr. Bellanca, that The Ann Arbor Independent is “not highly regarded.” She also wonders, electronically, “How would (the reporter) get her hands on a W-2 for Mr. Demas—or his contracts?” In July, after the paper published an unsigned editorial concerning the college’s degree completion rates, the PR rep. sent an email to WCC VPs in which she assures them “I was told the newspaper welcomes (and prints) opposite perspectives.”  It does.

Administrators, faculty and students have filled my ear with stories about WCC’s atmosphere of fear, about the revolving door through which many long-time WCC employees have walked or through which several have been shoved, beginning with former VP of Instruction Stuart Blacklaw. It was Blacklaw’s abrupt dismissal that triggered the fight between President Bellanca and her faculty. One year Blacklaw’s evals were satisfactory and the next year, under Dr. Bellanca, they were not.

It’s possible something happened that made Blacklaw’s work substandard. However, coupled with all of the defections, interim appointments, full VP hires/appointments, perceived secrecy about the college’s strategic plan of all things, faculty and students believe Blacklaw’s departure was the beginning of WCC’s Cretaceous Period.

After publishing one editorial and three stories based on primary sources, public records requests and anonymous sources eager to share information and documents, WCC’s PR rep. sent an email in which she angrily accused the paper of inaccurate and biased reporting. She alleged this despite never having written an opposite perspective or having asked for a correction or clarification of any of the articles published.

The PR rep. is obviously frustrated: The A2 Indy won’t print what she tells us to print. Perhaps that’s what local Ann Arbor media do—just not this newspaper. Ever.