Monday, Jan. 05, 2009

Retired Richland teacher raises ire over ex-WSU provost

By Michelle Dupler, Herald staff writer

RICHLAND -- Laurel Piippo has one of those doormats on her front porch in Richland that reads, "One nice person and one cranky person live here."

Ask her which she is, and she'll tell you with pride that she's the cranky one.

Piippo, 81, is known around the Tri-Cities for writing cantankerous letters to the editor and e-mails griping with gusto about the issues inspiring her passion and ire.

But one issue is the proverbial straw that, rather than breaking her back, has her so irate she's planning to march to Olympia to demand her legislators do something about it.

It started Nov. 10 when Washington State University announced it would be sending former Provost Steven Hoch to teach at WSU Tri-Cities, where Piippo has audited classes for five years.

Hoch took a personal leave from the provost's office in September after just seven weeks on the job. It later turned out he had been embroiled in an argument and shoving match with another administrator.

His term as provost ended Oct. 31 after he and WSU President Elson Floyd agreed he should not remain in that job.

But Hoch's contract allowed him to stay on as a professor at an annual salary of $245,000, or about 82 percent of the $300,000 he earned as provost.

Piippo views Hoch's new assignment as Floyd dumping his problem on WSU Tri-Cities, and his salary as an example of wasteful spending of tax dollars.

"I want more careful scrutiny of the public university presidents and control over their reckless spending, bad decisions and negative fallout from those decisions," she said.

So she decided to become a citizen lobbyist, which she described as, "A person that gets madder than hell and goes to Olympia to try to correct an untenable situation."

She talked to officials at the Public Disclosure Commission to find out what she'd need to do. As it turned out, since she's not being paid by anyone or representing any special interest groups, she just has to show up.

The next step was to start checking committee schedules and lining up a bus ticket.

"I'm not just going to let it sit there and die," she said. "I want this guy (Floyd) on the hot seat."

Piippo blames Floyd for failing to check Hoch's references to make sure he had the temperament for the provost job before hiring him. She also thinks Floyd should have known what was in Hoch's contract.

Floyd initially tried to reduce Hoch's pay to a more standard level for faculty, but discovered the university was bound by the contract to pay Hoch nine-elevenths of his salary as provost.

And she doesn't think Floyd deserves his own annual $625,000 salary or the $500,000 bonus he was promised if he stays on as president until 2012.

"I don't want to pay him a bonus," she said. "He screwed up."

Piippo was so incensed by the flap over Hoch's personal leave and assignment to WSU Tri-Cities that she compiled 60 pages of research about the man. Then she boiled that down to three pages and sent it off to her legislators, but only one -- Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland -- responded.

"If they ignore all of my effort and work to curb this spending spree, I guess I have to go to Olympia," she said.

This isn't the first brush with politics for the retired Kennewick High School English teacher. She's organized rallies to support reactivating Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility for medical isotope research, and has been active with the Benton County Democrats since the 1950s.

And she isn't slowing down.

"If something is important, I will try to dredge up enough time and energy to do something about it," she said. "That's what being an American is all about -- the individual taking action, each voter. That may be an idealistic delusion, but it's what I live by."