Dean’s Post Considered for Bowers if He Quits : Moorpark College: The district says the president may be called to a special meeting today for negotiations.

Community college officials, hoping to end a messy dispute and avoid a lawsuit, have discussed offering embattled Moorpark College President Stanley L. Bowers a vacant dean’s position at Oxnard College if he will resign his presidency, sources said Friday.

Officials have notified Bowers that he may be called into a special meeting today to negotiate an end to the district’s attempt to remove him as a college administrator, the district confirmed.

Bowers, who is accused of funneling money through his college’s foundation to circumvent state law, offered last week to resign his presidency in exchange for another administrative position. A source said the district might offer Bowers the Oxnard College post since it is the only vacant top management job in the three-college district.

That job was scheduled to be filled June 4, but the item was pulled from the district trustees’ agenda because of budget uncertainties.

Bowers, 56, said Friday that he wants to remain at Moorpark College, where he has worked as an administrator since 1977. But he said he would consider working somewhere else, depending on the full scope of the offer.

“It’s kind of like giving up a resource you have worked on for 14 years, and I’d rather that didn’t happen,” he said. “But sometimes fate doesn’t allow us those options. This might be one of those cases.”

As a tenured faculty member, Bowers is entitled to a teaching or counseling job if he is removed as president. But he is not entitled to a management job, according to the district.

Bowers was notified May 21 that he would be fired, and his appeal is set for a public hearing Tuesday. The trustees’ meeting today was set to prepare for the hearing, but Bowers’ settlement offer will also be considered, officials said.

Bowers and district officials said Friday that they are weary of their dispute and want to settle it as soon as possible.

“I would like to see the best outcome for both Dr. Bowers and the district as quickly as possible, and if that could happen tomorrow that would be good,” Chancellor Barbara Derryberry said.

The chancellor would not say whether the Oxnard College vacancy might be offered to Bowers. But Trustee President Timothy Hirschberg said such an offer has been discussed informally.

“It might be one of a wide number of things discussed Saturday,” Hirschberg said.

Another top district official said that offering the Oxnard position might be the best way to quickly end the dispute. “There is some feeling to get this behind us,” the official said.

Hirschberg said he did not favor offering Bowers the Oxnard job, which would pay about $80,000 annually. Bowers’ current salary is about $94,000.

Hirschberg acknowledged, however, that the district’s bargaining position has been hurt by leaks of the contents of confidential documents to reporters, including the district lawyer’s opinion that Bowers has committed “willful misconduct.”

Several trustees are concerned “that leaks of information certainly have compromised the district’s position in relation to possible lawsuits,” Hirschberg said. “It does compromise the board’s legal position.”

Stuart W. Rudnick, the district’s lawyer, has warned trustees that release of confidential information about the Bowers case would violate the president’s legal rights.

The trustees moved to fire Bowers last month after concluding that he had sidestepped pension and union regulations by approving payment of two employees with $23,000 funneled through the private Moorpark College Foundation.

Bowers also was reprimanded in December for transferring $51,000 in campus bookstore profits to the foundation, which could not account for how some of the money was spent.

And he came under fire for channeling $3,152 in bookstore profits to Ingrid Ely, the college’s former alumni association president, to pay for travel. Bookstore profits must be used for the benefit of students, trustees said. Ely is on trial with her husband, James T. (Tom) Ely, for allegedly bilking the district out of $15,000 with phony travel claims.

Bowers has insisted that his actions were legal and proper except for giving Ely travel funds, which he acknowledges was a mistake.

Bowers has also maintained that paying one retired and one part-time employee through the foundation was an effort to keep a good program alive and that it was approved by district Vice Chancellor Tom Kimberling.