Colbourn Hall joined Florida Technological University’s modest campus in 1972 to accommodate the arts and humanities and became the first in the state in which every step of the construction process was bid upon, providing separate contractors for each of the five floors.
Among the earliest buildings before the university changed its name to the University of Central Florida in 1978, FTU’s addition to campus called for nine prime contractors and, consequently, fell behind schedule. The workmanship behind the brick facade cascaded throughout the years into what President Emeritus John C. Hitt called a threat to public safety, citing water intrusion, mold, and concerns involving structural integrity.
Decades later, UCF found itself at the center of a state audit that ushered in the greatest threat to a quarter-century of tremendous growth.
Colbourn Hall needed to be replaced, argued Hitt, and each of its students and faculty moved after a replacement building was suited for occupancy. State auditors, however, discovered the means to fund construction for Trevor Colbourn Hall came from a source set aside for operational costs: Educational and General funds.
The controversy surrounding UCF’s mission to finance this new addition caught the attention of lawmakers in Tallahassee after one administrator in UCF’s ranks stepped forward to take full responsibility.
“I am baffled by how the actions of one irresponsible officer’s effort at flouting the Legislatures and State University system’s budget controls could result in a four-year-long unauthorized endeavor of this magnitude,” Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Richard Corcoran wrote in a September letter to former UCF President Dale Whittaker.
“There are only two possibilities: that others within UCF were aware of and conspired in this misuse of public funds, or your administration lacks the necessary internal controls to manage its fiscal responsibilities.”
Chief Financial Officer Bill Merck
In a surprise letter sent to Whittaker on Sept. 13, 2018, UCF’s Vice President for Administration & Finance and Chief Financial Officer, William Merck, stepped down after an admission to using $38 million worth of carryforward Educational and General funds — or E&G funds — for the construction of a new building on campus.
The letter, given to the Florida Board of Governors, drew the attention of local media and kick-started a months-long external review and sweeping changes to the way the university operates budget and new construction.
The former CFO would soon be subject to a media blitz in which the early storyline wholly blamed Merck for the wrongdoing.
Knight News interviewed Merck and his lawyer Charles Green at the turn of the New Year in Downtown Orlando.
Merck said an important reason behind the decision to use the restricted funds was to avoid a catastrophe involving the aging Colbourn Hall, which was described as a serious, imminent threat — in terms of structure and public health — to students and faculty who used the building.
Merck cited an engineering report on the structural integrity and health as needs to address in the old Colbourn Hall in a letter to what would be UCF’s independent investigation firm, Bryan Cave. But in the letter, Merck also referenced President Emeritus Hitt and current president Dale Whittaker’s involvement in approving the building despite drawing from E&G accounts.
“Prior to the board meeting where final approval was given, I discussed the specific funding source with President Hitt. He agreed that we needed to move forward because of the documented health and safety concerns that threatened hundreds of students, faculty, and staff in the old Colbourn Hall,” wrote Merck.
Merck says he made it known state auditors would have a problem with using these funds.
“Although I felt and advised others that we would likely take an ‘audit hit’ and have to later explain our use of the funds, I felt we were between ‘a rock and a hard place’ and had no other choice. This was a matter affecting the health and safety of students, staff, and faculty. It was a true emergency and President Hitt and Provost/Chief Budget Officer Whittaker agreed that we had to use internal funds to construct a new building,” Merck said.
Calls to state representatives for funding earmarked to renovate the building went unanswered, Hitt said, while the lifespan of Colbourn Hall would soon reach its end.
Merck, along with Hitt, believed that the imminent danger that Colbourn Hall posed required that it be destroyed and replaced after engineers again reported the insurmountable defects to the building in 2016. According to the former CFO, no one – the Florida Board of Governors, Marchena, Whittaker, and others within the UCF executive administration – interjected to say the expenditure was illegal. Merck believed that was because they all knew it was necessary.
“After an engineering report confirmed that the building lacked structural integrity and was filled with mold – findings that presented grave health and safety concerns – we felt that UCF had no alternative but to fix the problem,” Merck wrote in the letter.
Florida State Statute 1013.74 allows for E&G funds to be used to replace buildings destroyed by a calamity, Merck alleges in the letter. And failure of the building while waiting – potentially for years more – for funds from the state to replace Colbourn Hall would result in millions in physical and collateral damage. A sentiment shared by President Emeritus Hitt.
In a statement to Knight News late Friday night, December 21, Whittaker rebuked the former CFO and reaffirmed that he stood by his position.
“My position has never changed: I trusted our former CFO to advise the president and our Board of Trustees about the appropriate use of funds. As provost, I was responsible for the academic planning of the building; the CFO was responsible for the funding,” Whittaker said.
However, in a separate letter written to UCF’s Atlanta-based international law firm Bryan Cave, responsible for investigating the incidents, Merck alleged that Whittaker not only knew about the misappropriated funds but embraced their use for a new Trevor Colbourn Hall while signing off on approvals.
“The proposed use of E&G carry forward funds to construct the new Trevor Colbourn Hall Building was also discussed with and approved by then-Provost and Chief Budget Officer, and now UCF President, Dale Whittaker,” Merck wrote in his letter.
“Some have falsely asserted that I acted without their knowledge. I gave my heart and soul to UCF. Although I have been falsely accused by some of those now associated with the university, I still feel a strong allegiance to it,” said Merck, who went on to list four documents that allegedly reflect involvement. Those internal documents, among others, were outlined and provided by hand through the course of the interview.
“During the ‘Golden Era’ at UCF, when President Hitt was in charge, doing the right thing mattered. I hope it still does.”
Merck resigned Sept. 13, 2018.
Former President John C. Hitt
In announcing his retirement, UCF’s public relations department posted a press release calling John C. Hitt a “Community Hero” — praising his “integrity” and his “efforts to expand” UCF as president.
But the same PR team that spent years building Hitt’s credibility quickly worked to call it into question.
Hitt — who was still on UCF’s payroll as “president emeritus” months after the news became public — went rogue, contradicting UCF’s crisis-management messaging on the misuse of millions of state funds. Hitt defended himself and his former chief financial officer in the wake of a state audit exposing the improper funding source.
The former president expressed how he believed his former CFO Bill Merck was unfairly attacked – “pilloried in the press and on UCF’s own website” – in a letter he wrote to UCF’s outside law firm hired to investigate how the Colbourn Hall controversy could happen. Hitt’s letter alleged Merck was not the only one who knew about the plan to fund construction from a source of funds not meant for that use.
Board of Trustees Chairman Marcos Marchena, who once praised Hitt’s “integrity” as being a level above that of “everyone else” in a UCF press release, quickly claimed Hitt’s letter as “not accurate, and I don’t find it credible,” according to UCF’s public relations department.
Although Hitt accused the Chairman of failing to ask tough questions during a March 2017 BOT presentation “that expressly went over the fact that [the restricted] E&G carry forward funds were used to construct a new building to replace Colbourn Hall,” Marchena did ask questions after the state auditor exposed the improper use of funds in August.
Seemingly blindsided by the auditor’s report and without Hitt at the helm, UCF trustees scrambled to work back into compliance, holding a September meeting where Chairman Marchena posed the question whether UCF President Dale Whitaker knew about the misuse of funds. Whittaker said he didn’t know.
“I had no knowledge these funds were being used inappropriately,” Hitt’s successor said to the chairman. “If I had, I would’ve stopped their use.”
John Hitt agreed with the CFO that Whittaker knew.
“Then Provost and now President Whittaker was well aware of the use of E&G carry forward to fund the project and his handwriting and signature are on multiple documents proving that fact,” said the former president.
Both Hitt and Merck expressed similar thoughts about how UCF treated Merck in the press in their letters to Bryan Cave partner Joseph Burby.
“Instead of defending good, honest, hardworking people who always tried their best to comply with their duties to UCF, some UCF higher-ups gave overly defensive reports to the media in which they denied their participation in a decision that they should have defended from the outset,” Merck said.
The former CFO expressed his concern to Burby about how the law firm’s report could amount to cover-up if it failed to uncover the whole truth.
“I hope that in reporting your findings you report the whole story, and not just the false story–line that ended my 46–year career,” Merck said. “Although my job is gone, other innocent people will be affected by what you report. I pray you report the whole truth and not just what those to whom you report want the UCF community to believe.”
“In 2013 and 2014, we received reports from independent professional engineers which revealed that the problems were far worse than we had thought. Not only was there a serious mold issue, [but] the structure of the building was deteriorating and, it was reported to me, would soon be so unsafe that it would be uninhabitable,” said Hitt.
Retired UCF President John C. Hitt maintained that the use of E&G funds was an open, known fact that proceeded due to minimal guidance from the State of Florida on how to use the leftover money to fix a deteriorating Colbourn Hall. The president claimed no one at UCF intended to use the funds to fulfill personal need nor to knowingly violate any rule with the use of the funds which allegedly was noted in numerous documents.
“The use of E&G funds to finance the project was specifically noted in a number of reports, including the Trevor Colbourn Hall Building Program which is signed by myself, Provost Whitaker, and many others,” said Hitt in his letter.
The project moved forward as “certainly no clear guidance from the Board of Governors,” their peers, or even UCF’s General Counsel arose, according to the letter.
“Thus, being cognizant of my obligations to act in the best interests of UCF, I told Merck and Lee Kernek that there was no other option and we should proceed with plans to replace the old building with a new one, using E&G carry forward to the extent we needed to do so,” Hitt said in the letter.
The 26-year-long leader of campus alleged that while both Whittaker and Marchena condoned the use of E&G funds — it was never concealed and remained available to anyone who might ask for details on not just the Trevor Colbourn Hall project, but projects in general — pulled from carry forward or otherwise.
Hitt told the law firm that moving forward with the new construction saved the university and state millions of dollars, and it was the “only financially responsible route to travel.”
“[M]ost importantly from my perspective, I and everyone that worked with and for me, always acted with the best interests of UCF being their objective and no one – no one – intentionally did anything wrong or engaged in actions that were designed for their personal benefit,” Hitt wrote. “We absolutely did not think there was any legal or ethical prohibition against the project or the use of the funds designated for it and we did not fail to report anything that, even now looking back, I think should have been reported.”
Hitt resigned as President Emeritus Jan. 19, 2019.
The Florida Legislature
On Feb, 6, 2019, the Florida House of Representatives summoned Whittaker, Hitt, Marchena, and Merck to testify during depositions at a Public Integrity & Ethics Committee meeting investigating Colbourn Hall.
Chancellor of the State University System Marshall Criser presented in front of the Ethics Committee and summarized the private investigation launched by UCF and the conclusions of the report.
Criser claimed the four individuals knew of the E&G funds being used and the ramifications for their use, according to the presentation, contradicting the narrative posed by the UCF’s independent investigators which effectively cleared President Whittaker of wrongdoing.
Florida House Public Integrity & Ethics Committee chair Rep. Tom Leek said in Tallahassee that UCF’s Board of Trustees occasionally “fails to appreciate the gravity of the situation they’re in.”
At February’s legislative meeting in Tallahassee, Leek cited damaging information that the university’s independent investigators provided advanced copies of the report to UCF’s General Counsel before the public, referring to records uncovered by Knight News.
“There was a report this week that I found particularly troubling: that the University of Central Florida General Counsel received advanced copies of the report and had the opportunity to provide substantive input on what the report would look like and say on the way before it was published,” Leek said.
#BREAKING: After threats of more litigation, UCF finally releases records showing UCF’s General Counsel reviewed and discussed drafts of The Burby Report with the outside Bryan Cave attorney—hired for his outside independence—before the public. #ColbournHallControversy #sayfie pic.twitter.com/k9PwfpMbXI
— UCF Knight News (@UCFKnightNews) January 31, 2019
Chancellor Criser claimed to be “surprised that the report would be shared with anyone other than Beverly Seay — who was the Trustee’s point person in this entire process — our Inspector General, and with the Chair of our audit committee.”
The Florida House itself did not escape the reach of the controversy, however. In an interview with an anonymous UCF business administrator, the House had been waiting for precisely a moment to halt the growth at the university, afraid to dissent against a presence as large as John Hitt. With Hitt gone from Millican Hall, the House squarely made a point months later to criticize the enormous growth UCF enjoyed.
“The more money that you throw into an institution and the faster that you throw it in there, the less that it can properly assimilate it,’’ House Speaker Jose Oliva told reporters in March. “And I think that’s what happened to the university system. A course correction is needed.”
The Missing Audio
UCF’s public relations department claimed to be missing audio of a key Board of Trustees vote on Colbourn Hall that potentially incriminated members of the Board in whether they knew about the funding source.
When Knight News made a ‘lawful request’ for any public record on Sept. 25, 2018 identifying whether someone from the general counsel’s office was present during the May 22, 2014 BOT meeting where Trevor Colbourn Hall funding was approved, in addition to other records, UCF responded by claiming there were no responsive documents.
Knight News filed a lawsuit Jan. 23, 2019, to obtain the records that appeared to have been covered up by the university.
The audio of a meeting where Colbourn Hall was discussed is one of the records sought in the lawsuit. Portions of the audio that should have been originally recorded somehow disappeared — or the recording was abruptly cut off — at the key moment where trustees discussed building Trevor Colbourn Hall. UCF’s failure to respond to public records requests in good faith left the public in the dark about how the critical part of the recording could have gone missing, according to the suit.
Florida House Ethics Committee Staff Director Don Rubottom compared the missing tape and potential for a coverup to Watergate at the university, saying he was “old enough to remember Nixon” during a house committee meeting.
When Colbourn Hall records were requested by the Orlando Sentinel for coverage, UCF stated that since they had a part in a Florida House investigation, they could not be released. UCF never made that assertion to Knight News; however, UCF did delay the release of other records Knight News requested until Knight News put UCF on notice of a potential suit.
Those records show that UCF Vice President and General Counsel Scott Cole, and UCF Vice President Grant Heston — both of whom directly report to UCF President Whittaker — were involved in responding to Bryan Cave’s request to define the scope of the investigation.
UCF has refused to directly answer questions about whether the investigation should have been directed by a special committee, comprised of trustees that had no involvement at all in the original approvals Trevor Colbourn Hall.
Records show the scope was largely defined by a script BOT Chair Marchena prepared prior to a BOT meeting, although Heston mentioned Marchena did change some language from the script.
Knight News took the matter to court after identifying documents in the Bryan Cave report that may have satisfied the request. The court agreed, and ordered UCF to disclose the public records described below:
- Audio recording of the April 3, 2014 Finance and Facilities Committee meeting
- Minutes, if any, of the May 22, 2014 Board of Trustees meeting
- Audio recording, if any, of the May 22, 2014 Board of Trustees meeting
- Video recording, if any, of the May 22, 2014 Board of Trustees meeting
- Calendar entries, if any, from Vice President Scott Cole from two weeks before and after the date the Board of Trustees approved Trevor Colbourn Hall funding
- Any other public records in UCF’s custody that are responsive to Knight News’s September 25, 2018, public records request
The first hearing in the lawsuit Knight News filed seeking answers about what happened to a missing portion of audio – where the Trevor Colbourn Hall project was approved by a BOT committee – took place at 2:30 p.m. in Orlando’s Circuit Court on March 5, 2019.
After Knight News asked Orange County’s top prosecutor to react to allegations UCF unlawfully refused to release public records, State Attorney Aramis Ayala made it clear that she takes any allegation of public trust abuse seriously.
“As State Attorney, one of my top priorities is ensuring transparency under law,” Ayala told Knight News in a statement. “When a Constitutional violation or Public Records violation is brought to our attention, we evaluate the evidence and determine the proper course of action.”
Two members of the Ayala State Attorney’s Office were present during the Tuesday hearing in the open government lawsuit Knight News filed against UCF.
One member of Ayala’s team present was Kamilah Perry, the Executive Director and General Counsel of the Ninth Judicial Circuit SAO. Perry mentioned before the hearing began how Ayala’s office was there to monitor the constitutional challenge in the case.
Also attending the hearing was the State Attorney’s Chief Investigator, William Edwards. According to the State Attorney’s website, Edwards “manages sixteen sworn law enforcement officers serving State Attorney Ayala and all of the Assistant State Attorneys prosecuting criminal cases.”
During the status hearing, the Honorable Judge Lisa Munyon ruled in favor of Knight News on the disputed issue of whether a trial will be required in the Colbourn Hall Controversy records lawsuit.
“I’ve read everything and find that it’s necessary,” Munyon said of the need for a trial, after Knight News attorney Justin Hemlepp explained to the judge how UCF disagreed with Knight News that her previous order required a trial.
“We take seriously any claims that may impact or devalue public trust,” Ayala’s statement continued. “All government agencies in Florida are subject to these laws and must be held to the highest standards of transparency and accountability.”
The judge’s ruling in favor of a trial was a significant step forward for public’s right to know more of the University’s decision to misappropriate funds for the construction of Colbourn Hall.
UCF’s litigation counsel present included former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Wells of GrayRobinson, and the firm’s Higher Education Practice Group Leader Richard Mitchell. UCF’s in-house deputy general counsel, Youndy Cook, also attended the hearing.
UCF’s attorneys exited the hearing without offering to provide comment to Knight News or the other Orlando television news crew waiting outside for a copy of the hearing pool footage.
John Pittman, Tracy Clark, Christie Tant, and Lee Kernek
When the University of Central Florida set out to find those responsible for the controversy surrounding Colbourn Hall, four employees UCF moved to fire were first made an offer: resign voluntarily and keep their reputation intact or be fired with the option to fight the decision at a predetermination hearing.
That was according to the husband of Lee Kernek, one of the employees UCF wants fired.
“I am not going to sit back and let them destroy my wife when she did not do anything wrong. She follows the rules,” Keith Kernek said. “And she will not be resigning.”
Knight News sat down with Keith Kernek on February 10 after he said he and his wife effectively lost half of their household income because of UCF’s choice to make four “good, loyal, hardworking employees” the scapegoat of what he believes is a flawed Burby report.
“It hurts. It’s totally unjustified,” Keith said.
UCF made the resignation offer Friday morning, Jan. 18, according to Kernek, with five business days to return with a decision. The termination was instead announced that day before the Board of Trustees met at 3 p.m.
Other employees UCF moved to terminate include Associate Vice President of Finance Tracy Clark, Associate Vice President of Debt & Revenue John Pittman, and University Controller Christy Tant.
And when news of the president’s punishment for the controversy was announced by BOT Chairman Marcos Marchena – a cut in an annual bonus – Kernek was not pleased with how the stakes for UCF’s biggest decision-maker fell monumentally short of the ‘unjustified’ punishment given to his wife and three others, he believed.
“They are senior employees but not UCF’s decision-makers. They lose everything and Whittaker, a key decision-maker, gets a slap on the wrist?!,” said Keith. “Let me see if I understand this: the people who did not make the decision tried to hide the decision from those who made the decision? These four need to be hired back.”
Allegedly, one of the four employees, John Pittman, did not know of E&G funds until he saw their explanation in the newspaper. Pittman’s role at the university centered around managing debt rather than delegating money to new construction or managing E&G funds whatsoever, Green told Knight News.
In the termination notice, the university cited the Bryan Cave report, limited in scope by the UCF Board of Trustees Chairman, as a reason to terminate.
Keith believed an unfair and suggestive interrogation by Joseph Burby took place when his wife Lee was interviewed.
The account struck parallels with former UCF President John C. Hitt in which he described the Burby encounter via letter as “unexpectedly adversarial” while being “led to say some things that were not accurate.” Other sources further detailed an interview process that left employees in tears after speaking with Burby.
Knight News obtained a summary of Burby’s interview with Lee Kernek dated October 2018. It was marked confidential and only released after Knight News hired a lawyer to negotiate with UCF to provide the public record even though the university took the position that it didn’t have to supply the document.
The summary noted that “currently, Merck, President (Hitt) and Provost (Whittaker) review and decide on final CIP (Capital Improvement Plan).”
“It’s then presented to the BOT F&F Committee; if they approve, it goes to the BOT for approval; the plan is then submitted to the BOG and then the Legislature, who decides what projects to fund,” the attorney’s interview document states. And in bold letters: “[Lee] did not know that E&G funds couldn’t be used for capital projects until this year after State AG Audit.”
To the Board of Trustees, the results of the Burby report paint a different picture. Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Garvey maintains that the four senior leaders employed deception to ensure that the funds would be used for the project at hand. The report alleges that the employees, in one part or another, began to use the funds without fully understanding their limits, but later learned their inappropriate use and moved forward anyway.
“The Board of Trustees understands the gravity of this violation of statutory requirements and the public’s trust. The misuse of state funds is never acceptable. That’s why the board committed to a thorough, transparent and independent investigation. That investigation found that Bill Merck, the former CFO, and senior leaders of his team purposefully took inappropriate and deceptive actions,” said Garvey’s comment, written by Vice President Grant Heston, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
“President Whittaker said from the beginning that when he was provost he never knew and was never told that Merck’s actions were wrong and inappropriate. The Bryan Cave independent investigation confirmed that.”
“President Whittaker continues to have my full support, particularly in terms of the decisive action he is taking to fix these problems. His leadership has been, and will continue to be, essential to UCF. Through the aggressive actions he has taken, President Whittaker is demonstrating his commitment and ability to deal with this awful situation and return UCF to the high regard it has earned over the years.”
Keith refuted the BOT’s response to the report as a cover to save the Board’s reputation as the House of Representatives continues their independent investigation.
“How did the guy who was the Chair of the University Budget Committee, the guy who managed a complex budget, suddenly overnight, when the Audit Report was announced, now know nothing?”
Clark, Kernek, Pittman, and Tant, among ten others – including President Whittaker and Hitt – have been subpoenaed before the House of Representatives to testify in their ongoing investigation.
The Office of the President
In the week following Whittaker’s resignation offer to the Board of Trustees, staff in Office of the President were pressured to write positive reviews of Whittaker, with one member designated to cry to the public in support of the president, an administrator close to the matter said on absolute condition of anonymity.
Knight News validated the identity of the employee and cross-checked unpublished information against the knowledge of this source before questioning UCF on the soon-to-be staged act.
Subordinate employees to Vice President of Communications Grant Heston and Assistant Vice President of Strategic Communications & Marketing Christine Dellart were pressured to express positive reviews before public comment to the Board of Trustees after Whittaker announced his resignation offer, the source said. The 10 a.m. February 21 meeting would include a staged act by the UCF President’s Office where a designated, named employee would step up to comment publicly and sob in support of President Whittaker, according to the tipster.
At the Board of Trustees meeting, the President’s Office spoke publicly and one staff member gave an emotional account of their support for the president, in line with what the UCF employee said in the hours before the meeting.
A close circle of staff who supported Whittaker during his presidential campaign received up to $50,000 in pay raises, the same employee told Knight News early Thursday morning, while providing dollar amounts per person.
Heston and Dellart both received pay raises on the first day of Whittaker’s term, July 1, 2018.
When questioned, UCF said the following employees received both a promotion and a pay raise, but did not deny the allegation by the UCF employee that they received the pay raise because of their support for the president:
- Grant Heston: $50,000
- Thad Seymour: $50,000
- Christine Dellert Mullon: $30,000
- Tom Hope and Patrick D[…]: $30,000
- Mike Kilbride: ~$59,000
- Laura Spuliano: $28,000
- Margaret Cole (General Counsel Scott Cole’s Wife): $22,500
The source alleged that Human Resources was ‘not comfortable’ playing along but followed through with the actions when they were brought forth.
UCF would later claim there was no “basis to support any suggestion that the promotions and associated raises were in any way connected with Dr. Whittaker’s candidacy,” a university spokesman said. “All of these promotions and associated pay raises were approved by the Human Resources Department.”
When Knight News received UCF’s response and sought clarification from the source, the Millican Hall administrator explicitly denied the email sent by the university’s public relations department and reaffirmed the information provided, passing along additional non-public information concerning the Vice President of Communications and the General Counsel that would go unpublished.
Publicly available 2017-2018 Salaries:
Publicly available Fall 2018 Salaries (Aug ’18-April ’19):
General Counsel Scott Cole
When the University of Central Florida was first in the spotlight of a state auditor’s report exposing tens of millions in improper funding surrounding Colbourn Hall, a promise was made to one employee: take the blame for the incident and it will all go away.
When Knight News sat down with the employee, former Chief Financial Officer and Vice President William Merck – and his lawyer Charles Greene – they brought to light closed-door interactions between officials, including another promise to Merck: show up to a state meeting on Colbourn Hall and be fired.
The former CFO saw an opportunity to speak at a Board of Governor’s meeting on September 13 and defend UCF’s decision to raze Colbourn Hall while moving its students and faculty to a new building, according to both the interview with Merck and in a letter from Greene to the Board of Governors.
But before the meeting, the second promise came when he asked to attend the Sarasota BOT session along with President Whittaker and Chairman Marchena.
Merck would be informed by the UCF General Counsel Scott Cole that President Whittaker did not want him at the meeting, and if Merck were to show up in front of the Board of Governors, it would be viewed as an act of insubordination and a cause to be terminated.
Greene also referenced the interaction in a letter to the Board of Governors while criticizing the scope and method of the private investigation led by Joey Burby which was hired by, and at the direction of, the Board of Trustees.
“The Burby Report goes out of its way to criticize Bill Merck because he did not consent to an ‘interview’ by Burby […],” Greene said in the four-page letter.
“What Burby does not report is that Mr. Merck asked if he could appear at the BOG meeting on September 13, 2018, to explain the TCH funding decision and was advised that such an appearance would be viewed as an act of insubordination, which would be cause for termination of his employment.”
At the BOG meeting, Whittaker and Marchena pointed to Merck as if the sole person responsible for the Colbourn Hall decision and failed to defend UCF in front of the state university system, according to Merck and Greene.
Whittaker, they argue, sought to absolve himself of fault by blaming Merck and repeatedly reiterating to media and lawmakers Merck’s decision to resign, despite the promise in private that his reputation would be protected if he resigned.
Ultimately, Merck did not show up to the meeting.
Knight News received no reply after emailing Cole for comment on the allegations.
Knight News at the same time uncovered a 2017 amendment in the way the university’s legal counsel is removed, unique to UCF: the president cannot remove the general counsel, the Board of Trustees must vote to remove.
The general counsel was largely expected to resign due to his deep-seated involvement.
Cole did not resign.
Board of Trustees Chairman Marcos Marchena
Marcos Marchena’s response to the news that funds were misappropriated reaffirmed his stance that no foul play took place. Marchena rebuked his former superior and claimed that President Hitt’s letter to Bryan Cave was not credible.
“At no time were the Trustees collectively, or me as Chairman, apprised that there was anything inappropriate about the use of the funding source for this project,” said Marchena via the same public relations department.
“I was saddened to receive John’s letter. It is not accurate, and I don’t find it credible. Our Board and President Whittaker will continue working to address the issues raised by Trevor Colbourn Hall.”
Perhaps the individual who began Whittaker’s march to resignation, Marchena was described by peers as a ‘puppet master’ to Dale Whittaker in his young presidency. The two were close before Whittaker ascended the ladder and in each other’s trust.
The Colbourn Hall state audit report and investigation applied pressure on several of UCF’s decision-makers, Marchena included. The trustees’ chairman was criticized for defining the scope of a private investigation in which he might be involved.
Marchena stepped down from all activities as BOT Chairman in front of the Florida Board of Governors on Jan. 31, 2019 to show sincerity in how he approached the matter, he said to the Board and on social media.
UCF President Dale Whittaker
Whittaker and UCF became enveloped in multiple investigations, private and public, surrounding not only Colbourn Hall and the misuse of more than $38 million in funds but the cover-up to hide incriminating actions.
As the Florida House of Representatives geared up a potential criminal investigation into Whittaker’s movement of money, according to a source within Tallahassee, the former president sought to head off further controversy by offering his resignation to the Board of Trustees while allowing UCF to move forward with new leadership.
The question that was first asked by Merck, Hitt, and their lawyer was why the current administration chose to deny and lie about the need to have Trevor Colbourn Hall constructed.
The answer to that question arose in nearly every interview: Whittaker relied on peers to make educated decisions to maneuver a hostile political environment, with the assumption that it would dissipate without recourse. Marchena had tremendous influence over Whittaker as a friend and ally, too much so according to outsiders.
Cole and Heston were anchored to the bedrock of the university and wielded just as much influence – even if Whittaker wanted to remove the counsel, it could not be done without a vote by the BOT. The temptation to stick to the story at each step evidently led to a clean house.
Merck and Hitt, original decisionmakers of replacing Colbourn Hall, claim that if Whittaker stood up for what they believed was an urgent public safety issue, UCF would have won the court of public opinion and in hand the Florida Legislature when explaining the issue.
The repeated requests for help by Merck to the Florida Legislature that went unanswered lost their favor when the chairman and new president chose to part ways as a successor. Whittaker’s plan was to make quick work of the investigation and continue his newfound responsibilities and the candid relationship he developed with the student body.
Yet the issue stung UCF’s blossoming image, and the old guard of the FTU campus went down with its youngest chief executive.
Whittaker resigned Feb. 19, 2019, the week before his inauguration as president.
The root of the problem did not reside in former UCF President Dale Whittaker.
