Lawsuit Alert 3
Madec's Unpaid Wages
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As the State Center Community College District (SCCCD) Board of Trustees continues to ignore the most glaring problem—the Goldsmith problem—the consequences of her retaliatory and vendetta-driven leadership keep circling back to the District and piling up in court, in the only language they seem to understand: lawsuits. The trustees’ posture speaks for itself. They appear more willing to gamble with taxpayer money and mounting legal exposure than to confront Goldsmith’s vendetta-driven decisions.
In this third installment of our “Lawsuit Alert” series, we examine a new case filed by former Fresno City College faculty member and basketball coach Edward Madec. This lawsuit is entirely separate from Madec’s earlier case against Chancellor Carole Goldsmith and SCCCD Police Officer Kallee Olivas, in which he alleges that, acting in their personal capacities, they violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and orchestrated his arrest—claims we examined in “Lawsuit Alert 2.” The Fresno Bee captured the gravity of that case with a blunt headline. [image below]
Here, we focus on Madec’s latest lawsuit, in which he alleges that SCCCD has refused to pay more than a year’s worth of back pay he is owed.
1. Edward Madec v. SCCCD
Filed on November 25, 2025, Edward Madec v. SCCCD is the latest chapter in what can only be described as a logic-defying, Trustees-backed Goldsmith vendetta against Madec. The full complaint is available below. [PDF below]
Madec, a longtime faculty member and multi-championship-winning head basketball coach at Fresno City College, has been fired not once but twice. In the first round, Goldsmith’s vendetta culminated in the Board of Trustees voting on October 6, 2020, to terminate his employment and to cut off his pay and benefits effective November 30, 2020. An administrative law judge (ALJ) with the State Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) later heard the case and, on December 22, 2021, dismissed all of the District’s charges and concluded that Madec should not have been fired. SCCCD reinstated his pay and benefits effective March 31, 2022.
The ALJ’s decision effectively meant that the Board of Trustees, steered by Goldsmith, had wrongfully terminated Madec’s employment. As in any wrongful termination case, that ruling triggered a straightforward obligation for SCCCD to pay the back pay and benefits owed to Madec for the period between November 30, 2020, and March 31, 2022. After all, had he not been wrongfully terminated, he would have earned his regular salary and benefits.
Instead, the trustees and Goldsmith have done what they do best by turning a simple legal obligation into an expensive legal war. Guided by law firms that profit from every extra billable hour, they have refused to pay Madec what he is owed. With every month of delay, interest climbs on top of the debt that should have been cleared on March 31, 2022. Layer on nearly four years of accrued interest, Madec’s attorney fees, and the District’s own mounting legal bills, and the total tab could easily balloon to over half a million dollars. And, of course, none of it comes out of Goldsmith’s pocket or the trustees’. It comes from taxpayers, who are once again forced to bankroll Goldsmith’s vendettas.
The complaint asserts two causes of action:
Breach of contract; and
Breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
In plain terms, Madec alleges that SCCCD not only broke its agreement with him but also violated its basic duty to act fairly and not sabotage his right to the benefits of that agreement.
In his prayer for relief, Madec asks the court for:
Compensatory damages;
General damages;
Special and consequential damages;
Prejudgment and post-judgment interest as allowed by law;
Reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred;
Costs of suit incurred; and
Such other and further relief as the Court may deem proper.
The complaint alleges that Madec was deprived of approximately $228,800 in pay and benefits between November 2020 and March 2022. Once you add years of interest, his attorneys’ fees, and the District’s own outside counsel bills, SCCCD could easily be staring at a total liability well north of half a million dollars. All for a bill they could, and should, have paid in 2022, had they chosen to make things right instead of funneling taxpayer funds into yet another round of legal fees and interest.
By now this all feels routine: safeguarding taxpayers’ resources and doing the right thing take a back seat to whatever half-baked plan Goldsmith devises in pursuit of her vendetta-driven, retaliatory agenda.
2. A Word for Supporters
Over and over, faculty and classified leaders who simply do their jobs of speaking up for the people who elected or appointed them, find themselves attacked, maligned, isolated, or targeted by Goldsmith and her cronies. Indeed, that pattern is not fading. It is intensifying. We have shown our readers that Senate leaders are being attacked. We hear that union leaders are in the crosshairs, too. We will remain vigilant. So must you.
If you do not stand up for these leaders now, we risk losing them. And when people see that those who speak out are dragged through the mud or buried in process, fewer and fewer will be willing to step up next time. Their ability to keep advocating depends on something simple but powerful: your willingness to show up, speak up, and back them when they are under attack.
Your presence and voice at the next Board of Trustees meeting on December 16, beginning at 3:30 p.m., are paramount. There are two ways you can make comments at the Board of Trustees meeting:
In person at the District Office, 1171 Fulton St., Fresno, CA 93721; and
On Zoom by clicking on the button below.
Our rights live or die on whether we’re willing to stand together when they’re under attack.
State Center Community College District (SCCCD) - Fresno City College (FCC) - Madera Community College (MCC) - Clovis Community College (CCC) - Reedley College (RC) - Dr. Carole Goldsmith - Chancellor Goldsmith - godmother Goldsmith - La Nina Goldsmith - Magdalena Gomez - Danielle Parra - Robert Fuentes - Austin Ewell - Deborah Ikeda - Nasreen Johnson - Destiny Rodriguez - Noel Reyes