OK, after several meetings and discussions with the bosses, deaner and myself, here is the overall outcome of the situation:
-deaner will resign from his admin role and remain on the boards as a regular poster.
-starting tomorrow there will a "code of conduct" window that you will see once a year where you will click to agree to the terms before entering the forum. once you've done it, you won't see it again for a year. it was written by the owenrs of slap/high speed and outlines general conduct to adhere to while using the site, as well as consequences for not adhering-- these are basic rules that go for all users of the forum, admins and mods too. it's basic stuff, talking about not posting people's private info (ie IP addresses, home addresses, etc), not posting things that violate local or US law, if you're under 18 there is some material on this site which it is illegal for you view and not to do it, etc. then it says if anybody, admins/mods included, goes too far with anything, you get one warning and then you get banned outright.
hopefully this code of conduct and the resolution with deaner will take care of everybody's issues and we can move ahead.