Shameful Display of Arrogance

Wow. Here's another of those NSNs with a letter to the Courier Times today.

LETTERS
Undoing democracy: Shameful display of arrogance
Even though members of the current Morrisville school board, who push for new school construction, were severely trounced in the recent primary, they forge ahead and seek to undo the mandate of voters despite the opposition of the community. The board pulled a fast one and convened a special meeting without sufficient public notice, and also stacked the audience with supporters, including spouses of board members, to have it deceptively appear that the community supports what the majority of voters rejected. What a shameful display of arrogance to suggest that 75 percent of voters do not reflect the views of the broader non-voting community. On whose authority are these proclamations uttered? What a reprehensible example for the children the board professes to speak for, suggesting that democratic safeguards can be easily eroded with bullying tactics and disregard for honest and fair proceedings. The hostility, intolerance and open contempt with which the board views the public, replete with board members barking orders in the most uncivil manner, serve as deplorable models for the next generation. For the board and its sycophants to embrace the monopoly concern over education is a false claim, considering a study revealing that districts intent on building McSchools were doing so at the expense of quality education. Make no mistake, all members of the lame duck board who pushed their misguided project lost by a landslide, and now they want to run up the costs even more. There should be no excuses, rationalizations or lame attempts to invalidate that reality because time has passed — or insinuations that a silent majority’s rallying cry of “Move Morrisville forward” translates as support of the disapproved plan. As Jed Gibson, husband of lame duck board President Sandy Gibson, stated in the public comments after the elections in which his wife won a seat: “The people have spoken.”

You know...when someone is destined to spout opiniated ignorance, you sometimes have to let them, but this is really pretty bad.

The special meeting stuff...get a life. At the few meetings I have attended, all I've heard is how the Courier Times is the Pravda of the Morrisville Soviet Union School Board and "secret" "special" meetings are printed in tiny fonts at the back of the paper in-between the horoscopes for Libra and Sagittarius in codespeak that only the Illuminati of the 57th level can understand. Please. The Courier Times is hardly the house newspaper of the Morrisville School Board. In fact, I can safely declare them to be associate NSNs.

Bullying tactics? Disregard for fair and honest proceedings? Hostility, intolerance and open contempt? Remove the telephone pole from your own eye before you start speaking about the eyelash in mine! I have been sickened by the display of constant bullying by the NSNs. I saw one speaker at a recent meeting be cornered by one of the putative board members-elect and bullied because he dared to oppose her. The "stacked audience" of NSN sycophantic supporters have even brought coolers filled with soft drinks and pop the tops noisily when PSPs are speaking. They are by and large a rude and obnoxious group, catcalling and harassing PSP speakers, and demanding strict silence when a NSN speaks. One brought stuffed "lame ducks" to a meeting to present to the departing PSPs, thinking she was so smart and cool. In today's world, that could have been seen as a terroristic threat to the well-being of the members. Fortunately, the members realized she was just being herself. Same for the man who kicked the wall to demonstrate how well built the current school walls were. Cinderblock construction usually is. (Memo to Mr Kicker: See the doctor quickly. Your meds need to be adjusted.)

Then there's the 75% stuff. I will say it again...the NSN candidates defeated the PSP candidates by a 3 to 1 margin in the primary. It was a 75-25 vote split. I agree with this assertion. But who voted? The party faithful and the ones who the NSNs convinced to declare a party affiliation today so they could vote and then change it back tomorrow.

So let's look at the results, courtesy of the Bucks County website.

The largest school board vote getter was Al Radosti, who received 706 Democrat and 459 Republican votes, for a total of 1165 votes. This means that at least 1165 people voted, some not voting for all six candidates. This is a larger than normal turnout.

Then let's look at the 2006 general election results, where any registered voter, not just the party faithful, can vote. The bottom of page 4 shows the Morrisville results. The race that received the smallest number of votes was the race for the PA140 Representative, where there were 1723 votes for Democrat Galloway and 895 votes for Republican Montone, for a total of 2618 votes cast. That means at least 2618 voters turned out for the election, with the marquee race for governor between Rendell and Swann obtaining 2696 votes.

That means that Mr Radosti received only 44% of the general election vote total. This means that less than half of the registered voter turnout (let's not start on the number of register voters who do not even bother to vote!) are on record as supporting the NSNs.

For the voters who are showing up at the polls in November: Did you realize that a vociferous narrow minded group of half truth tellers already hijacked your choice? When you show up at the polls, the Democrat and Republican lines will already be pre-populated with the names of the NSNs. Yes...this is how our democracy works: The groups who organize early and with a lot of noise do win. Most Americans take the right of voting for granted and fail to appreciate how much their vote means, not only in the general election, but the primary as well.

I salute the NSNs. They ran a great game. They used the "No New Taxes" mantra as skillfully as former President Bush did, and they are going to probably win in November and be seated in December. Then they inherit the mess.

The NSNs have been very quiet with their plans. Here's my challenge to them: You've had the months of May, June, July, August, September, October, and November to make your decisions. When December rolls around and you're seated, I expect a blaze of activity and popular lifesaving not seen since the glory days of Franklin Roosevelt and the Hundred Days of the New Deal. I expect you to lower the tax burden and provide us with top notch quality school buildings.

Yeah, OK. Here's the scoop. I expect you to do squat. You're going to do nothing but move the district backwards, and in four years, we'll have to vote your butts out and find someone who can do the job. Meanwhile, the opportunity will have been lost and the new school to be started in 2011 will cost even more that it would now.