Is Saturday a Sham?

In speaking with several people today, there seems to be a growing undercurrent that the Grand Tour of Morrisville Educational Facilities on Saturday is not going to be a real tour in the sense of fact finding and openness that today's Mitchell Report was for Major League Baseball. Instead, it's going to be a pre-bidathon for cronies to come in and get work because their friends are on the board now. I guess it's easy to hold a sham walkabout with your eyes closed and your mind equally shut.

It's a fine line to tread. Do you support the local contractor, who may have a vested interest in the job at his child's school (and need the work, too), or do you go with the larger contractor who is less local but big enough to handle the larger jobs? I know plenty of good, hard working local tradesmen (and women) who could, and should, have a fair share of work, whether it's a new K-12 building or restoring the three current buildings. I also know that there's a reason big contractors win big bids; they have the bandwidth to handle them. Take a look at the Trenton-Morrisville bridge project: there are plenty of local guys who do work on it, but there are some items where the resources of a larger company are needed.

I'm not very reassured by the actions of this new board only a week into the game. Dissenters are shut out; rational action is being shelved in favor of blind reaction; the innate hatred and bigotry that was only thinly veiled by the board candidates is being eroded away through the repeated actions of the board members.

Don't kid yourselves that this is just about the new school; it's about responsible stewardship. If you support the NSNs and what they are doing, then you are endorsing them and their activities, lock, stock, and barrel. Imagine if you were the one shut out at work because a new boss came in; imagine that your work is dismissed simply because you're one of the "old crew"; further imagine that you're held in complete contempt by the new boss. Yeah--I can hear you now "They deserved it!" "They tried to rob us in our taxes!" "We're just getting back what's ours!" That's fine. Believe that. And when it happens to you directly instead of you just watching someone else get it while you're on the sidelines of life, I will gladly provide the cheese to go with your whine. But that's all you'll get from me.

Morrisville Dempublicans...Republicrats...Whatever

Anyone have information on the status of the Morrisville Dempublican efforts at party purity?

The New School Dies Yet Again

To the utter surprise of no one, the new board formally strangled the new school last night. Also on the casualty list was Joe Kemp as board secretary (replaced by Marlys Mihok) and business admin Reba Dunford as treasurer (replaced by Gloria Heater).

The Morrisville school board meeting started with applause and whistles Wednesday night as the new members of the school board walked in.

The cheers continued when the board decided to stop plans for a new consolidated $30 million school that would have replaced the three existing school buildings.

The new school board voted 8-1 to abandon an appeal of a borough council decision rejecting preliminary development plans for the proposed consolidated pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade school.

If built, the facility would have replaced the ailing high school/middle school and the two elementary schools.

The new school board has made it known it wants to stop prior plans for building the new school.

Board members agreed Wednesday night to advertise for bids from engineering firms to examine and evaluate the mechanical systems at all three school buildings. It also voted to solicit professional legal services on a contingency basis in regard to possible litigation over expenditures for the proposed new school project that was stopped at this meeting.

In other news, the board voted to remove Joseph Kemp from the position of secretary. No reason was given, except that it was the board's prerogative, said board President William Hellmann. The board nominated and voted Marlys Mihok to replace him, effective Jan. 2.

Likewise, the board voted to remove Reba Dunford, the school district's business administrator, from the role of board treasurer. Gloria Heater was nominated and voted to replace her, also effective Jan. 2.

We knew that they wanted to stop the school, but it gets stopped three days before the Grand Tour of the Morrisville Educational Facilities is held? Does this mean that the tour is merely a cover and a pointless waste of time for the participants? All I'm saying here is that the needs of the district appear to be taking second place to blind action without heed to the ramifications. We expect this type of behaviour out of the students that the schools are housing, not the supposed adults running them. It sounds like the same precipitous behavior that led to the MESPA fiasco years ago is back in town. What would it have cost to wait until the January meeting to do this?