I'd like to welcome our first time visitors courtesy of this mention in the BCCT from Kate Fratti.
Thanks for the mention, Kate. Some days this blog can appear very critical and sarcastic. It's difficult not to be considering how things are going in this little town and some of the material I have to work with. But just like your own column and blog, sometimes there are good days, and sometimes there are bad. It's not easy writing every day. I do appreciate the commenters and contributors here immensely. Their participation keeps me grounded. Most of them are not supporters of the current board, but some are. There's quite a number of emails that I receive, and not all of them get posted. There's a growing number of people who are disgusted with the old board, and equally disgusted with the new board (yes, even people who voted for them!) who want a change for the better.
You bring up a good point about how the rhetoric can cause defensive reactions. This is pretty much the way the American political system works. Two polarizing minorities stir things up and it's up to the undecided central majority to make their decisions. When that silent majority finally does stand up, I would be pleased to lay down my digital quill pen. And in the meantime, if my modest attempt at blogging gets these people out of their living rooms and out to a school board or borough council meeting, then I'm a success.
4.18.2008
Funny but not helpful
Ok, the keepers of a blog called Save the Morrisville School are pretty funny some days. That is if bitter sarcasm is your thing. This week they doctored an aerial view of the home of school board member Brenda Worob with the words “Secret meeting” and arrows pointing to the house.
savethemorrisvilleschool.blogspot.com
This after the Worobs hosted a gathering of school board members — never more than four at a time to avoid a quorum — and insisted no school business was addressed. Hard to believe, says the Save the Morrisville School bloggers. I’m with them on this one.
Still, they are the bunch that got their arses handed to them last election after pressing forward with school plans despite public outcry. We’re witnessing the backlash.
The new board majority not only blocked construction, but looks like it’s making moves to do away with the school system entirely. Again, with a deaf ear to the community who didn’t want a new school, but also didn’t want the 116 year old system to fail on its watch.
So far, efforts to farm students out to other districts has failed. Not only because no other district is interested, but because a teachers contract protects against lay-offs and furloughs for five years.
Some days it appears to me the new board leaders have agreed to just kill the system slowly. No big moves, just constant chipping away at budgets, morale, reputation.
Stealth meetings, secret hirings, requests for personal information about kids that’s going to get them sued. All in the name of cost cutting.
Regular folks seem to have given up. Those still playing the insider baseball — the Save the Schools organizers — keep up a steady string of insults, fun making and delighting in the “gotchas!”
The rhetoric doesn’t leave any room for compromise, just backs everyone into defense mode.
Nothing will change in Morrisville until that does, or until the majority of Morrisville residents stand up and demand, “Enough, already!”
So far, that majority remains silent.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
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6 comments:
I was one of the bunch that got its arses handed to them last election - I've rarely been so relieved in my life. It takes a lot of effort, patience, thought, & commitment to do the job right and follow proper legal procedures (i.e. "the rules"). I'm not sure I would have had the energy or the patience for it. As we are all witnessing, it's a lot easier to just stick to an ideology and jam it home, and let the rules be damned.
I wasn't on the board in the 1st place, so I can't say I pressed forward with school plans despite public outcry. But I was fine and glad when the "old" board did so - they were elected to evaluate information and make the best decisions they could, not just do whatever "the people" say. Sorry, "the people", but "the people", especially the ones out there doing their day jobs, raising families, and not tuned-in to Morrisville politics, can be mislead by propaganda. I told people during the campaign that I wouldn't fall on my sword and die for a new school, but I had seen enough of the Stop the School candidates to know I didn't trust them or their tactics(apologies to Robin Reithmeyer, who has shown she's up to the job). And they didn't then, and still haven't, put forth a decent plan for dealing with the conditions of the 3 aging school buildings (no, going out for bid for repairs listed in a $2,500 cursory authorized-after-the-fact study of the Middle-High School only is not a plan). I have yet to see a better plan than the one to build a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient, new single campus K-12 facility that's two-thirds the same size as the existing 3 buildings. The energy savings alone from such a facility would achieve substantial long-run cost savings, and that was when oil was $50-70/barrel - now, it's $117. But the naysayers, distorters, and non-expert experts poisoned the well, and let's face it, it's hard to convince people to spend $1 now to save $2 later, so the new school is dead.
I too realize that I and others on this blog can be sarcastic. I find a lot of it funny, and I hope I've been able to give people a few yucks from time to time. Most of the "insults" and "gotchas" are, in fact, true. I try to save the pointier barbs for those I feel have really earned it. And, I wish I could say more, but Kate Fratti and the "silent majority" don't even know the half of what the new board has been up to. I really don't think the comments on this blog are pushing the new board and its supporters into a defensive posture. They were there already, and most will never come out of it, no matter what. But I believe most of the people who contribute to this blog are not hard core extremists like the "other side". I believe they are much more capable of understanding both sides of an issue and compromising. I hope Mrs. Fratti stays on this story to see for herself. She shouldn't take my word or anyone else's for it. But look at it this way - she was on the story for about 5 minutes and the new board members lied to her. That tells you something.
Kate has a point, but I agree with Jon, that the new Board majority has not shown themselves willing to compromise. They campaigned on promises of transparency and a willingness to listen to the people. Their secret meetings, secret plans to farm out students, secret data gathering about IEP students, and secret, president-only authorized bids have shown they are not going to be transparent. And listening to the people stopped when the election was over; now there is a new opposition stepping up to speak at the board meetings and it is all falling on self-righteous, deaf ears.
Yes, I too had my arse handed to me in last year's primary. The people did speak and they were loud and clear about the new building. OK, I get that. And I am OK with the notion of renovating our schools instead of building new. Really. (Truth be told, prior to getting onto the board I had emailed the then-current members and recommended that they slow down the process and seriously consider a referendum.) I'm not convinced renovation will happen either. It's hard to know, however, since the new board has not definitively (or at least publicly) laid new plans.
One piece of propaganda that continues to be launched by the Stop the School folks is that our test scores suck and that a new building wasn't going to fix that. I have two problems with this: first, this makes it seem like our students need to "earn" a better facility which, if true, is an outrage; second, lets all take a collective breath and see what we can do to fix this problem instead of continuing to flaunt it. (Trust me, that is not helping your property value)
So, Kate, you are correct in your assessment that nothing will get better until there is a willingness to compromise and a collective effort is made by all sides to make it better. I'm willing.
Until then our buildings will continue to deteriorate.
P.S. the satellite photo was no different than a polical cartoon, which is a form of journalistic point-making through satire. Please continue to allow it.
The more I've thought about this today the more I think Ms. Fratti is right. We (myself included) too often use this site as a place to bitch and too infrequently use it as a place to pitch ideas. It is presumtuous to think the current Board reads this blog faithfully (although I suspect they do) but perhaps we can use it as a sounding board for ideas that can then be pitched to the Board by whomever is willing. Will they listen? I don't know, but we should try. It's like what I've for years told my employees -- don't come to me just to tell me there is a problem; tell me there is a problem then suggest ways to fix it.
But, alas, don't drop your poison pen just yet. The occasional sarcasm sprinkled throughout will keep it fun for all.
I applaud and admire Kate Fratti for the columns she has written about the situation in Morrisville. It takes a lot of ... guts... to sit in a car outside someones house and count cars to build a case for her point of view. I mean that, sincerely, it's good stuff.
But with regards to what is posted here on this blog, she is flat wrong. And here is why:
The time and place to bring critical issues and opinions to the board in a considered and thoughtful manner is at public board meetings. Thanks to the current board (and with no slight toward other previous boards who may, or may not, have acted in the same manner) this avenue has been completely cut off. There is no venue, no mechanism for voicing new, constructive and helpful ideas AND HAVE THEM BE LISTENED TO.
The people of Morrisville who do have something to say, mainly these bloggers, have been shut out, closed down, sealed off. Hence, an immense build-up of frustration and anger broils within.
"Ah!" you might say, "This supports what Ms. Fratti is saying then. People should use this blog to put forth those ideas, have their reasoned voice heard, and release this pressure cooker of frustration."
Why?
We are all just talking to ourselves. No one, who is in a position to take action on our ideas, or to lay them out in a forum for public discussion, is even taking note of our rantings.
If you go back through all of what has been written here, and take out the sarcastic, the parody and the insulting, you will find many brilliant ideas and solutions to the problems of, not only the Morrisville School system, but of the whole economic and social situation in town. And I dare say, there will be many more ideas to come. Additionally, you will find reasoned argument as to why other proposed actions will fail or will not meet their stated goals.
But not one of these ideas or opinions will make it into public forum, because the door to discussion has been shut tight.
We all (and I speak rather sweepingly of the regular bloggers on this site) have, ourselves, been backed into a corner by the bulldog tactics of Steve Worob and the like. Yet each of us has taken time to passionately state our opinions without holding the Borough ransom for our views. Mr. Worob has consistently monopolized his bully pulpit, beating others back if they don't share his same views.
We have choosen another way, that of blogging. And by doing this, we free up public meetings for the business of the public rather than grandstand just to see ourselves talk on the public access feed later that night.
Finally, Kate criticises the very thing that she herself, and her employer, do on a daily basis. Her column regularly carries a dose of humor, sarcasm, political jokery while making her point. I suggest that the responses she receives from many of her writings incites a future column, as it so often does for John Mullane. And just pages away, on the Op-Ed page, a page dripping with acidic comment, appears a daily editorial cartoon, lampooning some political situation for the purpose of illustrating a differing point of view.
Keep the sarcasm, the criticism, and the political commentary coming. I for one look forward to reading, and then responding to it all.
Borows
P.S. With so many anonymous and aliased authors, who is Kate criticising, really? How can she tell one player from the next? In the end, it comes down to a criticism of the editor, whom I believe is doing a marvelous job of keeping this blog lively and spirited.
Borows, I don't disagree with you that our comments and ideas are simply being dismissed. But does that mean we should give up trying?
Never give up trying.
:^)
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