Who's out there? Why ?

Useless data can be amusing -- I periodically review the stats for this site to see if I'm the only one reading it.  Surprisingly, I'm apparently not alone!

In addition to 40,000 + US hits, I also recently received almost 400 from Canada, and almost 100 each from Russia, Germany, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

I also received another 100+ hits from China, Latvia, Slovenia and France.  (Please don't ask me to find Slovenia or Latvia on a map!!)

If it Quacks Like a Duck ...

There was an interesting discussion going on over at Randy Hunt's blog this week.  It seems somebody took exception to certain acts of the former Community School Executive Council being called "illegal" in comments added by local Political Gadfly and Bass Fisherman Extraordinaire, Carl Johansen.

The person was apparently unwilling to post a response, so they must have lobbied Representative Hunt privately.

I applaud Randy for pointing out that the independent audit firm (which had been hired by the prior School Committee) had, in fact, highlighted an act of the former Executive Council which had, indeed, violated state law. And, as a result, he allowed Carl's comment to stand.

Pointing out who broke what law seems to have become a new parlor game around Town -- but, hey, a spade is a spade!

Just to be clear ...

My concerns with the Community School have always focussed on the unfairness of the fact that resources from one program were being used to subsidize another program.  Tax dollars intended for K-12 classes, the profits on drivers education, building rentals, were all being used to effectively subsidize pool operations.  The recent audit supported those concerns.

I don't think anybody was receiving any personal gain from this diversion of funds.  Which is why the many comments received inferring such activity are rarely published, and frequently removed (in case I missed them the first time!).  

There's an interesting letter in the CCT from a COTUIT engineer who uses the pool and volunteered to do an energy study of it.  I saw his report -- but I never saw any "suggestions" to save $200,000 --- I am pretty sure I would have remembered that!  

It's funny how many people from other towns are fighting over the pool issue.  I'm not sure why they think Sandwich taxpayers should be contributing to reduce the cost of their dip in our pool.

SC Agenda

Yup.  You guessed it .... copier contracts tonight.

Again.

Thank God we were able to elect 7 adults to supervise several professional staff people to pick out JUST THE RIGHT copy machines !  How do other Towns function without an elected Copier Committee ?

(Not a bad way to pass the time between lawsuits -- and certainly more fun than resolving contracts or figuring where to cut $3 million from the Budget!)

Is it hard to type with your head up your ...?

"Sorry about the rug.  I missed the Emptyprize..."

Given the option of purchasing the Emptyprize for use in housebreaking the puppy, my personal preference would be to replace the family room carpet.  But, sometimes more reasonable personalities prevail at our house ....

Last week's Emptyprize editorial was definitely a pile of puppy, ah ...., stuff.

I'm  not going to belabor the obvious -- yes, I voted for the Supt.  Yes, I renewed the Supt.  Yes, I think the Editor has his head up his  ...

I just haven't had the time to respond to last week's inane editorial.  But, I did receive the following comment from someone that I think would make a fine post all by its self:

Who’s putting Jaegermeister in the Kool-Aid at the Emptyprise?

The Community School Audit Part IV (The CCT Almost Gets It Right...)

The CCT finally mentioned last summer's audit of the Community School this morning.

Here's a few clarifications:

Yes -- The pool did pay utility costs last year.  But, only after kicking and screaming and fighting with the prior school committee.  OK, slight exaggeration -- but the only reason ANYTHING was paid last year was because last year's committee fought for it.  What about the 15 years before that?  Did the Community School not know they weren't paying the bill?

Yes -- The Community School did contribute some "in kind" services to  the School District -- BUT those "donations" were far less than the District's cost of funding Community School-related expenses and FAR LESS than the revenue from the rental of School facilities that the Community School was receiving!

Another great quote:  "A lot of things have been rectified since '09," she said. "We're definitely taking (the audit) seriously, but we have to wait for the final letter."    This raises two points:

1)  Yes, changes were made last year --  particularly the disbanding of the old Executive Council but Sherry and the Community School crowd fought against those changes tooth and nail.

2)  There is no "final letter".  The auditor delivered the Committee a draft report for them to respond to -- their responses will be incorporated into the Final report.  There can be no Final Report UNTIL they respond.

This can of worms needs to be cleaned out.  The programs need to be run with a very simple mantra -- no program unless it can be fully paid for by its participants.  The Sandwich taxpayers should not be expected to allow their K-12 education dollars to be diverted to outside activities.

The Emptyprise lives up to its name ...

This Just in .... Stop & Shop has moved the Craisins from Aisle 3 to Aisle 5.
  Grief Counselors have been brought in to assist shoppers ...

It's been a big news week.  A popular local Businessman and former Selectman was elected State Rep, and what some considered a badly needed investment in local infrastructure went down in flames -- along with a  local congressional candidate and a local state senate candidate.

But, that was nothing .... those small-potato stories were relegated to the bottom of the Emptyprise's front page this week.  Above the fold was reserved for the big stories .... Superintendent suing School District and the story with true Pulitzer potential, "Supermarket's Remodel Causing Some Confusion Among Shoppers"!

Holy Catfish!  Stop the presses!  I can see Les Nesman rushing over in the WKRP mobile news unit now to cover this crisis.  I was panicing when I rushed to Page 3 and couldn't find the promised continuation of the story.  Fortunately, it was just another typo -- the thrilling conclusion actually re-appeared on Page 7. 

With all the time and effort putting into covering these crucial news events that effect us all so  deeply (They moved the damn potatoes --- can you imagine the inconvenience!!), I could see why they just wouldn't have the resources to cover less-important stories.

That must be why the Emptyprise has still not reported on the fact that an independent audit has criticized the operation of the Sandwich Community School and supported the concerns of  former school committee members.  Ironically, they seemed to have plenty of resources available last year to criticize those who worked to make changes in the Community School to bring it into compliance with the law.

Funny how that works.

Just to refresh somebody's memory ...

Ms. Linehan claimed last night that she did two evaluations of the Superintendent last year.  She knows this is nonsense.  There was one review done and both her and Ms. Marshall refused to make any written contribution to it, or verbally supply any specific reasons for their scores.  The review was concluded during a public televised session on April 28, when member comments were read aloud, and every member was given the opportunity to make additional comments as they felt appropriate.  Neither Marshall, nor Linehan made any additional specific comments at that time which had not been previously incorporated into the written document.

The below memo was previously appended to the minutes of the April 7, 2010 Executive Session minutes.  Copies were also previously supplied both to School Committee Counsel and the District Attorney's Office.

Addendum to 4/7/2010 Executive Session Minutes

Jessica Linehan submitted a pre-printed statement for inclusion in the minutes of the 4/7 Executive Session before she left the meeting for the evening.  This statement is intended to respond to and clarify that statement.

At the beginning of the review process, I requested that all members submit written comments to me for inclusion in the consolidated review document via email.  I noted that the use of email is not prohibited for such purposes if these comments were to be delivered solely to me for inclusion in the consolidated document and were not to be circulated to other members.  Ms. Linehan chose not to submit any written comments for the document.

This draft document was discussed in Executive Session on September 9 but was NOT completed or voted upon by the Committee because a consensus was reached that the evaluation date would change to March 31 for two reasons:

(1)   The use of a review period ending on June 30 meant that new committee members with as little as 6 weeks of experience would be evaluating the Superintendent.

(2)   The March 31 date more closely approximated the June 30 contract end date.  This would allow the contract terms to more closely correspond with actual evaluation results.

On March 17, a discussion draft of the prior incomplete evaluation document was distributed to members for review and discussion at the next meeting.  There was no discussion of the contents of the document.  This working draft had been marked up only to serve as the starting point of contract discussions.

The Chair did NOT arbitrarily inform the Committee that the evaluation date had been changed – the Committee had agreed to that previously, as had the Superintendent.

Any performance-related discussions were inextricably linked to discussions of the Superintendent’s employment contract, which is an allowed use of Executive Session.  I would also note that the employee evaluation form itself is not a public record.

A public discussion of the Superintendent’s evaluation is scheduled for 4/28, concurrent with discussion of the extension of the Superintendent’s contract.

RFS

PLEASE -- Before you say "The meeting was invalid and so was the contract, blah, blah, blah ..." -- Please click here for one more explanation. as to why you may be wrong.  

The Gloves Are off (Part II)

As expected, the CCT reported today that The Superintendent has filed a suit for breach of contract against the Town, the School Committee, and (as a nice touch!), Marshall, Linehan, Kangas & Crossman personally.

Despite the lawsuit, the Committee voted to approve a contract with the Mass. Association of School Committees (MASC) to serve as the headhunter to lure some silly bastard into joining their flea circus.  There was no discussion last night of what this contract will cost, or what the contingencies are (ie. do we pay if she stays?).  

But, what the hell it's only money!

After watching last night's meeting, one viewer commented that "it appears somebody took their Stupid Pills last night."

The Committee also decided to discuss the evaluation process they will use for the Supt -- yes, the Supt they have already fired!   Let's see if we can follow that thought process:

1)  Supt gets good evaluation last April and gets contract renewed for two years

2)  Supt gets fired in June

3)  Supt files a lawsuit

4)  Supt gets another evaluation (six months later)

What possible purpose is there in evaluating somebody who has been fired? 

Do they have that much free time?

Do they think their evaluation will in any way aid the job performance of somebody they have already fired?  

Do they think the Supt even cares what they think -- or that their completely uninformed, uneducated, opinion has any value to anyone? 

Are their egos so inflated that they think that people care what THEY think?

You can't make this stuff up.

No Surprises ...

As expected, the proposed Capital Debt Exclusion went down in flames.  I'm not saying it wasn't needed -- just saying that given the obvious mood of the electorate, it seemed pretty apparent it wasn't going to fly.

It's unfortunate that it may jeopardize state reimbursement for the school roof projects.  I would hope the School Committee would get a little more involved next time and propose the roofs as a separate article explicitly tied to the State reimbursement.  But -- the whole capital maintenance process has historically bypassed the School Department (not just this School Committee).

I have to assume that there will be an Override attempt in the Spring -- I would hope that establishing specific capital maintenance reserves would be part of that package.  Perhaps the BOS could propose  a local bylaw that REQUIRES a certain amount be reserved for Capital maintenance each year?  That may prevent future Boards from diverting maintenance funds to operations.  It will also force Boards and taxpayers to face drastic issues -- the biggest issue being that we can not spend what we do not have. 

It's a popular opinion that Jim Pierce's last minute "We have More Money Than You Think" tour of the PTA's and his BOS slideshow on SACAT did more harm than good.   Do we have money or don't we?   If the intent was to make folks more comfortable about raising their taxes now in advance of another (smaller than expected?) Spring override -- the effect was exactly the opposite.  The discussion badly eroded confidence in the original budget projection as people decided to sit back and let this mess work itself out.

It is crucial that the BOS finalize a budget projection, assign a dollar value to the school budget, and then outline what town services will  be eliminated to meet that budget.  The Schools can then determine what they will need to cut -- and the public can decide what (if anything) they want to pay for in the next Override.