I understand the lack of discussion about the pending legal issue hanging over the District's head.
But ... The Teachers contract settled, with no public discussion of terms?
There was a high-level discussion of Community School operations (and yet another laborious rehashing of its history)..... But STILL no public discussion of actual financial results.
On the other hand, if you wanted to know about the Classroom Cupcake Crisis, Baby, this was the meeting for you! The discussion of classroom food regulations was endless and mind-numbing!
I wonder if the Great 4th of July Water Gun Crisis was discussed after I tuned out?
31 comments:
Is it any wonder students and parents are fleeing this district in record numbers?
There is, in this District, a leadership crisis. The School Committee and School Administration are so out-of-touch with real parent and taxpayer concerns that its alarming. Their Job 1 is public financial oversight and public budget advocacy and nobody on this Committee seems to know it or care!
Pile on top of that the fact that our Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen have for years said little about our schools in public except that they cost too much and budgets should shrink! What’s a parent and taxpayer to think but that nobody really cares for or about our schools.
Responsible, caring parents and taxpayers know just how awful the leadership is. The result? Anyone who can flee the District does just that. What’s stopping the rest? Only the fact that John Paul is costly and Sturgis is full – how awful is that? But, even our Town Manager acknowledged this truism at a recent Board meeting.
Unless and until the School Committee and School Administration get serious and clean up their fiscal messes (starting with the Community School) and bring short-term fiscal stability to our schools, nobody’s going to listen to pleas for more money and new investment.
And, until everyone on every board starts acknowledging that great schools require real investment (they really are expensive) this District will continue to be perceived by most as directionless, leaderless and less than competitive with comparable, local choices. To say that our Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen’s public treatment of our schools has been penny wise and pound foolish would be a gross understatement – just look at our out-of-district costs!
What’s the matter with Sandwich? In a word: leadership.
Leadership, SEA union president Laura Carlile actually running the S.C and Canfield. It's worse than lacking leadership, it's total dysfunction that's gone on under the Marshall regime.
We had a chance when Bob Guerin was the chair and actually making changes. No one paid attention or bothered to reelect him. Ya reap what ya sow.
Well, Joe, when do you plan to stop whining about lack of leadership from the cheap seats? How about lacing up your cleats and giving us the benefit of your brilliance out here on the field?
Upper Cape Tech freshman class is currently at 192 students. Approximately 390 kids applied. Roughly a 50/50 chance to get in if you apply. Talk about difficult getting into a public H.S. Yet another choice kids/parents are flocking too, than SHS!
This entire mess will be resolved once we have. Designated cultural District. People will come from miles around to admire our new "cultural district" signs. Yup, that's how I plan my vacation!
Of course, they will probably stay in Yarmouth, eat in Dennis and shop in barntble -- but I'm sure thy will find time to admire our "designated cultural district" signs.
The pathetic thing is that that meeting will probably cause more discussion than the entire Town budget!
That’s a remarkable post from the honorable Mr. Pierce, Selectmen, Town of Sandwich to a long-time resident, taxpayer and parent. Everyone should draw their own conclusions. He is quite the leader.
If nobody gives a darn about the cultural district as our municipal savior, .can we have a task force on why people ignore stupid meetings on pointless subjects?
We could meet at the library ..... Or, maybe at the site of the proposed new Boardwalk?
Remember, Reality Sucks!
Mr. Domingue, I was interested in your original post and the fact that you used a name. Yesterday I went to the Town Hall Annex and checked the lastest voter registration list, to see if you were registered, and you are not. So I thought maybe you weren't old enough to register, so I checked the 2011 of all persons 17 years of age & older, guess what, you are not listed there. Therefore,I can only conclude you are either under 17 years of age, or a fraud. You would probably be respected a little more if you used anonymous as an identifer. Mr. Pierce is correct, lace up your shoes, whoever you are, and get in the game if you don't like the way things are going.
If Joe Dominque is a real name then I apologize for assuming he is just one more of the cynical "anonymice" creeping around the blogs spouting critical nonsense while contributing nothing. If you want to talk leadership, then identify yourself and let's have a cup of coffee. My phone number is in the book.
come on folks.....isnt it obvious that taking cupcakes and all such things out of schools will solve all the problems this town faces??!! And Joe Jim Pierce is right...if you know so much and have all the answers step up to the plate!!!!!
The Truth Maker would respond to Mr. Pierce, in regards to the post made by Joe.
Joe provided a very astute and accurate accounting of his personal experiences here in Sandwich.
Your answer was not very appropriate, for many reasons.
Joe did not offer to get into political debates, you did.
As a leader[your choice] now with the town of Sandwich it behooves you to understand and respond in an appropriate manner. That every politicain here in Sandwich has used the same wording, since I have lived here.
What does your answer have to do with Joe.s evaluation and his reasoning to what he knows to be a first hand experience . He came to an appropriate conclusion from that experience, just like many of us have here in Sandwich.
To use your comments , this is not rocket science, its public relationships.
Now smile
7:45, You have waaaay too much time on your hands. Coincidentally, I looked up your name -- "Anonymous" on the voting list and saw nothing.
So you must be a fraud also?
You will find my name on the voting list ---- so what?
OK, OK, you caught me! Joe Domingue is a nom de plume. So, of course, the name isn’t on local voter records. Kudos to Johnny Jr. detective for that research time well spent. Talk about your creepy stalker types! Yikes! Why would anyone blog using their own name given this disturbing too much time on your hands behavior?
Mr. Pierce is an elected Representative. I’d think that this would mean that Mr. Pierce would be representing somebody – maybe even me? I thought I had raised some serious, real concerns in my post. I know that many others share my viewpoint and perspective. It would have been nice for Mr. Pierce to offer his viewpoint and perspective on the issues. Instead, sadly, he reverted to his usual – come to town meeting, participate in elections clap trap. You’re the elected representative Mr. Pierce – do something! Anything! (besides banning squirt guns in parades)
The politics of distraction is a local art form and Mr. Pierce is a master practitioner. In the skills of speak to anything but the issues he is no doubt a real leader – just read the blog posts he placed here; they speak for themselves.
In his last post, Joe chose to capitalize the word Representative. That illustrates the problem. Joe has confused representative democracy with participative deomcracy. In a representative democracy we periodically elect Representatives and then cross our fingers and hope they'll represent us. How is that working out at the federal and state level? Joe is among those who, out of misinformation or laziness, think that once one ambles down to the polls and spends fifteen minutes a year filling in a couple of arrows, his civic responsibility has been met. He then expects us to be his nanny and make decisions for him that Mass General Law place in the hands of Town Meeting and at the ballot box. Then he refers to my request that he get off of his sofa and participate as clap trap. My viewpoint on the issues can be found on the town web site by clicking on the Selectmen's Long Range Plan, which I played a leading role in writing. It could also be found in any of five or six articles I've written for the Enterprise. Or, you could try clicking on the Town Government Process Map, yet another effort to get folks to participate. Or, you could read the candidate profile the Enterprise published before the election. Or, you could read the piece I wrote for the Broadsider not long before the election. Or, you could have gotten out to candidate night and listen to how I answered those questions. Carl, with his cloak of invisibility on, says Joe reached a reasonable conclusion. That is only partly true. Joe lays it all on leadership. To the extent that leaders have to get voters off their collective butts, that's true. Voter apathy is one tough nut to crack. Until voters get their heads out of the sand, or some other place where the view is obstructed, Sandwich will remain becalmed in indecision.
Jim,
I strongly suspect Joe is a former elected official who got out of the game when he got fed up dealing with the very uninformed and uninvolved public who all too frequently elect unqualified and experienced officials who are focused solely on their own pet projects.
Local politics is like hitting yourself in the head with a 2 x 4 -- it feels so good when you stop!!
It used to be so much fun reading this blog. I could read posts and feel that I wasn't alone with my feelings towards the public schools and try to keep up with what was happening around town. Then Mr. Pierce began butting his nose into things and spouting off his usual whining about other people with jobs not running for public office. I thought this blog used to be informative, where people could simply vent their frustrations and be done with it. Those on the SC or BOS could read it from time to time to get some insight into what people were just thinking and talking about. Not all people, just some. Sometimes there were counter views which one could ponder and think about. This blog (at least this topic) is insane to read. People are going to town hall to track other people and their voting habits?? Mr. Pierce, with his nose stuck up in the air, feels the need to condemn residents for venting frustration. How dare you? I'm writing under Anonymous because it seems it's just not safe to actually put my real name there. Not only that, I write under Anonymous because frankly, I don't want anyone to know who I am when I want to just vent frustration. Trust me, if I have a real problem, I write to the superintendent, with my name and address on it. But for this blog, who cares WHO the the person is... it's a person who's frustrated with the crap dealt out by the public schools. Mr. Pierce, if this really is you, the Selectman of our town, why don't you just read what people are saying and try to feel something other than contempt. You don't have to comment and make other people feel inept, uninformed, or guilty for wanting to simply vent frustrations. I never knew you were such a pompous jerk. Proudly signed "Anonoymous" for my own reasons, not to be judged by you.
Anon 12:24,
Now you tell me! I could have used that bit of folk wisdom back in April ;-)
The point I'm attempting to make is that the problems with town government are ignorance (of how it is supposed to work)and apathy (toward making it work). What I keep getting back is, "I didn't know that and I don't really care."
Perhaps reducing the issues to a five page document where those issues are listed under four headings; providing services, capital management, tax base growth and community life-stlye has nothing to do with leadership. Or, maybe, reducing the mechanism of government by open town meeting to one picture with about 1000 words of explanation doesn't qualify either. Both are available on the town web site or in hard copy at Town Hall. We, the Board of Selectmen, are trying to make it easy for voters to get up to speed on both the system and the issues. But, the "hitting yourself in the head with a 2X4" analogy does apply.
Back to your corners fellahs.....
Now let me see if I understand Proudly Anonymous correctly. PA will graciously allow me to enlighten myself by occasionally reading the blog. But, should I have the nerve to comment on any of the content, I become a whining nosey pompous jerk. PA then assigns my motivation to contempt.
Quite the contrary, Sandwich has as intelligent and well educated an electorate as any community on the planet. The BoS has spent hundreds of hours over the past three years trying to get accurate information to those voters. The hope is that informed, intelligent voters will participate. You don't have to run for office. Just do a little reading and show up at Town Meeting and the polls.
Dealing with public safety facilities, inadequate senior services, shrinking school enrollment, school roof and window repairs, beach erosion, wastewater management, road deterioration, library HVAC systems, library expansion, town offices scattered to the four winds, etc makes my head hurt.
I think I'll get back to squirt guns and cup cakes.
Public safety complex is my favorite subject. I have one question.......will the town have better or worse coverage with a $30 million dollar building/buildings?
Good question. The answer is, better. The analysis is on pages 6 to 22 of the appendix of the Kaestle Boos Assoc, final report submitted Feb. 9, 2012 and available to the public. There are maps detailing "drive times" for all options considered: 1,1A,2,3,4,5,6,7,and 8. Have a look for yourself. But, if your mind is already made up, then don't bother to confuse yourself with facts.
I have read the report several times but know this concerning "drive times" (response times).............................................what you provide for someone with new building locations you take away from someone else. I'll let you digest that for a moment and ask the very simple question again. Is the service going to be better or worse with new building/buildings?
Whose mind is made up?
I like Selectman Pierce and have voted for him twice.
In this blog though he comes across as really angry (and maybe a bit tired).
I am thinking that maybe he suffers from the same self inflicted burn out that so many other elected folks do. It’s called: behaving publically like everyone else is an uniformed, uncaring idiot.
Whether they are or not doesn’t really matter; for someone like Mr. Pierce, this I Know All attitude is just the wrong behavior to engage in.
I hope Selectman Pierce takes a little time off this summer and recharges his batteries – patient, respectful listening is a very attractive and admirable trait.
I think that there are a lot of good points made in these posts from everyone.
Like Joe D. and Truth maker, I think that there is a huge difference between doing something and talking about doing something.
It strikes me that most of our town’s committee members, including Mr. Pierce, confuse the two and think that both the talking and the doing represent genuine accomplishment.
The map on page 11 is today. The map on 17 is the proposed option. The coverage shown on page 17 is better. The distance between the proposed satelite and current headquarters, will slow responses to Merchant Square, for example. The Village response times are longer in order to make responses to the red area on page 11 acceptable. That may not fit the definition of better for someone living close to headquarters. If the definition of better is changed to, "respond to all calls in under 6 minutes", now we have another problem with another price tag.
Now I have a question for you. Why do you feel the need to be anonymous to have this discussion?
Sort of funny but if you read Peirce’s own list of to do’s (see post above) it includes: dealing with public safety facilities, inadequate senior services, shrinking school enrollment, school roof and window repairs, beach erosion, wastewater management, road deterioration, library HVAC systems, library expansion, town offices scattered to the four winds, squirt guns and cup cakes. The funny (meaning sad) thing is about his list of accomplishments (my word not his) is that the only items actually done, finished, resolved are cupcakes and squirt guns.
Anonymous 9:12,
Thanks for the relatively kind words and the votes,I think ;-)
It's unfortunate if my posts come across as angry. I'm not. I certainly agree that talking and doing are vastly different. That's why the Board of Selectmen has put the energy we have into the Selectmen's Long Range Plan.
It took a year of talking before we put down on paper the May 2011 LRP. We did most of what we said we would. The voters supported us on the school repair debt exclusion, the library HVAC system, the zoning amendments, open space purchases, adding resources in senior services, more IT support. Pay-As-You-Throw is working, perhaps even better than expected. Wastewater planning is going well. Will that lead to action? The same is true of public safety planning. We have the beginnings of a school district master plan. The School Committee has formed a task team to move that forward. Time will tell on that one, too. The action items in the May 2012 LRP are a little more measureable and a little more focused than those of 2011, but, there is still work to do. The capital/debt management plan has made little progress.
Although we do get hung up in some interminable loops at some meetings, we are doing a few things beyond squirt guns and cup cakes.
Joe Domingue (is that like in Domingue the donkey? Ha ha, just kidding) Joe, seriously, I once read one of Jim Pierce's blog entries over on Randy's site and it really made my blood boil. Having spent my life in service to just about everyone but my spouse, I took him to task over the size of my couch that he kept picking on. Now, we happen to have a very small couch that barely fits the two visiting boxers when they come to stay and well, hell, I gave him my two cents from the anonymous side of the blogging world. Now, I too accused him of computing numbers for rocket launches with broken pencils... but... having met him in person, for a brief moment, I started to really listen to what Jim says and does by example. I also voted for him, in spite of my couch, because he does contribute a heck of a lot more than some of the voice boxes we call our BOS. Joe, I hate to say this, however, if you could find the time to sit with Jim over a cup of coffee on an issue, I bet he will change your mind on what it is that he really finds important. Now, if only we could get him to get a nice military haircut! Wow... ok, ok, before you yell at me too, maybe sharpen his pencils a little more and key in on some of his objectives. Just sayin....
Greg,
Thank you. Does that mean your sofa accepted my apology?
Jim,
Its french provincial and it doesn't speak english so I think it has 'Pardoned' you.. :) Good luck in the upcoming months..the discussions on the new Public Safety facility will be almost exciting as how we are going to find money to pay MEJ!
Monseur sofa, pardonez moi, s'il vous plaite. Je me ne pas intend vous offender.
@ Jim ...... :)
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