Minions of the Light: The good news is that the back-room-Star-Chamber policy making has moved on to the public podium during board nights. That's what the last board meeting proved. It was a show that exposed the Minions of Darkness in all their sooty tints.Griffin and Valdes have broken through the veil of secrecy that has covered up the board and administration's back-room dirty deals in contracting and in hiring. On the horizon may be payoffs and graft. That was the scenario at HCC when I was union president there.
We union members negotiated the contract and countered administration moves against members ourselves. That's what CTA should do in the schools. Teachers should kick out the overpaid CTA staff that works for Ms. Elia, not teachers, and appoint committees to do the union's work: teachers working for teachers.
The lawyer, Mr. Gonzalez, weighed in on the side of status quo. He volunteered his comment as I recall. He just jumped in.(On reviewing the tape, I see I am mistaken: Ms. Cathy Valdes invited the attorney to comment before all the board members weighed in. His comments were after those of the board members and hence strategically effective because of the last-to-speak position. The attorney was distinctly in favor of the status quo, emphasizing the diffiulties of changing to a bid system. I thought his comments came down too hard on how difficult it would be to bid instead of the current system of naming people whom the administration or board knows or to whom they have some connection.)
I have asked for public records to see what Mr. Gonzalez's remuneration is, whether he got his appointment via good-ol-girl-boy influence (see previous post), and what he got paid for presiding over the trial and appeal in the crucifixion of Doug Erwin. I want to know why lawyers, accountants, and realtors are not liable to bids.
I want to nail down whether Le Gonzalez enjoyed the no-bid situation he endorsed so spiritedly on the podium because he got his job and keeps it by giving legal backup to the status quo of the administration's crooked bid deals and hiring with the board's rubberstamp. A Florida Bar ethics query may be necessary.
I find strange that while Edgecomb, Olson, Kurdell, Lamb, and the attorney all sang the praises of spending tax money blindly on no-bid contracts and--by extension--no-advertising administrative jobs with bloated salaries from the public kitty, the same board--including Susan Valdes and Griffin, their education's not yet being then complete, alas--endorsed Elia's plea for budget crisis when she piled another class on teachers when the board allowed her to savage teachers in her sneak attack. There is no budget crisis when paying for no-bid contracts for buddies and bloated salaries for administrators who owe their slots to cronyism.
Two teachers showed up to complain about the burdens they bore. They both sounded dispirited. I think the board except for Valdes-Griffin is immune to such teachers' pleas. Candy says teachers are lazy. Ms. Edgecombe is protecting her administrator-daughter's future administrative climb to the top of ROSSAC is my guess about her determinedly innocuous performance as a board member. Kurdell is dormant until election time, when she wakes up to vote as Elia directs and to accuse people who don't agree with her of distrusting the staff. Ditto for Lamb. We have here board potted-plant zombies sunk into the corruption of the cronyism that marks the status quo. The only answer is to replace them.
I believe Faliera pulled a psychosomatic syncope and escaped via ambulance to the hospital to avoid voting on hiring Cathy Valdes's acquaintance choice (see what La Gaceta uncovered about him below) for a $158,000 contract without the bids that Griffin and Valdes demanded. Faliera's personal and professional life is a mess--not to mention her keeping U-Haul in business with her peregrinations between districts in the dead of night.
I am going to look at Cathy Valdes's personnel file. I bet her bona fides are slender; Elia hired her with no advertising is my understanding.
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Here's what La Gaceta printed yesterday:
| Date: | Fri, 9 Nov 2007 19:11:59 -0800 (PST) |
| From: | "lee decesare"  View Contact Details  Add Mobile Alert |
| Subject: | press somnolence |
| To: | ptash@sptimes.com |
| CC: | ehooper@sptimes.com, lstein@sptimes.com, tisch@sptimes.com, "Howard" |
Has the mainstream press surrendered its duty to keep citizens informed? No wonder the blogs will bury the old stream press. lee drury de cesare
From La Gaceta: Optimum Facilities isn't listed in the phone book, doesn't appear to have a commercial location, has no website, doesn't answer its phone during business hours and its phone message doesn't mention the name of the company, personnel or hours. We left a message to ask if this was the firm's first job but received no return phone call. To us, it appears that it is the firm's first job. It looks like Blackwell's friends at the district are helping him start up his business with this contract. Well, isn't that nice, especially since Mr. Blackwell was never that nice to contractors who tried to do business with the district. He would have never allowed a startup company with no track record to have a no bid contract.
lee drury de cesare
The Wall seems to be hibernating, but the TB blog ( http://blogs.tampabay.com/schools/2007/) is going great guns. Here are some excerpts of the comment section:
I see more bad news with this sentence:
"The district even could offer financial rewards for good ideas."
This reminds me of the stereotypical wife after a shopping spree where she spent more than the budget allows on "sales" and then says to her husband "But look how much money I saved". And then she complains that her husband doesn’t bring home enough money and that is why there is a budget problem.
Perhaps the Board could show the way. It appears that some Board members see their role as simply rubberstampingfont> recommendations that are presented to them. Unless a member’s comments are accolades of what a good job the recommendernt> did, any hint of discussion is interpreted as untrustingnt>. It would be great if each member made a comment that demonstrated their comprehension of the money they are spending. If they can’t, then why bother to have approval power. Just let the recommender> do it and move on.
What is the purpose of a Board meeting? Is it to discuss the business of the school system? Is it to discuss education? Is it to make a public display of how grand everything is?
well they might start by getting rid of all the useless deputy, assistant, associate superintendents, district directors, teachers on special assignment, former over the hill administrators with consulting contracts (all of whom play little to no roll in the education of students).
Believe me, these large school districts have plenty of bacon to be cut.
What's fantastic is, they're caught in a tightening vise which keeps squeezing.
As the state budget continues to tank and the legislature is forced to cut more spending, the class size amendment restrictions keep phasing in.
Add to that the likely passage of the January 29thnt> tax cut referendum and you've got a real problem if you're a school district fatcat>.
What's a bloated bureaucracy to do?
The beauty of the situation is the district is forced to cut administration because they can't touch the classroom.
You guys didn't really think they would spend the excess money on the kids did you?
As a school teacher, I see plenty of waste in the school district, both at the school level and the administrative level. If each school, and the district staff create a committee of teachers and such to see where expenses can be cut. At my school, for instance, we have two non classroom teachers that make in excess of $50,000 that are basically glorified secretaries. Why? Also, why do we need to buy technology and classroom supplies from only a selected group of vender's when their products are so much more expensive. For instance, if we wanted to buy markers for the classroom, we can go to target and buy them much cheaper (50 cents at the start of the school year), but we can't! We must buy them from Office Depot at a much more expensive price!
I can go on for a while on this subject! Don't get me started on the waste of electricity at the schools and downtown offices!