Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch

Linda Cobbe, Public Affairs Office HCSB:

Linda, this is a reminder that I want the dollar amount that Tom Gonzalez’s firm charged taxpayers for conducting the Erwin trial and appeal (I believe there was one).

I still await Ms. Bricklemeyer’s address and I want to add Mr. Joe Newsome’s. lee

May 10, 2008

Dear Mr. Erwin:

I wrote you a couple of years ago when I was a columnist for La Gaceta. I asked that you let me do a column on your post-retirement status and how you looked back on the experience of your ordeal in the school employ of the Hillsborough County School Board.

I didn't hear from you.

I have since been able to get access to the Erwin files after I filed a Florida-bar-ethics charge against Tom Gonzalez. I spent quite a few hours covering the three thick notebooks and two boxes that explore the case.

My favorite excerpt was when you began to fight back and took the reporters up on the roofs to see how bad the construction of the new buildings was: construction for which the school board had allowed the taxpayers to pay top dollar but the quality of which was shoddy. I said, "Hooray! Mr. Erwin is fighting back at last."

The only thing the school board and administration responds to is the press's attention. Then they scramble, as the board and administration did, to set up study groups to review the problems you had pointed out to Davis, Hamilton, and Lennard for years. They were perfectly content to see McClelland, his nephew, and Roosevelt, et al rob taxpayers, overlook workers' keeping no time sheets, and the contractors' using shoddy materials and methods for new schools but getting paid top dollar for them with the board's and administration's collusion.

I can't help believing that the last two situations had connection with graft both for the administration and the board.

The Public Affairs office told me nobody got punished except a couple of people were reprimanded and one fired. McCllenland is apparently rich on his new spread in the next county thanks to the taxpayers and an indifferent administration and board.

So the hustle of the board and the administration after the press caught on to the situation was what the board and press usually does: spin politics.

Mr. Davis managed to save his job despite one of the most disingenuous depositions I have ever read. He couldn't recall anything that happened fifteen minutes beforehand. He is not head of technology. Mr. Hamilton escaped responsibility too. In fact, when he was in a dither about retirement and couldn['t make up his mind. Ms. Elia created a boutique job for him, and the board passed it on the consent conveyor belt.

Three board members who slept through your ordeal are still on the board: Carol Kurdell, Jack Lamb, and Candy Olson. They are still rubber stamps for the superintendent, do not visit the employees as Rampello and Newsome did, and are indifferent to their jobs as guardians of the voters' investment in the schools.

After review of the files, I have been retelling the Erwin story on my blog leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com. Visit the site and recall old times in the school-board badlands of crime and no punishment, which you have happily escaped after winning your whistleblower case. You can comment anonymously. Please do.

lee drury de cesare

Jones Act Lawyers

Babylon English-English

n. end, conclusion; act of closing; enclosed area; plug

v. shut; be shut; finish, complete

adv. nearby, close by; closely

adj. near, adjacent; intimate; careful; oppressive; secretive; stingy; dense, compact; tight-fitting; crowded

close but no cigar

nice try but no cigar, good and close but not correct; almost but not entirely successful; good but incorrect guess

Wikipedia English - The Free Encycl...

Close may refer to:
In music:

"Close", a song by Soul Asylum from their 1998 album Candy from a Stranger

Other:

Cul-de-sac

People with the surname Close:

Close (surname)

See more at Wikipedia.org...

Claustrum

The claustrum is a thin layer of grey matter lying between the extreme capsule and external capsule in the brain. Its function is not completely known, although it has reciprocal connections with the cerebral cortex.

Francis Crick, a neuroscientist keen on studying the neural correlate of consciousness, pointed to the claustrum as one of the most probable key components of consciousness in his last works [1].

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Babylon French-English

clore

v. end; close; complete

clos

adj. closed, shut; field

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictio...

(v. t.)
Adhering strictly to a standard or original; exact; strict; as, a close translation.

(v. t.)
Accurate; careful; precise; also, attentive; undeviating; strict; not wandering; as, a close observer.

(v. t.)
A narrow passage leading from a street to a court, and the houses within.

(v. i.)
To grapple; to engage in hand-to-hand fight.

(v. i.)
To end, terminate, or come to a period; as, the debate closed at six o'clock.

(v. i.)
To come together; to unite or coalesce, as the parts of a wound, or parts separated.

(n.)
To stop, or fill up, as an opening; to shut; as, to close the eyes; to close a door.

(n.)
To come or gather around; to inclose; to encompass; to confine.

(n.)
To bring together the parts of; to consolidate; as, to close the ranks of an army; -- often used with up.

(n.)
To bring to an end or period; to conclude; to complete; to finish; to end; to consummate; as, to close a bargain; to close a course of instruction.

(n.)
The manner of shutting; the union of parts; junction.

(n.)
The conclusion of a strain of music; cadence.

(n.)
Conclusion; cessation; ending; end.

(n.)
A grapple in wrestling.

(n.)
A double bar marking the end.

(adv.)
Secretly; darkly.

(adv.)
In a close manner.

(v. t.)
Uttered with a relatively contracted opening of the mouth, as certain sounds of e and o in French, Italian, and German; -- opposed to open.

(v. t.)
The interest which one may have in a piece of ground, even though it is not inclosed.

(v. t.)
Strictly confined; carefully quarded; as, a close prisoner.

(v. t.)
Shut fast; closed; tight; as, a close box.

(v. t.)
Short; as, to cut grass or hair close.

(v. t.)
Parsimonious; stingy.

(v. t.)
Out of the way observation; secluded; secret; hidden.

(v. t.)
Oppressive; without motion or ventilation; causing a feeling of lassitude; -- said of the air, weather, etc.

(v. t.)
Nearly equal; almost evenly balanced; as, a close vote.

(v. t.)
Narrow; confined; as, a close alley; close quarters.

(v. t.)
Intimate; familiar; confidential.

(v. t.)
Having the parts near each other; dense; solid; compact; as applied to bodies; viscous; tenacious; not volatile, as applied to liquids.

(v. t.)
Disposed to keep secrets; secretive; reticent.

(v. t.)
Difficult to obtain; as, money is close.

(v. t.)
Concise; to the point; as, close reasoning.

(v. t.)
An inclosed place; especially, a small field or piece of land surrounded by a wall, hedge, or fence of any kind; -- specifically, the precinct of a cathedral or abbey.

(v. t.)
Adjoining; near; either in space; time, or thought; -- often followed by to.