Monday, June 16, 2008



June 16, 2008


Dear Governor Crist:


Enclosed is an excerpt from my blog leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com on the hiring conduct of the administration and board of the Hillsborough County Schools.


Superintendent Elia habitually ignores the equal-opportunity laws and hires cronies instead of advertising for candidates and picking the best one. She just hired the husband of administrator Linda Kipley even though he has no college degree and even though there were many fully qualified candidates amongst the other 18 competing for the job that had the bachelor's degree in accounting that the job description calls for.


Dr. Michael Grego has just resigned, and it appears that Ms. Elia already has already replaced his Curriculum-and-Instruction position with a crony without advertising the job and getting the best candidates to form a pool of high talent from which to choose. The taxpayers expect that they will get the best qualified people for their money in these jobs; Ms. Elia ignores this expectation to turn the school system's high-paying administrative jobs into slots for buddies of hers or other high-level administrators.


The Hillsborough school board is an uninterested, feckless group of dilettantes who collude with Ms. Elia in this disgraceful situation that deprives taxpayers of the best people for their money in these jobs. Ms. Elia with this supine board's cooperation has turned the Hillsborough County School Board hiring practices into a crony job racket.


Floridians care deeply about education as does the whole country; every poll shows this to be the case. Both national parties say they will respond to this sentiment. Mr. Obama and Mr. Mc Cain will soon compete for this state's vote in the presidential election. You should be able to assure your national candidate that a Republican governor is concerned enough about the schools' dedication to education, not cronyism, that you make sure this corruption of the hiring process in a schools' administration such as that of Hillsborough County's does not contaminate Florida's schools. Hillsborough County is a primie facia case of such distortion of the hiring process that now deprives the schools of the most qualified people.


Lee Drury De Cesare

15316 Gulf Boulevard 802

Madeira Beach, FL 33708


c: Paul Tash, SPTimes

Letitia Stein, SP Times


Rosemary Goudreau, Tampa Tribune


Marilyn Brown, Tampa Tribune


Patrick Manteiga, La Gaceta


Howard Troxler, SPTimes



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Crist won't care. I firmly believe that there is a Republican conspiracy to intentionally destroy public education and generally undermine the public's confidence in government. The core value of the Republican party is "less government." What better way to achieve this goal than to make it as ineffective as possible?

Anonymous said...

And Elia is probably a Republican, so she won't care that her own district is going down the tubes. Like most Republicans she is just out to rake in the dough and to hell with ethics or anything that matters. Money, Hummers, superficial and very fake Christianity are the only thing that matters to Republicans.

twinkobie said...

Is a Hummer a fancy car? lee

Anonymous said...

A Hummer is the most ridiculous car you can imagine. They were created for the army, I believe. Men and women who lack self esteem want one to feel big. They look like a huge square box and you can tell they were originally for the military, but it is totally dumb to have one in the city. It is a gas guzzler.