Realpolitik at ROSSAC

Response to two reader comments below:

My read on the schools' employment situation is that it is the most attractive part of administration perquisites besides the right to set its salaries at the top of the bloated scale.

The board gives Elia the patronage privilege of crony hiring of buddies, sycophants, and--in Linda Kipley's husband's case--the relatives of administrators. It washes its hands of responsibility by plastering "We are an equal-employment-opportunity employer" on every available surface. The intellectual sophistication of the board is not high; its courage quotient is even lower.

Every once in a while a case pops up in which some 3rd-tier administrator hires a pet after inventing a job that is logged into the payroll. One of these came up recently, and the board threw up its hands in bewilderment. The board sanctioned the pet's remaining on the pay roll in fact. The attorney said, to his credit, that the board members could fire the pet. But they don't want to hurt anybody's feeling when its only tax money in question that comes by the bushels. So the pet is now a bona fide employee with all benefits. And the board sits in contented potted-plant stasis.

Make no mistake about who's to blame in the crony employment circus at ROSSAC. It's the school board. Its members are too gutless and uncaring about wasting tax money to do anything but agree to the outrages that the administration presents on the consent calender that rolls by with not one board member asking for a review of the hires. The only time the board members perk up is when they are planning their itineraries of frivolous board travel.

There is no affirmative action plan because nobody has ever challenged the board and administration to present one. This situation exists all across the country--not just in Hillsborough County. It's not enough for there to be equal-employment-opportunity laws on the books.
Somebody has to invoke them as I did with the City of Tampa 40 years ago to get women on the police force and into the sheriff's department as law-enforcement personnel. I also used the requirements that federal grants have equal-employment-opportunity obligations to get the Justice Department to force the sheriff to hire women deputies. Both the City of Tampa and the county have a stable of overpaid lawyers. Not one pointed out to their employers that they needed to follow Title VII's equal-opportunity guidelines in
hiring. And nobody in public office volunteers to follow these laws. They like to use the power of being able to hire people as a perquisite. Somebody has to complain to change things.

That is what I am revving up to do by getting the needed information via public-records privilege from the schools. The government funds they get all say they should have affirmative action plans. You see what they have on the books: That weeny little comment is not an affirmative action plan. It is a ridiculous bandaid. I bet the guy appointed to see to affirmative action does nothing but sit at his desk and aim spit balls at the waste basket all day.

As for Mr. Gonzalez, his firm has held that post for 37 years and got the perch in a good ol'-boy-slap-on-the-back protocol that the town is expert in. Gonzalez fervently defends no-bid contracts because he got his job with a no-bid contract. If you read the Erwin report, you will see that Gonzalez is fully complicit in continuing things as they are. He assures the board that the equal-employment stance of the board is impeccable. The judgment of the board is such that they take Gonzalez's word as if it came down from Olympus from Zeus.

I filed an ethics charge against Gonzalez when he hinted that he would lodge an extortion law suit against me for saying in the citizens' forum that if the board didn't file an affirmative action plan, I would ask the Federal government for a compliance review of the schools' hiring practices. The SLAPP law says government attorneys can't do that because threatening a law suit is the coercion they used in the past against citizens to shut them up from criticizing elected officials.

I didn't officially win the ethics charge with the Florida Bar, but the process was rewarding. I had a good time writing it and had a good time seeing how hard Tom had to work to refute me and how disturbed he was to be on the other side of the accusation for a change. I also damned his grammar, punctuation, and writing style. He has a bachelor's in English, so there is no excuse for him. The filing makes great reading I think; I have it online here:http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5338509888038553180&postID=3895642336721423667

Reform doesn't come in matters such as these fast. It takes plugging away, especially when you have only one elderly granny wielding a shovel. There is a quatrain from
Tennyson that comes to mind that to me defines the ethos of the work of fighting skullduggery at the school board:

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.

After me there will be somebody enraged at the abuse of taxpayers, students, and teachers by the board and the administration. He or she will pick up the shovel and dig, dig, dig with it. If there were just six brave teachers who would join me today, we could wipe up the floor with both the board and the attorney. But teachers are afraid of Ms. Kipley, the home-ec teacher head of Professional Standards. They are convinced that she will draw and quarter them. Now her husband has been hired despite his being totally unqualified. I think Kipley is a fraud and her husband is Mickey Mouse.

Think about it: Terrified teachers. A Professional Standards head who leads a department whose chief should have a criminal justice or psychology degree. And this in a democracy: it is incredible.

lee

From: Anonymous [noreply-comment@blogger.com]

Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 8:36 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Meagre Affirmative Action Plan.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Meagre Affirmative Action Plan":

More evidence that the district hires incompetents who do shoddy work. Why don't they have an affirmative action plan that is thorough?

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 5:35 PM

From: Anonymous [noreply-comment@blogger.com]

Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 8:37 PM

To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com

Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Meagre Affirmative Action Plan.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Meagre Affirmative Action Plan":

Wouldn't the school board attorney be involved in making sure the school board has a good affirmative action plan? Is Tom Gonzalez asleep at the wheel and steering the school board to their doom?

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 5:37 PM