In a long-standing commitment to the Women's Movement, I have found that if you can't get a person in an official capacity to do his or her job, you move up the food chain and write his or her boss. Or you see what bow-wow committees the culprit serves on, and you write the bow-wow committee's chair and ask that all members of the board be provided a copy of your communication about the subject culprit's derelictions.
Dr. Smith didn't answer two letters from asking him to tell Broward County to send me the data I asked on the hiring of Dr. Jim Hamilton as their lobbyist. One supposes he was engaged in throwing spitballs in his wastebasket instead of doing his job.
So I sent a letter to him with copies to the governor and the big-time members of the committee called the Board of Governors that oversees the state universities in Florida. Fortunately, Dr. Smith is on that committee. Those are the names cc'd below his letter to me.
Now I have to see if Broward obeys the commissioner. If not, I will use this letter to pressure its recalcitrants to send me the data on Hamilton's hiring that I asked for two times with silence as the result.
If Broward is obdurate, I go back to Dr. Smith and the Board of Governors and the governor for another round.
You just keep that routine up as long as it takes. Civil rights requires patience and persistence. It's like training a child to go potty. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
lee
Dear Governor Crist:
I see that Commissioner Smith is also a member of the Board of Governors in addition to his commissioner job. I hope he is more conscientious about that assignment than he is about doing the job you appointed him to do as commissioner.
I request that you prod Dr. Smith to do his primary job: see that the schools in
I have mailed two requests to Dr. Smith to help me to get
Will you expedite this request for public information from the
Thank you.
Respectfully,
Lee Drury De Cesare
tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Dr. Eric J. Smith Commissioner of Education
T. WILLARD FAIR, Chairman Members
PETER BOULWARE DR. AKSHAY DESAI ROBERTO MARTiNEZ
. PHOEBE RAULERSON KATHLEEN SHANAHAN LINDA K. TAYLOR
Maureen Dinnen, Chair Broward County School Board 600 S. E. Third Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
On March 23, 2009, Commissioner Smith received the attached complaint from Lee Drury De Cesare who alleges that the Broward County School Board has failed to comply with the public records law.
t1UJ•~
EdW. Jo~an
ED W. JORDAN, CIG, CFE, CIA INSPECTOR GENERAL
325 W. GAINES STREET SUITE 1201• TALLAHASSEE, FL 32399-0400• (850) 245-0403• www.fldoe.org
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
DPE, Copyright IRIS 2005" shapes="_x0000_i1025" width="97" height="95">
Dr. Eric J. Smith Commissioner of Education
T. WILLARD FAIR, Chairman
Members
PETER BOULWARE DR. AKSHAY DESAI ROBERTO MARTiNEZ
. PHOEBE RAULERSON KATHLEEN SHANAHAN LINDA K. TAYLOR
DPE, Copyright IRIS 2005" shapes="_x0000_i1026" width="91" height="38">
Maureen Dinnen, Chair Broward County School Board 600 S. E. Third Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
On March 23, 2009,
Commissioner Smith received the attached complaint from Lee Drury De Cesare who alleges that the Broward County School Board has failed to comply with the public records law.
t1UJ·~
EdW. Jo~an
ED W. JORDAN, CIG, CFE, CIA
INSPECTOR GENERAL
325 W. GAINES STREET SUITE 1201· TALLAHASSEE, FL 32399-0400· (850) 245-0403· www.fldoe.org
Another Problem Extant: my being cut out of the tapes of the educational channel's showing of the board meeting. I couldn't find myself on the three most recent tapes in which I had appeared.
Here's where you have to be prepared to expect a new assault on your sanity. Anybody who challenges authority must expect to be labeled crazy.
This is where you settle down to a long campaign waged mostly with the written word. My winning suit is that I can write and can punctuate what I write correctly most of the time. I sometimes nod off, but I am usually on the beam.
Persistence is everything in this hustle for fairness. And Florida schools are notorious for not ceding public information. They can be brought to heel if only you have the energy. lee
Ms. Griggs: I am going to call Brighthouse Networks and see if there is some technical reason why I don't receive the files intact if you all have not changed them. I have a new computer so that I know I was missing in the tapes both on my old computer and on my new one.
The puzzle that stumps me is that when Bart Birdsall and I appeared to defend Steve Kemp, my part was not there; his was when he followed me to the podium.
I would like to think this is a technology problem. I won't stand for a publicly supported institution to tamper with democracy's First Amendment. If citizens put up with that, we will soon be out of the democracy business. I will let you know what Bright House says.
lee de cesare
From: Lucy Griggs [mailto:lucyg@educationchannel.org]
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 11:12 AM
To: lee DeCesare
Cc: William Birdsall
Subject: Re: RE: Fwd:
Every time I have received a call or email from you expressing a concern about a School Board Meeting, Ms. DeCesare, I immediately checked the file, and found the meeting to be there in its entirety. We have not replaced anything in a School Board Meeting, because there was never anything cut out of one.
Logs on our encoding computer prove that the files have not been modified since their creation. Once again, I invite you to come over and view the files and the logs. I feel certain this will satisfy your concerns.
Lucy Griggs
Program Director
Tampa Educational Cable Consortium
703 N. Willow Avenue
Tampa, FL 33606
Phone: 813-254-2253
Fax: 813-253-3267
email:
"TV That's Good for Your Mind"
On Apr 1, 2009, at 6:10 PM, lee DeCesare wrote:
What does an undoctored view of the three dates in
question of your files show, Ms. Griggs? For days, I could not find my appearance on the educational channel's programs for the three dates in which I appeared.
Somebody, I inferred, had cut those files out.
Am I to understand that you have replaced the omitted portions in which I appeared on the two other previous dates previous to the March 24th one, in which you omitted my appearance?
I would be happy to be wrong but believe that I am not.
Have you now replaced my appearance on all three occasions in which you cut me out since I filed a complaint with the FCC?
lee drury de cesare
Lucy, Public-education channel:
I have just spoken to Gordon in the Technical Department of Roadrunner, Bright House's email service which I have on my computer.
He says that he can't account for these glitches that omitted me three times from the school-board tapes, that we get the same signals on the beach and people get in Tampa.
This is a mystery. Particularly strange is that when Bart Birdsall and I appeared on the board show to protest the mistreatment of teacher Steve Kemp by the School Board, I was cut out but Bart, who followed me, was on the tape.
I will come to the station on the day I go to the next board meeting: April 21. I should get there from the beach at about one:thirty p.m.
Tell me again the station's street address, please.
Thank you.
lee drury de cesare
4 comments:
Keep after them, Lee. I applaud you and thank God for you.
I have some news that you might interesting-
Hamilton is back. They rehired him as a consultant for 96k very recently - yet they are cutting so many other things that $96,000 could have paid for.
I think you should check into it.
Also, Elia could not be more sadistic. If an employee wants to talk to her they have to go see her at 6 am. That is the only time she will speak with people that are not her cronies.
I wouldn't be surprised if Elia had your comments removed from the broadcasts. She is like Lady Macbeth. There is nothing she would stoop to in order to gain power, prestige or money.
If these were medieval times she would have people tortured.
She probably wants to meet with people at 6pm because she doesn't want witnesses to her cursing like a sailor at the person.
Post a Comment