Is It Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?

Ms. Elia's Dog Tiny

From: lee de cesare [mailto:tdecesar@taMPAbay.rr.com]
Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 12:58 AM
To: 'VictorD.Crist.web@flsenate.gov'; 'Seth.McKeel.'; 'ron.reagan.web@flhouse.gov'; 'bill.galvano.web@flhouse.gov'; 'Ronda.storms.web@flhouse.gov'; 'Victor.Crist'; 'arhenia.joyner'; 'kevin.ambler.web@flsenate.gov'; 'mark.rousson.web@flsenate.gov'; 'rachel.bergen.web@flsenate.gov'; 'faye.culp.web@flsenate.gov'; 'mike.scionti.web@flsenate.gov'; 'betty.reed.web@flsenate.gov'; 'Seth.McKeel.web@flsenate.gov'; 'will.weatherford.web@flsenate.gov'; 'rich.glorioso.web@flsenate.gov'; 'Ken.Otero@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Dan.Valdez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Lewis.Brinson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gretchen.Saunders@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'maryellen.elia@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Wynne.Tye@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Cathy.Valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Connie.Milito@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'David.Steele@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gwen.Luney@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Stephen.Hegarty@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'linda.cobbe@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'CANDY.OLSON@SDHC.K12.FL.US'; 'CAROL.KURDELL@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'JACK.LAMB@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'MARYELLEN.ELIA@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'SUSAN.VALDES@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'APRIL.GRIFFIN@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'DORETHA.Edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'JENNIFER.FALIERO@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Connie.mileto@SDHC.K12.FL.US'; 'Gwen.Luney@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'linda.cobbe@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'larry.mason@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'phildra.Swaqger@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'alice.loeb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'davidschmidt@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jeffrey.bandry@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'steve.vanoer@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Stephanie.tamargo@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'steven.eichhorn@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'michael.smith@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'don.johnson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'mike.phillips@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'chuck.fleming@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'nancy.lind@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'henry.washington@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jeaneen.down@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'henry.ballard@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'edward.mcdowell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Karine.johns@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'donna.leonard@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'richard.parrish@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Sue.hindman@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'steven.eichhorn@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'marshall@sptimes.com'; 'lagaceta@tampabay.rr.com'; 'solocheck@sptimes.com'
Cc: 'David.alfons@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Robert.angert@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Denise.ankundowich@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Karen.baio@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Shawn.balow@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Jared.bauer@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Natasha.beauregard@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Courtney.beitler@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Alan.bell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Steve.bossert@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Mike.boza@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Dennis.braun@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Barbara.caporice@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Christopher.carbon@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Kim.caro@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Sandra.colelli@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Mark.coleman@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Teresa.cozzi@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Bernice.craig@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Jeff.darland@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'lagaceta@tampabay.rr.com'; 'Donna.desena@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Cora.boroff@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Scott.donald@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Richard.dyer@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Chad.ebright@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Kelly.everhart@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Karen.fransworth@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Nancy.farnsworth@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'MaryJane.ferguson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Miguel.marquez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Regina.bazan@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Juan.cocho@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Albert.duran@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Mel.evans@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Eugenia.estevez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Mayra.lopez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Dora.martinez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Jose.ramos@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Ana.rodriquez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Ruiz.German@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Toledano.'; 'olga.Valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'francisco.Viera@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Jim.landers@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'David.suarez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Laura.figueredo@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Eddie.henderson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gina.'; 'Stephanie.mercer@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Sara.aguilera@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Caridad.guisao@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Madeline.ortiz@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Sherie.snell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Mary.thornton@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Sandra.williams@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Millicent.gary@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Miguel.marquez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Regina.bazan@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Albert.duran@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Mel.evans@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Eugenia.estevez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Mayra.lopez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Dora.martinez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Jose.ramos@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'German.ruiz@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'modesto.Toledano@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'olga.Valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'frabcusci.Viera@sdhc.k12.fl.us'

Subject: Civic Monkey Biz

Gentlepeople of the Hillsborough County Legislative Delegation:

How closely do you follow the conditions that prevail in your community and take the initiative to make them better?

Or do you just get voted into office and romp up to Tallahassee to preen as legislative stars in the Senate and the House and forget the people's wellbeing that voted you into office back home?

If so, for shame. In classical Greek times, the citizens of Athens, who modeled our first democracy, would have given you a thumbs down in the forum and would have either exiled you for 20 years or killed you. Athenian citizens took democracy seriously, so the leaders did too.

Thucydides got 20 years banishment for bad army leadership, and now scholars worship him for his history of the Peloponnesian War. Often generals who returned from battle to Athens after fighting another Greek city state were put to death for failure to advance the interests of Athenians. I think that law would work well for Florida. If you came back to your home base and had done nothing for the citizens of Hillsborough County, maybe the citizens should gather on Franklin Street and give you a thumbs down.

Athenian citizens were tough. They put Socrates to death for corrupting the youth of Athens. He was, in a sense, head of the Athenian schools. The schools in Hillsborough County need that kind of pitiless evaluation. Its leaders--both board and administration--are lousy. They treat teachers badly, use the Professional Standards office to frame them for cooked-up charges to shut them up by threatening their jobs with false charges.

The board and administration don't want anybody to reveal anything about the way they run the schools before it is run through the Public Affairs spin Laundromat.

Maybe we need those banishment-put-to-death protocols in Hillsborough County.

It's worth pondering. The legislative delegation has not done a thing to counter the depredations in the schools due to bad board members and greedy administrations; the current specimens in both phyla retain the same sicko DNA of management as obtained when Dr. Lennard tried to prove Mr. Erwin crazy in the early '90's because Erwin reported graft and theft in the schools. Instead of Superintendent Lennard's investigating these charges, he tried to invalidate them by proving Erwin berserk. The administrartive brigands and board clones joined in the task with energy and glee.

Dr. Lennard's conduct makes this citizen believe that the graft started at the top with Dr. Lennard, now elections supervisor. The internal auditors of the Supervisors of Elections office should be on the q.v.

On my schools blog leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com, I catalog the underbelly of the vile job the board and administration do in managing the schools.

I tell how badly they treat teachers, how indifferent they are to education (two lack a college degree; how can they care about the county's children's education when they don't care about their own educatiion?), and how grasping they are about tax money that pours into the schools based on the student headcount. They bloat administrative salaries for the C students who pour into administrations after graduation from second-tier schools while the A and B students go into teaching. The administration and board use tax money to hire buddies and sycophants. Two board members have children in administration working their way up the ranks to become top operators to continue the wretched tradition of lower-quartile specimens that clog the administrative ranks. The board spends thousands of dollars for joy rides around the country under the aegis of learning how to be better board members. So far, one does not detect any improvement on the board dais from their pricey tax-paid peregrinations. They may have become more expert in the rituals of room service, but they don't show any sign of learning data that help the children in the county schools.

The only way that we can get a new attitude towards education from the top is to clean house in the complicit board.

Jennifer Falliero, April Griffin, and Candy Olson are all up for re-election. They have opponents, thank God. The three are all terrible board members who do not care about the wellbeing of the schools but care about travel money and making $9.000 more than beginning teachers for doing nothing but lolling on the board podium and gadding around town posing as benefactors of education.

They all three are androids for Ms. Elia, corrupt board superintendent. I pray the opponents win for the good of the community. The Hillsborough County legislative delegation should help the opponents of Griffin, Falliero, and Olson win if they care about their community and keep that possible citizen congregation in the Franklin Street forum hereabouts known as the voting booth.

Members of the legislative delegation must have concern for what's going on in their county's schools if they care about their community. The schools are in the thrall of a greedy, obtuse board and administration whose only interest is to tap into the money pit of state funds based on student head count so that they can strut around town and look important at all the tax-paid political summits they attend, create bloated-salary jobs for buddies and sycophants, and hand out no-bid contracts with or without graft.

The legislative delegation should work through its budget power to rein in the villainies committed in the schools by the board and administration.

Money they understand. The legislature controls the budget. Review the fine print of the budget to see how you can make things better for the teachers and students in the Hillsborough County schools. As Tennyson says, "Live true, right wrong, serve the king (community), else why born?"

When your romance with Tallahassee ends, you will come back to your home in Hillsborough County. Will the school leadership have improved because of your Tallahassee sojourn, or will we have still a corrupt board and administration presiding over our children's and grandchildren's education about which you were too indifferent about or too cowardly to fix?

We measure a person's life by the deeds he or she has done or omitted to do. Will yours show your deeds to have been those that bettered your community with your time in state office, or will it show that you did everything to balloon your ego with your "public service" but nothing to make your community--especially the schools--better?

On my blog are analyses of the up-for-election incumbent's on the board. If you do not like what you read about their conduct--I present my view of all three board candidates' history and psyches--then do something about it. Talk to the opponents of the incumbents and see if they have potential to change the vile system that now prevails if they beat the incumbents. Give them your advice on how to win if you find them apt.

And don't pour tax money into the Hillsborough County board and administration's coffers for them to squander it as they now do on bloated salaries, no-bid contracts, and hiring buddies, board and administration children, and sycophants.

You have the facility to turn off the spigot in Tallahassee to school boards and school administrations who abuse their power in order to pamper themselves and to impoverish the students and teachers. Use it.

Lee Drury De Cesare

20-year resident of Tampa's Beach Park

Now retired teacher at Madeira Beach, where my husband was mayor for 12 years after he got tired of fishing. My children went to Grady, Coleman, and Plant. I still have one grandchild who begins Plant in the fall.

Brandon Law People: look at the profile of Jennifer Pole Girl Falliero, your board member, on my blog.

Do y'all want Brandon to have a person with such louche morals leading the schools where your children attend, other people's children attend, and my grandchild attends? Pole Girl's opponent is a pharmacist. I believe he lives in Valrico. Get in touch with him and offer your support. Nobody could be worse than Pole Girl Falliero, whom other board members--all of them--voted to be chair despite their knowing her on-site adultery. This maneuver gives you a pivotal clue in judging the board's moral calibre.

Lee Drury De Cesare

15316 Gulf Boulevard 802

Madeira Beach, FL 33708

tdecdesar@tampabay.rr.com

leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

Jennifer Pole Girl Falliero:

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=28089922&postID=8432737171738684537

Candy Olson:

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=28089922&postID=8984108609702386500

April Griffin:

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=28089922&postID=1745346155002634371