Too bad you weren’t at last Thursdays’ meeting. How do I know you weren’t? No one was. The board discussed changing the meeting times, days, location, even the newspaper that the district uses for public business. Yes you heard me right. The Falls News has apparently ticked off a few members. The timing is uncanny. Last month when the Falls News was chastising me, no one breathed a word of change. Now that last weeks paper printed details of my complaint to Marc Danns office, they must suffer. When I questioned our superintendent about this new development I was surprised to hear the following: The board president said he wasn’t pleased with them because he doesn’t have time to check his Email, therefore he cannot make a timely statement and get his side of the story in the paper. Yet last month and last week there were plenty of statements from him. Another member stated she wasn’t happy with some recent editorials…??? I haven’t seen an editorial from the Falls News in years that has moved my emotions in any way shape or form. Maybe it’s a journalist thing. Either way I fail to see how thier editorials affect our districts using them for publishing purposes. From what the board was told they are the cheapest, most reliable, effective way to go. Let’s compare: The Falls News goes to every resident and business in Cuyahoga Falls- for free no less, costs way less to run public notices, solicit bids for contracts, ads, etc. But the best endorsement? The community survey clearly shows that the Falls News is where our residents get their information about our district. This is one of those issues where you just go DUH! Besides the fact that the Akron paper appears to be on its last legs. I buy it more out of pity than for information.
I buy the Cleveland Plain Dealer for news. You can’t beat the PD for in-depth information articles. Some of the statistical comparisons they have done on educational issues are worthy of a local Pulitzer and are a breath of fresh air. The regular series the run on Ohio’s Sunshine Law and public records information is another example of the forward thinking going on in Cleveland. The more you educate and inform the public, the more open your government entities must be.
Which brings us full circle back to which newspaper to use. The article in last weeks Falls News was a surprise to me. I mentioned my complaint and opinion request to the reporter while talking about GPA requirements two weeks before the article was printed. She used a public record request to gather facts and write the article. In fact the board president appears to be the only person that made a statement to her. I guess what he really meant was he doesn’t have time to check his Email, consult with other members and then make a statement to the Falls News.
One of the reasons stated as to why I was censured was because I violated the Ohio School Board Associations code of ethics. Ethics are a touchy subject with this board. I seem to have a different set of ethics than some of the other members. Mine involve keeping the taxpayers informed of how the district is spending their money in the open meeting. And since we’re busy checking ethics violations, maybe we should check and see how ethical it was of our board president to be writing letters of recommendation for his buddy that applied for, and got, a coveted position in the district. I have a feeling that using your position to secure a guy a job that your wife baby sits for isn’t very ethical. Funny how no one felt a censure necessary in that case.
I know nothing will come of my complaint. It would need to be brought to the Court of Common Pleas by any fine citizen of our community and I just don’t have the time or energy for that.
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3 comments:
Much as I like the Falls News, the one benefit to changing the the paper that the district notifies about its meetings would be that the notification might actually get published before these meetings take place. I think that our Board and Administration have at times used the once a week publishing and the 24-hour notification rule to keep meetings from being known to the general public.
Maybe nobody was at last Thursday's meeting because nobody knew about it. I certainly didn't.
This is just more dirty politics. Nothing around here ever changes. It is very discouraging to me as a taxpayer. Changing to the ABJ will only hurt the district in the long run as many, myself included, do not subscribe to it. But, there is a majority that does NOT seem to care what the taxpayers want anyway and they certainly don't want us to be informed. So, I guess this makes perfect sense to their self-serving minds.
I am curious to know why Kellie voted for the nomination of B. Gunter and/or T. Dunphy for BOE president and VP respectively? I was hoping she would offer some kind of explanation on this blog.
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