I'm Not Obeyin' Your Stinkin' Laws!

I’ve suspected it all along. Now it’s official. The board members I work with are insane. Saturday was one of the worst snow storms this area has seen in 20 years. All over Ohio snow bans were issued. Every city in North East Ohio called for snow emergencies. Road travel was restricted to essential personnel only. The Summit County Sheriff issued a snow ban which essentially made driving or parking on the street a misdemeanor.

For those who don’t know, essential personnel means snow removal people, nurses, doctors, police, tow tucks, etc…You know, important people. And they don’t issue these orders, which by the way are law in Ohio, because they are worried you can’t make it to your destination. They issue these orders so civilians aren’t clogging the roads while they are trying to clear them. To put it simply, they don’t want your dumb butt in their way.

Apparently our board president hasn’t brushed up on Ohio law recently. Apparently, she thinks the Cuyahoga Falls Board of Education is essential personnel. She didn’t have the common sense or decency to cancel Saturdays’ board meeting. Now it wasn’t bad for me, I live 4 blocks away. Our Superintendent lives in Stow, who incidentally ran out of salt last week, and had quite an ordeal making it in to CF. In fact as we were leaving the meeting your Silver Lake contingent could hardly get their vehicle off of Stow St. It was comical watching them fish tail a path for me.

Now let’s see, the Plan for Excellence people had enough sense to cancel their portion of the meting on Friday, the executive session was the only item on the agenda. And it was a monumental waste of time. The questions raised were answered to me in a five minute phone call 3 days prior to the meeting. It was all regarding a typo anyway. A typo that had absolutely no effect on the business of the district whatsoever.

Talk about micro managing. Did we really need to waste time and tax payer money for this? And as is becoming typical of this board, we have once again violated the law. The Ohio Sunshine clearly states the following:

PURPOSE STATEMENT: When holding a special meeting, including an emergency meeting (see discussion below), in addition to advising of the time and date of the meeting, the notice statement must also disclose the purpose(s) for which the special meeting is being conducted.
Where a special meeting is simply a “regular” meeting occurring at a time other than the regularly scheduled time, it is sufficient notice under the law for the stated purpose to be for “general purposes.” However, where the special meeting is being held to discuss particular issues, the purpose statement must specifically indicate those issues, and those specific issues are the only ones that can be discussed at that meeting. If, at the special meeting, the public body discusses matters not disclosed in the purpose statement, the meeting violates the Open Meetings Act.
Moreover, if a public body plans to adjourn into executive session during a special meeting, the topic of the executive session must relate directly to some matter included in the notice.
The rule for notification of special meetings must require at least 24 hours advance notification to all media outlets that have requested such notification, and to people who have specifically requested such notice.

I did attempt to prevent the agenda from being altered, as it clearly undermines the intent of the Sunshine Law- an informed public. But as usual with this board, they asked me for proof, I offered to get on line and show them, they then decided there wasn’t time for such trivial matters as the law, and refused to allow me the 2 minutes it would have taken to clear this matter up. They bulldozed into an illegal executive session (as usual) because they want an uninformed public. That’s why the true purpose is never stated and always altered.

Now let’s talk about the administrative pay scale for a second. It is a document that does not allow for favorites to be played. Our administrative positions are on a scale that has set responsibility factors and education factors. Years of service also play a part. So basically if you take this job with X responsibility, you will make 50K. Then you education comes into play. No degree gets you nothing extra. A bachelors gets you a little more, a masters gets you even more and so on.

I like it. No one can say it’s not fair. The only discrepancies are the people that were making wages above and beyond the scale when it was adopted. By law the district cannot reduce their wages, so they remain above the scale until the base wage finally catches up with them or they retire. So why are the same people that approved it now whining that some people now seem to be underpaid in their eyes? Aren’t these the people that promised fiscal responsibility? I find it odd that the person they think is underpaid lives down the street from them in Silver Lake. Apparently the wages aren’t that bad. I guess it was worth going out in a snowstorm. The board president suggested I should have stayed home if I was concerned about the weather. I guess it would have been easier for them to reward their cronies had I not attended. Sorry, but I just got new tires.

UPDATE: I received the notice below in my Email after posting the above. I find it extremely ironic.

After conferring with BOE president Barb Gunter and Superintendent Ed Holland, the meeting of the Steering Committee scheduled for tomorrow morning (Saturday, March 8) has been postponed due to the winter storm warnings.We will not reschedule our meeting until after the coming spring break. I will let everyone know of the new meeting date as soon as possible.