Project Projections

Sorry, I’ve been a slogger. That’s my new word for a slacking blogger. First I’ll fill you in on the upcoming agenda. The new five year forecast is up for approval. The never ending review of policy. Personnel and stipends, and my favorite, approving the granting of diplomas. For your presentation entertainment we will be having Curriculum and Intervention Program items. Under board business we have summer meeting dates (ugh!), board goals, and a discussion on paperless board meetings. Should be a quick one. That is sarcasm for my fans with no sense of humor.

Now on to something that has been bothering me all weekend. I wont go into the whole mess but to sum things up I was accused of twisting my children to believe what I believe. Apparently this is a bad thing to do.

This all started with a city project. City infrastructure problems have caused property damage through out my neighborhood. Our environmentally friendly administration offered a solution that did nothing to alleviate the infrastructure problem, but it was a really cool idea that would put Cuyahoga Falls on the map if successful. Nobody had ever done it this big before. In fact it was so innovative that the City administration suggested they would do these projects all over the city.

Unbeknownst to me the City had a poster contest for my child’s class. I was not aware of the contest or that my son had entered a poster until the Grand Opening was over with and I picked him up from school later that day and after seeing a few of his friends receive awards, asked him about it. He described his poster as he saw the project with his own eyes; after all it happened directly across the street from us. For months he saw standing water, smelled the stink of the manure and mulch, and heard his parents concerns and questions. So yes I suppose his rendering was what he knew. The city saw it as mockery to them, and told me so. I suppose I should have taught my kids to blindly follow and never question.

Even though the project is a disaster and did nothing to solve the infrastructure problem, according to the letter I received, I should teach my children to place trust in the people spending your tax dollars but never question how they spend them, or what they spend them on. Heaven forbid you have a voice in where your money goes. Sound familiar?

I almost felt as if the letter writer felt she was somehow smarter than us peasants. What could I possibly know about the problem? I only live it. Three quarters of a million dollars spent on this project and none of it on the infrastructure problem. This project has turned into exactly what Madam Kellie predicted it would be two years ago. A stinky mosquito hatchery. But I somehow did my kids’ wrong by trying to convince the city that this project was not the solution to the neighborhood problem. Trying to convince them before they spent our tax money on a fashionable “green” solution.

I’m proud of my son for coloring his poster in the fashion he did. It wasn’t ugly or a mockery. It was a pond with frogs, bugs and sunshine. I’m glad he didn’t conform and color a picture of what he was told it should look like. I’m not raising a sheeple.