Uh oh, New Paltz School District hires another consultant

I love the consultant thing. It's the CYA dream come true. But it's the bureaucratic newspeak that announces the hiring that really caught my attention:

“What they have proposed that they will be doing is to complete the state Education Department’s building survey and five-year plan,” she said. “But we asked them to do a more in-depth study so that we have a serious needs assessment of all of our facilities, fields, the whole footprint of the school district. We also asked them to engage the community and every stakeholder group in order to have a clear understanding of the vision, expectations and hopes in regards to facilities use and the culture of the community.”

In-depth studies, serious needs assessments, whole footprints, engaging the community, engaging every stakeholder group, the vision, the expectations, the hopes, the culture of the community.

And, of course, there is nothing like the phrase "five-year plan." I think of Stalin chewing on his pencil, adding a collective farm here, deleting a kulak there.

I hear the engine of another Rolls Royce turning over in the parking lot. The starting point, classically, is the State Education Department. That's like watching the shells being loaded into the shotgun. "But we asked them to do...more" is the new platinum calculator being lifted out of its box. And the "stakeholder groups," well, they never tire of spending other people's money.

This is going to be drinks, dinner, the opera, limo, more drinks, after hours club -- just my modest guess that it will be a $30 million night on the town.

They never give up. Ever. Never ever.

With the usual apologies to the metaphor police.

Steven Poskanzer and Elena Kagan: Have they ever been seen in the same room at the same time?

Looking for an alternative to Charles Schumer?

I would hope so.

Take a look at Gary Berntsen.

Check out his Bio. If that doesn't impress you nothing will.

Backed up

Busy the past few days, so I didn't get around to posting my reaction to the results from the vote on the New Paltz school budget.

The budget passed by a pretty good margin, with a lot more people voting than usual.

The "Yes" vote was 1,354; the "No" vote 959. I'm used to seeing the budgets pass by about 950 to 450.

The difference between "Yes" and "No" was 1% on the average tax levy. "Yes" made it a 3% increase. "No" would have made it a 2% increase. So I took some solace that there was such a healthy number of "No" votes wanting to take back that 1% difference.

Voters did shoot down the proposition to purchase a bunch of school buses. So, overall, they were not in a forgiving mood towards the School District.

Edgar Rodriguez was the top vote getter for the school board, and I think that can be attributed to his stand against the Middle School renovation bond. He was the only member of the board who was against it.

Bob Rich, a former member of the board, won the other seat that was up.

I was disappointed that the huge outpouring of voters who defeated the Middle School bond didn't show up this time, but perhaps their judgement was that 1% wasn't enough of a difference between "Yes" and "No" to get excited about. Still, I think that we're in a time when it's important to discipline the School District in any way that's available, and the "No" vote on the yearly budget is all the community has.

More later.

Back from the polls

Voted "No" on the New Paltz school budget.

Voted "No" on the purchase of new school buses.

And, solely on the basis of his vigorous opposition to the Middle School renovation bond, I voted for Edgar Rodriguez for the school board. That wasn't easy. It was a violation of my policy to not vote for any candidates for the board.

And when I got home, finally having picked up last week's Stalinpaltz Rigormortis-Glamorizer* and having a chance to read the letters about and by the various candidates, nothing I saw changed my mind about any of it. Though I avoided anything about Edgar because I didn't want to regret my vote for him so soon after casting it. But, man, is the political rhetoric around these board elections gaggingly awful. It's just dead, the argumentation is.

* Yes, my newest name for the New Paltz Times.

No!

Today's the day to say a friendly "No!" to the New Paltz School District's budget.

Voting begins at Noon at the New Paltz High School and the polls remain open until 9:00 P.M.

The District, of course, plays a disgraceful let's pretend game with these plebiscites, which offer voters the option of increasing their own taxes by "More" (by voting "No" on the proposed budget) or "More More" (by voting "Yes" on the budget). This is their version of let's pretend this is democracy.

But let's pretend back and take the merely "More" (2% increase) over the slightly higher "More More" (3% increase). Remember, although that doesn't seem like a lot, it still becomes the basis for next year's budget. So saving that 1% this year also starts next year off lower.

No! Say it today, say it tomorrow, say it whenever these local bureaucrats make that move to reach into your pocket. And "the children" are going to be just fine, especially those whose parents are not forced to move elsewhere to make way for the better class of taxpayer the School District craves.

Tomorrow is the vote on the New Paltz school budget

The vote will take place at the New Paltz High School on South Putt Corners Road.

The voting hours are 12 Noon to 9:00 P.M.

A "No" vote gets you a 2% increase on the average school tax bill.

A "Yes" vote gets you a 3% increase.

So it's the usual choice between "More" and "More More." Personally, I can live with just "More" and a "No" vote. My only wish is that the vote, for once, could be for "Less."

Maybe some day. Stranger things have happened. No one expected the Berlin Wall to come down, either. But as Margaret Thatcher said, eventually they all run out of other people's money.

Also at stake are two positions on the school board. I don't care about that, but for his stand with taxpayers against the Middle School bond, Edgar Rodriguez merits some consideration. I don't think that Edgar and I would agree on much else, and I'm undecided on whether or not to break my policy of not voting for anyone running for the school board and give Edgar some encouragement.

Finally, there is also a proposition on the ballot to purchase two new school buses. That's a "No" for me as well. Everyone is doing with less these days, and the School District can benefit from learning to make do as well.

Thread about the New Paltz school budget vote on Tuesday

Over at the Gadfly.

My comments are long (some of them) and hurried.

But there is a point I wanted to reiterate here. One school board member thinks that I think the personalities of the board members are "zilch." That's not true, and I try to clarify:

I don't think that your personalities are zilch; I think that to get into individual personalities -- as in "Mr. X enlightens us this way, or Ms. Y avoids discussing B, or Trustee Z is an obnoxious obstructionist" -- is pointless and a waste of time. It would be to bark up the wrong tree.

The School District is a political machine in the form of a self-concerned bureaucracy and the board is window dressing.

Admittedly, such a point of view does diminish service on the school board. But that's still a side issue as far as I'm concerned, because there's a hell of a lot of money, mine and everyone else's in the district, that gets taken on a presumption that the School District is the prize bull of the community. I don't believe that it is the prize bull, and I don't think it really has all that much to do with the community, either.

Again, it's a political machine, set up to self-perpetuate for the benefit of its controlling interests. And the main controlling interest is now the teachers union, which is also the chief beneficiary of the School District.

Someone could argue that the "children" are the chief beneficiaries, and my response to that is that there are many things that could and would be done if that were true, including, in fact, the de-unionization of the School District and the removal of all the advantages that the unions have won for themselves in Albany.

The rent-seeking of public employee unions is now a notorious fact facing increasing public awareness across America. And the New Paltz School District is the prime example of where that is happening in this community. But not the only example.

How annoying can I be?

Very.

Yesterday I got one of the pikers who run the Kingston Freeman quite pissed at me.

Some background. I will occasionally leave comments on stories or editorials or blog posts at their website. Started doing that about nine months or so ago.

One of their regular comment-makers (who is not involved in the thread in question) is a ridiculous bigot who hates Christians and a half-dozen other categories of people and rants on irrationally saying the same thing in the same manner day after day. I have wondered whether or not the Freeman management tolerates him because he puts an ugly stink on their comment sections in general. My sense is that the editors are not really comfortable with comments, and I understand that much. But letting this one guy have his way with the comment threads diminishes the experience of both reading and posting comments. Perhaps he gets away with it because he's not attacking any favored liberal groups, and the Freeman editors are very liberal, with that mixture of naivete and self-righteousness that so endears liberals to non-liberals.

So yesterday I made an initial comment on the first of the three editorials from "around the world" that the Freeman editors ran as their daily editorial.

My first comment is about the substance of the first excerpt, having to do with terrorists and Miranda warnings, but I began my comment like this, "The Boston Globe editorial, which you implicitly endorse by running it..." The idea that the Freeman editors were endorsing an editorial from another paper that the Freeman editors were running as that day's editorial was too much for the Freeman "Webmaster."

You can go read the series of comments exchanged between me and the "Webmaster" if you're interested, but the funny thing is that they didn't want me to have the last word and refused to run my final comment. They were thin-skinned enough to zotz my comment, which is why I described above the constantly obnoxious and offensive character who they have no problem with.

And this was my final comment, which probably won't make complete sense without reading the rest of the exchange, but I want to record it for posterity:

Yeah, I suppose if you take away categories, logic, and meaning, and go by your say-so, then I'm incorrect.

Otherwise, my explanation that the title category "Editorial" does indeed mean "Editorial" on Friday, just as it did on Thursday, is obviously correct and as analytically secure as "all bachelors are unmarried."

Yeah, just a real pain in the ass when the invincibly ignorant catch me on the wrong day.

Total distraction

My advice to Fawn Tantillo is to never get involved in this sort of thing with any person serving on the New Paltz school board. It's a distraction, and more importantly, a waste of your precious time. Stick with policies and budgets and what this all does to taxpayers trying to stay in their homes.

The personalities on the school board could consume a half-millenium of analysis. Not worth a moment of a serious person's time.

The heavyweight fight is to make the School District responsible to the community as opposed to its masters in the teachers union or the state education bureaucracy.

Ed Morrissey finds time for Maurice Hinchey

And he finds that Hinchey is much quieter these days:

Not long ago, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) felt comfortable enough in his re-election prospects to float nutty conspiracy theories about George Bush allowing Osama bin Laden to go free in order to justify the war in Iraq, accuse Karl Rove of planting the Rathergate memos, and to demand the nationalization of the American oil industry. Suddenly, though, Hinchey has become quite shy less than six months after his Bush-Osama paranoia-fest. Now when George Phillips, the only Republican running for the nomination to challenge Hinchey in NY-22’s midterm Congressional election, criticizes Hinchey for his positions on Iran, immigration, and health care, Hinchey is nowhere to be found...

Hit the link for details and internal links.

The vote on the New Paltz school budget is one week away

I get the feeling that this year's vote on the New Paltz School District's budget, coming next Tuesday, May 18, is one that the school district desperately wants to fly in under the radar.

The district's propaganda came in the mail yesterday, and the announcement of the budget vote seemed crafted to make it no big deal. After all, a "Yes" vote will cause the tax levy to rise by only 3%, hardly a ripple in the district's great financial ocean.

And the "No" vote will only make the tax levy rise a little less, just 2%. So what's the difference? Are voters going to get ruffled over a mere 1% difference and vote "No?"

Well, let's hope so. A "No" vote is a vote to keep up the pressure on the district, which still insists that it is an indespensible institution on which the fate of "the children" turns. But it is a backward, teachers union driven and teachers union bound, money sink that imposes itself through relentless PR, the inducement of guilt, and the "more" vs. "more more" choices of the annual budget vote.

So, let's hope that voters get out, as they did for the vote on the Middle School, and say "No" again. It will only get them an increase of 1% less -- 2% instead of 3%, "more" instead of "more more" -- but it sends the right message and indicates the right direction.

Can Maurice Hinchey be beaten this November?

With the growth of anti-incumbent sentiment, this is the year to do it.

His prospective Republican opponent is George Phillips, and he'll be in the area on Monday, May 10 for a fundraiser. From the announcement:

The event will be held from 6 pm to 8 pm at Fred's Place Restaurant 11 Lohmaier Lane in Lake Katrine, NY.

George will be giving remarks around 7 pm.

The phone number for the restaurant is 845-383-3883. Light refreshments will be served and a cash bar will be available.

If not now, when?

"The American Golfer"

That's the title of New Paltz writer Anthony Robinson's new novel. The word is that it will be available on May 21st. As soon as it's out, I'll put the link up here.

Should New Paltz police officers have tasers?

A discussion on that question proceedeth at the Gadfly.

"The Poskanzer Departure" bears more beef

I had forgotten my considerable pique from a few years back when news came of the demolition of the solar house on the SUNY New Paltz campus. Poskanzer apparently had washed his hands in the matter by allowing some central SUNY agency to handle the tear down. The excuse was that rehabbing this small building would have been exorbitantly expensive, quoting a dollar cost that was, I thought at the time, intentionally and ridiculously inflated.

Irritated, I wrote a very brief letter to the New Paltz Times noting that the house, which had been built back in the 1970s by students and faculty, was a good example both of passive solar architecture and of handbuilt houses that were significant of that era. It was a twofer, and should have been recognized and preserved on its unique merits.

Bureaucrats have trouble thinking beyond their noses, of course, so it's no surprise that this annoying old shack was simply dispensed with.

Recalling that event in the context of Poskanzer's prospective move to Minnesota reminded me that I had been up there long ago to cover, you guessed it, one of the original solar projects in that region, and that led me to find this blast from the past. It's an article by the architect Dennis Holloway, who oversaw the Ouroboros Project. The article, as you will see if you check the editorial note on the bottom right of the first page, is based on an interview with him by some obscure reporter who specialized in the solar and alternative energy field and had his first job with that odd-looking, going by the cover, magazine.

More about "The Poskanzer Departure"

That would make a good Ludlum title, no?

Anyway, the Kingston Freeman ran an editorial about Poskanzer's decision to leave SUNY New Paltz for Carleton College in Minnesota.

I made comments, which you'll see below the editorial. I would have only made one comment, but a couple of other comment-makers insisted on misunderstanding what I wrote. So I went back and clarified.

Yeah, I'll take door number two on the New Paltz school budget

It took me a while to find it, door number two.

Door number one is the New Paltz School District's proposed budget. It increases the tax levy on a median-valued home by 2.95% (or 3.0%, when rounded up by members of the adult world). That's the increase that voters will get to say "yes" or "no" on when the annual budget vote is held.

But behind door number two is the contingency budget that takes effect if voters say "No" to the proposed budget. That contingency budget provides for "only" a 2.0% increase.

I'll take door number two.

True, it's not much of a choice. Just the usual "More" vs. "More More." But there is a lesson that needs teaching here. It is, in the smarmy language of the modern educator, a "teachable moment."

The lesson plan is a simple one: "No."

What I would like to have seen was the School District not try to make up for any lost state aid by getting it from local taxpayers, but rather to first reduce its budget by the amount of aid lost, and then to reduce the budget by 1% on top of that. The School District constantly told taxpayers how painless a 1% increase would be for the $50 million Middle School renovation bond. So, how could a 1% decrease be so terrible?

Never forget that the School District is a political operation with a sophisticated PR approach to the people who pay for it. It is not all about "the children," and far from it.