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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2009 : 11:38:16 AM
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I got a chance to watch a good part of the school committee meeting. I missed the first 15-20 minutes of it. I'll have to catch that later since it was about their budget for next year. But, a lot to cover in what I did see; so let's get to it.
First off, they are planning to turn over the old high school back to the city on July 1. The point was made that they are still utilizing it a lot. Let see if they continue to do that once it is turned back to the city and if this is really only a move to get the expense off of their budget. In a related item, they are going to start looking for garage space for the vehicles that they store there. They have 10 vehicles that they keep there and there is no other city facility where they could be housed inside.
FFF introduced an item to consider doing some rehab work at the school administration building. It seems as if the roof leaks but they were also talking about redoing the siding, replacing windows, etc.. FFF was going to get some estimates. If the costs weren't too much, they would consider doing it within their own budget; otherwise, they'd be looking to the city for money. Do these guys pay attention to anything else that's going on in the city? The mayor is having a study done to determine the best usage of all city owned buildings, including the school administration building. Unless there are critical issues with any of these buildings, now doesn't seem to be the time to be addressing them. In a related issue, the subject of the grease trap at the Keverian School came up again. If you aren't a regular viewer of these meetings, it’s a issue that comes up regularly since it was not right since they were given control of the building. The city has been asked to address the issue but never has. Again, FFF was going to get some estimates so that they could decide where to go with this issue. Right now, they say that are spending $3,500 a year because of the issue so there is some payback to them if they address the issue themselves. On this one, I'm a little more sympathetic. They were handed a problem with the building. Where were the contractor, the Building Department and the Plumbing Inspector when the building was being built?
Issues surrounding the school administrators contracts apparently came up at a negotiations sub-committee meeting held some time in the last couple of weeks (can't remember when). The city solicitor was in attendance at the sub-committee meeting to give an opinion of the termination and suspension language in the contracts. We were told that Ms. Mejia's opinion was that the language in this area of the contract was sufficient. It seems that the subject of the mystery clause discussed two weeks ago also came up if I heard things correctly. It seems that the superintendent has a six year contract that automatically adds on an additional year every July 1 if the superintendent is not notified 60 days prior to that they do not intend to renew his contract. What this means is that the school committee would have to give the superintendent over five years notice that they would not be renewing his contract. Of course, they could probably ask him to step aside before than but they would be on the hook for the dollars associated with the remainder of the contract.
Of course, Stat got up to speak on the issue. And he really did stand, which is unusual for the school committee. That act alone seemed to ruffle some feathers. The point of him getting up was to make sure that the viewing public understood how the contract renewal worked and to state that he felt that no other school superintendent in the area had such a contract. He was shot down a little bit by Dr.Stella who related that he was at a meeting recently with a number of superintendent where he asked them about their contracts. Most that he spoke to had similar terms in their contracts but the majority of them only ran for three years. Mr. Ela also shot back that if the superintendent were to decide to retire, he had to give the school committee 120 days notice and the remainder of the contract would be voided. Not sure what that had to do with anything in this discussion though other than to give the impression that the superintendent is considering retiring some time in the near future and that makes all of this a non-issue. One last item brought up was that 6 year contracts for superintendents were much more the norm when FFF was first hired for that position almost 20 years ago then they are today.
There was a mention, if I heard it right, that during this sub-committee meeting, there was also a discussion with the teacher's union to consider taking less than the 3% increase than they are due on July 1. Just in the discussion phase. There was also a mention that there will be similar discussions with all of the other unions at a later date.
I guess that the issue of the newspaper ads that Stat had brought up two weeks ago was discussed at last night's finance sub-committee meeting. At the regular meeting, the public was given a description of the ads but not their costs. Stat wanted to stand up again on this issue but was not allowed to because their was already a motion on the item. I don't get that. At the city council meetings, you are not allowed to speak unless there is a motion on the floor; at the school committee, you are not allowed to speak once a motion is made unless, of course, the leadership wants you to. Stat relented but continued to argue with other members of the school committee on the issue. Ultimately, he tried to get up again on a point of personal privilege or the like. He was denied. Of course, this just escalated things and, ultimately, a recess had to be called for. Once they came back from recess, regular business was completed and then Stat was allowed to speak. He spoke briefly on the right of any member to ask relevant questions during the discussion of any and all agenda items. The meeting then adjourned.
Plenty of fireworks even without any mention of last week's State Ethics Commission findings. Usually, I don't have any problems with what Stat tries to do at the school committee meetings. But, last night, I really thought that he was kind of disruptive. On the other hand though, I understand why he did so. If you don't make a fuss at these meetings, you'll never be allowed to express a dissenting opinion. It just shouldn't work that way.
If you can find the time, I'd suggest that you try to catch a replay of this entire meeting. |
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scamore
Senior Member
105 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2009 : 2:50:33 PM
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ah but tetris you missed the part where they shut the camera's off when stat got up and talk about the state ethics it happen right at 7pm and banowicz shut the cameras down they went into recess and I haven't seen the rerun but I think you not seeing that part, the recess last a good 20 mins.
They alwasy shut Stat down so all fff has to do is pull is puppet strings and they follow |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2009 : 5:47:35 PM
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| Like I said, I missed that portion of the meeting. I wonder what that portion of the replay will look like. I'll have to catch one as soon as I can. Thanks! |
Edited by - tetris on 02/18/2009 5:48:12 PM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2009 : 10:03:34 AM
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I got a chance to see the part of the school committee that I missed. It went pretty much as it has been reported. Stat rose on a question of privilege. There was an argument about whether or not he had the right to do so under Robert's Rules of Order. This continued on for a bit. However, once Stat brought up the State Ethics Commission, a recess was called for and the cameras were shut off. When they came back, there was no discussion of what had previously occurred other than to say that they will be purchasing updated copies of Robert's Rules of Order for all members of the school committee.
It's kind of hard to sort out what happened with the way that things went down without knowing exactly where Stat was coming from and what happened in the recess that convinced him to stop. As best as I can tell, he was trying to speak based on the section of Robert's Rules reproduced below:
19. Questions of Privilege.
Questions relating to the rights and privileges of the assembly, or to any of its members, take precedence of all other motions except the three preceding relating to adjournment and recess, to which they yield. If the question is one requiring immediate action it may interrupt a member's speech; as, for example, when, from any cause, a report that is being read cannot be heard in a part of the hall. But if it is not of such urgency it should not interrupt a member after he has commenced his speech. Before a member has commenced speaking, even though he has been assigned the floor, it is in order for another member to raise a question of privilege. When a member rises for this purpose he should not wait to be recognized, but immediately on rising should say, "Mr. Chairman," -- and when he catches the chairman's eye, should add, "I rise to a question of privilege affecting the assembly," or "I rise to a question of personal privilege." The chair directs him to state his question. and then decides whether it is one of privilege or not. From this decision any two members may appeal. The chair may decide it to be a question of privilege, but not of sufficient urgency to justify interrupting the speaker. In such a case the speaker should be allowed to continue, and, when he has finished, the chair should immediately assign the floor to the member who raised the question of privilege to make his motion if one is necessary. Whenever his motion is made and stated, it becomes the immediately pending question and is open to debate and amendment and the application of all the other subsidiary motions just as any main motion. Its high privilege extends only to giving it the right to consideration in preference to any other question except one relating to adjournment or recess, and, in cases of great urgency, the right to interrupt a member while speaking. It cannot interrupt voting or verifying a vote. As soon as the question of privilege is disposed of, the business is resumed exactly where it was interrupted; if a member had the floor at the time the question of privilege was raised, the chair assigns him the floor again.
Questions of privilege may relate to the privileges of the assembly or only of a member, the former having the precedence if the two come into competition. Questions of personal privilege must relate to one as a member of the assembly, or else relate to charges against his character which, if true, would incapacitate him for membership. Questions like the following relate to the privileges of the assembly: those relating to the organization of the assembly; or to the comfort of its members, as the heating, lighting, ventilation, etc., of the hall, and freedom from noise and other disturbance; or to the conduct of its officers or employees; or to the punishing of a member for disorderly conduct or other offence; or to the conduct of reporters for the press, or to the accuracy of published reports of proceedings.
Let me state up front that this excerpt this from a 1915 version of Robert's Rules as it was all that I could find online, although I'll admit I didn't kill myself looking. As far as using this portion of Robert's Rules for bringing up something about the superintendent, I'm not sure that Stat was in the right because the rules state "Questions of personal privilege must relate to one as a member of the assembly" and technically the superintendent is not a member. Just my interpretation though. Don't get me wrong, Stat has every right to bring up this issue but I just feel that the way that he went about it was probably not correct.
The other thing that happened during this portion of the meeting was a preliminary discussion of their 2010 budget. The information that they had was that Chapter 70 aid will be level funded but the calculation of the foundation budget went up over $4 million dollars. The city will be required to come up an additional $300,000 plus for schools but the state would come up $3.8 million on its calculated contribution. There was discussion that federal stimulus money may go towards closing the gap. Stat also noted that level funding of Chapter 70 aid was the governor's proposal and not necessarily the legislature's, giving the impression that they might propose additional funding. As they have done in the last couple of years, Stat said that the state will try to firm up what is actual going to happen with Chapter 70 monies by April. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 8:55:23 PM
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| Appeared to be another Stat Smith incident at the school committee meeting tonight. Didn't see much of it: just flipped the channel for a second during the CC meeting. It appeared that it was a short meeting; about 20 minutes. I'll have to catch a replay. |
Edited by - tetris on 03/02/2009 8:59:26 PM |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 9:43:12 PM
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I caught the replay from last weeks, this afternoon, and I'm curious about the rules. Why cant he speak on an agenda item? I'm not understanding why he is so quickly shut off. It does not look good, it looks as if the school committee is hiding something. Stat was not able to speak on personal privileged or anything.
I just don't understand it and would love to see that rule book that was given out. I don't believe for a minute that he can not speak on personal privilege. These are questions that his constituents want to know. |
Edited by - Tails on 03/02/2009 9:43:57 PM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2009 : 07:27:03 AM
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| I still didn't catch the whole thing but I did finally catch about the last half of this week's school committee meeting. It seems that they finally had an open, non-combative, for the most part, discussion about the money spent on newspaper advertising. Stat only got hot at the end of it when someone called for the question while he was speaking and he was forced to stop. Interesting quote by FFF during the discussion "We're in business to promote education and schools." I thought that they were in business to educate students. Sure, they need to be advocates for the kids but the way of thinking behind that statement just seems to be off target of their mission. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2009 : 09:22:53 AM
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Haven't done a post about the School Committee in a while. Even though there are some issues going on there that certainly deserve some attention, the reality is that they have been tough to address because the coverage of the meetings has been so hard to find. The fact that the School Committee meetings are held at the same time as the Common Council meetings has made it difficult to give the School Meetings viewing priority. It's even more of issue when you actually attend the first portion of the City Council meeting as I did last Monday night. This wouldn't have been such a problem in the past as replays of the School Committee meetings have been plentiful and hard to miss. But for some reason, replays of the meetings have seemed to all but have disappeared. Not that I keep my TV tuned to ECTV-15 all the time but, I check the station frequently and I have not found a replay of the meetings on nights and weekends for the last couple of two weeks. Since the station has cut over to its new equipment in early March, I can't recall them running a programming schedule on their bulletin board, nor is one posted of the station's web page that is part of the School Department's web site. A programming schedule for the station doesn't appear in any of the local papers either, at least on a regular basis.
So what is going on? Might it have something to do with the special meeting of the School Committee that happened on Thursday night March 26th? This meeting was held to discuss a letter that the School Department received from from the State Inspector General's office. That letter requested that information be turned over to the IG's office about all of the School Department newspaper advertising dating back to 2002. The only reason that I know about this meeting is that I happened to be flipping the channels early the following Friday morning and I just happened to catch a portion of a replay of the meeting. I wanted to post about it but thought that I should catch a replay of the entire meeting before I did. But, I never saw another replay of the meeting. The only other reference to this meeting that I have heard of was a brief mention of it at last Monday's School Committee meeting. How do I know that? My brother. He happened to watch part of the School Committee meeting last Monday night.
I'll share what I know or have heard about the last two meetings of the School Committee meetings in a separate post. But for now, the main issue that I'd like to address is why have none of the local papers published this story about the IG's request? Maybe it was an oversight? Maybe none of them had the space to run the story last week because of the two page spreads of School Department advertising that they were running? Oh, wait! That wasn't true about the Advocate; they actually ran two two page spreads of School Department advertising! That must have been to make up for the Stat Smith rip job that they didn't run because that would actually acknowledge that the School Department has an issue. And while we're on the subject of actual School Department ads, has anyone else noticed the somewhat subtle change to them. They are now usually accompanied by an article. But since the article appears to be pretty similar from paper to paper (I haven't checked one word for word yet), it's a pretty weak attempt to try to disguise these ads for what they really are. I'm not sure what, if anything, the IG's office can do to the papers for running these ads. But, the fact that none of the papers have actual printed the story yet just points out all too clearly what is wrong with practice. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2009 : 7:26:08 PM
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I promised to post what I know from the last two School Committee meetings. Luckily, I jotted down some notes from the portion of the special meeting that I happened to catch. What I know of last week's regularly scheduled meeting comes from picking my brother's brain. I'll readily admit that there may be gaps in my knowledge of both of them but it's not for lack of trying.
The School Committee held a special meeting on Thursday, March 26, 2009. Apparently, the only purpose of the meeting was to discuss a letter that the School Department (?) had received from the Inspector General's Office asking for detailed information about the local newspaper advertising that the School Department has done dating back to 2002. All of the School Committee members with the exception of Stat Smith were in attendance. I later ascertained that this was the same night the State House of Representatives was in session to vote on ethics reform. Because of this, I was expecting another Advocate hatchet job piece on Representative Smith as this would have been a great opportunity for the paper to validate (at least in their own minds) what they have been saying all along, i.e., it is not possible for Smith to do both jobs. But, that piece has not materialized, at least not yet. The camera work from the meeting also seemed geared to pointing that Smith was not in attendance as there were at least a few camera shots that focused in on his empty seat.
The part of the meeting that I caught started out with the end of a presentation by David Ela that was intended to show how small a part of the entire School Department's budget that the advertising line item represents. There was a lot of grousing about why they are being singled out for such scrutiny for such a small portion of their budget, along with a lot of complaining with the amount of time and effort that it was taking to comply with the IG's request. It was noted that the School Department's efforts on this request was being headed up by Joe Pedulla. That would be the first public acknowledge that I'm aware of coming from the School Department that Mr. Pedulla is employed there. There was mention made that they would not be able to complete the task by the deadline given to them by the IG's office and that Mr. Pedulla had written to the IG's office to get an extension on the deadline.
As I recall, at this point, FFF blamed Stat Smith for the whole situation, but without mentioning his name. I don't think that I can argue with that assumption. Wasn't this exactly what Smith wanted to have happen in one of the many pieces that he has put on the School Committee agenda over the last few months? Joe Guiliano tried to defend Smith by saying that reason why the School Department is being singled out for this is because the IG has them on a "short leash" due to past incidents, i.e., the last letter sent to the city and the School Committee that was virtually ignored by then Mayor Hanlon and then School Committee Chairman Robert Alconada. He didn't say it in exactly those words but that was my impression of his intent. I can't say that that I disagree with "short leash'" argument but I think that it's pretty obvious to everyone who "dropped the dime" on the School Department to set off this chain of events.
So, what did the School Committee decide to do about this? They voted to hire a lawyer to defend them. Huh? Why do they need a lawyer defend them? They have not been charged with anything yet? They also voted to hire a "budget consultant" to help them with the cuts that are coming? Huh? What's that got to do with this? I thought that the school budget cuts were going to minimal at worst since stimulus money is going to be used by the state to make foundation budgets whole They tried to tie it to this issue but I really didn't see the connection.
I'll wrap these posts up with a look at the last regular School Committee meeting when I can. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/13/2009 : 7:09:28 PM
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So, let's wrap this up; on to last week's regular School Committee meeting. But, before we get to the "fun" stuff, let's review some public service type information that came out of the meeting:
- The improvements/enhancements scheduled for this summer at the Parlin School may be in jeopardy. The architect who had been handling the project has passed away. The contract will most likely go to his business partner but the situation is tied up in probate court.
- The grease trap issue at the Keverian School is probably going to be addressed sooner rather than later. However, no one has looked into Mr. MacLaughlin's suggestion from previous discussions of this issue to look into eliminating it altogether as he feels that it is not needed. I would think that, given his expertise in this area, I'd look into that possibility before I worried one bit more about how to fix it.
- A small portion of the roof at the new high school is leaking. The warranty for it is still in place and that will allow for it to be fixed free of charge. That will be addressed soon as well. I would hope so. The warranty is not going to last forever and the damage caused by the water is only going to get worse over time.
The really interesting things were the items submitted by School Committee members. All of them were submitted by Stat Smith, with the exception of the first one, which came from Joe Guilano.
- Back at a School Committee meeting in February, the issue of how many other school superintendents that Dr. Stella deals with on a regular basis have the automatic "add an additional year to the end of the contract every year" clause. Dr. Stella offered to provide a list back in February but had not followed thru. The list was distributed last Monday night. One funny story about the list. One fairly new superintendent did not know the terms of her contract.
- Smith had put in a request to get a copy of a video from a school committee meeting from last fall. The first DVD that he received opened but it skipped, etc. and was unusable. So he put in a request for a second one but it never showed up. When he requested it again, he was told that by one person that he had to put the request in writing again even though he never received it and another person told him that he didn't have to. Smith finally received another copy of the DVD but that one didn't work at all. Chairman Baniewicz told Smith that he shouldn't be bothering the School Department with such requests and he should be recording any meetings that he wants to have a copy of himself, just like everyone else does. Smith said that he normally does but, somehow, he missed that particular meeting. Baniewicz then had Mr. Obremski inform the committee that it cost $50 to produce and deliver the DVD. Smith stated there was no need to spend any money to deliver the DVD as he would have picked it up himself. To his credit, FFF stopped the foolishness by saying the next time that anyone has this type of request, just call his office and he'll make sure that it gets taken care of.
This conversation was so absurd on so many levels. Everybody has to record their own copies of these meetings? Why? Because they are afraid that the official copies will disappear or be tampered with? $50 to burn a DVD? There's a box on the ECTV-15 web page that says to call for copies of programs. You'd think that they'd be set up to create copies rather efficiently; guess they don't get many calls. On a side note, it doesn't look like they update the School Department web site regularly. The icon in the "request a program copy" box is a VHS tape. The list of school committee members hasn't been updated to reflect their new leadership. The location of the TV station hasn't been updated. You'd think that they would have the manpower needed to keep the website updated, at least during the school year.
- The next item was yet again another discussion of how school advertising gets paid for. Again, we were told that all School Department advertising is paid for from one line item in the budget. Although this discussion is getting to be very repetitive, there were some interesting points and comments made during this particular discussion. There are other entities, such as booster clubs, that may pay for ads that look like school department ads. Smith made the suggestion that all of these ads should contain a disclaimer of who is sponsoring them. He was told that wasn't necessary and that would add to the cost. I disagree with that last statement. When you are running large adds like these, you would be paying a rate for the portion of the page that you are buying, not the word count like a classified ad. Baniewicz then asked Smith if he was this concerned about state money used for TV advertising of Massachusetts colleges. Smith responded that he wasn't because it was a only a small part of their budget. It was point out to Smith that his argument was the same one the School Committee uses to justify their advertising budget. The conversation end with a comment by Mr. MacLaghlin that the School Department's advertising line item had gone from $90K in FY08 to $65K in FY09 and as far as he was concerned, that was the wrong direction.
- The next item was a request to know when the letter from the IG's office was going to be discussed. Not sure when that item got submitted but, since the meeting was already held, it was referred back to sponsor. But, since they so rarely have an item that gets referred back to sponsor, they almost forgot to take a vote on it.
- The next item was to ask when the school committee was going to discuss the differences in terms between FFF's contract and his predecessor, Mr. Gibson's contract. This was another offshoot of the discussion back in February about FFF's contract. At that time, it was said that the two contracts were similar. FFF has a six year contract with the additional year clause. The copy of Gibson's that Smith has received since showed that it was a two year contract with the additional year clause. However, FFF chided Smith for not reading the entire document that was provided as it also had a copy of an addendum that showed that Gibson's contract was amended before the first year of it was completed to extended it to five years.
- The last two items were taken collectively. They concerned when the School Committee was going to address the issue of the recent State Ethics fines assessed to two School Department employees and when they were going into executive session to discuss them. Smith tried to make an argument that he had checked with the Mass. Association of School Boards and there was no need to go into executive session if no names were mentioned. The board would not allow that since his piece had asked for an executive session. They went into executive session, came back some time later and adjourned. The meeting ended with FFF sitting there with what appeared to be a very smug look on his face. This led to arguing and finger pointing between FFF and Smith; but, since the audio had already been cut off, it was impossible to know what was said.
I hope that the issues with the replays of the School Committee meetings get resolved soon. These recaps are absolutely brutal to write up and a lot of this stuff really needs to be seen to be believed.
As far as Stat Smith never ending crusades go, I think that there a lot of us that are happy that he's there to take them on but I'm starting to have some doubts if he really up to the task. He's essentially on his on his his own as Joe Guiliano isn't really all that much help to him. Sometimes, Stat's his own worst enemy as he's the one that trips himself up. If he decides to run for another term on the School Committee, hopefully, he have some additional allies to help him out. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2009 : 9:55:10 PM
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Well, it looks like ECTV-15 has addressed some of the issues that I've raised about it. Whether my comments had anything to do with it or it's just a co-incidence, who cares. Just happy that the concerns have been addressed.
They are running a programming schedule again. Replays of the school committee meetings are running at night again. Just watched this week's replay; a little bit more about that in a minute. They had programming last weekend but no meeting replays; I'd like to think that well get addressed this weekend.
There's no reason not to replay this week's school committee meeting. No controversy (Stat wasn't there) and it lasted all of 15 minutes. For those of us that follow the Keverian School grease trap issue, they've decided to eliminate it. They did mention the IG investigation because they've hired a lawyer to represent them. I still don't get why they need a lawyer if they've done nothing wrong. The annual request for the city to pay for half ($15K) of the stadium bleacher rentals was also approved to be sent to the city council. Nothing else out of the ordinary really.
The funniest part of the replay was at the beginning of the meeting. They are now running a series of head shots before the meeting. Even though it is a school committee meeting, FFF and his two right hand "boys" get top billing over the actual school committee. It looks the open to a low grade, local news show. You have to see this thing. Too funny! |
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michael
Senior Member
195 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2009 : 05:39:50 AM
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| does anyone know if this is true, the crossing guards are being elminated at the end of this school year? |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2009 : 08:02:02 AM
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I haven't heard that one yet. If true, it seems public safety is getting hit everywhere.
"Deb" |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2009 : 09:17:56 AM
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I cant see that happening and if that's true, EVERY parent in the city should protest at the mayors office for the safety of the children. I really cant see that happeneing, but we are in major trouble if it does, more so than I thought.
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michael
Senior Member
195 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2009 : 3:02:51 PM
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| well I guess they get paid out of the police budget so with the police budget being cut 1 million dollars they have to go and FFF doesn't want them to paid out of the school's budget, what is wrong with this picture. |
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School Committee
