Can we get it from our elected officials?
Folks, about once a month I go to BOE member Bollinger's blog to see what pretentiousness he is treating us to and this morning I cruised by his blog ( http://www.bollingerboard.blogspot.com/) just to see the "spin" he was putting on the Klaus/Olson naughtiness. As before, I had NO idea how deluded and out of touch some BOE members are. I honestly am concerned about his handle on reality. I am going to copy and print his latest post here on my blog because if the rest of the BOE or public sees it I am sure he will be part of this investigation and he will be required to remove it. I am sorry as many of you may develop nausea (I did) or headaches (reported by others) by simply reading this load of crap.
I have made bold several of his statements that are so incredible that they deserve a response. My parenthetical and italicized responses to Mike follows his comments.
Maria
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Tough Times
It’s quote week on Mike’s blog. This has been an interesting couple of weeks for us in the ever evolving sage of ‘The Times and Trials of s Board Member’. I believe Mr. Adams was speaking to me when he said …
No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.
John Adams
You all well know that I can’t discuss particulars of either of the events which are overloading the network service at the Leader-Telegram comments page. But I would like to speak on a point which I believe is CRITICAL to this school district.
Let's all take a deep breath and pause - please?
If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves."
Carl Gustav Jung,
"Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up."
Jesse Louis Jackson
You are going to have to trust us moving forward. (Mike, we don't trust you at all. You were formerly a high-level employee of this screwed up organization called the ECASD and are good buddies with all the naughty people like Carol Olson, Bill Klaus and Gregg Butler and Mike O'Brien. You voted to make Mike O'Brien president of the BOE in spite of his poor leadership skills and glaring Conflict of Interest that worsened an already devastating leadership failure.)
I speak only for myself, but let me say this, with the utmost clarity. I didn’t take a dime when I ran for school board. I don’t take money for my service. I don’t have any aspirations to be on the board for years to come, nor do I have any other political aspirations. I believe simply in the purity of intent, I believe that if
A) You come to the board (and most of life) with a clear understanding of right and wrong; along with analytical ability to assess all the issues and make sound judgments and
(Mike, you, clearly do NOT have an understanding of right and wrong. You clearly do NOT have analytical abilities and you do NOT make sound judgments. Every single person in this town knows that it is wrong and illegal to sign and backdate documents when you no longer have the authority. Yet you knew this in October and (along with at least a majority of the BOE) didn't fire your friend, Bill Klaus when he tried to pull a fast one.)
B) Your judgments and opinions are from a sound humanistic and moralist focus.
Then the true nature of what to do next when a decision presents itself will become clear, obviously framed within the context of your own life experience, but clear nonetheless.
So with all the anger (on both sides) over the Health Curriculum and all the anger (on both sides) about the contract issue does anyone wonder what the heck happened? Five years ago this was a highly thought of school district (and yes I still think highly of it). All the same people were here then. So what happened? When did such a positive thing as this school district become a negative chew toy for the community?
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t the Pollyanna / Orphan Anne platitudes that hope it’ll all go away. We’re working on it. But let’s be honest here, we tend to ascribe omnipotence to our leaders (Mike, we do not ascribe omnipotence to leaders like you, Bill Klaus and Carol Olson or Mike O'Brien nor most of the BOE who has followed Pres. O'Brien down this path of hiding behind the phony wall of "Closed Session".)(elected or otherwise) and in today’s sound bite world – it’s easy to draw conclusions.
The balancing act between confidentiality (if you sent me an EMAIL would you like it to be a matter of Public Record? It is you know.),(Mike, I sent you more than a couple e-mails about this disaster. Those of us who knew about it could see that it would turn into the biggest pile of crap in the history of the ECASD and eclipse all previous bad leadership of the last decade. But you and the BOE and the Administrative leadership ignored people who have more common sense than you apparently do. Please share the e-mails from citizens that ask the BOE to do something besides hide.) respect for the employee, respect for the parent and of course the UTMOST respect for the children mean that if I did not have that purity of intent, I wouldn’t be qualified. If you don’t trust me to do the right thing, fire me.
It is a simple Boolean equation that we use.
IF (qualified) THEN (trust) ELSE (fire).
People make mistakes, in criminal law, it’s all about intent. In my own world where I size people up when I meet with them, it’s all about intent. We need teachers, staff, administrators and a community that carry a purity of intent. I believe that the intent is and ALWAYS HAS BEEN there.
You dear reader have to help me. You (WE) have got to change our approach to this district. It is time to remember why we love this thing, to join hands and yes to sway to the music together.
(Mike, is the above a joke? Nobody is laughing. Nobody thinks this is funny that you and your buddies have dragged the entire district into a hole that will take a decade to dig out of. )
Promise
– yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind;
– to talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet;
– to make all those you meet feel that there is something in them; to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true;
– to think only of the best, to work for the best, and expect only the best;
– to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own;
– to forget mistakes of the past, and press on to the greater achievements of the future; – to wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile;
– to give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others;
– to be too large to worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
(Mike, forget the poetry, just do your damned job. The above is another scary, pathetic attempt to deflect from what you should have done months ago and are trying to avoid doing now which is to : FIRE KLAUS, PROSECUTE OLSON and get rid of anybody else at the Main Office who had anything to do with this stupid, unethical, illegal and greedy act.)
§ Christian D. Larson
I don’t mean this to sound harsh; I am highly dismayed at the turn this has all taken, and we will handle this. I really need your help in moving on to our future. Our students, our community and our hard-working staff need you.
Oh and one last quote - of my own and my tag line …
“You may not agree with me, but you will always know what I think”.
Mike Bollinger
Posted by Mike Bollinger at 5:58 PM 0 comments Links to this post
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6 comments:
Dear Maria,
This is unusually nasty commentary, even compared to what I have read here in the past. Is it really necessary to describe another person's musings as a load of crap, tell them that they are untrustworthy or that they make you nauseous? Just as you have a blog where you are free to write whatever you want, so do others.
While anyone has the right to disagree with our BOE members, it looks to me like Bollinger is trying to stay above the fray and focus on the job - since I don't know him, that may or may not be the case. But when the public throws this kind of arrogance and hatred toward elected officials - who get paid next to nothing and spend large amounts of time - we should not be surprised when we find ourselves scraping the bottom of the barrel for good candidates the next time around. Who would ever want to put up with this from people they are (perhaps even ineffectively) trying to serve?
I assume that your heart is in the right place when it comes to this district. But when you assault people' character, as you have done repeatedly by ridiculing O'Brien, Wogahn, Kneer and Bollinger, you will eventually take yourself out of the discussion completely. With the exception of your friends on the BOE, my guess is that you maybe already have.
Dear Anonymous,
Yes, I agree that the last posting was more personal than in the past, but the fact is that we (our community, our school district, etc...) are in far WORSE shape than we were a year ago when I started this blog. Part of the reason for this deterioration is the continuation of the "same old, same old" utterly failed leadership style that we have seen in the last decade of Klaus/Olson/O'Brien/Butler. And, in my opinion, Comm. Kneer's and O'Brien's tenure on the board matches exactly those dates. Comm. Wogahn has gone along with every single proposal made by that group without a single question asked or a new idea proposed. Comm. Bollinger is a good buddy of all of them and, it seems, cannot separate himself from those relationships and also serve our district and the taxpayers at the same time.
Have you ever attended a board meeting? How about a dozen of them? What are your observations about the contributions of Kneer and Wogahn? I have attended a year's worth and reported on them all. You can feel free anytime to correct my comments at any time. I stand by my observations that the ECASD BOE meetings are a ridiculous combination of some BOE members doing nothing but occupying a seat and other members trying to ask questions and propose ideas. I hope that you notice that earlier in the postings I was VERY HOPEFUL about the new BOE members (Bollinger and Faanes) and gave them lots of wiggle room. In the last several months it has seemed to me that Faanes has become a thoughtful and independent thinker while Bollinger has stuck with the old dysfunctional allegiances that have left us in this newer and bigger mess with the "usual suspects."
A year ago, before the election of O'Brien as President of the BOE many of us were concerned and alarmed about his double conflict of interest with his spouse and employer. Only Comm. Cummins and Craig opposed his election as President. I am absolutely positive that had Comm. Craig been elected instead, the problems with the Olson/Klaus document would have been solved in October and appropriate action taken then. As it turns out, Mr. O'Brien's employment with Weld Riley and their lousy "legal counsel" to the ECASD has left us with a far bigger, more expensive and more public mess than even I could imagine.
You are correct that this blog is controversial and, at times, contains personal criticisms of the BOE and ECASD administration. This certainly has made it untenable to be a candidate again. That is my choice to try to bring change to the district with the blog. I think the blog has made a difference but, to be honest, the "naughtiness" on the part of so many people has dragged me much farther afield than my original goals to keep board members accountable for their decisions, to keep the actions of the board more "transparent" to the community and to attempt to keep Strategic Planning, Board Governance and Community Engagement (my personal "Top Three") on the front burner. Believe me, I would LOVE to be telling everybody about all the great stuff we SHOULD be doing! If you go back you can certainly see my initial enthusiasm for Dr. Leary's initiatives but then they seemed to go nowhere, the Board Governance effort fizzled immediately, Strategic Planning is still not even on the radar.
But what about you? You get to post anonymously and really don't have any "skin in the game" here. It is risky to speak out for change. I have never deleted a comment on the blog and I have taken plenty of hits for my views. I know the comments can be irreverent and critical. If you want the "official" version of the BOE then read the Minutes on the ECASD website. I hope that you have called or e-mailed BOE members plenty of times with things you think they are doing right (I have) as well as concerns about decisions. I look forward to the day when the BOE is finally doing what they should be doing instead of staying stuck in this mire of stupidity and legacy of failed leadership that keeps showing up!
Maria
I think one of Board Member Bollinger's (how does one address a board member - Commissioner?) observations was right on and that was the key word "intent." I have read some of the posted state statues on the issues involved that word "intent" does occur several times in key points.
I'm not a laywer but it seems to me to be a word lawyers love, especially if they get paid by the hour as it must provide hours of legal discourse.
And I assume that public statements (the stronger the better) indicating pre-judgement are also grist for the lawyer mill.
I'm willing to let them grind away on their own without supplying them anything to work on.
And I am happy that whatever, whenever, and however, it all happened the taxpayer's money has not gone to pay a possible erroneous claim.
I understand the BOE concern with miscommunication and hope they get it resolved
without assessing any penalties that will
bring the lawyers into the picture in some type of civil action or grievance.
I think another key word is "trust" and whether we trust the board or not it seems they are getiing a lesson in who it is they can trust.
Jim Olson- the blog wouldn't accept any entry but anonymous
I'd say this blog has become destructive for our community. I am sad to see someone who obviously cares about the schools turn into such a negative influence.
There are many people who communicate with board members - not just the blogger.
I have never posted before and would never dream of signing my name. I fear the wrath of the blogger, quite frankly. I'd hate to wake up one morning and find myself the subject of one of these attacks in case I disagreed on an issue.
It now appears Dr. Klaus has been put on paid administrative leave by action of the Superintendent (not the board).
I thinl this was a well thought out move and the best course for all involved.
You know anonymous 3:48, if you have ever had an conversation with certain past school board members about election possibilities, I would bet dollars to doughnuts, especially if that conversation was with the one that works her Rolodex before each election, that some nasty falsehood was passed either about Maria or myself.
I'm not saying I'm thrilled about it. But life goes on. It sure didn't make me afraid to stand up for my beliefs.
I'm pretty sure I can paint a compelling picture of misbehavior by Klaus and past Boards using nothing more than state reporting and stuff from the L-T archives. Nothing illegal, but certainly a pattern of dishonesty. Maybe I should put some time into that. It might provide some insight into why Bill felt comfortable asking Carol to do something like this.
And I really have to point out, once again, that if only four Board members had supported doing the right thing back in October then none of this would be happening. Nothing from that October meeting has leaked, at least not to me. If Mike Bollinger was not a supporter of sweeping this under the rug, then Maria owes him an apology. But if he was one of the majority in favor of the broom then she most certainly does not.
And once the legal issues are past I think Board members need to address which side they were on last October, closed meeting or no. That's part of what they signed up for when they decided to run. I'm sure most would like to skip that part. But openness and honesty is how you avoid these sorts of messes, and if commitments to those values are an outcome of all these then that is a plus. Although it may not seem like it now.
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