Week of March 18, 2001

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Messages current with the week of March 18th.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

Answers

IMPORTANT SOS MEETING!!! IMPORTANT SOS MEETING!!

The next SOS Meeting is this Saturday and will be the day we finally interview and select candidates. It will start at 9am at Judy's Kitchen in Shokan on Route 28. The day will last until at least 1pm with, hopefully, time after each candidate to discuss their positions. After the last scheduled candidate, we will vote to select our choice. Please be sure to attend this important meeting.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001


Bobbie Schnell has requested permission to join the fray on the SOS BBS. She is a parent in the district who would like to be involved but has been unable to attend the SOS meetings. Anyone wishing to comment on her invitation by me to join the list please speak up soon. Thanks.

CARE has endorsed the candidacies of Fred Perry and Chris Johansson for the Onteora Board of Education. Since they have their horses at the starting line, Let the race begin.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001


Bobbie would be a great asset to the bbs!

That's a Chris-he rather than a Chris-she that CARE have endorsed, isn't it? Just want to get my pronouns right.

-- Anonymous, March 19, 2001


Yes, a he-Chris.

-- Anonymous, March 19, 2001

He.

-- Anonymous, March 20, 2001


I would like SOS members to be able to vote for the candidates via e-mail if they are not able to attend the Saturday meeting and vote. Please send me a confidential email to pumpkin@ulster.net. At the meeting your name and vote will be tallied confidentially.

Eric and I briefly discussed the voting procedure and, after giving it some thought, I agree with him. The best way to hold the vote is to give a preference of 1 to 4 for each candidate. That is, 4 being the best and 1 being the least preferred candidate. The candidates are Meg Carey, Michael Goodman, Kathy Hochman and Tom Rosato. Please send an e-mail that has each candidate's name with a single number from 1 to 4 attached to it if you wish to vote but cannot attend Saturday's meeting. Thanks.

I also have no problem with inviting any other interested parties to the meeting without voting privilages, of course.

I will give Bobbie Schnell access to our site today.

-- Anonymous, March 20, 2001


I’ll try to keep this brief: Facilities Committee, Monday 8:30am

•Chuck Snyder dropped this bombshell: there will be $3.17 million left in the budget at the end of the year!! Maureen: you were right (thunderous applause....)!!! This is simply because everyone padded their budget, and it will never happen again, so they say, it’s a windfall for this year only.... This news was revealed at the BOE meeting later, and it’s far reaching for our election campaign: it turns the fiscal foolery of the bad guys into a non-issue, except possibly the transportation saga......

•JD wants to complete the gutting of the transportation dept., making everything private, and then wants to use the bus garage as the new location for the Central Administration, plus the maintenance dept. offices. Then, he wants to convert the downstairs space in the main building into a new cafeteria and library for the middle school !!! This is a hairbrained scheme, very costly and without any connection to real long range planning....

BOE meeting, Monday, 7pm •Chuck presented his info, and you could see that the bad guys were very happy. Frank Gorleski made a dinky presentation on Instruction budget, and made it seem like it’s the least important thing happening. There was a surprise executive session at the very end: Hal said it was to bring charges against him, but they didn’t succeed in doing it last night..... Stay tuned, cause they will

•Erik was seated at the table, between Wendy and Joe V., spoke just once, but very effectively, about smoking in the school.... It was great to have him up there......

•The next meeting, 3/27, is about the modulars, then, on 4/2, Hal will present the trial budget. The big spike ain’t gonna be there, so it won’t be as hard a sell as anticipated

•Therefore: we must concentrate on the negative energy issues in this election: suspicion, accusations, investigations, and budget miserlyness versus education. I propose that we raise lots of money for newspaper ads, ask Joan Schuman to help us with text and graphics, and begin spreading the word asap.

•This is the last thing: no one is in touch with West Hurley PTA yet. Anybody got an idea?? See ya on Sat....

-- Anonymous, March 20, 2001


From Curry: "It's bad news/good news: the bad guys will claim it proves mismanagement, but it keeps that steep tax spike from happening this year......"

Freeman discusses the numbers

-- Anonymous, March 21, 2001


The Onteora SAVI program got good coverage by Lisa Phillips on WAMC this afternoon, mention of Sayde and the young man who is maybe the vice-president (?). They talked about how difficult it can be for the 7th graders from all the different towns suddenly thrown together.

One thing I've noticed from a couple of years of elementary soccer are the negative contributions made by the parents and coaches. There is an incredible amount of nasty bitching about the opposing teams/towns, and I can't think that that sets things up for suddenly finding unity of purpose when they all finally find themselves on the same side in middle school.

-- Anonymous, March 21, 2001


Hal Rowe discusses the modulars in the Freeman today.

I'll probably be coming to the meet-the-candidates session on Saturday, will try to bring little cheat sheets that you can tape onto your computer on how you too can make "hotlinks" like the one above. It's not always easy to demonstrate online, because sometimes it can produce live links that messes up other coding.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001



hey strangers.Gettin' pretty quiet out there. Too many bad guys?At some point one is forced to ask what one is defending?Were Hal and Dennis asleep when they decided to leave 3.5!!!! mil out there in the budget, just in case? That's more than 10%, right? Does not look good.Yes , we can attack Marty and Joe V. for being asleep at the wheel and missing the whole event , but frankly Joe Doan is starting to look pretty justified in his attacks on district bizniz practices.I hate that.Anybody know why Chris Johannsen is running for SB?See you soon.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

I want to make those links!!!! YES!

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

Since I haven't been to one of these Judie's meetings before, what's the protocol as far as getting food? Do I put in my order and the waitress will bring it to me while Goodman is holding us spell-bound as in a club, do I get there early and eat so that I can pay full atention to the carnage unfolding in front of me? Whaddaya usually do?

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

The usual thing is to order and eat during the meeting.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

Marino can stay. Freeman online report.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001


I've invited Joan Schuman to attend tomorrow's meeting. Joan has an advertising agency in Kingston, is a good friend, and will help us with our ads!!

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

Urgent -- does someone have Diane Kvistad's phone number? Ted needs to contact her about getting in touch with the printer for the signs.

Please email him at erd@wilsey.net , or phone him at 657-7057 (# is both home and work)

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001


Here's something to note about the tactical timing for online Freeman responses, as evidenced by the online responses to the modular air quality article.

Barbara Clare got the first salvo in, but Tobe's over-rode hers and went to the top, and when mine came along at dinner it pushed hers off the page and just left mine and Tobe's visible. We may want to pay more attention to strategically posting responses, every little bit may help.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001


Hi all: I've been busy making phone calls and talking to people around ulster county. There's a general feeling that Shaw is hired by many districts and represents them when parents take them to hearing. The mandates are clear and 3 people I spoke to won. Shaw, it seems, doesn't create the mess, but is the litigator representing district. He doesn't have a "bad guy" image. This may be good cause he may not want his reputation fiddled with by Doan's insanity. I'm very upset about the many millions. We need to stratigise and be sure what the facts are. I hate feeling like maybe the administrators blew it. Please reasure me! Randy Collins has been actively talking to PTA at Phoenicia and has support. They are writing a letter and putting it out for all to sign in the Phoenicia office. If that doesn't rally enough signitures they plan to go around and get 'em. It's simply stating don't take away the modulars til a plan is in place....either temporary or permanent. I also spoke with Randy tonight and he is very supportive of our efforts. I have a few people interested in our bbs. Tina Harp, mom of 3 at Phoenicia, spoke at public be heard about modulars. Judy Newton, child advocate, kid up at high school Randy Collins, phoenicia pricipal They are all my friends and feel they would be an asset to our group. This is silly, but is there a way to get spell check on this thing? I need it! See you all tomorrow...

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

For those on the board who didn't make it to the meeting at Judie's Kitchen this morning:

Jim will be collecting votes for the 4 candidates until 4PM on Monday. Rank the 4 in order, giving 4 points to your most favored candidate,1 to the least.

My own personal feeling is that Meg is by far the strongest, with both the Board experience and theoretical/practical educational experience to be a good member. Tom has these too, and the same passion, but I think Meg needs the support most. While seeming to be better informed and more competent than many of the current Board members, Kathy didn't seem to really have the drive and connections. Michael is very educationally focused, but with him it might be Mr. Rogers among the ravening wolves. We must not forget that we need to have a long attention span, however, and that we may want to consider some of the losing candidates next year, depending on who is in the field.

Erik was concerned about the mascot issue being a point that could bring defeat to both Tom and Meg. I think that any effort to to show them as having "mascot cooties" would backfire on CARE, since people really don't want to talk about the mascot whatsoever. If Meg and Tom simply say that the voters have spoken, and that the mascot is not an issue, they can move on. Tom's making a concerted effort this time to court the various unions in the school system, which I think will serve him well.

Someone mentioned concern about the sign mock-ups Ted brought for Meg. That is not connected with any proposed SOS endorsement of Meg, it is my personal grabbing of Ted by the lapels and saying, "here's how you can help, dear."

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2001


SOS ALERT --- SOS ALERT --- SOS ALERT

Anyone who did not make it to the meeting on Saturday should know that we had a very informative and helpful meeting with potential board candidates. It not only gave us a thorough introduction to the candidates but helped us in formulating ideas for what may be good campaign material with which to work. Thanks to everyone who attended and helped in this process. And for staying so long!

Anyone wishing to vote for the candidates are encouraged to do so after conferring with any of the SOS members who attended as to what impressions the candidates made on us. Please feel free to call or e-mail either myself or anyone else who attended.

The process is to vote for each candidate and give them a vote from 1 to 4 with 4 being the most favorable vote and 1 being the least favorable vote. Anyone wishing to vote must do so by 4pm on Monday, March 26 to me via phone at 657-2099 or e-mail pumpkin@ulster.net.

Thanks.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2001


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