woodstocktruth.com

If We Are to Focus on Education- Baran, Lustila and Shipman Must Go

Admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:00:00 GMT

Update: January legal billing added below. Might be a new monthly record.

The saga of incompetence and deception by our K-8 school administration continues. Below you will find the WBOE legal bills for the period October 15, 2009 through December 31, 2009. Just some of the lowlights:

• Complaint concerning teacher and resulting investigation.
• Pending sexual harassment/assault/expulsion matter.
• Conferring with attorneys regarding authority of administration to override teacher’s grading.
• Conferring with attorneys regarding PAC contributions.
• The SPED department continues to be under fire from many directions despite Frank Baran’s assertion in the last meeting that there were no legal matters pending other than our Circuit Court appeal- the bills show otherwise. He has now admitted “systemic problems” in Woodstock SPED -duh.

The billing doesn’t include the on-going suit over the bus accident either. Link -HERE-

The billing also shows a two hour meeting with new board chairman Anthony Walker which is completely understandable as he tries to get his arms around this mess that he inherited from Lindsay Paul and the crusaders. My only problem with that is any advice from this firm going forward is highly suspect considering their history of involvement in the crusades and what continues to appear to be a billing bonanza.

Soon we will take a look at how Lindsay Paul and the crusaders continue to try to undermine and prevent the new board leadership from bringing control to the administrative chaos- stay tuned.

BOE Legal Bills October – December 2009 (PDF)

January 2010 Legal Bills (PDF)

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The Complex Performing Arts Centre Proudly Presents...

Admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Cait is coming home from Emerson to sing for this worthy cause...join us!

A Tough Breed We Are...

Admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:44:00 GMT

A weekend chuckle from an anonymous reader:

Forget Rednecks ...

Here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about New Englanders...

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work
there, you live in New England.

If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time,
you live in New England.

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a
wrong number, you live in New England.

If 'Vacation' means going anywhere south of New
York City for the weekend, you live in New England.

If you measure distance in hours, you live in New
England.

If you know several people who have hit a deer more
than once, you live in New England.

If you have switched from 'heat' to 'A/C' in the
same day and back again, you live in New England.

If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard
without flinching, you live in New England.

If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both
unlocked, you live in New England.

If you carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you
live in New England.

If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you live
in New England.

If the speed limit on
the highway is 55 mph you're going 80 and everybody is passing you, you live
in New England.

If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow,
you live in New England.

If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road
construction, you live in New England.

If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you live in New
England.

If you find 10 degrees 'a little chilly', you live in New England.

If there's a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, you live in New England.

If you actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your New
England friends & others, you live or have lived in New England.

Classic Howard Zinn Interviews

Admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:42:00 GMT

A not very widely distributed 5 part series of interviews with the late Howard Zinn can be found -HERE-.

These were produced just prior to the November 2008 elections by the Real News Network and should not be missed.

When Public-Employee Unions Attack!

Admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:33:00 GMT

Can a book about public-employee unions’ excess and thuggery be complete if it doesn’t contain copious anecdotes from the Nutmeg State?

Steven Greenhut thinks so, and it’s the reason Plunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation disappoints.

In 241 pages and 330 endnotes, the former Orange County Register editor and columnist fails to include a single tale of the rapaciousness of Connecticut’s unionized bureaucrats.

Connecticut isn’t the only state overlooked by Greenhut. Plunder! suffers from near-fatal California solipsism. Examples from the entire Northeast are scant, although the region -- New England, plus New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania -- comprises 18 percent of the U.S. population. (The Golden State’s share is 12 percent.)

The omissions stem from Greenhut’s belief that the never-ending budget debacle engineered by California’s public-employee unions “is coming to a state near you.” Thanks for the warning, Steve, but it’s already here. In many states, labor bosses seized control of the public sector long ago. Connecticut’s Supreme Court recognized the “right” of government-school teachers to unionize in 1951. In 1965, both educrats and other municipal employees won statutory approval for “organizing.” State employees followed a decade later, and since the 1970s, Connecticut’s politicians and bureaucrats have gone on an unsustainable spending binge their California counterparts have not matched.

Despite its less-than-catholic perspective, Plunder! is a handy field guide to the tools and tactics government unions employ to loot taxpayers. Seasoned limited-government rebels will learn little that they don’t already know. But newcomers to the fight for economic freedom -- not a small group, in the era of both Obama and the Great Recession -- will be shocked.

Public employees, Greenhut reminds us, “do not behave like noble doers of the public good. Instead, they are regular human beings who use their power and position to advance their own interests.”

Armed with overflowing coffers of mandatory dues -- workers must either pay up or lose their jobs, despite U.S. Supreme Court decisions that protect their right not to be coerced into supporting politics -- public-employee unions wield extraordinary influence. They’ve used it so cleverly, few voters have taken notice. It’s expensive ignorance, Greenhut argues, because the result is “a two-tier society where the government elite live far better than the public.”

Don’t believe it? Outrageously high salaries, platinum-plated healthcare, extravagant vacation and sick leave, wildly generous (and often early) retirement -- there’s more than enough evidence to conclude that while private-sector workers compete in the oft-unforgiving marketplace, bureaucrats dwell in a fantasyland where job security is unquestioned, workplaces are cushy, burdens are light, and compensation is bounteous.

Such coddling has put the nation’s fiscal future is in dire shape. As of February 2009, 43 states had deficits in their employee-pension funds. (Connecticut’s combined state-teacher gap amounts to $14.4 billion.) But contractually committed retirement programs are only part of the unfunded-liability crisis. Other post-employment benefits ( OPEB ), which include life insurance and healthcare, have put state- and local-government budgets further out of balance. Connecticut’s OPEB bill is a staggering $26.8 billion, a sum greater than an entire year’s expenditures.

Plunder! makes its most valuable contribution when it tackles answers to the problems it exhaustively documents. While the solutions aren’t politically palatable -- Democrats oppose reforms, and most Republicans are too cowardly to propose any -- they are simple. The silver-bullet approach is obvious. What state legislatures gave government unions can be taken away: “Public unions should be outlawed. There is absolutely no public good served by it [sic], especially in a world of civil service protections.” Short of repeal, solid suggestions abound. Make employees pay more for healthcare premiums and retirement benefits. Switch to health savings accounts and defined-contribution pensions. Step up investigations of “disability” fraud. Kill early-retirement deals, which save revenue in the short term only to demand more dough in years to come. Subject pension-enhancement proposals to voter approval. Ban double dipping. Follow the private sector’s lead regarding sick days and vacation time. Permit nongovernment entities to bid on public “services.” Enact loophole-free spending limits.

Greenhut is not a skilled writer -- his prose is bland and cliché-ridden, and some of his sources (Wikipedia?) are dodgy. His editor doesn’t appear to be acquainted with the hyphen, and the book’s California focus limits its appeal to audiences in other states.

So sadly, the definitive chronicle of public-employee unions, and the destruction they have wrought, has yet to be written.

In the meantime, Plunder! will have to suffice. Defects aside, it will terrify taxpayers who haven’t been paying attention.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

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To unsubscribe or add a name to our subscriber list, email dowd@dowdmuska.com.

If You've Never Written a Senator Before...

Admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:14:00 GMT

Elizabeth Warren just plain gets it unlike our elected officials and their puppet masters on Wall Street...and Jon's right, smart women are sexy.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

www.thedailyshow.com http:>Elizabeth Warren

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Woodstock's "Attack PAC" Revealed

Admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:46:00 GMT

No surprises here: Kevin Ford- Chair (Current BOE member), John Leavitt- Treasurer, Rebbecca Leavitt- Deputy Treasurer (I guess he can’t handle it alone with all of those contributions and expenditures).

Other officers are listed as: George McCoy (Current BOF member), Dean Audet (Highway Project member), Marylou Davis & Steve Gottlieb (Well known Academy critics on the hill) and of course Lindsay Paul (Deposed BOE Chair and current member).

Quite a collection of tax and spenders from both sides of the aisle who resist any sort of transparency with regard to the public’s business they were entrusted with...and shouldn’t have been based on their records and behavior. If this is the brain trust of “Woodstock’s future” we’re in much bigger trouble than you can imagine. Both parties should be so proud- not. See the SEEC documents -HERE-.

A Constitutional Amendment: Corporations Are Not People

Admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:52:00 GMT

Public Citizen will be holding a webinar tomorrow 1:00-2:00 EST.

Join Public Citizen President Robert Weissman for a discussion of the U. S. Supreme Court's disastrous decision in the 'Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission' case, in which the court ruled that the First Amendment allows corporations to spend as much money as they want attacking or promoting candidates for political office. Robert will outline Public Citizen's campaign to preserve democracy for We, the People--including our grassroots mobilization for a constitutional amendment to prevent the First Amendment from being distorted to provide cover for a corporate takeover of our electoral process. Robert will also answer questions from the audience.

You can register -HERE-.

John Leavitt and the “Attack PAC” Smacked by the SEEC

Admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:16:00 GMT

On January 15, 2010 by agreement and consent including payment of a civil penalty, John Leavitt was found in violation of Connecticut General Statutes §9-621 (a) with regard to ads that were placed that included scurrilous and ad-hominem attacks on candidates in the last election that were published in the Shoppers’ Guide and Woodstock Villager, as well as web-based communications, without the required attributions required by the statutes. The PAC’s registration names Kevin Ford as Chair and John Leavitt as Treasurer. The agreement was subsequently adopted by the SEEC on January 20, 2010.

Complaints are still pending against the WBOE with regard to PTO involvement in the referendum held last June. Mr. Leavitt had a hand in that too- stay tuned.

See the Agreement and Consent order -HERE-.

Petition Circulating Against SCOTUS Decision on Corporate Campaign Spending

Admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:20:00 GMT

From an anonymous reader:

Are you familiar with a California Supreme Court case dating from 1886; Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad? If not, you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad This is the landmark case that is primarily responsible for Corporations being afforded the same rights as People under the Constitution. Isn't that CRAZY?

Now we have the recent Supreme Court case Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. Have you heard about it? If not, WHY NOT? This decision formally erodes the dividing line between Corporate interests and Government, in that it allows Corporations to sponsor political candidates for Public Office. Read about it for yourself:

Justice Stevens, who dissented with the final Court Ruling said that the Court's Ruling, "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution." He concluded his dissent with the following statement: "At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

You and I both know that big corporations use their financial reserves to influence the politics of our country. The reason 'We the People' are supposed to fairly elect our politicians is so that they can represent our interests in government. Unfortunately, with this decision by the Supreme Court, although 'We the People' will still decide who goes to Washington, our hearts, minds an souls will now be subjected to campaigns financed by Corporate interests... and you know how easy it is to sway public opinion with endless funds and the advertisements that money can buy.

If you feel as strongly about this as I do, and are horrified at the way Corporations are usurping the Government laid out by our Founding Fathers, I urge you to make your voice known. At this time, the only petition I have found to add your name to can be found at www.dontgetrolled.org. You can also write to your Senator to express your concern. I have written to Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and, as yet, have not received a response.

Thank you for reading. I sincerely appreciate your time!