Beloved VOTING Detroit; When I was appointed to the Detroit School Board to fill the vacancy left by Otis Mathis, I had to ask the elected board members. I prepared a letter and presented my request to the board. There were other people making the same request. Among them was Jonathon Kinloch, who did not prevail. The most important issue to me, as I explained to the elected board members, was ( and is) governance. Even though I did not know the elected board members and I had heard that I would not get appointed because they had decided that Kinloch would be the one, I did prevail. I believe that I prevailed for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I swore to fight to get rid of the illigetimate emergency manager and defend Detroits right to self determination. Kinloch was so certain he would be appointed that night that he resigned from his seat on the library commission. But he was to rescind the resignation because I was appointed to the board. ( I ran and won in the subsequent election and remain in my seat, despite having been sued by the Attorney General for being elected. Despite being elected in a state certified election, the AG sued the 7 district board members. We prevailed. But imagine the cost of lawyering up for the state to sue people who got sued in a legitimate election. I will save the discussion for the states defense of illegitimate elections and voter nullification of PA 4 for another article. The first action I took as a duly appointed board member was to go to city council to fight off what they then called mayoral control. The non profit/philanthropic/ bank community revealed its hand by taking busloard of people to city council to demand that the elected school board be abolished, or at least put the question to the voters. The Detroit city charter is clear; the DPS is not part of the city administration. We are a separate board, but they had the consent agreement in mind then. So I find it interesting that the wonderful Skillman Guide to Excellent Schools features schools they rate, configured not under the DPS districts ( I represent D2) -- but under the city council districts. My schools are to be found under city council districts. So it turns out that there was no need for a charter commission. There was no need for electing school board members- Skillman would be the ones to dispense with us. Not the voters, not the governor. Not Jones Day. The centerpiece of this lovely publication, which recommends to parents EAA schools without mentioning that it is an untried, failing district to track the poorest students in, over which parents, teachers and students have no control- which never mentions a word about an elected school board, and which features the lovely new Boggs Educational Center as its mascot for reimagining education without elected governance, without any avenue of redress or accountability for those of us who pay taxes, once voted, once had input into our schools. This is where the ballot box went down the rabbit hole. Watch as labor leadership, even after RIGHT TO WORK, urges its members to contribute to their own demise through United Way. Watch as labor gets to keep dues deduction so that United Way can keep its own payroll deduction. We are not being decimated by the government. We are being decimated by the non profits ( Banks in DRAG).
Posted on: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:22:54 +0000
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