A watershed event occurred at last night’s meeting of the Board of Elementary School District 64: a handful of private citizens videotaped a D-64 Board meeting.
That’s right: resident Marshall Warren manned the camera on loan from the City of Park Ridge (donated by Mayor Dave Schmidt and, until recently, used by George Kirkland to video City Council meetings) to record the public business being done by the D-64 Board. Amazingly, this occurred less than one month after Supt. Philip Bender, in response to a request by new Board member Anthony Borrelli, expressed deep reservations about such videotaping and even wanted a legal opinion because he was “extremely uncomfortable that someone could manipulate and edit a video.”
Who would do that, Phil? Islamo-fascist terrorists? America’s Funniest Home Videos? Jerry Springer?
At that same July meeting – which we wrote about in our post “Activist Citizens Add New Dynamic To D-64 Board Meeting (07.12.11) – Board member Scott Zimmerman lamely suggested that videotaping was against Board policy, thereby displaying the fear of transparency and accountability which has plagued the D-64 Board for the past 15+ years.
As we’ve noted many times before, no branch of local government has seemed as obsessed with secrecy as D-64, whether it involves the hiring of a new superintendent, interviewing Board appointee candidates, retaining an architect of record, finding ways to obfuscate the mediocre student performance on standardized testing, or posting Board-packet materials on-line so late that interested citizens barely have time to review them prior to the meetings. As recently as July 30, 2011, District 64 “reaffirmed” a set of “Operating Principles” that not only are almost laughable coming from the secretive and combative D-64 administration, but that also appear to mis-state the Illinois Open Meeting Act (“IOMA”):
- Information required by statute to be discussed in closed session and so discussed will remain confidential.
Under IOMA, nothing is “required…to be discussed in closed session” or required to “remain confidential.” But if these “Operating Principles” are referring to some statute other than IOMA, they should say so to avoid further misunderstandings about what IOMA requires and doesn’t.
Hopefully D-64’s secrecy and misinformation took a big hit last night, thanks to Warren and his merry band that included Charlene Foss and Shelley Weiner in speaking roles, all of whom pushed D-64 into something it clearly didn’t want to do.
We haven’t yet heard when or where Warren’s video will be publicly accessible, but we assume that will be known shortly. Kirkland and Charles Melidosian found a way to broadcast the videos of the City Council’s meetings until the City redesigned its website and began hosting them itself, followed by cable newbie WOW’s installing its own equipment in the Council chambers and commencing live broadcasting of those meetings just a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile, we applaud Warren, Foss, Weiner and their associates. With a $67 million budget teed up and ready for adoption – $10 million more than the City budgets for running the whole darn town – D-64 can certainly use as much scrutiny as the citizenry can muster.
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15 comments so far
Let’s go a step further….let’s record any public official (elected or appointed) whenever they meet…anytime…anyplace…whenever they discuss any matter that pertains to their position or other any governmental activity.
It will be the new reality show….”when public officials meet”
We can have the school board members on camera, heck we can have the library board members who meet with aldermen at their homes after 9 pm.
Seems that since they are “public officials” we should have complete …COMPLETE…. transparency.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We have to assume that anybody using “reality show” as the paradigm for the workings of government (or as a paradigm for anything worthwhile, for that matter) is engaging in some form of satire, however obtuse or silly it may be. As for “transparency” concerning the conduct of public officials, we’re satisfied with the provisions of IOMA…albeit as occasionally supplemented by the actions of the U.S. Attorney’s office.
$67 million for all of District 64 does not sound correct. That number appears low. On a per student basis we are not spending as much as the top ten school districts on a per student basis. You can google them just like I did.
While you believe d64 budget deserves scrutiny because you deem this amount excessive, there are parents that live in this community that view it from other angles (educational challenges, learning resources, college potential, well rounded programs, etc).
In this economy, all of us are concerned with our property taxes. Can district 64 trim fat and excess, probably, but before it goes back to the tax payer it should be reallocated towards other student needs.
The district’s finances are not in the mess that the City’s finances are in. They are the ones that have mismanaged their budgets for the last few years.
EDITOR’S NOTE Over the last few years that is true, but only because D-64 mismanaged its finances so badly from 1997 to 2007 that it was at risk of having the State Board of Education take over those finances – until it floated $5 million of “back-door” working-cash bonds and then passed a massive tax increase in 2007. All things considered, the City’s finances – even after a few years of big deficits – have not been as mismanaged as D-64’s.
Lordy, lordy…the sun is shining! And what a good thing that is.
Kudos to these citizens for taking it into their own hand to force the issue of transparency at D64.
Here’s hoping they can get the word out and that people will pay attention and start demanding accountability.
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These citizens are really TeAA+ Party shills who are performing this action to give themselves a platform to run on.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve never heard of the “TeAA+ Party.” But if transparency is a plank of its platform, we view that as a good start – and a major improvement over D-64’s traditional Culture of Secrecy.
749! It’s alive!
It’s a joke about the US credit downgrade and the fact the TeAA+ Party owns it. The bloggers here should be expected to have a better knowledge of what is going on in the world. Then again the bloggers here are also TeAA+ Party shills and it’s no suprise you will sing their praises. When the local TeAA+ Party shills do to our school district what the House TeAA+ Party has been able to do to our country then maybe you will wake up. School district meetings have always been open to the public. Everyone is free to attend and the press has always been free to report what happens. Do you bloggers here attend the school district meetings? There aren’t any secrets being kept by the school district, just the secret agenda of the TeAA+ Party shills here.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Are you against the videotaping and broadcasting local government meetings? If you are, say so. If you’re not, then what this group of citizens just did at D-64 is a good thing, irrespective of what political positions they may espouse.
749…And what is the problem with performing this action to give themselves a platform to run on? Isn’t that the American way? Would your preference be for a bunch more compliant boobs and rubber stampers??
Forget calling them part of the TeAA+ Party. This is the way things are going to be as long as organizations like D64 try to remain cloaked in darkness.
Cloaked in Darkness??? Holy Drama Batman!!!! Add this to all the people watching the city council videos and one has to wonder if the internet can handle the volume.
On a final note, tansparancy is NOT a platform. Anyone who uses transparancy to “give themsleves a platform to run on” is generaly hiding something….ironic, huh??
EDITOR’S NOTE: Your “final note” (we can only hope) observation about transparency isn’t as much “ironic” as it is stupid (or perhaps you would prefer “batty”) and patently wrong – as proven repeatedly by the U.S. Attorney’s investigating, indicting, prosecuting and convicting public officials for their secretive, non-transparent, dealings.
Who has time to watch these Board meetings? Can’t there be a summary transcript that can highlight what was discussed?
EDITOR’S NOTE: You can always hire somebody to watch them for you.
I love it. The online H-A has an article in which the D-64 Board says it is one of the most transparent boards out there and that it is going to do all of these new things to make it even better. BS. It took the actions of these citizens to shame the Board into doing it. Just wait, they will eventually try to take credit for coming up with the idea to film the meetings.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As reported by the H-A: “We certainly invite more public comment than most boards do,” Bender said of community input at board meetings. “We’re working very diligently to be as transparent as we can.”
Anybody who would buy that kind of line from Supt. Bender is checking the “For Sale” listings for Florida swampland.
You can be sure that, if not for Marshall Warren and his merry band, this D-64 Supt. and this D-64 Board (except for newcomer Anthony Borrelli) would have buried videotaping/broadcasting of meetings on the back burner for another six months or so, before coming up with a ridiculous City of Park Ridge-style $100,000 video proposal that nobody in their right mind could justify – at which point they would have gone back to the drawing board and buried the project for another six months or so.
Speaking of D64 and fiscal management, it was recently brought to my attention that Sally Pryor now works for North Park College. A quick search reveals that she is an Assoc Professor/MA Coordinator in Educational Leadership. Now this may be old news to many of you, but I thought she retired from D64 and started receiving for the rest of her life a healthy pension (based on a salary near the end of her retirement in the mid $200,000’s) funded mostly by the taxpayers of D64. How/why then is she still working? Will she work long enough at North Park to qualify for yet another pension? What kind of coordinator of educational leadership can she provide if this is how she chooses to operate in her personal life? She may be entitled to a pension from D64-but it should not be paid to her if she takes on another job after she retired as D64 superintendent.
Sally Pryor is not the first nor will she be the last public employee to take what ever advantage she can of the current rules for receiving a pension in “retirement” while she continues to work. But the current retirement system and its costs will continue to cause severe financial hardships on school districts (and other government agencies) until the pension system is completely overhauled to be more reflective of what private sector employees receive. The taxpayers simply to not have the means or the will to continue the funding of the current system.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Of course they do, as evidenced by the fact that they keep electing and retaining those public officials who maintain the pension status quo and even sweeten it by things like across-the-board, non-merit pay increases like the blanket 3% the D-64 School Board recently gave to its administrators.
Sally Pryor was making around $250,000 when she retired, although we don’t know what her pension is. But based on the reports of other pensions awarded for comparable salaries, we estimate she is pulling in at least $160,000/year in her “retirement” – and that escalates each year.
For those of you idiots, it’s Dr. Bender, not Mr. Bender, or Phil. Show a little respect for this guy! It’s a shame that Mr. Warren has to do all he is doing because he lost the board election! Isnb’t that really what this is all about?????
EDITOR’S NOTE: We save “Dr.” for medical/dental practitioners, not mere PhDs. By your goofy standard lawyers would have to be be called “Dr.” because they have J.D.s (“Juris Doctor”s, meaning doctor of law), and how ridiculous would that be!
Frankly, we don’t care what Mr. Warren’s motives are, so long as the results are beneficial to the taxpayers of D-64; and we believe videos of meetings (and, hopefully, live broadcasts in the future) fill the bill.
Is Joe related to Don?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t know, but we do notice some similarities in viewpoint and style.
how do you keep an idiot in suspense?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ll tell you tomorrow.
Dr. Triz, tell 7:49 and the rest of the folks that even some progressive Democrats are in favor of more transparency all around. Corporate secret deals are just as ruinous; in fact, usually more ruinous when the victim, er, customer is the taxpyaing public, as any gub-mint secret deal. The market and the democratic political system can’t work their corrective magic if people don’t know whassup. We won’t always all agree but if we can’t own up to what we are doing and what the vision is behind our decisions, we should probably not be doing what we are doing. Simple. 11:59, your description of stonewalling without outright disobeying is priceless! Reminds me of what a Cornell-educated resident once said after attending a D64 meeting with La Sally; “They don’t say ‘no’ to taxpayer/parent requests directly, but getting through is like carrying a queen-sized mattress up a narrow flight of stairs. It’s not heavy but you can never get your arms around it.”
P.S. North Park College is a small, religious private school, so Sally is not double-dipping. For what it’s worth.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry, but there’s a huge difference between “corporate” secrecy and “government” secrecy. With corporations, management owes its fiduciary duties only to the shareholders, who can simply sell their shares if they don’t like what management is doing and can’t vote in new managament. With government, however, public officials owe duties to ALL the governed; and if those governed can’t vote out bad officials, their only choice is to move out of the city, county, state or country.
And that’s because it’s the “United States Constitution,” not the “IBM constitution” or the “Microsoft constitution” – or the “Koch Brothers” or “George Soros” constitutions, for that matter.
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