I have received your letter of July 19, 2010, and am concerned about the number of questions which remain unanswered while apparently leading to your dismissal of my complaint. I have a number of questions for which a response would help me better understand your specific concerns or lack of jurisdiction.

It is also my belief that after addressing the following specific issues, you will reconsider my request for an investigation. The following numbered items summarize the background of each point and conclude with the questions in bold type.

1.    In your initial response, your letter stated:

you must show when the Oxford Board was presented with this petition, not when it was filed with the Town Clerk,

I’m confused by this comment because my complaint did not mention the Town Clerk. The paragraph in my initial letter stated:

On June 17, a petition was presented to the Oxford, CT, Board of Education requesting a hearing on issues related to the employment of the Superintendent of Schools. According to Chapter 170, Section 10-238, “Such hearing shall be held at a time and place to be designated by such board, not later than three weeks after receipt by the board of such petition.” Three weeks from June 17, 2010 is July 8, 2010. It is now July 12, 2010 and no hearing, which must be posted 5 days in advance, has yet been scheduled.

I included nothing about steps prior to that presentation because I did not think it was required. To be specific, June 17 was, in fact, the day that the petition, already approved by the Town Clerk, was presented by hand at the offices of the Oxford Board of Education at 1 Great Hill Road, Oxford, CT.

Please explain what specific documentation or explanation I need to make as your statement appears to address filing issues which I did not raise.

2.    The same paragraph continued:

Moreover, it is my understanding that the Oxford Board of Education has since scheduled and held a public hearing on July 14, 2010.’ Therefore, even if the Oxford Board was late in scheduling the hearing, it has rectified the matter by scheduling the hearing.

In making this statement, your office appears to be implicitly condoning the action. Specifically, the requirement to hold the public hearing within the reasonable time-frame of 3 weeks can be knowingly ignored as long as the hearing is held before a complaint can be acted upon within the time it takes for a letter to be received by your office.

Please confirm that the State Board of Education condones the willful disregard of this statute and explain where the statute allows the exception.

3.    By including a section of my complaint to the Freedom of Information Commission, I was openly acknowledging the filing, and did not intend to state that I believe all of the quoted material was covered only by Freedom of Information requirements.

The Officers of the Oxford Board of Education clearly operated independently in conducting an interview process designed to select a new attorney without receiving authorization or approval of the Oxford Board of Education. The subject was never discussed in a public meeting and has not been the subject of an Executive Session. They give appearance of forming a sub-committee. That sub-committee included no minority representation. Therefore, they appear to have formed themselves, or been formed by the Chair, without authorization by the Board of Education as a whole. This sub-committee did not contain minority representation, in violation of Section 9-167a of the General Statutes, requiring minority representation. Recognizing that the State Board does not get involve in local charter issues, you should also know for background purposes that the Oxford Town Charter clearly requires a bidding process that includes three written bids for all expenditures over $5,000, yet this process included none.

Please confirm that the State Board of Education approves of members of local Boards forming subcommittees without authorization of the full Board or may act in concert representing the Board without authorization by the Board.

4.    With regard to the same situation covered in point 3, please comment on the composition of this group which does not include minority representation.

5.    Further, the Board Chair requested written legal opinions on the existing contracts with the Superintendent and the Business Manager. My prior letter stated the following:

In a meeting on May 19, 2010, there was a

Motion made by Mike Macchio and seconded by John Lavin to enter into Executive Session at 8:40 PM for the purpose of discussing written legal opinions from the Board’s counsel regarding the Superintendents and Business Managers contracts. The Board may take action in the form of motions upon returning to open session.

There appears to be no record of any request for the “written legal opinions” referred to in the motion, nor any prior reference to a discussion of those contracts, either in or out of Executive Session, nor any authorization by the Board to spend funds on those “written legal opinions”. Yet, Mr. Macchio is making a motion to enter Executive Session to discuss an issue that does not appear to have been raised by the Board regarding a legal opinion the Board has never publicly requested and for which it has not publicly voted to expend funds.

Insofar as your letter makes no specific comment on this action, I think it is important that some clarification be made.

Recognizing that the State Board does not interfere in the Bylaws or Policies of a local  board, please confirm that the State Board of Education either approves of a Board Member making a unilateral expenditure of funds in this manner without prior discussion by or approval of the Board in question absent any delegation of this authority in the local Bylaws over which you have no authority.

6.    Your comment that the State, “does not prohibit a short-term durational contract with a Superintendent,” ignores the situation in which the Oxford Board of Education has placed itself. The Oxford Board unilaterally voided the contract with the Superintendents, not otherwise expiring until 2012, at a meeting on May 19, 2010, in Executive Session in which they discussed the written legal opinions referred to above. The Superintendent was not present and was not aware that the subject was to be discussed. The reasons for voiding the contract were not given, and the Chair of the Board has stated that those reasons are covered by attorney/client privilege. There are no known egregious actions which would have justified termination of the contract. As of today, no explanation has been given. In the same motion, the Oxford voted to, “continue the Superintendents employment through June 30, 2010, unless the Board extends her employment beyond June 30, 2010.” At a separate meeting held on June 30, 2010 (the minutes of which are not yet posted online in a separate FOI violation), they again extended the employment until July 31. The Business Manager stated this as a consideration for his own resignation as did the Assistant to the Superintendent.

Please explain why the State Board of Education does not consider the instability, brought about by the Oxford Board of Education itself, to not be detrimental to the children in that we are now half-way through the summer break and the Superintendent does not know what her status will be when school starts in five weeks?

7.    In your letter, you stated that, “The fact that the Oxford Board extended the contract requirements,” ignores the fact, stated in my original letter, that the not-yet-voided contract required this review to be completed in April.

Please comment on the Oxford Boards failure to meet its obligations to conduct the performance review within a time period included in the contract which they had not yet voided.

Since the date of my original filing, several additional facts can be added to the list of violations.

8.    It appears that the Chair has assumed executive level authority which has not been discussed or authorized by any meeting of the Oxford Board of Education, nor granted under any state statute of which I am aware. An example is seen in the following email from the Chair (Mrs. McKinnon) to another elected member who copied the (new) Board Attorney on an email.

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:56:05 -0700
From: rose_mckinnon@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Dr. Palmer’s completed evaluation
To: paulaguillet@msn.com
CC: wjn@nearylawoffices.com; johnlavin@beaconphysicians.com

Paula,

The modem has been replaced and I now have intranet access.  I have many emails to respond to given the fact that I was without intranet for the past few days. I realized that you copied the Board Attorney in your email and find this to be inappropriate. As it has been stated, at previous Board meetings that all communications to Board Attorney must go through the Chair.  I expect you to follow this protocol.

To confirm again, I received your individual performance evaluation.

Thank you,
Rose

Recognizing that the State can only interpret laws at the state level, please confirm that the State Board is not concerned that the Chair of the Oxford Board of Education is attempting to block access of an elected member of the Oxford Board of Education, who has concerns about the legality of the Chairs decisions, to the Boards attorney.

9.    The Board Chair, on July 11, instructed the Board members to ignore the goals that were unanimously approved at a meeting on October 20, 2009 (before she became chair and at a meeting she did not attend). The relevant section of those minutes state:

Mr. Schwab made a motion to accept the policies that were presented at the
September 22, 2009 Board of education meeting. Mrs. Sherman seconded. Motion
passed 6-0-0
Members were given copies of the “Draft Mission Statement and Draft
Organizational Goals 2008-09″. These were approved in the springtime. Members
were reminded that Dr. Palmer’s evaluation is based upon this and the direction of the
school board is also based on this as well. Mr. Schwab made a motion to continue to
adopt goals and move forward with these in place. Mrs. Sherman seconded. Motion
passed 6-0-0.

This decision to ignore those goals, approved unanimously at the prior meeting, has not been discussed or approved at any full Oxford Board of Education meeting and is apparently being unilaterally made by the Chair. A copy of the cover memo is attached.

Please explain how the State Board of Education feels about ignoring goals that were previously approved and attempting to establish unapproved goals covering a year that has already been completed.

10.    The Chair has now collected these evaluations, primarily through email, and forwarded them to the new attorney to compile into a single evaluation rather than compiling them in an Executive Session. This appears to have been done without the prior approval of the board. There are no motions recorded delegating this authority of the board to a third party or authorizing the expenditure of funds to perform an activity that has always been done by the Board. Note that this is also the same attorney responsible for writing the legal opinions, still held as privileged communication that was used to void the Superintendents contract.

Please comment on this non-discussed, non-motioned, non-voted, and therefore unauthorized delegation of the review process to a third party and also on the apparent conflict of interest of having the attorney who recommended voiding the contract compiling performance reviews for the person governed by that contract.

11.    On June 29, the IT Manager learned that his own contract would be reviewed in Executive Session during the June 30 meeting. He was not told what triggered the review, learned of it when reading a reference to it after being asked to post the agenda (because the Assistant to the Superintendent described above would normally do it but had already resigned), attended the meeting but was not invited into the Executive Session. He was not told anything more when the Executive Session ended and left the meeting knowing only that his contract was under review, but not why, by a board that had already voided the Superintendents contract causing the resignations of two of his peers (the Business Manager and the Assistant to the Superintendent) and which preceded the unexpected retirement of the principal of the school in which he worked. This extends the sense of instability in the district deeper into the ranks of the employees, and that IS detrimental to the students.

Please comment on where the State Board of Education stands relative to the feeling of intimidation that this type of activity engenders or why the State Board of Education does not see this as detrimental to our children.

The Oxford Board of Education has created a sense of division in our community, has been acting without providing answers to the concerns of a large part of that community, has been with disregard to State Laws and their own policies and bylaws. Your answers to these 11 questions will help us understand where and how our system can be fixed and, hopefully provide assistance in that fixing before substantial damage is done.

Sincerely,

William F. Schmitt

cc.    Richard Blumenthal,     Attorney General, State of Connecticut

Attorney Daniel P. Murphy, Director, Division of Legal and Government Affairs, ConnecticutBoard of Education

Rose McKinnon, Chairperson, Oxford Board of Education

Dr. Judith A. Palmer, Superintendent, Oxford Public Schools

Imagine that your own particular function had two major responsibilities, one of which includes an associated deadline. You miss the deadline for the latter, then find an unrelated problem in the contract defining it. So, instead of fixing that problem you unilaterally void the whole thing and decide that the contract doesn’t exist. And you won’t explain to your employer why you did it. And you extend your own deadline by 41 more days to complete a task you’ve known about for 7 months and blame it on the person you replaced. Then you miss the deadline you set yourself and tell your employer  that you need another 31 days. And you will now take funds intended for your first responsibility to pay a 3rd party to perform your second responsibility according to new rules you just made up. Then, you need another two weeks. Meanwhile, your treatment of your second responsibility is directly causing attrition in the ranks of the people who execute your first responsibility.

The first responsibility is educating our children. The second responsibility is the Performance Review of the Superintendent. We are the employers. The Oxford Board of Education has missed a contractual deadline, used a separate issue to make that deadline go away, missed it’s substituted deadlines twice, paid someone to do its job using money intended for our children, lost a Business Manager and Assistant in the Main Office, and a Principal, in the process, and has still not completed its assigned task.

What do you think your review would look like? Is there a check-box for incompetent?

We bought our own first house, in Trumbull, in 1981. A year or so later, Ross, who was the marketing guy I worked with, convinced me that it was time to get a dog. Nancy always had a dog when she was growing up and had been after me for a while, but I think Ross pushed me over the top. It helped that his wife was really into Golden Retrievers.

His wife, Chantal, had a dog named Fathom. He was the dog catching the Frisbee in the old Kodak commercials. She connected us with a breeder named Annette, of Classic Goldens, and we were off to the races.

We soon brought home, a cousin of Fathom’s we named Cynnie. His full name was Classic Synergold Cynewulf (he was the “C” litter at Classic) and he was our first new family member. We showed him a little, just for grins, and he won a ribbon or two, but it was more something to do with Cyn than anything we took seriously. One woman who owned his brother actually asked if we would consider selling him. Nancy’s response was,”Bill’s buddy???? You can’t be serious!” During the day, while we were at work, and at night when we went to bed we left Cyn in a kennel we put up out back with a nice dog house that I built from plans I found at the library. It was a book called “How to Build Pet Housing and I had to fork over a few more dollars for the book after explaining to the librarian that,”Pet ate it.” I can’t remember him doing any other damage. He’d lie in the entrance way of the dog house watching the weather and wait for us to come home or get up. He and I were otherwise inseparable. He was my first dog and he was (is) my buddy. In fact, I’ve never called a dog that since. It’s a reserved term.

About a year later, with relatives nagging us about kids coming next, we confounded them all by getting another dog, Rippy, from the same breeder. Classic Euripedes (the “E” litter). So we were now officially naming our dogs after great authors. Cynnie was the laid back one and Rip was cute and neurotic at the same time. We added a porch to the dog house, so both of them could watch the weather.

Nancy worked in New York at the time and I was in Greenwich, so she got up earlier and let the dogs in while she made tea. To this day, I can hear the thundering sounds of two very large dogs running up the steps to see me in the morning (and the sound that told me they were airborne and about to land on me).

One day, we found out how much Cynnie was actually humoring us. We were raking leaves in the front yard with both dogs tied to the front railing with safety-rated rope (you could use it to escape a burning house). Strong stuff. We saw a couple coming up the road pushing a baby  stroller, which was fine but they had a dog walking with them off-leash. Not wanting to push our luck we decided to move the dogs inside, We got Rips in, but then Cynnie saw the other dog and took off after it. At the end of the rope, he didn’t pause. The rope snapped and he went to meet this other dog. In the air OVER the baby carriage. Turned out the dog wasn’t theirs. Cynnie? He came trotting up the driveway a couple of ours later with a big grin on his face. We now knew that the only reason he was good on a leash was that he ALLOWED us to keep him on a leash.

We built a log cabin in Massachusetts in 1988. We had a guy stack the logs, others do electricity and plumbing, but I did the rest on weekends. Me and Cynnie, anyway. Until walls and stairs and everything else, I slept on the floor next to a wood stove with Cynnie watching the as yet unlockable doors every weekend for a year (maybe a little less, but it seemed a year). After that, it was me and Nancy and Cynnie and Rippy. I taught Cynnie to speak and catch a Frisbee. Rippy wasn’t interested in that, but she did bark at him when he did these things and take care of him, too. She cleaned his ears and then bullied him around. He tolerated it, because he knew he was really in charge. And they were friends who were there to keep the people without fur happy.

Rips had other skills. She could climb. The aforementioned kennel was right behind the kitchen. When we got home, there she always was sitting on the point of the roof. looking at us at our eye level through the kitchen window, without a care in the world, with her tongue hanging out, and clearly telling us she was happy we were home for more than the fact that we would let her inside.

Shortly before Will was born, we moved to Oxford. The dogs were older now, but still had a lot of life in them. They loved the new place, even without the kennel we rarely used here, and Cynnie developed a new patrol of his territory, walking the areas of the house where we lived and protecting us. He never bit anyone, but you knew (really knew) that he would do whatever it took to protect us. When he patrolled pointedly ignored rooms we didn’t use and checked out every corner of those we did. After Will was born, I remember asking Nancy why she was opening the door to his bedroom while he was sleeping. She thought it was me. Then we found out he had added Will’s room to the patrol, and to the list of those he was responsible for. When Will started walking, I remember walking into the kitchen and finding him sitting on Cynnie’s head. Cyn just rolled his eyes towards me with a look that said,”I hope you’re going to remove him.” When Will got up, Cynnie sniffed him, licked his nose, and went for a safer place to sleep. Rippy went where he did and they tried to stay away from this crazy kid we had brought home when he was in the mood for poking, pulling, or sitting on things.

When Will was three, Cynnie started having health issues. The vet discovered a tumor on his heart. He gave us some pain medicine and diuretics (to help with the fluid retention it was causing around his heart) and we brought him home. As parents we learned what we could about preparing Will for the loss of our friend, read every book we could find, and tried to keep Cynnie comfortable. Finally, while was away on business, Nancy realized that there was no longer any circulation in his hind end to speak of and called Charlie Duffy, the greatest vet in the world, who had taken care of Cynnie since he was a pup. Charlie told her that Cyn would be in a great deal of pain and possibly septic shock by morning and he drove up from Norwalk, on his own time. He told Will that he was taking Cynnie to heaven. And he did. Will did okay because we had gotten him ready. I was so concerned with preparing Will that I forgot to prepare myself. I was a basket case. I still have a lock of his fur and his collar in the back of my desk drawer 16 years later. Cynnie was a big part of the family, a transition from the pre-kids years to the growing family years, the perfect dog, friend, and companion. And my buddy. I still well up thinking about him. He still had one more thing to do though. 6 months later, my father’s mother died. Will had been visiting her with my Dad every week for some time, so it was hard. We had done all that death preparation though with Will when Cynnie died. But that wasn’t all. Will didn’t feel so bad about Great Grandma Schmitt because she was now with Cynnie who had gone all that time without someone to take care of him. So Cynnie helped my son get through the loss of my grandmother, who Cyn is now sitting at the feet of while he waits for the rest of us.

Rippy was getting old, too. But after Cynnie died, she stayed close, and watched over Will and Beck, who was now with us. She played with tennis balls when arthritis wasn’t flaring up and generally kept the kids company. About a year after Cyn died, Rip started having difficulty holding down food. The vet (Charlie, of course), kept her for observation and re-hydration, and she died in her sleep while there.

We didn’t get another dog for a while. We didn’t want the kids to think of them as replaceable. Later, we got Doc (a “T” litter, who was named after another great author and whose official name is Synergold Theodore Seuss). He’s a cousin of both Cynnie and Rippy. Late came Sadie, adopted from a friend, and another family member. Not as replacements, but additions. And I still miss Cyn and Rip.

I’ll write about Doc and Sadie another time,

Arrogance can be tolerated when it is earned through Professional Competence. The current Oxford BOE exemplifies Arrogant Professional Incompetence.

They held a “hearing” on the Superintendents contract, refusing to answer questions from the public, and cut off comments criticizing the Board, even though they directly caused the quandary in which the Board and Town now finds itself.

They received critical letters, yet stated “No Correspondence” at the following meeting.

In violation of their Oath to obey the laws of Connecticut, they failed to hold a petitioned hearing within the generous 3 week public window provided by law.

They hold meetings of the officers without posting them or providing minutes in violation of FOI and without including minority representation in violation of State Statute.

They failed to review the Superintendent within the 60 to 90 days required and later declared the contract to be void for reasons they continue to avoid explaining.

They caused the resignation of the Business Manager and Superintendent’s Assistant, leaving the Town with none.

They micro-manage the day to day affairs of the district, directly contradicting the recommended policies of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, which states they, “will attempt to confine my board action to policy-making, planning and appraisal…”

They met on the Superintendent’s contract without insuring her attendance or telling her their concern and did the same to the IT Manager (who still does not know). CABE guidelines state they, “will help frame policies and plans only after my board has consulted those who will be affected by its actions.”

Without evidence they have publicly labeled bi-partisan Board criticism as partisan, while CABE ethics dictate they “will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups.”

They are embarrassing themselves and Oxford.

On June 17, a petition was presented to the Oxford, CT, Board of Education requesting a hearing on issues related to the employment of the Superintendent of Schools. According to Chapter 170, Section 10-238, “Such hearing shall be held at a time and place to be designated by such board, not later than three weeks after receipt by the board of such petition.” Three weeks from June 17, 2010 is July 8, 2010. It is now July 12, 2010 and no hearing, which must be posted 5 days in advance, has yet been scheduled.

The Oxford Board of Education is failing to resolve a situation of direct concern to Oxford citizens in failing to schedule this hearing as required by law. Were a meeting to be scheduled today, they would still have violated the statute and their Oath of Office.

I have also filed a Freedom Of Information Complaint regarding members of the Oxford Board of Education acting as an unauthorized sub-committee without minority representation, holding unposted meetings, and expending funds without documented authorization. As stated in that complaint (in process as Docket 2010-386),

In a copy of the minutes of the meeting held on March 16, 2010, retrieved from the official Board of Education web site on June 16, 2010, reference is made to this group on page 2:

MOTION by Lavin, second by Macchio to attain Sullivan, Schoen, Campane & Connon, LLC, as the Board’s legal council as of March 16, 2010, and ask the Board’s Chairman to contact present council to initiate the transition.

Discussion: Mr. Reid asked how this firm was decided upon. Mrs. McKinnon stated that the three officers of the Board looked at various firms that specialize in education law, then narrowed it down to three or four; spoke to them and then made a decision.

I can find no minutes of any meeting held prior to this meeting containing any request for this group of officers to act upon any request of any kind, nor to speak on behalf of the board with anyone, but here they are seen acting as a subcommittee, apparently composed of Rose McKinnon, William Neary, and John Lavin (the Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary, respectively) of the Board of Education at the time and at present, and speaking on behalf of the Board with prospective attorneys. Indication of at least two meetings can be inferred from Mrs. McKinnon’s statement that firms were “looked at” and then the list was narrowed. Additionally, while this subcommittee is described as having,”narrowed it down to three or four,” there appears to be no record of the vote reflecting this action at what presumably is a third illegal meeting or non-noticed Executive Session….

Additionally, as the town charter and Connecticut General Statute require that all committees and subcommittees include minority representation, it  appears the formation of this group of people is in direct violation of the town charter and Connecticut General Statutes, as it contains no minority representation.

In a meeting on May 19, 2010, there was a

Motion made by Mike Macchio and seconded by John Lavin to enter into Executive Session at 8:40 PM for the purpose of discussing written legal opinions from the Board’s counsel regarding the Superintendents and Business Managers contracts. The Board may take action in the form of motions upon returning to open session.

There appears to be no record of any request for the “written legal opinions” referred to in the motion, nor any prior reference to a discussion of those contracts, either in or out of Executive Session, nor any authorization by the Board to spend funds on those “written legal opinions”. Yet, Mr. Macchio is making a motion to enter Executive Session to discuss an issue that does not appear to have been raised by the Board regarding a legal opinion the Board has never publicly requested and for which it has not publicly voted to expend funds.

Lastly, the Oxford Board of Education has, beginning in May after voting to void the contract of the Superintendent, twice extended the employment of the Superintendent, now extending it to July 31 in order to complete a Performance Review that was required to have been performed in April. This is clearly not in the best interests of the children of Oxford and has led to the resignations of the Business Manager and the Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent. Last week, in what was purportedly not related, the Principal of Oxford High School unexpectedly retired.

For the reasons contained in this letter, I am requesting that the Connecticut State Board of Education commence a formal investigation of the Oxford Board of Education, which is in violation of State Statutes regarding the requirements to hold public hearings in response to petitions, forming unauthorized subcommittees to hold unposted and undocumented meetings and apparently expend funds, is apparently operating in a manner inconsistent with Freedom Of Information Requirements, and which is operating in a manner clearly detrimental to the children of the Town of Oxford.

Sincerely,

William F. Schmitt

cc    Mary Ann Drayton-Rogers
First Selectman, Oxford
(hand-delivery)

Rose McKinnon
Chairman, Oxford Board of Education
(hand-delivery)

Voices Newspaper
(hand-delivery)

Valley Independent Sentinal
(via email)

Somehow, they keep stating that it’s a political attack on the board. It’s the Democrats. When it’s pointed out that there are Republicans who are against what they are doing, they claim that those Republicans are working for Democrats. The fact that these Republicans have been active in Republican Town politics since before many of them were born isn’t relevant. They’ve attacked my wife and I by name because we got involved. Had they asked, I would have told them that I’ve voted both for Republican and Democrat candidates over the years here. But, I’m a political hack!

The whole concept of participation without partisanship seems inconceivable. They think that FOI rules are technicalities that they get to interpret according to what’s convenient. They’ve stated that they don’t take petitions seriously because anyone will sign whatever their friends put in front of them, even though that is how Town Meeting government works.

As soon as word got around that people would be coming to a scheduled meeting that had been included an audience of citizens, they announced that they could not pull together enough of a quorum to hold the meeting and canceled it. Here’s a hint, people: when you run for an office and are elected, you are expected to attend meetings. I wonder how the absence record of the current Superintendent compares to the record of the current BOE Chair?

What could we possibly be objecting to? Let’s see:

• Having been in office since November, and told the Superintendent that her existing goals were fine to go by, they have now decided to produce new goals AFTER they voted to void her contract for a review that should have taken place months ago;
• Are adopting a new review form that she has never seen to perform that review;
• Made no attempt to correct whatever problems exist in the contract before voiding it;
• Which they did in an Executive Session, claiming that Attorney/Client Privilege prevented them from telling the public why they were doing it (which they can specifically waive);

What could possibly be wrong? How could anyone think the whole goal was to find a way out of a contract?

How is it political to object to someone receiving fair treatment? Creating new goals now at the end of a school year? Surely they can’t think it’s fair to tell someone that existing goals are fine and then change them?

In comments of Facebook, one of these people has now taken to calling me Mr. Nancy! What are we, in THIRD GRADE????

Folks, this is about fairness. I happen to think she’s a great superintendent. But trying to pull the rug out without simply correcting specific problems, forgetting to set new goals until it’s too late to do anything about them, canceling meetings that people are known to be planning on attending, and then claiming that objections to this witch hunt are partisan is crazy, regardless of what you think of the individual.

I’m headed out to the rally that has been organized to support Dr. Palmer. I hope to see every citizen of Oxford who is concerned with fairness there.

Dr. Palmer has been a wonderful superintendent. We need to show the Oxford Board of Education what we think of their arbitrary decision to void a contract without first showing a good faith effort to correct whatever language their new attorney may have called into question.

Please show your support on Tuesday.

The Oxford Board of Education is out of control! They voided the superintendent’s contract for undisclosed reasons (citing inexplicable attorney client privilege) and have now informed Dr. Palmer that there will be a review on June 30^th based on criteria that have yet to be determined. A review should have happened in April according to the contract in full force at the time. This process was determined at meetings of the last board and discussed at meetings of the current board, all of which chair McKinnon was (or should have been) in attendance. Simply put, she dropped the ball.

At the June 10, 2010 meeting, with characteristic megalomania and intimidating glares, McKinnon exhibited her unprofessional temper on inconsequential minutia. She continues to conduct secret email meetings on official Board business, illustrated by her announcement of straw poll results of the preferences of a majority of Board members regarding a document that has not yet come to a public meeting. Knowing that the BOE is projecting a deficit (still not brought to the Board of Finance unless in other secret meetings). McKinnon unilaterally spent additional taxpayers money contacting the Board attorney at 10pm to discuss Statute/contract wording regarding a review that was required weeks ago (60-90 days before June 30). BOE money is intended for education, not adding legal fees to a known deficit on McKinnon’s unauthorized whim. No motion exists giving her unilateral authority to spend money except for emergencies, but all BOE members will be personally responsible for a deficit. Perhaps she intends to cover this spending from her own pocket?

Dr. Palmer continues to act in a professional manner, politely answering questions keeping our educational system on track as the Board of Education gives mixed signals about the status of her employment.

We also have a Board of Education. The Oxford Board of Education wants to put a metal roof with solar panels on the Oxford Great Oak Middle School to at least try to mitigate the costs of an electrically heated building. So the Oxford Board of Selectmen established a committee to look into the options available. That committee came back with a recommendation to proceed with the metal roof rather than once again going the route of the standard asphalt roof, which has never successfully kept the rain out anyway.

So far, so good. Deciding which way to go is a valid subject for debate. Everyone performed their responsibilities and the process continued. The next step was to send it to the Oxford Board of Finance to review the finances and make a recommendation to the town. That’s where it gets strange. The Oxford Board of Finance decided to review the options. Not the financing options, the roofing options!

This would be a sensible thing to do if the town had a Town Council form of government instead of a Town Meeting form of government and the Oxford Board of Finance was the Oxford Town Council. But we don’t and they aren’t.

I happen to like the idea of doing the metal roof now, but it is a valid subject for debate. That’s what the Town Meeting is for. I like the Town Meeting form of government, but recognize that the Town Council form of government has valid arguments in its favor. The folks trying to make the Oxford Board of Finance act like an Oxford Town Council are welcome to try to amend or rewrite the Town Charter. That is why there is a process to do that. If they get enough people to vote for those changes, then an Oxford Town Council could theoretically be reviewing the roofing options instead of the committee appointed by the Oxford Board of Selectmen. Whether an Oxford Board of Finance existed would be entirely dependent on whatever the new charter included.

But right now, we have a Town Meeting form of government with an Oxford Board of Selectmen to manage things and an Oxford Board of Finance to make sure those things are done in a financially sound way. I just wish these folks would stick to doing things according to the way the current form of government works rather than the way they would like it to be.

Most people get their television from something other than over-the-air broadcast today, making the channel 2-13 selection for higher quality television a thing of the past. Those original networks, plus some others, quickly got into cable/satellite systems with other choices. They’ve also made significant portions of their programming over the internet. But the phone company still seems to be working according to their old way of doing business.

At the 1964-1965 Worlds Fair, AT&T demonstrated a technology they were investigating that would add video to a phone call. In the years that followed, it remained as a future. AT&T was the only game in town for Long Distance and it took the arrival of MCI and Sprint for them to start getting creative on pricing. They even charged extra for touch-tone service long after their switching systems made it more efficient for them than the old pulse dialing. Lots of other things happened to shake things up, including breaking up AT&T into a bunch of baby bells (then allowing them all to combine back together until you have just Verizon and AT&T - formerly known as Cingular). But their long-distance rates are still crazy and they still haven’t worked out telephone video. I had a video call with my son who’s away at college a couple of nights ago. He could even bring up the screen on his computer to show us something he was working on in real time, something never even envisioned at the Worlds Fair. But the call wasn’t through the phone company, I did it over the internet. A few issues, but it worked and the technology is getting better all the time. And nobody tried to ding me with additional charges. In fact, the whole call was free.

I remember having a business meeting with someone at Southern New England Telephone, some time in the early to mid 80’s, who was scoping out the company involvement in something called cell phones. She seemed to feel she was being punished for something by being relegated to this minor sub-business which would always be a minor sub-business. They were wrong, of course, and Cell Phones became a bit more than a minor sub-business. So they merged them in with the rest of the original phone company. I read somewhere recently that there are now more cell phone numbers than land line numbers. They managed to catch up on that one.

We have a problem with a scammer that keeps calling one of our cell phones. It took a minute to do a quick Internet search to find a bunch of sites with complaints about the same number. AT&T could easily do that too. We called them but they really don’t want to know. They won’t block the number that’s called my daughter’s cell phone 4 times today (as of about noon) and a number of other times over the last several days. They offered to put her on a no-solicitation list. Do they really think that someone who is already running an illegal scam is going to pay attention to that list? Of course not. They also offered an option for something called Smart Limits which can block callers (thereby confirming that they have the technology to do it). For that we need to add $5/month. So, in order to stop someone from burning up our minutes, which we pay AT&T for, we need to pay AT&T something else. That seems to make them complicit in the whole thing.

A while back, we canceled our land line because we rarely used it. Using Google Voice, we can have calls directed to other phones of our choice, so that’s now our home number. One of the options we have there is to block certain numbers, so if a call comes in that way, we don’t even see it. No charge. If the “New” AT&T cared about it’s customers more than the old AT&T, they would do the same. Instead, they still think like the old phone company. It’s crazy, because if AT&T had offered me the same things at even a reasonable price that Google gives me for free today, I may have paid for that land line for a bit longer. What they don’t realize is that other people and companies are out there getting ready to eat their lunch. That makes hating the phone company a bit more tolerable because you know that some day, it will end.