Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 13:51:01 -0400
From: “John R Dykers”
Subject: Filling Deb McManus’s seat on Board of Education
Bert Bowe has beautifully and reasonably presented the tradeoffs and dilemmas inherent in direct democracy and representative government and how they manifest in the power of our governmets to tax. Thoughtful citizens have complex choices to make for representatives who will hopefully then undertake thoughtful consideration of the multiple issues to come before them between elections. (does not always happen!) Opinionated citizens and representatives just vote our bias.
Taxation is purposfully not spread equally among the 65,976 Chatham residents, so a 76 cents per person figure is not representative of the cost per taxpayer. Deb’s seat on the BOE is due for election again soon (I’m not knowledgeable about exactly when so correct my impression that election is due by fall 2014) so a temporary fill in is not exactly going to turn county education on its head no matter who it may be. Saving $50,000 reminds me of Wilbur Mills, former Democratic chair of the House Appropriations Committee who once quipped, “A million here, a million there, and pretty soon we are talking real money!”. There are many of us who consider $50,000 real money. In county education terms, that would pay a teacher?
If the Board of Commissioners actually did not discuss the change at all with the Boards of Election and Education, they should have, as communication is an intrinsic aspect of wise decision makeing. And such communication can easily be done with phone calls or emails without a formal meeting of the boards and the disruption of schedules required by such. Also reminds me of the business expert asking a successful business being studied for its keys to success, “Where are all your memos?”. The boss replied, “We have none, we talk to each other!”
Thank you to Bert Bowe for talking with the rest of us and thanks to Gene and The Chatlist for giving us the opportunity to do so.
John Dykers