2003-06-10 - 3:15 p.m.
DREAMING OF RECALL
If I were not too tired to pound the pavement, I would be spearheading a recall movement. The recall would be against me. For the first time in the four years I have been a school board member, I believe this job is totally undoable. Never before have I held an undoable job that requires me to get to bed late night after night. While I have had to cope with undoable jobs before, this one is killing me.
In our state, the board must hold an annual meeting at which the community must pass a tax levy. To some extent, the passing of the levy has been a sham since cost controls (in the form of revenue caps) came into being approximately ten years ago. We pass the levy and then, in September, after the third Friday count of students, we adjust it down so that it does not exceed the revenue cap. But this time some in our community are using it as a forum to oppose various budget cuts, some of them not even seriously proposed.
The annual meeting, as has been true for as long as anyone can remember, was before a regular board meeting. Most years, the annual meeting runs a half an hour. Ten years ago, they sometimes ran 45 minutes because a very sweet older man would show up and harangue about the high taxes for fifteen minutes or so. I have never seen them run longer than that one�until last night.
Last night, the meeting started at 7:30 p.m. and was still going after 9:30 p.m. Worse, it was adjourned until August, at which time we can start all over again. And was the meeting being delayed because there was some dispute about the tax levy? No, there was no dispute about the tax levy. We all agreed on the tax levy. It was delayed because people were not happy with the budget and they seemed to think that they could change the budget by holding the tax levy hostage.
It�s not like we have not had budget meetings. We have. We had the budget on the agenda in April. We had the budget on the agenda in May. We had a special meeting on the budget last week, which itself went for over three hours. But, still, they believe, we are hiding something. They believe we are not giving full disclosure. They believe we are not allowing the community any input. (All of which translates into �the board is insisting on cutting and we do not like it.�)
If we go in detail through the entire budget by function, they complain that we are not giving the spending details they need to know to cut the budget. If we go category by category, with dollar amounts, through the expenditures, they complain that they need information such as each detail of the contract. I do not mind much that they are complaining. I mind very much that they are insisting on meetings multiple nights of the week and that the meetings must go past ten o�clock, eleven o�clock, twelve o�clock so that everyone can have a say multiple times, often repeating the same thing over and over and over as if sheer repetition has a power to persuade that one or two well-reasoned arguments do not.
Someday people will figure out that most things said to me after 10:00 at night might as well not have been said at all. Late night is the worst time to convince me of anything. When I get tired, my answer is �no.� I go on the assumption that when thinking is slow, �no� is safer. Usually, changing a �no� to a �yes� is easier to accomplish than the opposite.
I suppose, in a way, this whole situation is revenge for my teenage years. In my teenage years, I was a night owl. I was a night owl with a morning person for a mother. I never seemed capable of learning that talking about problems at night or pushing for my desires at night was foolish. It was MY schedule and I believed the whole world should run on MY schedule.
In addition, I was one of the people at rancorous school board meetings and I often insisted on speaking out. That board usually allowed only one statement per person, unlike our board, so I could not repeat myself over and over but I probably would have if given the opportunity. I know that I stood up at multiple board meetings over the years and fought for them to fix the cafeteria doors so they opened in the back in case of fire. (You have your important issues and I have mine.)
Revenge or no, I want out. I would quit but I do not believe in it except under extreme circumstances. But a few more weeks with several late nights might become extreme circumstances.
Please, will someone recall me and put me out of my misery?
LAST YEAR: Not a Release But a Crowbar
TWO YEARS AGO: Sticky Situation
Real Men
Cutting Past the Bone
Never the Twin Shall Meet
Not Being There
The Art of the Nap<
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
