Thanks Governor Otter for Proving Our Point
It appears that our lame duck Governor and his wife, along with 3 district 21 legislators have decided to weigh in on the West Ada School District recall, but we don’t recollect seeing any of them at the West Ada Board meetings in the last four months which makes us wonder how they drew their conclusions about the Trustees recall. This is pure and simple overreach by the Governor sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong in our local issue. We thought that was a trait reserved just for the democrats. As we have said from the beginning, this is all about the $400 million budget and who gets to distribute our tax money. Finally we see that this goes all the way to the top of the food chain at the State House.
When have you ever seen a sitting Republican Governor get involved with a local school board issue like this? For that matter, why haven’t we heard from the district 21 legislators Cliff Bayer, Steven Harris and Tomas Dayley on this issue before now? Were they coerced by someone powerful? Could it be because they have no challengers in the primary and are not worried about any blow back before Election Day? We still believe the answer is the least complex one, which is control of the budget for West Ada by taking out these two hard working trustees in the recall election and replacing them with two cronies appointed by the Ada County Commissioners. This would abrogate the will of the people.
I have to tell you folks something smells rotten about this incessant pressure to recall these trustees, and you can be sure that it is political by nature and is primarily about the control of lots of taxpayer money. The Gem State Patriot has had a representative down at just about all of the meetings for the past four months and have poured over hundreds of pages of e-mails and other documents pertaining to the Board and found all of the charges made by the recall committee to be disingenuous and egregious and totally without foundation. This just goes to show you how badly the establishment cronies do not want to lose control of this school board and its huge budget.
We did get Rep. Steven Harris to speak with us and asked him why he was coming out in favor of the recall, and he said that his comments were in the Statesman, but mentioned that he was upset with the treatment of Superintendent Linda Clark by the Board. I would venture to say that Representative Harris is a bit out of touch with the whole situation, as he never did answer me about his attendance at even one meeting of the board. If he had been involved he would have heard from the teachers and parents how the previous board and Supt. Clark paid little or no attention to the teachers or the parents of the district and ran the board as if it were a dictatorship with no questions ever to be asked about their decisions. I would suggest that Rep. Harris do a little more homework and listen less to the people on the recall committee and the Governor. Participation by these three legislators makes us wonder if the Meridian Chamber had put pressure on these three legislators to come out in favor of the recall. Anyone who has been at these meetings and paid attention to what was happening would have come away understanding that the previous board never expected to lose their elections and were plotting just after the election of the new trustees last May on how to retake those board seats.
After a conversation with Senator Cliff Bayer Senator for District 21 it appears he was sold a bill of goods by the establishment cronies and did not fully understand the details of this unnecessary recall. He admitted he had not attended any meetings and was speaking without and intimate knowledge of the situation. We never did hear from Rep. Dayley but we have to assume that since we have never seen any of these three legislators at the West Ada School Board meetings that they simply took the word of members of the recall committee and did not know where to check for further information.
We have faith in the voters in the West Ada School District to keep these two trustees and turn down the cry for a recall. I know I will be out campaigning door to door in my district to get the word out and keep the establishment cronies from regaining control of our tax dollars. What will you do to stop this victimization of two transparent and accountable trustees, Tina Dean and Carol Sayles, who actually did the job they were elected to do unlike the former members of the board? YOU CAN VOTE “NO” ON THE RECALL ON MAY 17TH.
“We Get the Government We Deserve”
