Good Morning Florida Keys

 

rendition of Archangel Michael slaying Satan

There is a half-serious, half-spoof post at goodmorningbirmingham.com, which you should be able to get to by clicking on this link:

you’re a caution southern un-baptist redneck capitalist write-in candidates for President and Vice-President, and other godly endeavors not taught at Alabama and Auburn, and certainly not at Samford.

Meanwhile, back down here in The Asteroid Belt …

The more I pondered my spacing back an hour the starting time for the Big Pine school board candidate forum, the more it didn’t make any sense. I had nothing to do all that day. I thought about the forum all day. I knew it started at 6 p.m. I took a nap around 3 p.m., and came out of a dream around 5, hearing, “You need to adapt.” I got up and started piddling in my email account, to kill time, since the forum wasn’t until 7. I was rousted out of that illusion at 6:08 with a crisp phone call from Todd German, “Where are you?!” I arrived at the forum ten minutes later, figuring they had started without me. But no, they were waiting on me. Bill Becker had written the candidates names on pieces of paper. He drew a name to speak first. My name. I knew that was arranged, and I knew why, but I did not connect the dots to being told I needed to adapt. I did not see why I had spaced the starting time back an hour. I did not see the sneaky angels did that, to get my attention that they were running the show.

So, I led off saying the school district is broken, and it’s not going to be fixed by any method that’s been tried or is being recommended. I offered an alternative, which was that each school take itself charter, and get out from under the yoke of the school board and superintendent. The five candidates were put to respond to my premise that the school board is broken and cannot be fixed by any method that’s been tried or is being recommended. The five candidates conceded the school district has many troubles, and they said what they thought needed to be done. I listened with interest, because it seemed to me, the more they talked about the school district, the more they proved it is broken and cannot be fixed by any method that’s been tried or is being recommended. They proved it even further, as each of them put an issue on the table for discussion and presented their view, and as they responded to each other’s views. The longer it went on, the firmer the proof: the school district is broken and cannot be fixed by any method that’s been tried or is being recommended.

After putting up yesterday’s post, which covered the forum, I was exhausted. I’d been up since 2:30. I took a nap. Waking around 10 a.m., I drove up to Big Pine to have breakfast at Coco’s Kitchen. Rose Dell asked me how I was doing? Be careful what you ask for.

I ran my perspective of the candidate forum by Rose, including the angels’ machinations. She got it, and seemed very interested in the charter school rebellion scenario. She had sat on the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority Board. She had fought for what she viewed as better, more responsible action by the Board and the Aqueduct Authority. She had not prevailed. Her appointment had not been renewed when Florida got a new governor.

I left Coco’s and went home and took yet another nap. In a dream, I was told a repeat was needed. On waking, I took that to mean a repeat of what I had tried to explain about the candidate forum in yesterday’s post.

Much the same response as Rose’s came when I ran my view of the candidate forum by Sandy Downs yesterday afternoon. Sandy has had five children attend Keys schools. Her youngest enters high school this year, he has enrolled in the charter high school in Key West, whose board chairman is Todd German.

On the charter school rebellion scenario, I sent this email yesterday to Gwen Filosa, who had covered the Big Pine forum for The Key West Citizen:

Hi, Gwen:

Thanks for covering and writing about the forum last night.
I did not think I rebutted Yvette saying a woman needs to be on the school board. I would like to see a woman on the school board. I thought I joked with Yvette about my love life, past and present, needing examination, after hearing her remarks. It was all pretty funny, I felt.
I did not say this last night:
the only solution to fixing the School District is to let a charter school company run it
That’s the second time recently you attributed that to me after a candidate event.
There is a great deal of difference between hiring a company to run this school district, as a charter or traditional school district, and what I told the audience last night, which was each school can elect to become a charter school and become independent of the superintendent and the school board’s supervision.
I used Sugarloaf School as an example, said if it had been a charter school, the grief it recently experienced would not have happened. I said Key West High School could become a charter school.
I kept coming back to that approach: for parents, teachers and the principal of each school getting together and taking their school charter, as a way for each school to become independent of what I finally called the Kremlin, Nikita – Trumbo.
If a company is hired to run the school district, the school board and superintendent are still in charge, since they hired the company.

A micro example is the charter high school Todd German was brought in to try to turn around, and he persuaded that school’s board to hire Academica, which runs lots of charter schools, to run that school. I don’t know if Academica runs any school districts, but I think it runs lots of charter schools.

Charter schools answer to their own board of directors. The teachers and the principal of each charter school work for that school’s board, not for the school district.
Charter school teachers and principals tend to work for lower pay and less benefits, and charter school teachers do not belong to the teachers union.
Charter school teachers and principals tend to have less job security, which perhaps causes them to try harder, to stay employed. Charter school students tend to do better academically than traditional school students.
New start up charter schools in the Keys have little in the way of extra curricular programs, and their students do not ride school buses, but are responsible for getting to school on their own, or by being transported by their parents, etc.
I imagine if Sugarloaf School went charter, its students would continue to use school buses and have extra curricular activities. Same if Key West High School went charter. That’s because those schools already have those extras and are not new start up charter schools.
Each traditional school going charter is not a perfect alternative to what we have now, but it seems to be the only alternative, other than the State taking over the school distinct and installing its own superintendent and school board, and running the school district under their oversight. As I recall, Andy Griffiths told me that actually happened to the Jefferson County School District.
Thanks.
Sloan

This is Sunday, lots of people go to church today, where they often hear about angels. My experience is, hearing about angels, and hearing from angels, are two entirely different things, just as a school district going charter, and each school within a school district going charter, are two entirely different things.

I heard incoming school superintendent Mark Porter tell the school board, when they publicly interviewed him, that he and his wife are people of faith.

I wonder if Mark has considered forgoing the performance incentive pay feature of his employment contract with the school district, to enable him to start off peacefully with the teachers and their union, and with administrative personnel, who are entitled to but have not been getting paid performance incentive pay?

I wonder if Matthew 6:19-34 is in play? That passage begins:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Here’s a report on how the school board is dealing with Mark’s performance incentive pay contract, and a bit more:

By SEAN KINNEY

skinney@keynoter.com

Posted – Friday, July 27, 2012 05:36 PM EDT

A decision on how to handle Monroe County School District administrator Michael Kinneer’s threat to stop working on Aug. 1 if he’s not paid $5,990 will likely be deferred to incoming superintendent Mark Porter, slated to start work that same day.

School Board Chairman John Dick said that hinges on Chief Operation Officer Kinneer’s standing not as a board employee, but as part of the superintendent’s staff.

Porter is coming to the Keys from South Washington County (Minn.) Public Schools; he was hired in June over 56 other candidates to replace Superintendent Jesus Jara, who starts his new job Aug. 1 as deputy superintendent of Orange County Public Schools in Central Florida.

Dick said he hopes district attorney Dirk Smits can “smooth it out” with Kinneer, at least temporarily, so Porter can make the final personnel decision. “I don’t want to make a move until the new guy steps in and takes over.

“I want Dirk to kind of smooth it out a little bit and find out what we can do with the least problems for all concerned and leave it to Porter. It’s really Porter’s call,” Dick said.

Kinneer sent a letter and email claiming he’s owed a $2,500 supplement for serving on the district’s collective bargaining team and $3,490 as the total for seven unpaid furlough days mandated for all employees that were not in his contract when hired.

“I don’t believe I’d be party to saying, ‘Let’s give him furlough days,’” Dick said, adding that would open the door for about 40 other administrative staffers to make similar claims on their unpaid furlough days, roughly totaling $100,000.

“You open the door to everybody. It’s surely not going to get kudos from the staff and the community. He (Kinneer) threw that out as a bargaining chip.”

Kinneer started a three-year contract on Dec. 16, 2009, good for $126,639 per year.

Board Vice Chairman Andy Griffiths of late has called for Kinneer’s position, and that of Chief of Staff Ken Gentile, to be eliminated and combined into a new “school finance officer,” post.

Griffiths says if Kinneer leaves next week, “I’m doing the happy dance.”

=========================

Rough karma is created by boasting, gloating and/or and throwing the wrong person under a bus.

Meanwhile…

I wrote in yesterday’s post that Marathon Manor is next door to Key West High School. Brain fart. Marathon Manor is next door to Marathon High School. On that white elephantine topic, and Michael Kinneer, this yesterday from Larry Murray:

Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2012 13:17:22 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: the angels strike back – school district
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sloan:

A couple of things to set the record straight.

1. I was surprised that Holly Hummell-Gorman reported that Michael Kinneer had said during the negotiations that the School District did not have the money to pay the contract. After all, it was Kinneer who accepted the estimated appraised property values issued by Tallahassee and massaged them. I doubt that the Tallahassee numbers originated with Joe Burke who then passed them along to Kinneer. In the normal course of events, such information would have flowed in the opposite direction, from Kinneer to Burke.

Regardless, if Kinneer knew that the District lacked the funding to support the contract, he certainly had an obligation, I believe, to speak out. Similarly, why did the union not raise the issue at the time, confronting Burke with the words of his CFO? Does that not strike you as odd, the union not speaking up? Speaking of numbers, something doesn’t add up here.

2. Speaking of Marathon Manor, I said that there were potentially 70 +/-, not 120, transient rental licenses. The exact number depends on how certain things are counted. Also, I said that an experienced realtor in Marathon, someone knowledgeable whom I respect, told me that the current market for such was around $40,000.

I agree with Mark Peterson that a thorough financial analysis must be done before any action is taken. However, I have engaged in an informal analysis and this is what I have learned. As it stands, Marathon Manor is a pure white elephant with no value, other than the transient rental licenses. There has been no interest from anyone to purchase the land, building and licenses. I have been told that no hotel, for example, would want to build directly next to a high school, one of the many reasons for the lack of interest. If memory serves, Curtis Skompf approached the Board, John Dick anyway, some time ago about marketing the property, but nothing came of it. Why not give him or some other realtor the opportunity.

I am not sure why you would want to invest more money in a decaying building to house District offices when there is ample space next door in a brand new building, Marathon High School. The best use that I have heard for the land is to expand the tracks and playing fields for the high school. Someone recently appeared before the School Board talking about possibly putting a pool on the property. The Board acted appropriately in acknowledging the suggestion and telling the proponents to come back when they have something concrete.

My major point in addressing the transient rental licenses at Marathon Manor was to generate a discussion which seems to be happening. I do not pretend to have all of the answers. What I do know is that continuing to do nothing continues to cost the District money, if nothing else maintenance and upkeep. We have started a dialog; let’s continue it.

Larry

I replied:

Hi, Larry. I told it today like Holly told it to me, which was in response to what I had said about you finding out from the Tax Collector what the most likely local school tax revenues would be, and the administration had used the State’s estimate of our local tax revenues instead. I hung with Holly until I was sure I had it all pretty much stuck in my mind. She said Kinneer told them that he saw no point in what they were discussing, because the money was not there. She said she was there, she heard it. She said Kinneer didn’t come to any more collective bargaining agreement sessions, and they (the union) never did get a definite answer out of Jara and Burke about where the money was for the collective bargaining agreement they were discussing.

I agree, why didn’t the union push harder for details? But I don’t think Holly made any of it up. If Kinneer told Jara and Burke and the union the money was not there, he spoke out. But I think you mean, why didn’t he go to the news media?
Are you certain it was Kinneer who got the local school tax revenue estimates from Tallahassee, on which Jara and Burke relied?
I had several rounds of emails with Kinneer, early last fall perhaps, in which he steadfastly maintained he had given the school district accurate revenue and expense numbers. Although I tried several times to get him to explain the numbers that had come from Tallahassee, he declined to go into that because, he said, that had nothing to do with his numbers.
I wondered if Kinneer didn’t want to go into it because it would look bad on him, or it would look bad on someone above him.
Again, are you certain it was Kinneer who obtained the Tallahassee local school tax revenue estimate numbers?
Sorry I got mixed up about the number of transient rental units and their current value, will fix that in tomorrow’s post. I think transient rental unit value was a good bit higher when Randy Acevedo got the school district to buy the place.
Yeah, for quite a while I have thought, and have written, that the unused space at Marathon High School would make excellent administrative offices. As I heard it, the school was built way bigger than the Marathon student numbers required, because clamorous/influential Marathon people wanted a high school as big as Key West High School.
Am not aware of the school district spending much to keep up Marathon Manor. If the transient rental unit rights are sold off, about the best use for the remains would be bulldozer fodder and green space, athletic fields, etc., although perhaps it would be a great place for an extreme fight arena, or county-wide cock fights.
The real money to be made is selling the Trumbo real estate, which I was convinced all along is tied into the Glynn Archer deal for KW’s City Hall, with the administration moving to the little building there in co-partnership with the city. When Glynn Archer was discussed before Mayor Cates came to get the nod that the city was going to get that school, there was considerable discussion on the dais about moving the administration to Glynn Archer, which would cement Key West domination of the school district.
Todd German once told me that he thought the school district and the city had a problem with their deal, for the same reason Mark Peterson raised last night. Todd said charter schools have first dibs on surplus schools. The way things work in Key West, to enforce that, about 100 percent odds will require a court to decide it. Perhaps Mark, who seems to have lots of money, will hire a lawyer to save Glynn Archer from John Dick and Key West, although, as I recall, the vote to give the school to Key West was close to, if not, unanimous.
Dialogue with whom? I find having dialogue with the school board to be seriously challenging. I resort to bitching, moaning, castigating, lampooning, cyber kangaroo courts, public self-flagilation, etc.
I still say, the way to get leverage on them, is to take their schools away from them – the charter revolution, what Ed Davidson calls little fiefdoms spread all up and down the Keys, instead of having one big fiefdom at Trumbo.
The other fiefdom option is Tallahassee takes over the school district. Perhaps our schools should each have a fife and drum corps.
Sloan

Larry replied:

Sloan:

I do not know for certain who got what numbers from Tallahassee and who passed them to whom. All I do know is that the projections used locally to predict future District income were based on estimates from a legislative report (I think the Senate) that was crystal balling future property tax revenues. There was an interesting article a few months ago in the Miami Herald discussing what a poor job had been done in past years by the state legislature in estimating property tax revenues statewide and how many taxing agencies came up short after using the state numbers. MCSD was not alone.

Say what you will and I am not doubting anything that Holly Hummell-Gorman said, but I still find it bizarre that no one cared enough at the time to pursue Kinneer’s comments about the District not having the money to fund the teacher contract. Were it I, I would have publicly pressed the issue at a School Board meeting, when all of the parties were in the same room, to find out who was telling the truth, Burke or Kinneer. I would have forced Kinneer to say publicly what he had apparently been saying privately.

It appears that the attitude of Holly and Leon Fowler was that ignorance is bliss and they chose to believe what they wanted to believe. I can understand that they would not believe me, but I find it unfathomable that they would simply ignore the CFO when he told them that the contract was unfundable.

Similarly, like a good soldier, Kinneer apparently followed orders and sat back and watched as the District signed a contract that they could not fund. Is that what you are saying? Again, I believe that he had a responsibility, an ethical one if not a legal one, to say something publicly, preferably at a School Board meeting but to the press would be just fine. You seem to have a problem with that.

I can tell you this much. If I am elected to the School Board and if I see something happening akin to what Kinneer purportedly saw/knew, you will hear me scream all the way to Key Largo.

Larry

I replied:

Hi again, Larry.

Probably for starts, I might never have gone to work for this school district. However, if I had gone to work for the district, and if I was the fellow who had the information and knew the money wasn’t there to fund the collective bargaining agreement, and if I saw them blowing me off, I would run straight to my laptop and blow it wide open in cyberspace, including emails to the various Keys journalists who cover schools issues.

After you told John Dick and Joe Burke that you did not see where the money was coming from to fund the collective bargaining agreement, and then you saw they went ahead and ratified the damn thing anyway, did you blow the whistle? Did you go to the local news media and tell them what Dick and Burke, and the other school board members, and the teachers union, had gone and done to the school district?

You were on the school board’s advisory Audit & Finance Committee. You were privy to more school district financial detail than most people were privy. Did you blow the whistle? I ask, because I don’t recall seeing you quoted in the new media about it. Nor do I recall the news media ever reporting what you told John Dick and Joe Burke. Was it reported and I missed it?

I covered in several different posts what you told Dick and Burke. I explained it to the audience and Bill Becker and the other candidates at the forum last night. Yet another lump of proof that this school district is broken and cannot be fixed.

Sloan

As I sent that, this came in from Larry:

Sloan:

You recently turned to your dictionary for a definition of a word I used to describe you, “a caution”. The primary definition is the one I meant.

[funny, clever or different in an interestingly way. It's usually used in a positive, complimentary or fun way]

Today, Gwen Filosa called me a “gadfly” and I guess I is one. According to my dictionary, a gadfly is a “person who stimulates or annoys especially by persistent criticism.”

I believe you have been called a “gadfly” as well.

Larry

I replied:

Many times has The Citizen called me a gadfly, and the Keynoter, too. Be on notice that you are infringing my hard-earned appellation and expect strenuous legal action soon.

Larry replied:

Trademark infringement?

I replied:

That’ll do

To my earlier inquiry, Larry wrote:

Sloan:

Unlike what is being attributed to Michael Kinneer, I did not know that the School District did not have the money to fund the teacher contract. With the information that I had, I suspected that the money was not there. I raised my concerns via email with the entire Board, not just John Dick.

John rejected my request for an analysis and evaluation by the Audit and Finance Committee, stating that quick approval by the Board was imperative to raise teacher morale. (Think about that in the light of history.) Duncan Mathewson called me, telling me to quiet down, that I was interfering with labor negotiations and could well be in violation of the law.

I repeatedly raised my concerns before the Audit and Finance Committee at a time when members of the press periodically attended and were aware of my concerns. Bear in mind that these discussions were taking place in February and March. It was in June, after they had had enough of me, that the School Board suspended the Audit and Finance Committee, largely for taking issues to the press. Of course, I was the only person speaking to the press in violation of the Griffiths Rule: “Praise in public; criticize in private.”

I have no regrets for how I handled the situation. I still have copies of extended email traffic on the subject. I also have copies of a Letter to the Editor of the Keynoter that I wrote after Joe Burke publicly excoriated me over my complaints about insufficient funding of the teacher contract and other administration misdeeds.

I did the best I could at the time to call attention to the problem. Unfortunately, I was a lone voice in the wilderness, drowned out by the symphony of administrators and Board members who repeatedly told the public that I was wrong, that I was a crank trying to cause trouble. I am reminded today of how I was treated then as Ken Gentile responds to my exposure of his falsification of credentials by saying that it’s just “politics” and I should be ignored.

I’ll let history judge the results, in both instances.

Larry

I replied:

Thanks. More lumps of evidence it’s bad broke and efforts to fix it go nowhere.

===================

gadfly is one of the nicer things I have been called …

I call the angels lots of names

begged, borrowed, stolen and written by Sloan Bashinsky, displaced space traveler posing as a Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate …

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

 

rendition of Archangel Michael slaying Satan

This post is longish and weaves around a bit, but it might all come together and be entertaining, or maddening, or infuriating, or whatever, if you read it all the way through …

Re my reply to the forward in yesterday’s

Murray is nuts, Bashinsky is crazy – Florida Keys post, Pam Martin of Key Largo replied:

From: PMFLKEYS@aol.com
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 07:40:20 -0400
Subject: Re: cc has forwarded a page to you from KeysNews.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
CC: dennisward@aol.com; bobroyall@yahoo.com; pmflkeys@aol.com; bob@sunsetbay82.com; phyllis@sunsetbay82.com; cculberson17@hotmail.com

Sloan,

The thing that I can say for sure about you & your daily emails is that life is never boring with you around!

I’m reminded about the saying “Just because someone is paranoid, doesn’t mean that someone is not out to get them … after all just ask Bill Clinton!”

Lot’s of things in life are viewed/filtered through the lens of the eye of the beholder. They could have excellent eyesight, need reading glasses, have cataracts or even macular degeneration – it’s all what the eye sees, the ears hear & how the brain interprets the results. It is always interesting your take on things & you dig up some interesting facts/opinions/musings most people don’t even hear about. Thanks for the email.

Sincerely,

Pam

I replied, copied to ALL:

Morning, Pam

Thanks, being crazy leads to having crazy ways of looking at things…

I’m paranoid as hell, because I know for a fact the angels are out to get me … if, at times, people weren’t out to get me, I’d be a heap more paranoid about the angels, because that would mean I wasn’t doing right what the angels gave me to do … and to think I once thought (when I was a kid) angels were wonderful, a belief I held even after I was abducted (early 1987), but eventually they cured me of my belief, although, I admit, I was a sorry specimen when they abducted me and maybe they improved on that, I suppose I’ll know that outcome some day …

Eye of the beholder, the fellow when the abduction occurred, were I to go back in time and look him up and we had a conversation, about 100 percent odds he would know for a fact I am nuts and crazy, and worse … I would feel awful for him, knowing where he was heading, thinking it might be wonderful, finally … Maybe some day it will be wonderful, I hope I live to see it …

Sloan

The candidate forum Pam hosts each election season at the Civic Club on Key Largo is Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Her forum historically is well attended by the Key Largo public, mostly old folks, like me, like Pam, Kay Thacker, County Commissioner Sylvia Murphy, Pauline Klein, Ron Miller … Ya’ll come!

Re the candidate-driven school board forum moderated by Bill Becker on Big Pine Key last night, about which much commotion has appeared in my ravings and eventually made its way into an article in The Key West Citizen on Thursday…

I spaced back the starting time to 7 p.m., was rousted back to reality by a phone call from Todd German about 6:08, made it there by 6:18, said “Mea culpa,” then Bill Becker started the forum.

Not well attended, maybe 20 “civilians” at the beginning … so much for the appeal of an out of the box candidate forum, maybe so much for the appeal of out of the box anything …

Andy Griffiths, Ed Davidson and Michael Cunningham were not there …

Bill Becker drew names out of a hat, I went first …

I said school system is broken, it cannot be fixed, and the only solution I see is for each school to go charter, you don’t believe that but in two or three years, you will see it is so … I came back to that a few times, as the evening progressed … Each candidate got to toss out his/her issue of concern and discuss it, and the other candidates then had their say about it … 2 hours total …

It was civil, some laughing on the dais and in the audience … It was deadly serious … Candidates were allowed to speak too long on issues, rough on the audience … Otherwise, it was a beautiful forum… Ed Davidson’s and Andy Griffith’s prior criticisms were completely misplaced … No surprise there …

20-year incumbent, Andy would have looked really bad in that forum, with candidates setting the agenda … Andy knew he would look bad, and that is why he did not attend … I told Yvette Mira-Talbott afterward that Andy does what Andy thinks is best for Andy … Andy, Yvette and Howard Hubbard are in the Dist. 2 race … The other candidates are in the Dist. 3 race …

A really important thing came out during the milling around after the forum ended …

Union representative Holly Hummell-Gorman told me that during the collective bargaining negotiations, Michael Kinneer said he didn’t know why they were talking about making such a deal when the money was not there in the school district to pay for it … Holly said Michael didn’t come to any more collective bargaining agreement meetings after that, like maybe he was told not to come … She said they (the union) asked Jesus Jara and Joe Burke where was the money coming from to fund the collective bargaining agreement, because they did not see it either? … Vague answers were given … I asked Holly if she was there, saw and heard that? Yes … Could I publish it? Yes …

I walked to where Gwen Filosa, Todd German, Larry Murray and Yvette were talking, and told them what Holly had told me … Todd said it looked like the school district threw Michael Kinneer under the bus … I said it looked like that to me, too … Nobody present disagreed …

On throwing Michael Kinneer under a bus, received this email yesterday from Rick Boettger …

Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:02:15 -0400
Subject: Re: never ending schools bedtime stories
From: rd.boettger@gmail.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
CC: andy.griffiths@keysschools.com

Dear Raving Poster Sloan,

Thank you for publishing Michael Kinneer’s attack on Andy Griffiths. I would like to surprise you by defending Andy’s expenditure of funds on a state school board leaders’ conference, as described by Kinneer. I expect you to disagree with my defense, in print, but I also know from years of appreciating your work that I can expect you to publish my defense without censoring a word.

First, Kineer questions whether Andy has the “financial acumen” to judge whether Kineer ought to be fired. Kinneer would not question my own financial acumen, and I support Andy in his judgment of Kinneer’s poor performance, and agree that Kinneer ought to be fired.

As to the $4,900 spent on food, entertainment and lodging for the 2010 conference and your (and everyone’s ) question of how does money spent like this do anyone in our school system “one cent of good,” let me offer you my experience with conferences like this.

As a business professor, I attended many such conferences, at attractive venues. some overseas at cost ten times per person as Andy’s. Private sector conferences are another order of magnitude up in expense and comfort. Why are such conferences held? Attendees are salaried professionals who do not earn a cent of pay for attending, or even for presenting at such conferences, which occur at times they would otherwise not be working.

The way you evaluate the worth of such expenditures is by judging the output of the conference. Simply Googling Andy’s group, the Greater Florida consortium of School Boards, leads you to their 2012 legislative agenda. Read it, everyone. It is vastly more knowledgeable, complex, and pertinent to its mission, increasing per-student state funding, than anything put out by the District, especially over Kinneer’s signature. If ten percent of the agenda were to be accomplished, our district’s finances would benefit ten or a 100-fold for the expenditure of the conference.

If the number-one shot in Kinneer’s arsenal against Andy is this $4,900 professional conference expenditure, he is on very weak grounds. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on his own ineffectual services, it is nothing.

If the number-one shot in Kinneer’s arsenal against Andy is this $4,900 professional conference expenditure, he is on very weak grounds. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on his own ineffectual services, it is nothing.

Sloan, I have my criticisms of Andy, and in fact am not supporting his re-election. But Kinneer is perhaps the person in the District least able to criticize anyone on the grounds of financial efficiency. His job could have been done far better, and for free, by various District volunteers. Let the District take him up on his offer to quit and we will all be better off.

Again, Sloan, I expect you to disagree, and look forward to reading your comments, but thank you in advance for sharing your venue (I hope my presumption does not trigger any angelic wrath).

Sincerely, Rick Boettger

I replied to Rick, copied to Andy, Michael Kinneer and Todd German:

Hi, Rick.

Actually, I would prefer Andy defend himself.

Todd and I talked about this sore topic yesterday.

We agreed, if Andy truly felt Michael was incompetent, Andy should have taken it up with the entire school board at a duly called/advertised meeting. Todd said, I agreed, Andy should have pursued it like John Dick pursues things about the school district bothering him. Todd said, I agreed, that Andy waiting until recently to criticize Michael leaves the impression there isn’t anything to it.

Also not pretty, Todd and I agreed, Andy waiting until his campaign seemed not going so swell to blast Michael at candidate forums and in the newspapers, and blaming Michael and Gentile for not furnishing him, Andy, with accurate information, which led to him, Andy, not making good financial decisions/votes at school board meetings.

At the Finnegan’s Wake candidate forum, which got into the newspapers, Andy boasted he, apparently all by himself, will get rid of Michael, and Ken Gentile, too, and replace them with one superior financial professional, I suppose from the mainland. My recollection, Andy went after Michael at Monday’s school board workshop, without inviting Michael to tell his side of it.

That’s the way the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards teaches school board members to conduct their school board duties?

Todd said yesterday that it’s his impression Michael is sticking by his numbers, which do may not entirely agree with Ken Gentile’s numbers given to the school board during Monday’s workshop. Todd sounded to me like he would trust Michael’s numbers more.

Since two days ago, I have been thinking of writing to Michael to see if he wants to comment on his numbers, and on Gentile’s other school district employee’s numbers. I feel public/taxpayers deserve to know how Michael sees it, so I’m copying him, Todd and Andy with this email correspondence.

This thing between Michael and Andy seemed to really be bothering Todd when we spoke yesterday. Another unpleasant surprise coming out of the school district. I said, yeah, I’ve been saying that’s how this school district is, and why … Todd stopped me, knowing where I was headed … each school should go charter … get out of the war zone and get on with educating children to be career or college ready when they graduate from high school …

Certainly, Rick, if I publish this correspondence, including any reply from you, Michael, Todd and/or Andy, it will be verbatim. That’s my policy. And the angels’ policy. Far as I know, I have no sway over where they direct their wrath, or their blessings. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the two apart.

Sloan

P.S. to All, plus Larry Murray

Hi again, Rick

Since writing to you, I spoke with Todd, who said he does not view Andy’s campaign as not going well, but he is troubled by Andy waiting until recently to go after Michael.

I spoke with Larry Murray, who said he thinks Michael’s different view of the numbers is around Ken Gentile saying at the school board workshop that everything is covered, nothing is unaccounted for, or something like that was the gist of what I recall Gentile saying with respect to what the reserve fund balance would be.

Larry said he thinks Michael doesn’t see everything as covered, accounted for – there always is something jumping out of the woodwork nobody seemed to be expecting.

Larry gave an example of something he thinks is about to jump out of the woodwork, which is that six, isn’t it?, of the 40 terminated teachers will be hired back, and that will cost the school district over $300,000, and where is that money coming from, if not out of the reserve fund balance. I copy Larry into this conversation, in case I misquoted him.

Rick, a while back, did you offer to do the financial work for the school district, for free, and did the school board take your offer up at a board meeting and decide against accepting it? I ask with this part of your email to me in mind, emphasis mine:

“Sloan, I have my criticisms of Andy, and in fact am not supporting his re-election. But Kinneer is perhaps the person in the District least able to criticize anyone on the grounds of financial efficiency. His job could have been done far better, and for free, by various District volunteers. Let the District take him up on his offer to quit and we will all be better off.”

If you were one of the various District volunteers who would have done Michael Kinneer’s job better, for free, don’t you think you should have indicated that when you wrote that to me?

You wrote this in KWTN currently online:

“After carving up the nice folks on our city commission and school board this month, I feel I should turn my scalpel on my own flesh in retribution for my sins. I’d love to read a similar parody of myself, but it may not be possible, as my every waking minute is something of a self-parodying masterpiece.”

Be careful what you ask for, Rick, the angels might provide it

Sloan

Rick just to me:

Thanks for all your work on this, Sloan. I understand if you think this is Andy’s fight. I cc’d him, and if he wants to use my support, okay, but if he and you both don’t want to pass it on, that’s okay too. I write, others might or might not publish, and then the readers may or may not read.

I’ve written a number of columns discussing the work I offered to do for the District, one in the last month. A very capable local CPA offered to assist me, also for free. It’s no secret. Thought I’d talked enough about myself in appropriate venues, and that this was about Andy and Michael.

In spirit, ,

Rick

Me just to Rick:

Hi, Rick.

This is a public fight Andy started, so, yes, he should speak for himself, whether or not anyone takes up for him.

Andy waiting this long to take Michael to task looks to me, and to others, I imagine, like political posturing related to Andy trying to get reelected, and not much to do with Andy’s duty to the school district.

Andy remains welcome to send me his side of Michael’s written compliant against Andy, and Michael’s complaint against the school district.

If you have a personal interest in an issue, or have had one, which becomes a public issue, when you speak to it in a public venue, you should disclose your personal history with the issue.

I seldom read KWTN, probably should. However, you anticipated I might publish yours and my response, so you should have included a description of your history of wanting to do Michael’s job and him be let go as a result.

Sloan

 

All of the above, I wrote before turning in last night.

I then was slammed in dreams for not responding to Larry Murray’s issue of Marathon Manor, the school district’s version of the county government’s Hickory House white elephant. Now infamous Randy Acevedo, while he was schools superintendent, persuaded the school board to go along with the school district purchasing Marathon Manor because it was right next door to Marathon High School. As I recall, Marathon Manor was a retirement/nursing home.

I think Randy’s rationale was Marathon Manor could be turned into affordable housing for teachers, administrative employees, and non-district employees, or it could be sold to a developer for a tidy profit, therefore it was a great investment for the school district, even though school districts are not supposed to be in commercial investing ventures, but are supposed to be in the business of educating children.

Larry said Marathon Manor has around 120, I think was the number, transient rental units rights, which could be sold to raise cash for the school district. Mark Peterson weighed in that appraisals would have to be done, to wee what Marathon Manor was worth with and without the transient units. My contribution to that issue was I said Larry is the strongest financial candidate.

All of that is what the angels clobbered me over in dreams, and woke me up at 2:30 a.m. to do it. So, I got up and started writing about Marathon Manor, figuring it would be the biggest winner in Gwen Filosa’s article in The Key West Citizen today, last below.

The dream was pretty clear, I lost lot a lot of votes, in Monroe County and in Heaven, by not dealing with Marathon Manor during the forum. I felt bad about that, because displeasing the angels leaves me feeling like the earth has been yanked out from under me and I will be thrown into another one of their spirit prisons, which has happened too many times in the past. Prisons which not only have awful mental and emotional tortures, but also physical tortures, like being homeless, or contracting MRSA, or cancer. Those are not hypotheticals. Those are spirit prisons I actually have experienced.

There is plenty more. I am fed up to the gills with running for office and Keys politics. I did not want to run for school board to begin with. I don’t want the thankless job. School board meetings bore me and wear me out. Sitting through just one entire school board meeting would be cruel and unusual punishment of myself. I would nod off sitting straight up several times during just one meeting. I feel awful physically most of the time. I need at least one, often two, sometimes three, and occasionally four naps a day. There is no way I could handle the job, even if I wanted to be on the school board.

I told the angels that yet again, while I was driving to the forum. I said the fact that I had spaced out the starting time the forum started showed just how deep in my soul I do not want to be running for office, and just how much I don’t want to be on the school board. The same could be said for why I spaced out speaking on Larry’s Marathon Minor suggestion last night, and why I said Larry is the strongest financial candidate.

However, I do care about trying to help the school district, and apparently I have a bigger grasp of the Marathon Manor situation than all the rest of the candidates combined, based on what the other candidates said last night, so …

Transient rental rights are traded like marketable securities in the Keys, because they can be transferred from the property to which they are attached, to another property, or to other properties. Developers always are looking for transient rental rights, which are limited in number because the Keys are environmentally sensitive and new development is limited here. Often transient rental rights are used in re-development of already developed property. I think there was a time when one transient rental right went for $100,000. I don’t know what the going rate is now, but perhaps not too much lower than that.

If the school district sold Marathon Manor’s transient rental rights, but kept Marathon Manor, the property would be seriously devalued and probably impossible to sell for anywhere near what it then was worth. And, the sales proceeds would be return of capital and would not be able to be used for operations, but only for capital expenditures.

I have felt for a while that the school district’s administrative offices at Trumbo Point in Key West should be moved to Marathon, which makes a lot of money sense, because Marathon is half way between Coral Shores High School on Key Largo and Key West. It makes a lot of political sense, because relocating the administrative offices to Marathon would weaken the Key West Conch’s domination of the school district. Proceeds from the sale of the transient units could be used to refurbish Marathon Manor, so it could be used for the administrative offices.

Trumbo Point is prime waterfront real estate, and once vacated, could be sold to a developer for top dollar. Perhaps the same developer would buy the Marathon Manor transient units to use for a hotel or condo development at Trumbo Point. The angels had me write about that quite a few times last year, except I did not then know about, or I was not paying attention to, Marathon Manor’s transient rental rights.

I have strongly opposed moving the administrative offices into the smaller building at Glynn Archer Elementary School in Key West, which school the school board is determined, so far, to give to Key West, for its new city hall. I have strongly opposed giving away any school real estate. I was beating all of that band wagon perhaps before any of the other candidates last night even thought of running for the school district.

Okay, I put it in writing. It will be published on my web sites. Alas, that’s a tadpole to getting it in The Key West Citizen, or in the Keynoter, which did not cover last night’s forum. Nor did the News-Barometer. Bill Becker will not be able to say anything about it on his US 1 Radio news broadcast today, because I slept through the whole issue last night, even though I apparently know more about it than all the rest of them added up.

Mea culpa.

Here’s Gwen Filosa’s article. My thoughts trailing.

5 School Board hopefuls agree

New blood needed, say contenders who attended controversial forum

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff

gfilosa@keysnews.com

The Monroe County School District is suffering from a revolving-door style of leadership that has lowered employee morale, bungled financial management and turned off the public, five of the eight candidates for School Board on the Aug. 14 primary ballot said Friday evening at a debate.

This was the consensus along the folding table-dais inside a church parish hall on Big Pine Key, as each candidate took turns with a cordless microphone they handed back and forth in front of a crowd of about 30.

It proved an amiable, highly agreeable group, expounding on one universal complaint: The School Board needs some new blood.

“You find out who is a leader when times are hard,” said Yvette Mira-Talbott, who wants to oust the board’s longest-serving incumbent, at 20 years, Andy Griffiths. “People generally pull together if there is someone on top who is leading the way. That’s what we are missing there — true leadership.”

While Griffiths attended a meet-and-greet Friday evening, his District 2 challengers Mira-Talbott and Howard Hubbard chose to take part in the debate that District 3 candidate Larry Murray organized.

Murray was joined by only two of the five men whose names will appear with his on the primary ballot: John Welsh and Mark Peterson.

District 3 candidates Michael Cunningham and Ed Davidson turned down Murray’s invitation, deeming it a vanity project for the Big Pine Key gadfly.

Sloan Bashinsky, a perennial candidate who filed as a write-in contender, can only get votes at the Nov. 6 general election. The top vote-getters Aug. 14, or the one who collects 51 percent, will face Bashinsky then.

About 30 spectators attended the debate, which was moderated by US-1 Radio News Director Bill Becker, but did not center on prepared questions.

Becker, who called his role similar to a referee, intervened only once during the two-hour debate, when Bashinsky called the five School Board members “a bunch of weenies.”

Someone in the back of the room said, “Time,” and Becker didn’t smile at Bashinsky’s name-calling.

“Wrap it up,” Becker told him. “Don’t make me have to do that again.”

The candidates began a discussion about 6:20 p.m. — starting 20 minutes late due to Bashinsky’s tardiness — and simply offered their views on topics that came up like they would at a salon session in a local barroom or at a kitchen table.

Mark Peterson, the retired attorney who has been a substitute teacher in the Florida Keys, brought up one of his favorite topics on the campaign trail: the School Board’s decision to freely give the Glynn Archer Elementary School building to the city of Key West in exchange for some parking spaces on Stock Island.

“We should have sold it to the highest bidder and taken the cash and kept it in the School District,” said Peterson. “The ink on that decision isn’t dry. It can be reversed.”

Mira-Talbott agreed, saying the deal speaks volumes about the School Board’s lack of vision.

“I would never give away an asset; who does that?” Mira-Talbott asked rhetorically, citing her experience helping to run her family’s real estate appraisal business.

“They never look ahead.”

Welsh took a different view of the Glynn Archer deal, saying the taxpayers already paid for it once when they decided to build the school on White Street, a point that board members made before voting to let the city have it.

“Do we want to charge them twice for the same building?” Welsh asked, suggesting the School District could keep the deed and lease the space to the city.

The evening’s first topic centered on whether teacher and staff morale was lacking in the wake of frozen raises and mandated furlough days. Several candidates said it was a definite problem.

“We all know it’s there and it’s real,” said Murray, who added that money can’t fix everything. “But exactly how do you go about changing it? That’s where the difficult task is.”

Hubbard said, “It’s a touchy-feely item that you can’t really put your arms around, and there are no facts to support it. There is a lack of communication. We’re not working with the teachers on furlough days. No one wants to be told, ‘Like it or not, you’re going to take seven days off without pay.’”

Mira-Talbott addressed the terribly obvious fact that she is the only woman among the total of nine candidates running for School Board, which is an all-male panel as well.

“No one can plan better than a woman,” she said, grabbing the attention of the crowd seated in the stuffy, warm hall. “You men know we keep you in line. We run our homes, our businesses, our husbands’ lives and we know every aspect of the word ‘planning.’ And we do it with a smile.”

Mira-Talbott noted that schools such as Stanley Switlik Elementary and Sigsbee Charter are in dire need of repairs, and the newer schools that have gone up across the Keys will need repairs, too. She wondered aloud if the district was financially prepared for it.

She also reminded the crowd that Key West High School’s academic challenge team this year had to beg the community for $7,000 in donations in order to attend the state competition on behalf of the county.

The team became state champs, a first for Monroe County, but only after scrambling for the money to go to Orlando due to budget cuts.

“Poor planning or no planning,” Mira-Talbott said. “I think you need a woman to help these gentlemen see the light.”

Only Bashinsky, a prolific blogger who describes himself as “insane” and says the only solution to fixing the School District is to let a charter school company run it, rebutted Mira-Talbott on her point that the board needed a woman.

“I’ve had seven wives,” said Bashinsky, adding that maybe that was his problem. “I need a wife.”

Bashinsky did note that no single board member can ensure changes without becoming part of the majority vote.

“They can’t get a damn thing done with one vote or two votes and that’s the reality,” he said. “As the years pass, not much is going to change. And maybe you’ll remember ‘Crazy Sloan’ up there telling you maybe you should go charter.”

=========================

Amazingly, Gwen did not mention Larry Murray’s proposal for Marathon Manor.

I did not rebut Yevette saying the school board needs a women. Gwen twisted it completely out of context. Yevette said the school board needs a woman because women are good at planning and arranging everything, including their husbands. I said after having seven wives, I had thought I was doing okay, not being married, until Yvette made her comment about a man needing to have his life run by a woman. There was lots of laughter over that.

Yevette told me afterward that I need a good woman in my life. She laughed. I laughed. I wondered if she was a herald of that happening. I’m lonely as hell. I miss having a good woman in my life. And I have been trying, if Gwen has been paying attention, to give Yvette help against Andy Griffiths. Yvette’s husband again was friendly toward me last night. He knows I’m trying to help Yvette.

Gwen flat made up that I said let a charter company run the school district. That’s’ the second time she has done that in an article. I said several times, each school should go charter and be run by its own board of directors, the parents and the principal, and in that way get their school out from under the superintendent and school board. The last time I said it, I called the school board and superintendent the Kremlin, Nikita. Nobody objected to that. In fact, I saw some smiles in the audience.

Maybe I did something that upset Gwen? Darn if I know what it is, unless it was being late for the forum. I thought they would start it without me. I never heard of a forum waiting on a candidate to show up, and I’ve participated in more candidate forums than all the other candidates in both school board races combined.

It’s okay for Larry Murray to say the school board needs testicles, but it’s not okay for me to say the school board is a bunch of weenies? Were they upset because we were in a church’s fellowship hall?

If so, why did not Gwen report that I had said, “Robin-Smith Martin and the school board had (I mouthed “fucked up”) the relationship between Mark Porter and the teachers and their union?

Why in the fuck would I want to be involved in a community that is so Puritan and up-tight? Why do the angels delight in making me do things I don’t want to have anything to do with? I must have seriously awful karma.

For what it’s worth, Todd German told me afterward that I did well, and it looked like I was backing Larry Murray.

Obviously, I am not a viable candidate from the public’s side of it, nor from my side of it.

After my experiences with Ed Davidson and Michael Cunningham regarding last night’s forum, there is no way I would be happy seeing them on the school board. They do not seem to me like men who will always tell the truth and honor their word.

I don’t think Mark Peterson is nearly as strong a candidate as Larry Murray.

John Welsh has lots of experience as an educator in this school district, he might make a good school board member, but I don’t see he has the background to dissect a school budget, which Larry definitely has.

If Larry is elected, he will make the rest of the school board miserable. They will not want to attend school board meetings, knowing he will be there. Administrative staff will dread getting another email from Larry, asking for yet another whatever.

I gave it my best shot when I told them the only way to fix the school district is for each school to go charter. That mantra is not going to change. The rest is just pissing up a rope.

It was no accident I was drawn to go first. The angels knew I would put the fundamental issue on the table top right out of the chute. It was interesting to listen to the other five candidates then struggle with trying to make arguments for there still being hope to fix this school district in ways other than each school going charter. The more they talked, the more they proved there is no other way.

Clerk of the Court candidate Matt Gardi videoed the event and said afterward it will be up on nakedconch.com soon.

Kudos to Larry Murray for all his hard work, and to Bill Becker for coming up with the design and moderating.

begged, borrowed, stolen and written by Sloan Bashinsky, probably the most reluctant candidate for office in the history of everything

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Received this yesterday from Larry Murray.

Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:27:42 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Kick The Can
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sloan:

I was disappointed that you didn’t mention in your blog today my gift yesterday to the School Board members of their “very own can”. It was a symbolic gesture to recognize the Board’s propensity to “kick the can”, which they did once again by postponing ratification while renegotiating Mark Porter’s contract until the 11th hour next Tuesday. The Board’s propensity to delay, to postpone, to obfuscate, to procrastinate, to put off, etc. is becoming legendary.

John Dick gave his can to Gwen Filosa of the Citizen who has it on her desk as a trophy of sorts. Obviously, the Board didn’t get the message and we can look forward to more of the same can kicking.

Larry

I replied:

Apologies, I did not see what was underneath the pretty wrapping paper; this is the first I know of it. I went out in the hall after you had delivered the “presents” and started talking with different people, as reported in today’s harangue. Then, I headed for the dentist. Will spread the word.

Perhaps the cans also were symbolic of cans getting kicked, as in butts getting kicked. Perhaps that was why John Dick gave his can to Gwen Filosa, to remind her to kick his can. Or, to remind her not to kick it. Which do you say?

I now have Michael Kinneer’s email, will forward it to you next. It seems to be in the genre of kicking the can in the butt sense.

Sloan

Larry told me yesterday morning that he’d heard of an email from Michael to Jesus Jara, which supposedly was getting plenty of talk in the school district. I wrote to Michael about it, and he sent it to me. Looks like he sent it right after the school board workshop on Monday. I told Larry that Michael is smart and could cause the school district a heap of trouble; he knows where the bodies are buried.

Subject: FW:
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:20:01 -0400
From: Michael.Kinneer@KeysSchools.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sloan – here is the email that you requested.

Michael

From: Michael Kinneer
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 4:05 PM
To: Jesus Jara
Subject:

Dr. Jara

On December 15, 2009 I entered in a contract with the Monroe County School Board agreeing therein to be the Chief Financial Officer for the District. I commenced performing the duties of the CFO on December 16, 2009. In return, the Monroe County School Board agreed to pay to me as compensation a salary of $126,639.00. In addition I was to be a member of the District collective bargaining team and entitled to a supplement in the amount of $2,500.00.

During Fiscal Year 2012 which ended on June 20, 2012, the Monroe County School Board deducted seven days of pay from my pay and has not paid me for the time that I served on the District collective bargaining team. The amount owed to me pursuant to the terms and conditions of our contract is $5,990.14.

Accordingly, I am providing notice to you that the Monroe County School District is in default of it obligation pursuant to our contract and I consider the District to be in breach of same. As such, I have no obligation to continue providing services to the District.

However, in the event that this has been an oversight on the part of the District, I am allowing the District until July 31, 2012 to cure its default by restoring the $5,990.14 to me. If this is not done I will cease providing my services to the District effective August 1, 2012.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Kinneer

COO

Here is The Key West Citizen’s report on Kinneer’s email:

Kinneer: Pay up or I quit

School CFO says district owes him $5,900

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff

gfilosa@keysnews.com

A top School District administrator said he will resign Aug. 1 unless he is paid $5,900 for mandated furlough days and for helping negotiate terms with the teachers union.

Michael Kinneer, chief financial officer since late 2009, contends that his contract prohibits his paychecks from being shorted, which they were, along with other School District employees’ paychecks, for the furlough days.

He contends as an administrator, he was not subject to the furlough days, and wants the back pay. Kinneer also wants to be paid for the negotiation work.

“If this is not done I will cease providing my services to the district effective August 1, 2012,” Kinneer wrote to Superintendent Jesus Jara on Monday.

Kinneer’s contract, which guarantees an annual salary of $126,639, expires Dec. 15.

Jara forwarded Kinneer’s email to School Board Chairman John Dick within 11 minutes of receiving it.

“We will need to discuss payment or accept his resignation,” Jara wrote in the Monday email. “Please respond to me so I can inform Mr. Kinneer about the board’s direction.”

“That’s a legal issue,” Dick said Tuesday. “I told the attorney to speak with him.”

Kinneer’s potential Aug. 1 quit date is the first day of work for incoming Superintendent Mark Porter, chosen by the School Board in a 4-1 vote June 28.

Jara resigned early to take the deputy superintendent’s job in Orange County, and his last day is Tuesday.

Kinneer’s demand comes only days after board Vice Chairman Andy Griffiths told a crowd on the campaign trail that he favors eliminating the chief financial officer job, along with that of the internal auditor/chief of staff, and creating instead a single new job comprising the functions this fall.

Griffiths didn’t mention Kinneer by name then, nor did he drop any names at Monday’s board meeting when he said that the district needs better financial minds on staff.

“We need a finance officer who knows exactly how much money we have,” Griffiths said. “We can’t make good decisions with bad information, and that’s why we made headlines. I hope that is changing.”

Kinneer believes that employment law is on his side when it comes to the furlough days.

Teachers and others covered by the collective bargaining contract were ordered to take seven furlough days for the 2012 fiscal year. In response to criticism, Jara, who made the decision to fill a budget gap, later said that all employees would take them, as well.

But while the teachers’ contract includes a provision for changes, as long as the district claims financial crisis, administrators’ contracts do not.

As for the union negotiating team, Kinneer’s contract states that he is part of the district’s collective bargaining team “and entitled to the indicated supplement.”

On Tuesday, United Teachers of Monroe President Holly Hummell-Gorman said that Kinneer was at meetings in both 2010 and this past year.

But Dick on Tuesday said he doesn’t recall Kinneer having a contract for working on union negotiations. This year, the district hired veteran labor attorney Robert Norton of Miami.

“Once we got Bob Norton, we really didn’t have a team,” said Dick. “We were better off; we didn’t have the mistakes that the team made.”

Part of recent School District history is the infamous board meeting at which Dick asked then-Superintendent Joe Burke if there was enough money to pay for the teachers’ contract and performance pay.

Dick asked three times, and Burke assured him all was fine. As it turned out, a misunderstanding in the terms of that contract created a $500,000 shortfall. Kinneer was chief financial officer then.

Kinneer wrote Monday, “The Monroe County School District is in default of its obligation pursuant to our contract.”

However, if the district pays him in full by Tuesday, Kinneer said he would consider the “oversight” repaired.

Internal Auditor turned Chief of Staff Ken Gentile and administrator Theresa Axford could handle the work if Kinneer leaves, Dick said.

“If Mr. Kinneer resigns, I would not want to replace him; just let Mr. Gentile and Ms. Axford handle the duties,” said Dick.

From 2005 to 2008, Kinneer worked as the treasurer for public schools in Columbus, Ohio, earning $141,750 a year, according to The Columbus Dispatch. He left that job in 2008 to become the city of Fort Lauderdale’s director of finance.

gfilosa@keysnews.com

Is this the same John Dick who has been talking about getting rid of Ken Gentile because he lied on his employment application that he was a CPA? Is this the same Ken Gentile Andy Griffiths said at the Finnegan’s Wake school board forum he was going to fire, along with Michael Kinneer, and get a hotshot financial wizard from the mainland to replace them both? Is this the same Ken Gentile and Michael Kinneer who are the only people in the school district who have a clue about the district’s money? I bet Theresa Axford, a former school principal, is thrilled to learn she will replace Michael Kinneer.

Speaking of employment contracts, I heard through the grapevine yesterday that the school board was advised by its lawyer that it cannot tie incoming schools superintendent Mark Porter’s performance incentive bonus to the teachers being paid their performance incentive bonus, if Porter is paid his. Something about that being a conflict of interest. I also heard the school board and their lawyer are going to try to make it tougher for Porter to get a performance incentive bonus, and they will tie his getting it to him finding a way for the teachers to get their performance incentive bonus.

I don’t know if that gobblygook is true or not, but any way you slice it, what has happened is the very last thing the school board and Porter should have wanted to happen, which both sides should have seen coming and avoided it altogether. What has happened is the school board and Porter have poisoned the well; they have turned the teachers and their union against Porter before his contract is even finalized by the school board. This is about the dumbest thing imaginable. Un fucking believable.

My understanding is the fate of Porter’s employment contract will be decided at next Tuesday’s school board meeting, which I heard Porter will attend. The meeting starts at 5 p.m. I find myself wondering if the school board will try to run discussion of Porter’s contract in ahead of citizen comments. I hate wondering that, but how could I not wonder after Robin Smith-Martin, at Monday’s school board workshop, tried to censor citizen comments on Porter’s contract, the performance incentive bonus part of which was Robin’s very own really stupid idea?

Any school board member who votes in favor of a contract with Porter, which poisons the well with the teachers and their union, should be publicly horse-whipped until he resigns. Same should be done to Porter, if he agrees to a contract which poisons that well. Later today, I will send the school board members and Porter an email containing this and the three previous paragraphs.

Starting at 5:30 that same afternoon is the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce candidate forum at Boondocks on Ramrod Key, just down and across US 1 from Looe Key Tiki Bar. Andy Griffiths told the Chamber that he had to be at the school board meeting. Larry Murray and I told the Chamber that we would be at the school board meeting. I told the Chamber that Ed Davidson has attended school board meetings for ten years, and I did not see him not attending the school board meeting, and it might be that other school board candidates also will attend it.

I said Bill Becker is moderating a school board forum on Big Pine Key the evening of July 27th, and suggested the Chamber either cancel the school board part of its forum, or let the school board candidates have the last slot, which might, no promises, give them a chance to make it to the forum from the school board meeting. The Chamber moved the school board candidates back to third from the end. The State Attorney and Clerk of Court candidates need the last slots because they have a Key West Chamber of Commerce forum that same evening and need the last slots to make it to the Lower Keys Chamber’s forum.

Moving laterally, I ran into bigpinekey.com/Coconut Telegraph’s Deer Ed last night at Looe Key Tiki bar. It was the first chance I’d had in a while to sit down and chew the fat with him. I had seen him in the Tiki Bar once before, and the odds of our meeting there being chance were zero.

Ed said when I ran for office in the past, it was a lot harder to come up with juicy stuff to write about than it is writing about the school district, a cornucopia of ongoing screw ups. He said 20 years – Andy Griffiths – is far too long for anyone to be a school board member. Ed said Larry Murray and I are alike, in that we both got over trying to keep the peace.

On horse-whipping, received this from Robin Smith-Martin, responding to yesterday’s down the rabbithole – just another Florida Keys school board meeting post.

Subject: Re: down the rabbit hole school board meeting
From: Robin.Smith-Martin@KeysSchools.com
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:53:10 -0400
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sloan–

Please understand I love and appreciate you.

You are vital.

You are the mythical trickster, the coyote, the raven, the monkey, the fool.

You are neither good nor evil. In your constant outrage you speak truth to power. From what doctors clearly diagnose as your “illness of the mind” comes your brilliance and cosmic intuition.

Traditionally, you would be dragged to the public square and horse-whipped on a regular basis. Perhaps you are overdue? Such treatment can be clarifying, focusing your purpose.

I believe the school district is nearing a sustainable trajectory. Perhaps it’s time you moved on to meatier agencies. Perhaps FKAA or better yet, the Defense Department, the nexus of public corruption and the mother of all tax payer teats.

Vaya con Dios,

Rob Smith-Martin

I replied:

Hi, Robin

Shared yours with Larry Murray, who replied, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

Todd German called me last night to say some people told him I had spoken very well during citizen comments yesterday. They way Todd told it, they aren’t always sympathetic with my holding forths/behavior. He did not say who they were, nor did I ask.

Todd sometimes says he hears lots of people read my posts, but he is reluctant to tell me because my head is already big enough. Todd sometimes tells me that people speak of me as if I am nuts, of no import, then they gripe to him about something I published, and he wonders why they read what I write and gripe about it, if I am nuts, of no import.

The same angels who had me put up yesterday’s post told me last November that I would run for the school board this year, and that I would cause a lot of trouble …

The mythical trickster, the coyote, the raven, the monkey, the fool knows he is both good and evil, light and dark. As is said in Isaiah 45-7, God creates light and darkness, good and evil.

Brilliance and cosmic intuition come from being open to receiving insights from beyond the conscious mind, aka the left brain, aka the male side of being.

As for the Defense Department, in early 1999, during an awful horse-whipping by the angels, when I often prayed to die, I was taken into the heart of China, then into the heart of Islam, then under the Pentagon. The energy in all three places was the same – dense, heavy, horrible. There was no life.

I spent a while inside of Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority in 2010 and 2011, after I met Rose Dell, who sat on that agency’s appointed board. Wasn’t very pretty in there. Had similar experience with Keys Energy Services, starting probably early 2011. Maybe I will be sent back into those agencies, maybe not.

Meanwhile, I see me remaining involved in the school district until my angel controllers tell me to move onto something else. My sense is they are only just getting warmed up.

Vaya con Dios to you, too, Robin,

Sloan

Maybe that was a mean thing to wish for Robin, given how my vaya-ing with God has gone.

Begged, borrowed, stolen and written by Sloan Bashinsky, Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

I woke up yesterday morning feeling like death warmed over. It went downhill from there, until I had my say at the school board workshop, after which I started coming out of it, despite a check up with the dentist. Then, I had the bright idea to call Patrick, aka The Terminator, to see if he wanted to join me at Harpoon Harry’s for some chess. After he was done humiliating me, with no small amount of help from me, I dragged my mangled self to my car and drove home wondering if I should have turned left off of US 1 and headed for Lower Keys Medical Center’s emergency room. Naw, been there, done that, lots of times. Arriving home, I fell on the bed, took a long nap, awoke slowly, dragged myself to the living room, opened my in box and found several emails from Larry Murray. I called him and asked if he could write up a report of what happened with new superintendent Mark Porter’s contract, which was discussed after I had left for the dentist. Larry sent his recollection, and I merged it and two other of his emails into this below. My recollection of the down the rabbit hole affair follows Larry’s.

Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:34:57 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Nice Job!
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sloan:

I thought you did a superb job today with Robin Smith-Martin’s lunacy. I hope the papers pick up on it as they should. He was w-a-y out of line!

You have your angels and I have my little birdies. The latest report from the aviary is that “short-timer”, Jesus Jara, has been reading your blog regularly. Most likely, he will continue in Orlando. Hope that Mark Porter does as well. Your renderings of today’s meeting should be priceless.

After you left today’s School Board meeting for the dentist, they took up the proposed contract for Mark Porter. Robin Smith-Martin made his case for the most controversial section, the performance-based bonus of either 6.25% (effective) or 12.5% (highly effective) included in Porter’s contract.

That touched off a far-ranging discussion on all financial aspects of the contract with a particular emphasis on the performance bonus. John Dick and Ron Martin were especially concerned at the prospect of paying a performance bonus to a new superintendent without providing the same to the teachers as was agreed in their contract. They also discussed the $625 monthly automobile allowance and the $1,000 annual payment for civic activities.

The end result was a 4-0 vote to approve the contract subject to a series of modifications. Dirk Smits attempted to take notes to confirm those modifications. The environment was wild and crazy to say the least. At one point, Sean Kinney of the Keynoter turned to me and said, “Larry, do you know what they just agreed to?” To that, I responded, “No, I am not sure what they agreed to.”

As best I can tell, the School Board agreed to the performance-based bonus in Mark Porter’s contract with the understanding that he would only receive payment if and when all of the teachers received payment of the performance-based element of their contract. Since it is highly unlikely, this year or next, that the teachers will receive such a payment, the net is that Mark Porter would be agreeing to a performance-based bonus that would not be paid. Think about that for a minute.

While the discussion focused exclusively on the teachers receiving the agreed-upon performance-based bonuses, Dirk Smits added that the Board need include other contract employees who also qualify for such bonuses, e.g. principals, vice-principals and department heads. Presumably, the Board agreed to that inclusion. I assume that Smits will, at some point, present the Board with the amended/modified contract.

I could go on and on relative to the craziness about allowances for an automobile and civic involvement, but, suffice it to say, Robin Smith-Martin has his work cut out for him in renegotiating Mark Porter’s agreement.

Larry

Dr. Larry Murray

Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate

Candidate

Monroe County School Board

District 3

(305) 872-3087

I think I have a reliable report that Shawn Smith, who was on the negotiating team with Robin Smith-Martin, told Robin that Porter’s performance incentive pay needed to be made contingent in the contract on the other performance-incentive pay obligations of the school district being paid. Robin ignored Shawn, who is City Attorney of Key West and used to represent the school district. Robin is a graduate of some alleged elite business school, which either did not try, or was unable, to instill any common sense in Robin.

Citizen comments were scheduled for 12 noon. Robin interjected himself ahead of the citizen speakers and bitched and moaned and sermon-ed that he had not yet had a chance to speak with the school board members about Mark Porter’s contract, due to the Sunshine Law requiring that be done in public view, and the newspapers and BLOGS had been tearing him and the contract up, and he wished citizen comments came after the school board had discussed the contract, and he wanted the citizen speakers to tone down their comments re Porter’s contract.

Larry Murray was the first speaker, and he wasn’t too toned down.

The second speaker, I already had decided to speak to three issues, one of which was the performance incentive part of Porter’s contract, but all of a sudden I now had four issues to cover.

Addressing Robin by his first name, I said this is the United States of America, the place of freedom of speech, democracy, citizen input, and he didn’t want the school board to hear what the public had to say before they had their own discussion? I told Robin he should not even be on the school board. John Dick said I was too rough. I said no more rough than what Robin had said, and I had not been nearly as rough as I wanted to be. Robin told me to say what I really wanted to say. I said it would have lots of 4-letter words. (I did not say, I wanted to walk over and punch his lights out.) Robin said to go ahead and say the 4-letter words. I paused, said a child was in the audience (a young girl with her mother, or perhaps her grandmother, next to whom I had been sitting. The meeting was televisied and live-streamed.) My time was running, I didn’t figure I would get extra time for the interruption. (I wondered afterward if that was what Robin had hoped to achieve, so I would not get around to speaking to Mark Porter’s contract.)

I said the next topic I wanted to cover, which had been raised earlier by the school board, was Chief of Staff Ken Gentile’s fate with the school district. He’s under scrutiny for holding forth in his application for employment that he was a CPA. I said Andy Griffiths had said at the Finnegan’s Wake forum that he was getting rid of the top two financial officers (Gentile and Michael Kinneer). I said what the school board should do is decide if those two men know what they are doing, and that is up to the board to do, since they are working with both men. I said it was not up to me to make a recommendation, because I was not working with either man. Robin interjected again, said I would make the recommendation anyway, I suppose on my blogs. I said again, it was up to them to decide it, since they were working with the two men. Then, I said the firm the school board used to vet Gentile’s resume told the board he was not a CPA in Florida, so what was the big deal about Gentile not being a CPA? (Gentile had been a CPA in New York, but had let his certification lapse, like I had let my law license lapse in Alabama. Kinneer is, or was, the Chief Financial Officer. Gentile was the school board’s Internal Auditor, and now is Chief of Staff, second only to the Superintendent.)

Then, I said I was turning to the performance incentive part of Mark Porter’s contract. I looked at Robin, said this was his bright idea. I reminded him that the school board had a lot of discussion with the superintendent candidates re how they had gotten along with the Teachers Union in their school districts and what they would do about getting along with the Union if they were hired to be our superintendent. I said, before Porter was even hired, he (Robin) had put Porter directly crosswise with the Teachers Union and the teachers. I said, if Porter turned the school district around, as they hoped he would do when they offered him the job, they should give him a nice raise, that would be the honorable thing to do. And doing it that would way would take it out of anything to do with the Union, for Porter is a management employee and the Union has no say over management employees.

The gong rang, I would have said more, if I had not been interrupted by Robin and John.

I would have said, it was said earlier in the meeting that the regular schools need to start figuring out ways to compete with the charter schools, to stop charter schools from taking students and teachers away from the regular schools and disrupting the school district’s budgeting. I would have said superintendent candidate Dr. Ed Shine, whom the school board did not hire, had told them, if regular schools operated correctly, there would be no charter schools to compete with. That was the first issue I wanted to cover, before Robin went and proved he needs to be investigated by whatever federal agency now investigates unAmerican activities. I really blew it when I didn’t call Robin, Nikita.

The school board took a break after citizen comments. Ken Gentile and Michael Kinneer thanked me for what I had said. Jesus Jara said he will be reading the blogs and keeping up. I said he got more pay at his new job? He said, yes. And his wife and kids will be with him? Yes. And Mickey, and Minnie, and Donald, and Goofy? Yes. And he will be rid of the insane asylum. Jesus smiled.

Outside, Sean Kinney said he thought he had gotten down all I had said to Robin, but he was going to view the tape. Sean said I really set Robin up. I said Robin set himself up, and I let him have it. I told Sean and Larry Murray that Robin doesn’t have bat shit for brains.

Mark Porter’s contract was the next item on the agenda following citizen commments. It was twenty till and my dentist appointment was at one, so I made the rounds and told Sean and Gwen Filosa, Ken Gentile and Michael Kinneer, and John Dick and Ron Martin and Holly the Union rep that I was off to the dentist, and was not running out on them.

I told Todd German last night that Porter will never see a performance incentive bonus, because the money simply isn’t there to pay the teachers and other employees their performance incentive bonus. It’s not there this year, it will not be there next year, or the year after, unless there is a revenue increase. I said too much money is involved for Porter to find money in some closet or buried somewhere, to fund the performance incentive obligations of the school district. And finding money in a closet or buried is a one-time bonanza, whereas the performance incentive obligations are ongoing, year after year. I said Porter’s performance incentive pay bonus was nothing more than jerking off, and if he were smart, he would tell them to take it out of the contract and negotiate for more regular pay.

I told Todd that Michael Kinneer had asked me during a break, if I had noticed that there will be a school tax increase next year? Key Gentile had explained to the school board that the State of Florida has increased its school tax millage, and each school district in the state will receive a part of that increased revenue next year, I suppose pro rata based on the number of students in each school district. I think Gentile said our school district’s share is a little over $1 million annually. Kinneer said the tax increase can be declined by the school board, as has happened in the past. Kinneer said he did not think the school board should decline the tax increase this year. I agreed.

Ken Gentile also had told the board, relative to Monroe County tax revenues, the school district’s revenues were falling because Monroe County had been able to use methods to keep county tax revenues basically level, but the school district was not allowed to use those methods to keep school tax revenues level. Recently, we read in The Citizen that the county will not raise taxes next year, but will hold the line and balance its budget out of its reserve fund balance. I still think the school board should put a local school tax increase on the ballot next year. Life’s going to be very rough for Mark Porter and the school district, if more revenue influx does not occur. Dr. Ed Shine had told the school board they needed to create a revenue influx. With a revenue influx, Porter and the teachers and the other employees could be paid performance incentive pay.

Gentile also had explained the reserve fund balance to the school board. Or, he had tried to explain it. It’s complicated as hell, and I can’t imagine any school board member really understands all the ways the reserve fund balance is calculated.

Gentile had also explained how the State of Florida audit, which was adverse to the school district, is going, something else that is very complicated and will take a while to resolve fully.

I told Jesus Jara and Ken Gentile during the break, if the board fires Gentile and Kinneer, the wheels will come off the train before it jumps the rail, and the engine and all the box cars behind it will into whatever.

I told Todd last night that the board will be insane to fire Gentile and Kinneer. I said the school board is totally dependent on Gentile, like an infant on his mother’s teat, and if they get rid of Gentile and Kinieer, the school district will be up shit creek (without a canoe, forget the paddle).

Todd said Cathy Reitzel, who had no special training or education, could be hired back. Todd said Cathy did what Gentile and Kinneer now do. I said Andy Griffiths and John Dick will have to eat a lot of crow, since they approved firing Cathy for not blowing the whistle soon enough on the Acevedos.

If Cathy had not blown the whistle, Randy Acevedo might still be the superintendent, and Monique Acevedo might still be stealing great gobs of taxpayers’ money from this school district. Cathy was State Attorney Dennis Ward’s star witness in getting the Acevdo’s indicted by a grand jury, and Randy convicted by a jury of his peers, and Monique then to guilty.

The interim superintendent, Joe Burke, appointed by the Governor to replace Randy Acevedo, fired Cathy, but only demoted her boss to principal of Horace O’Bryant Middle School. Cathy was not the son of a prior superintendent, a mover shaker Conch. Cathy was not a Conch. The school board approved Cathy’s firing. Cathy filed EEOC charges, which eventually were cleared for federal litigation.

Maybe if the school board hires Cathy back, she will drop her case and save the school district a gob of money, and maybe if the school district replaces Kinneer and Gentile with Cathy, that will save the school district another gob of money, since Cathy was making gobs less money than either Kinneer or Gentile are making.

I told Todd that Reitzel would have a lot of catching up to do, and she’d come into it at a bad time, when the school district is under the gun from an adverse State audit, which Gentile had nothing to do with happening, because he worked for the school board and not for the school district when that shit hit the fan.

If I were Kinneer or Gentile, I would be looking for some place else to work, for my own sanity’s sake.

I told the angels last night that they should run for the school board, since my running for it was their insane idea.

I said, maybe I wake up tomorrow morning and see pigs flying over Little Torch Key.

Meanwhile, here’s The Key West Citizen’s report on yesterday’s down the rabbit hole.

School Board OK’s superintendent contract

Criteria for performance pay still undecided

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com

The School Board on Monday unanimously approved the contract for incoming Superintendent Mark Porter, keeping the $145,000 salary intact but agreeing to set high goals in order for him to earn additional performance pay.

A draft of the contract, negotiated by a three-member committee that included board member Robin Smith-Martin, proposed offering Porter an additional six to 12 percent of his salary if he meets goals to be set by the board by Oct. 1.

“If he can turn this district around, pull the district out of the ditch and get us off the front page, is that worth $9,000? I think it is,” said Smith-Martin, who negotiated the contract with City Attorney Shawn Smith and Clerk of Court Danny Kolhage. “Our superintendent should be put in a position to show us that he can do more than just what is expected.”

But Smith-Martin was outnumbered at Monday’s meeting in Key West, where three members were displeased at the idea of offering the schools chief performance pay while teachers remain without it due to a budget crunch.

“We advertised the job for that salary range,” said Vice Chairman Andy Griffiths. “I’m not opposed to performance pay modeled after the very one we have for the rest of the staff. Everybody gets it or no one gets it.”

Porter is due to start work a week from today, having signed the draft contract that promised up to $8,000 in relocation fees, a car allowance and a $1,000 fund to pay admission to civic events such as Chamber of Commerce luncheons, which cost at least $20 a pop.

As for the car allowance, instead of the proposed $625 a month, the board agreed to obtain a 12-month average of what the superintendent’s travel up and down the Keys costs and provide that to Porter.

“This isn’t a benefit,” said Smith-Martin of Key West. “We don’t ask the bus drivers to pay for the diesel in their buses.”

The performance pay was the sticking point on Monday, and did not sit well with Chairman John Dick, member Ron Martin and Griffiths.

Duncan Mathewson, who is retiring this year from the District 3 seat he won in 2004, didn’t attend Monday’s meeting.

So the board and its advisers kicked around ideas that perhaps Porter’s goals — to be set by the board by Oct. 1 — could only happen when teachers begin receiving their performance pay, estimated to cost the district at least $3 million.

The super’s performance pay can’t be linked with that of the teachers, as that would create a conflict of interest for Porter, board members noted.

The state has mandated merit pay for teachers, having done away with tenure. But Monroe County schools, under appointed Superintendent Jesus Jara, froze raises for teachers before the 2011-12 year, and added seven furlough days in order to shore up a gaping budget shortfall.

Porter’s contract will be rewritten by the board’s attorneys to ensure that the performance pay is included, but that only the board can set the goals and terms. The board did not say whether those goals would pertain to financial management. student achievement or a combination of the two.

“You can make sure he doesn’t get any of that money,” said the board’s attorney Dirk Smits, drawing laughter from the room by saying that the board can make the goals all but impossible. “Make sure he never gets a bonus ever.”

Porter, an attorney who ran public schools in Minnesota, just outside St. Paul, until the school board there voted not to renew his contract, didn’t return a phone message Monday.

Smith-Martin defended bonus pay as an incentive that would add “value” to the district, and perhaps lead to the district moving up in the state’s rankings.

Dick took issue with the idea that the superintendent can take credit for academic success and Smith-Martin’s assertion that the district is troubled.

“Let me tell you something, we’re not that bad,” said Dick. “Our academics have shown steady improvements through all of this. You’re going to see the financials are far better right now. We are ranked ninth in the state of Florida. Years ago, we bounced at No. 15, 16. We moved up nicely and we stayed. That’s done by the teachers, not the superintendent. It’s not done by any of us sitting here. It’s done by teachers in the classroom.”

Also on Monday, the School Board uniformly questioned a $6,600 bill from the nonprofit Florida School Boards Association for 10 days of work on the superintendent search, plus travel expenses.

The four board members Monday agreed that by their count, consultant Wayne Blanton worked three days — at $500 a day. As for travel expenses, no one blinked at the $1,600 Blanton racked up for trips from Tallahassee to Key West.

The nonprofit caps its superintendent searches at $8,000 for the whole job.

Andy Griffiths said he would call Blanton, the association’s executive director, about the bill.

The board decided not to join the association when members voted 3-2 to drop memberships in two professional associations to save about $26,000 in annual dues.

 

==========================

Begged, borrowed, stolen and written by Sloan Bashinsky, Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate from wonderland.

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

 

 

 

From Larry Murray yesterday:

Sloan:
I was wrong. I have been wrong before and, unfortunately, will be wrong again from time to time.
I spoke with Stu Kessler today and he reminded me that there is a performance-based component in Ken Gentile’s contract. I think Todd might have a copy of the full contract for you to look at.
After Gentile’s first year, the Audit and Finance Committee did a review. Whether or not that was a review as defined by the terms of the contract, I do not know. Further, I do not know if Gentile was given any performance bonus. I simply do not remember.
After Gentile’s second year, the AFC did not do a review. I assume that it is still pending. Whether the AFC will proceed with a review at this date, Stu may have something to say on the subject. Considering all that has occurred in the last month or two, I do not think that even Gentile has the chutzpah to ask for a performance bonus. However, stranger things have happened.
Larry

Hi, Larry
I don’t remember anything you said/wrote about Gentile’s contract that was wrong. Oh, you told me you did not know of any administrative staff with performance incentive features in their employment contract.
Hard to tell what Gentile will do, but the way John Dick and Andy Griffiths are sounding, it doesn’t look good for Gentile to keep working in the school district
I’m still of the view that the School Board was on notice that Gentile did not have a Florida CPA license, and that makes it hard for the Board to argue they were misled by Gentile in his resume. It bothers me that John and Andy have not admitted their contribution to that disturbance.
I understand from Ron Martin that he and Robin Smith-Martin were not on the Board when Gentile was hired. Even so, they, and the School District, might have to live with the prior Board hiring Gentile, whose contract I understand ends early 2013.
Sloan

Sloan:
Gentile’s contract expires April 1, 2013. Last I knew, Gentile’s “interview” with Dirk Smits had been postponed yet again until Thursday the 26th.
Larry

I replied:
Well, I was wrong about how long Gentile has left on his contract. Still, based on comments attributed to him in the newspapers, he seems inclined to lawyer up when he doesn’t like how things are going. I heard through the grapevine that the Gentiles got lawyered up in a mainland situation, before they came to the Keys for him to work for the School Board. Not the Jesus thing to do, but often a Christian thing to do. Now Gentile working for the Superintendent, whoever that is between now the November election. It’s not my call what the School Board does about Gentile, but it seems odd it’s taken this long for anything to be decided and done. And if the School Board has not been talking with the Governor about replacing Jesus Jara with Mark Porter, until Randy Acevedo’s term ends at the November election, that seems odd to me, too.

Larry replied:
Remember what I said at Finnegan’s about how the School Board “kicks the can”.

I replied:
I’m still waiting on the School District/Board to provide the Public Records Request information re whose heads had rolled, as claimed by John Dick on US 1 Radio: names, positions, salaries, supplemental pay, which I made perhaps two month ago, then maybe a month later reminded them I had requested it. To my first request, Jesus Jara replied, saying I would hear from Sally, or maybe it was Cheryl. I heard from one of them saying my request had been forwarded to someone else, who would apprise me of the estimated cost. I wrote back fine, apprise me and send me the info; and what great cost could there be, when Jara and Dick knew the information off the top of their heads? You and I, and perhaps others, suspected there was no information to provide, because no heads had rolled. Maybe that’s missing the can altogether, a whiff. Or, maybe it’s prevarication, both in the announcement and in the failure to reply to my Public Records Request that there were no rolled heads in the school district’s evidence locker.
I imagine there is a very long line of requests to the SD/SB, which have not been answered, either by kicking the can down the road, or by prevarication. Maybe mostly by prevarication.

Larry replied:

Could not agree more. Will you be there in the morning? (the school board workshop in Key West)

I replied:

With bells on, on the off chance there might be some prevaricating going on.

========================

At the Finnegan’s Wake school board candidate forum, 20-year (5-term) incumbent Andy Griffiths (Dist. 2) and retired school teacher/principal John Welsh (Dist. 3) made a run at the school district using better public relations, even hiring a public relations director, better known as spin doctor, to keep reminding the general public of all the pretty things about the school district, because there was too much negative publicity. That got directly shot down by other candidates. One way I shot it down was by saying the school board knew from the firm it had hired to vet Ken Gentile’s resume that Gentile was not a CPA in Florida. They knew, I hammered home again.

Andy flat out Pinocchio-ed when he told the audience the State of Florida requires school districts to have a 2 percent reserve fund balance. The State of Florida requires school districts to have a 3 percent reserve fund balance, which Andy well knew, and that if the reserve fund balance falls below 3 percent, the school districts have to notify the State and offer a plan for getting the reserve fund balance back up to 3 percent; and if the reserve fund balance falls to 2 percent, the State can take over a school district and install its own superintendent and school board. Andy told me maybe three months ago that had happened to the Jefferson County, Florida school district. Dist. 3 candidate Mark Peterson straightened out that Andy mess for the Finnegan’s Wake audience.

Consider The Griffiths Rule: “Praise in public, criticize in private.” If Andy had his way, the local media would only report what Andy tells them to report about Andy and the school district. That’s not something that’s going to change about Andy. I don’t see either of his Dist. 2 opponents shying away from bad news. They have not personally identified with the school district, as if it is a beloved relative, or themselves, who can do no wrong.

I think it would have gone very rough on Andy, if he had agreed to participate in Bill Becker’s school board candidate forum this coming Friday at the Methodist church on Key Deer Blvd., Big Pine Key, 6-8 p.m. For Andy knew, any issue he put on the table and discussed would then be dissected by all the other candidates, and if Andy did a rebuttal, the other candidates would dissect his rebuttal. Andy is not used to that kind of playing field; he wants to have the last say, as he proved at the Finnegan’s Wake forum, where I took the microphone away from him for his trying to have a rebuttal he was not entitled to have, and at the Hometown! PAC forum, where Todd German took the microphone away from Andy twice for trying have rebuttals he was not supposed to have.

I also think Dist. 3 candidates Ed Davidson and Michael Cunningham declined to attend Bill Becker’s school board candidate forum, and then tried to destroy it by blaming their non-attendance on Larry Murray, because they did not want the experience of putting forward and discussing their pet issues, then have other candidates dissect their presentations, and then dissect their rebuttals. I told Larry after the Finnegan’s Wake forum that I listen to and play off what the candidates say at forums. I swim it right back up their asses, if that is what needs to happen, and if they say something good, I say so. I did that at Finnegan’s Wake. I imagine I will do it at Bill Becker’s forum this Friday evening at the Methodist church.

Larry Murray said at Finnegan’s Wake that this school board needs testicles. So do the truant prevaricator candidates, whom Larry calls The Gang of Three.

Ya’ll come to Bill Becker’s candidate forum. I expect it will be … interesting.

 

Meanwhile, here’s The Key West Citizen’s latest on the performance incentive pay part of new schools superintendent Mark Porter’s tentative employment contract. So far, the only school board member who has been reported as supporting the incentive pay provision is its author, Robin Smith-Martin. This item on today’s school board workshop agenda is what most has my attention right now, but who can say what other opportunities might pop up at a school board meeting?

Schools chief contract on the board’s agenda

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff

gfilosa@keysnews.com

The Monroe County School Board today will consider approving a draft contract already signed by Mark Porter, the incoming superintendent who got the position last month over the current schools chief, Jesus Jara, by a 4-1 board vote.

That contract, however, has raised questions, not about the $145,000 annual salary, but over an additional offer of a hearty bonus — up to $18,125 — if the board deems Porter performed “highly effective” or “effective” in his first year, the contract reads.

“I can’t see how we can pay him performance pay and not pay teachers (more),” said Ron Martin, who represents the Upper Keys on the board. “I don’t know how we can do that for him unless we find the money to do both. I don’t think that’s right. I feel for these teachers a whole lot.”

Porter, an attorney, negotiated his side of the contract with a three-man committee appointed by the board that included one of its five members, Robin Smith-Martin, who said, “This is great possibility and zero risk,” said Smith-Martin. “He only makes more if he is able to create added value.”

Performance pay is a brand new concept in Monroe County schools, where teachers had it in their union contract only to lose it due to budget cuts, Smith-Martin acknowledged.

But in Porter’s case, it could pay off handsomely for the schools, Smith-Martin said.

Porter would get a bonus “if he can create an extra $500,000 or $100,000, for example,” he said.

“John Dick is good at cutting, but he doesn’t have the imagination for how do we build a better district,” Smith-Martin said, in response to Dick’s assertion that a possible 12.5 percent salary bonus is too high.

Porter called the bonus pay incentive a mutual idea that was brought up by the negotiating committee, rounded out by Clerk of Court Danny Kolhage and Key West City Attorney Shawn Smith.

Asked if the board might table the item, Ron Martin said it was unlikely.

“I don’t see any problem with someone getting on the phone and calling Porter,” Martin said. “I’ve seen it done before.”

Porter is due to start work Aug. 1, while Jara has resigned, marking July 31 as his last day.

Jara was hired as deputy superintendent of Orange County public schools in Orlando, a job that recently paid $160,000 a year. He will preside over today’s meeting, as well as the 5 p.m. July 31 meeting also set for Key West that will include the first budget hearing of the season.

Porter has said he plans to drive down to the Florida Keys next Monday from his native state of Minnesota, where he spent 32 years in the public schools of South Washington County, outside of St. Paul.

Candidates running for the District 3 School Board seat, from which Duncan Mathewson is retiring after eight years, made jabs about Porter’s contract at a forum held in Key West on Thursday.

Michael Cunningham, who runs the Florida Keys Area Health Education Center, raised his hand while on stage at Finnegan’s Wake bar and asked, “Anyone else want that job?”

Cunningham, who makes nearly $116,000 as AHEC’s executive director, said that the Porter contract is an example of “poor decision making.”

At the same event, Larry Murray, also running for District 3, went further in his criticism, telling the crowd that Smith-Martin “went out on a tangent and offered the superintendent candidate something he was not authorized to do.”

Not so, said Smith-Martin, elected in 2010 to the District 1 seat, who noted that Porter isn’t being offered a bonus for simply doing a good job.

“You do a good job, you get to keep your job,” said Smith-Martin. “People want a change in culture for the school district. Performance management offers a fundamental change in culture, part of their compensation will reflect their outcomes.”

Keys teachers, however, remain on hold when it comes to the performance pay that their union leaders secured almost three years ago.

“We were told there was no money,” said Holly Hummell-Gorman, president of United Teachers of Monroe, who declined comment on Porter’s contract.

The union recently declared impasse with the district, giving up trying to deal directly with Jara and the hired labor lawyer.

Performance pay for teachers isn’t on the list of beefs that the union has with the district. But it was bargained for and included in the three-year teachers contract.

Teachers agreed to give up the step scale raise system “forever,” said Hummell-Gorman, and the compromise was a performance pay formula that, at the maximum, would pay a bonus of 13 percent of a teacher’s base pay in the third year of the plan.

Had the teachers’ contract been honored, that third year would start this fall.

“You could earn substantial increases in pay,” said Hummell-Gorman. “That was our trade-off for giving up our steps.”

=============================

I look foward to seeing what the School Board does with the performance pay incentive part of Mark Porter’s tentative employment contract.

Begged, borrowed, stolen and written by Sloan Bashinsky, Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

 

 

From Nashville J yesterday:My hero

WOW:Sloan is like a disastrously-gifted Tasmanian Devil
who has burst his cage and is tearing the tree to bits.
Guys, thank you for your happy photos and self-deprecating,
ass-kicking blog.

by Rick Boettger

I replied to J and Rick:

 

I replied to Rick:

Yesterday, this email chain forward:From:
Matt Gardi < matt@mattgardi.com>
To: Lawrence Murray < citizenlarry007@yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 7:12 AM
Subject:Re: Finally!!Larry,

Matt:I have spent the last six days herding cats, an exercise that I would rather not repeat. The good news is that the forum is on.A forum of candidates for the School Board, Districts 2 and 3, will be held on Friday, July 27, between 6:00pm and 8:00pm in the fellowship hall of the Big Pine Key Methodist Church, 280 Key Deer Blvd. Bill Becker, News Director of US1 Radio, will be the moderator. Call (305) 872-3087 for details.

I had to change days, from Wednesday to Friday, to accommodate personal schedules. What a pain. In any event, I hope that you will be available and will assist us to have online streaming. You had graciously volunteered to do it on Wednesday and we hope that you will be available on Friday. With your able assistance, we can reach a much larger audience.

Thanks.

Larry

Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2012 12:43:43 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Finally!!
To: matt@mattgardi.com
CC: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

 

 

 

The Florida School Boards Association has billed the Monroe County School Board $6,600 for 10 days’ work on the superintendent search — including two days’ travel expenses. Had the board hired the agency’s head, Wayne Blanton, for the entire monthlong search, the bill would have been capped at $8,000.

The single-page bill, dated June 20, isn’t itemized, and board members said that’s all they’ve seen.

 

 

 

I expect that the county would do no better and all they are trying to sell is whiskey. Or at least I don’t expect they have legalized brothels in the Keys.

Hey, what an idea! I think I just found the way to fund the school short fall.

J

Well, now, J, you might just have hit several nails on the head all at once, not knowing, perhaps, that it is a not very closely guarded secret that there are heaps of brothels on and near Duval Street in Key West. A 5 percent brothel tax for schools is an excellent idea! Also, the brothels, and pole and lap dancing, could be a trade school experience for local damsel teens not inclined to go off to college and live happily ever after, to hear the propaganda coming out of the Kremlin. Local teen boys could get trade school experience in pimping. Perhaps some of the 5 percent tax could fund their medical and counseling expenses. But then, I’ve been leaning on Keys Coalition, the local anti-child-sex-trade outfit, to start leaning on Mayor Cates and the six city commissioners to shut down the Trade magnets on and near Duval Street. So far, the Coalitionists don’t seem too terribly excited about taking on their own city. Maybe it’s easier to stop the Trade in Miami. Easier on the Coalitionists.