Good Morning Florida Keys

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

goodmoringkeywest.com

goodmorningbirmingham.com

Hidden in Plain View – Key West homeless art, poetry, music exhibition

Saturday, September 29th, 2012

I sent this below to Erika Biddle, who is putting together a November homeless art, poetry and music exhibition at Studios of Key West:

Morning, Erika – Here’s a link to something published about a week ago:

homeless apartheid, KOTS and the rescue syndrome in Key West

When Erica called me yesterday about the homeless art exhibition, I bitched and moaned some about my interior life, and we talked some about shamans, and she told me of a shaman friend of hers and suggested I look him up on Facebook.

This morning, Ericka emailed me:

Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 00:02:05 -0400

From: erika.b@earthlink.net

To: sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

Subject: thanks for the info Sorry, I kept you so long on the phone today even though you told me that you have a bit trouble with your voice cords. Thank you for the info about the rescue syndrome. I totally fell into that group in the beginning of the project. I think that I am now pretty much in recovery from this and have since learned, that one cannot rescue or save anybody, just love and accept them on their personal journey. The concept of “Hidden in Plain View” is not an attempt to save but to make a connection on a different level, a timid attempt to build and expand our community “One Human Family” not motto, bumper sticker or slogan, but all embracing.

Perhaps I am naive, but who cares at least I tried.

With much love and remember to contain some of the shamanic energies to heal yourself.

If you seem to get weaker take a break so we can have you around for a long time.

Erika

I replied under the subject “The Eagle’s Gift”:

Morning, Erika

Thanks, my voice is much better now, the phone conversation was no problem. It was the rescue syndrome part of what you sent to me about the homeless art exhibition the angels inspired you to try to bring off, that caused me to caution you to have only one goal for the exhibition, which was the exhibition, and to leave off trying to piggy back onto it homeless people being cured of what all ails them. Art is a worthy goal itself, and who can say what vibration a homeless art exhibition might create in the invisible? Who can say how that vibration might manifest in the artists and poets and musicians involved in it? Who can say how that vibration might manifest in you and Kim and others involved in putting it on? Who can say how that vibration might manifest in the homeless community? Who can say how that vibration might manifest in the Key West area mainstream community? In the entire Keys homeless and mainstream communities? In the mainland homeless and mainstream communities?

Original art, poetry and music are very powerful spirit expressions, which work subjectively, under the intellectual radar, under the ego defenses. The intellect and the ego ever want to be in charge, make plans, set long-range goals. The intellect and the ego do not like surrendering to the process, to the unknown, to living in the moment, and try very hard to control the outcome. It took the angels a very long time to break me of trying to control the outcome of the various projects they laid on me. My testosterone drive was very strong, my need to try to prove myself just as strong. It was a while coming before I realized I only needed to be concerned with how God viewed me and what I did, or didn’t do.

Had a conversation about that yesterday morning with Andy Griffiths, who came into Coco’s Kitchen on Big Pine Key handing out VoteAndy magnets and ball point pens. [Andy is a school board candidate, seeking his sixth term.] We got to talking about fishing in the Keys, which was my life passion when I was much younger. Fishing was Andy’s line of work before he sold his boats to his captains. “Fish Andy” was his business’ “logo”. I told him that reminded me of “Fish Ande” – the fishing line that was so popular back when I was a bonefishing fanatic. Andy said Ande still is a popular fishing line.

I told Andy of a miracle that had happened on cold windy early late December day on Lower Matecumbe Key, where my father’s second home was. 1967, I think.

The family was there for Christmas, a cold front had blown through, the water was all roiled up, but I got in my father’s 13-foot whaler anyway. Armed with a push pole and some live shrimp and two spinning rods, I headed down the way and started fishing the flat in front of what now is called Anne’s Beach. A flat I’d fished many times, seen many bonefish, but had never caught one there. A hard flat, you could not stick the push pole, aka idiot stick, into the bottom to stop the boat. The water was full of sand, the color half-white, half-chocolate milk. The wind was blowing straight down the flat, so I let it push the boat along, as I dragged the push-pole along the bottom behind to slow the boat’s progress. I had a spinning rod rigged with a shrimp lying on each gunnel, dangling the shrimp in the water. As I reached the bottom end of the flat close to Channel 2 bridge, a huge bonefish tail came up out of the water dead ahead of the boat, perhaps 40 yards downwind. How could that be? No way a bonefish was on that flat in that wind and chop, much less tailing. But there was a bonefish ahead of me doing just that. When the tail showed again, I dropped the anchor. The chop was so bad, the fish did not hear the anchor go in, or the boat chinch up as the anchor line drew taught, or the waves banging against the transom. I picked up one of the rods, opened the bail, and cast right on top of the big tail the next time it showed. I didn’t figure in that chop the fish would hear the shrimp land right on top of its head and spook it. I wanted the fish to find the shrimp. The fish found the shrimp and after about ten minutes I had the fish in the landing net. It was maybe 32 inches long, a very long bonefish, but it was a little thin. I figured it was 10 pounds, and at normal weight would have been about 12 pounds. Still, it was easily the largest bonefish I had ever caught, and I dropped it on the bottom of the boat, pulled in the anchor, drifted the boat off the flat, cranked the engine, and headed into the wind, banging the boat and myself up pretty good. Reaching my father’s place, I grabbed the miracle, I had to be the only person in the Keys who went out bonefishing that day, and hurried inside to show off the miracle to my family, especially to my father and younger brother. “Oh, that’s nice,” they said, if they said anything. Zero recognition of the miracle. Undaunted, I took the miracle back to the boat and cranked it up and banged it and me all the way up to Bud n’ Mary’s marina, where my father kept the boat stored when he was not down at his place. I had to leave the boat there anyway, the Christmas trip was over. I showed the miracle to the men at Bud n’ Mary’s. I knew them. Some worked there, others were flats guides just hanging out. They asked me where I had caught the fish? I told them. They laughed, said no way was a bonefish taling on that flat in that weather. I told them I knew that, but that bonefish was tailing on that flat in that weather. They said I had caught it nigger fishing with shrip in a channel. They never believed me. I was crushed. I told the fellow in charge that day to send the fish to Al Phleuger in Miami, to have the fish mounted. He said okay, he would do that. I did not know it then, but that was the last bonefish I would kill. Other people I took bonefishing killed fish to mount, but I never killed another one.

Flash forward to January 1994. Living in Boulder, Colorado. Deep winter, snow piled high. I go to an off-beat Sunday gathering I have been attending for a few weeks. Seekers, lost people, hurt people. Not a church. At the end of that meeting, a fellow I had not noticed there before came to the front and told us to close our eyes and ask God what we could do to best serve God? I closed my eyes and asked God what I could best do to serve God? Into my inner vision came a beautiful white writing quill. I felt the brush of angels’ wings on my back. I teared up. I left, because I didn’t want to burst into tears and cause a commotion that might interrupt the internal epiphany.

That night, at home, I was moved to pick up my diary and start writing. One word at a time, it came, slowly. Several fishing stories from my past, but as they went down on the paper, I saw them in new light. I was bawling my eyes out, my heart was heaving, I was shaking all over. I realized that miracle bonefish had given its life to teach me never to look to the approval of men for what I did. I told Andy that was pretty irreverent, killing that miracle fish and then taking so long to understand what the fish had done for me.

Two days ago, before dawn, Andy came to me in a dream promoting a “love fest.” This morning in a dream before dawn, I am wandering around, sort of lost, sort of looking for what I am to do, sort of out of money, I cannot find my leather briefcase, which I used when I went to court back when I practiced law. Then, my mother comes to me in a dream and hands me a big book, it looks new and has “Codex” on the cover. I wake up, crawl out of bed, open my laptop, see your email and start writing this to you.

By the time I am half-way through writing the miracle fish story, I realize that is what Andy and my mother had tried to get me ready to do. By the time I am done writing the miracle fish story, I realize I am supposed tell about that gathering and the white quill, and what I had realized about that miracle fish. By the time I write that, I realize I am supposed to say that I wrote a whole lot of new stuff that winter, and I bawled all the way through it. It was a love fest. And, it began with my writing about fishing when I was a boy. I can tell by the emotion welling in me that I’m supposed to try to retell some of those fishing stories now. It’s been nearly 20 years. Here’s what I remember.

The boy’s mother did not know why he loved to fish, but she knew he would die if he did not get to fish. The boy’s father did not like to fish and his mother arranged for other men to take him fishing, and when there were no men, she took him to a lake or stream with a sack lunch and thermos, and left him there for the day. When the day was done, sometimes he had a catch, sometimes not, but he was happy because he had gotten to fish. His mother wanted him to be a priest and did not understand why he wanted to go fishing on Sunday instead of attend church. She did not know a priest catches souls for the church, and the fish were God, the lake was their church, the boy was their congregation, and when they had taught the boy how to fish, they would send him forth to be a fisher of men.

The captain said there were no fish at Destin in March, but the boy loved to fish and his father chartered the boat anyway. They caught a lot of bonito that day, the captain said he’d never seen anything like it. They went out again two days later, the same thing happened, and the captain said he had never seen anything like it. The boy knew God had sent the bonito to Destin, but he didn’t know why.

The boy was fishing alone on the pier in front of the hotel in Ft. Walton. He’d caught a lot of chofers (pin fish) and grunts. Then, something huge grabbed his bait and started dragging him and his rod and reel to the edge of the dock, he was going into the water for sure, then his line broke with a loud rifle shot and he was saved. He never saw what it was, the big one that got away. Deep down, though, he knew what it was like to take God’s bait and then somehow manage to get away.

The boy played golf because it was his father’s game. His father was very good, could have been a pro, but went into business instead. The boy sometimes cheated, didn’t count all of his strokes, improved his lie when nobody else was looking. He never beat his father but once, in a tournament, and that time he did not count all of his strokes. The boy loved fishing more. The boy and the fish, one on one, and there was no way to cheat.

He is the paper, the pen his soul, the ink his blood, and the poet is God. He is but a crooked hose through which living water flows, first to straighten him out, then to water a few other birds of the air and some lilies of the field.

Those were the core verses in that body of writing prompted by the white writing quill; those, and

Although he sometimes tries to write fiction, by the time the tale is told, every character is a character in himself, every plot a plot in himself. There are no surprises, only his to discover a part of himself he has lost, forgotten, thrown away, or never even knew was there. In this way, perhaps he and God are somewhat alike – they both create to discover just who and what they really are.

and

Who invented the rule that poetry must rhyme, have pentameter, be cast into verse? Yes, please tell me who invented that silly rule? Surely is wasn’t the maker of the first stone – otherwise, there’d be no stones to break all those slaving rules!

I named that body of work A Crazy Person’s Bible, perhaps because something like this came to me while the white quill was at work:

Because God is always asking him to do things that no sane person would ever do, he finally concluded that the only way to love God is to be crazy!

Oddly, perhaps, perhaps not, the sport I most watch on television is the pro golf tour. After teaching me how to fish, the fish wanted me to learn how to play golf, counting all of my strokes, playing each shot as it lies. I dunno, Erika. Perhaps this is part of the homeless art exhibition. Prehaps it is part of something else. Those white quill writings were shaman writings. Everything I write is poetry, every part of my life is poetry, art, music.

At your suggestion, I looked up your shaman friend, Jonathon Horwitz, on Facebook after we talked yesterday. I commented to his page, he commented back a couple of times, I commented back to him something pretty long. Shaman stuff. My long one I first posted to my FB page, to see if FB would accept something that long. Got some replies on my FB page, too. You might find it interesting, might not.

I had thought last night that today I would put up a post prompted by email correspondence yesterday from Todd German and Larry Murray re The Citizen not publishing the names of the two Key West High School thieves, but the loss of my briefcase in the dream before dawn left me feeling I am to stay away from that today. Shamans ignore their dreams at their peril, I have learned.

I also have learned that shamans direct their energies toward helping others, and leave for the spirit world to direct its energies toward helping shamans. Or so it was taught to me. As we discussed yesterday, Jesus was a shaman. He directed all of his energies toward trying to help other people. He trained me. He, and Michael and Melchizedek, and Magdalene, and others in their circle. And the Holy Spirit. The white quill writing was pure Holy Spirit. She wrote this with that white quill

Rosa Mystica

Sweet Mystery

Blood of Christ

Living water

without which

there are no rainbows

and God is dead

She also wrote

Earth,

the sacred prism through which

souls are refracted into their elemental parts,

purified in Holy Fire,

then one-forged and sent on their way

to not even God knows where,

simply because they are all

unique emanations of God,

evolving …

I rather imagine, Erika, in God’s eyes, we humans all are homeless.

Sloan

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

goodmorningkeywest.com

goodmorningbirmingham.com For the hard core, here is what I could find this morning on the Facebook page of what Erika’s shaman friend and I corresponded yesterday. Jonathan Horwitz had written to someone else of Don Juan and his teachings, which I took to mean Don Juan in Carlos Casteneda’s books. I wrote to Jonathan that The Eagle’s Gift was the Don Juan book that had really grabbed me. Johathan wrote back that I should try Journey to Ixtlan, which had transformed him, and the writings of a Sufi poet, Indires Kahn, I think was the name; and that he was a great fan of Gregory Peck.

I replied:

“To Kill a Mocking Bird” is one of my favorite movies – Gregory Peck starred in it. [The novel was written by Harper Lee, a south Alabama woman, who was close to Truman Capote, they grew up together.] I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. I read Journey to Ixtlan a long time ago, will see if I can find it in the local library system before I try an online used bookstore. I developed intolerance for booze, makes me feel physically awful within a couple of hours of consumption. Never smoked cigarettes. Tried marijuana for a while, until I figured out why I was having bad headache the day following usage. Coffee and tea saga went same way. Like it I don’t, but I absorb into my soul and body the spirit crap in whatever work is headed my way, as if I’m a sewerage treatment plant. After I work through it, it clears out. Then comes the next load. Always a human world component to engage, which drives the alchemy. Been like this a lot of years, no end in sight. Serious karma from earlier in this life also in play – did it to myself. Mostly, it seems my work is upside down from the shamans I have known. I don’t do much journeying into the spirit realms. For me, what comes at me in this world drives the interior work in me. Most of the work is groups, communities, sometimes US, sometimes other countries. In the past, there was a good bit of one-on-one psycho-spirit work with individuals, but very little of that now. I imagine I can’t see most of what really is in play. I get up each morning and start breaking rocks again. Most of my guidance comes in dreams, but sometimes I hear direct plain English instruction/heads ups in my sleep, and when awake sometimes telepathically and in odd body sensations and sudden ah has! Like there are two of me, one in the eperiences, one observing me and the others involved. My seeing, hearing, sensing and feeling were changed dramatically, as if a light switch was thrown, in August 1988. No human shaman teacher. It came from angels taking me over, although I did ask for it in early 1987, not having a clue what I was asking for. When they came in reply and woke me up in the wee hours, they told me, “This will push you to your limits but you asked for it and we are going to give it to you.” Then, I was jolted by three successive bolts of spiritual lightning. Then, the two who had come dissolved into the darkness. That was the beginning, of which I was conscious. The changes started slowly, inside and where I lived. The pace picked up. The pace became horrific. It’s still rough, but it has been rougher. I have known a few people who were brought into it, two pretty deeply, one of them very deep. But we moved apart. Today, it’s a solo experience. Have friends who put up with me, but nobody who can relate to what I experience 24-7, 365. Eventually, I came to know the two angels as Jesus and Michael. Then, Melchizedek joined in. And others those three let have at me. Barrels of fun, they tell me it accelerates my spirit vibration. I tried lots of things of and not of this world to slow/lay it down, and the reaction was not encouraging. Other people tried their ways and about same result, although two shamans who came along at different times seemed to help with some stuff I wasn’t getting help with. Then, they were on their way.

Perhaps I should have included this poem, which fell out of me in 1991 and probably launched all that would follow:

I happened upon a mockingbird

singing its fool head off.

I asked it how and why it sang?

but all it did was look ahead,

all it did was sing.

It never turned to see if I was watching,

Or listened for money jingling in my pockets,

Or asked if I liked its music,

Or expected a recording contract -

It was too busy singing

to pay any attention to me.

And thus did I learn,

The greatest sin of all

is to kill a mockingbird. The Sufi poet I resonated with was Rumi, and his poem I most resonated with was “The Chick Pea.” That poor chick pea never did get out of the cook’s pot. The cook, of course, was God, and the chick pea needed heaps of seasoning and cooking. Heaps.

As I recall, much of The Eagle’s Gift was Don Juan telling Carlos Castenda about the tough inside work, looking in the mirror, using life’s rough servings as grist to increase Carlos’ own spirit vibration. As I recall, there was not as much woo woo stuff as there was in the other Don Juan books. The Eagle’s Gift found me in a lending library in a restaurant in March 1996, on the British Virgin Island Tortola (Spanish for dove), where I had fled hoping, perhaps unconsciously, to get away from God. Didn’t escape then, didn’t escape later times. Everywhere I go, God is waiting for me.

The homeless art, music, music exhibition is sacred.

bright sunshine ain’t compatible with The Griffiths Rule – Florida Keys school district

Friday, September 28th, 2012

There is an uplifting Clearwater Beach homeless praise report for Key West to consider post today at goodmorningkeywest.com. Meanwhile …

Life-long political war horse Tim Gratz replied to yesterday’s various Florida Keys love fests post. My response in italics.

You wrote today:

Keys people really should know by now that anyone who wants to be an elected official is crazy, a crook and/or an ego maniac

No doubt is a true statement, probably tautological. Query whether the converse true, i.e. that if one has no interest in running for an office here he or she is then neither crazy, a crook or an ego-maniac.

No, there are many crazy people, crooks and ego-maniacs who do not run for elected office.

I also think you missed the possibility that the categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, for instance could one not be, for instance, a crooked ego-maniac?

I wrote it in the and/or intending to allow for a combination of two of the three, or just one of the three.

But be assured I am confident that you are neither a crook nor an ego maniac.

I am crazy. In the past, I have been all three. Still have to stay ever on guard about the other two.

To which, Tim replied:

At [Hometown!] PAC AGriffiths said you did not need gender to have empathy. Was this a bid for folks who have been neutered?

To which, I replied:

Sounded to me like it was a bid to get elected in any way possible. Andy said that in reply to a panelist’s question that his opponent, Yvette, was saying a woman is needed on the school board, after the panelists had put Yvette’s own claim to Yvette, and Yvette had said women have compassion.

Maybe if I had been Yvette, I might have said women have an entirely different way of looking at things than men have, women are known for intuition and mothering and looking after children, and even for looking after men, and they have different priorities than men.

Andy’s come to me twice in dreams, last night and in a morning nap, pushing me to press forward with the importance of bringing everything into the light of day, which, of course, is dead opposite of “The Griffiths Rule” – Praise in public, criticize in private. The core of what he is pushing me about is what I included in the email to you, Connie and the others the other day, and in today’s post:

Paradise

All fig leaves burn

All ugly seen

All pain loved

All truth beauty

All people one

All time now

Although I really do like Andy, I really do think twenty years on the school board is past enough, and I really do think he is part of the problem, even though he never would agree.

The Griffiths Rule itself is sufficient to dislodge Andy from the school board, because the school district is not a private corporation, but is a public taxpayer funded operation. As such, it should always operate in the sunshine, regardless of how ugly its dirty laundry might be.

For recent example, the two Key West High School jocks who stole other students’ I-phones and other items should have had their names made public. Most likely, every student at KWHS knows who the two are by now, but the general public is not entitled to know? Baloney.

The Citizen published the name of the teen who broke into the marked police car and stole various items, including a Glock and fully-automatic carbine, according to the article in The Citizen today, but the other day, in its article on the two KWHS jock thieves,
The Citizen said it has a policy of not publishing the names of juvenile offenders. I could wonder if The Citizen has a special cozy arrangement with KWHS, derived from KWHS’s special relationship with KW conchs, not to publish the names of KWHS juvenile offenders, especially if they are football players or other student athletes?

Somewhere in the Gospels Jesus said something very interesting, along the line of: If that which is inside of you remains inside of you, it will destroy you, but if it is brought out from within you, it will save you.

Andy Griffiths seems fundamentally adverse to bad news about anything about Andy or the school district. School board members should be ever ready to spring on anything that affects the school district adversely and leave no stone unturned getting to the bottom of it.

Yes, internal investigations should be done out of public view, like Internal Affairs investigations are done in law enforcement agencies, but after an investigation is done, it needs to be made public. Those two KWHS thieves’ identity should be published, if for no other reason, so every person living in Key West and the Lower Keys can be more on guard when dealing with those two thieves.

What’s this about protecting juvenile criminals from exposure? For damn sure, the Sheriff is not protecting the identity of the teen suspected of breaking into a SWAT Team deputy’s patrol car and stealing various items, including a Glock and a fully-automatic carbine.

Sloan

To which, Tim replied:

Agreed on almost all. Jesus point valid of course.

A string of emails with Larry Murray yesterday on the identity of the two KWHS thieves being kept secret:

Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 07:19:48 -0700

Subject: Re: various Florida Keys love fests

To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sloan:

I thought it interesting today that the Citizen published the name and photograph of a juvenile charged with “possession of stolen property and theft.” As I understood it in the report regarding the recent theft of electronics and other items at Key West High School, the policy of the Citizen was not to identify juveniles. Did I miss something?

The Citizen also reports that the juvenile was “accused of breaking into a marked police car and stealing a SWAT officer’s automatic rifle, handguns and tactical gear….” If that was the case, why was the juvenile not charged with “breaking into a marked police car”? Is the Citizen reporting or editorializing?

Larry

Dr. Larry Murray

Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate

From: sloan bashinsky keysmyhome@hotmail.com

To: Larry Murray citizenlarry007@yahoo.com

Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:30 AM

Subject: RE: various Florida Keys love fests

Email Tom Tuell and ask him? And if The Citizen has an exception in its policy of not publishing juvenile offenders’ names, if they break into a police car and steal weapons. Perhaps Tuell will be more forthcoming than the school district?

Did the Keynoter ever publish the name of the KWHS thieves?
As for the charges brought against the kid who broke into the police car, this is in the Citizen article:

“Kalvin Cowger, 17, was charged with possession of stolen property and theft, but detectives said more charges and more arrests may be pending.”

The article says Cowger is denying he did it, I suppose they are still gathering evidence.

Might be the officer who, according to the article, left the weapons in this police car against KWPD rules is in a heap of trouble himself.

Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:17:49 -0700

Subject: Fw: various Florida Keys love fests

To: ttuell@keysnews.com CC: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Tom: Any comment?

Larry

Dr. Larry Murray

Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate —–

Forwarded Message —– [my email to Larry, re him contacting Tom Tuell]

On the Keynoter reporting the identity of the two KWHS thieves:

Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:41:45 -0700

Subject: Re: various Florida Keys love fests

To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

The Keynoter never covered the story of the thefts at KWHS.

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

Hmmm

Sloan Bashinsky, the sunny ever skeptical Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate

keysmyhome@hotmal.com

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

various Florida Keys love fests

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

Key Largo Sue replied to the Cuba-Florida Keys-Joe Garcia part of yesterday’s more or less peculiar Florida Keys school district happenings update post:

Garcia segment – the Cuba push – “I told him to keep pushing for it, many people in the Keys want to see it happen.”

Hi Sloan, Just to clarify, that might be the inclination in your end of the Keys, but it’s NOT the prevailing sentiment up here.

Sometimes when referring to Monroe County, it’s necessary to note that not all 116 miles have the same opinion on every issue.

I replied:

Hi, Sue. Thanks. I know there are lots of Keys people who don’t want Cuba and America to kiss and make up, but my sense still is, most Keys people want it. I also know the angels want it. Otherwise, I doubt I ever would have met Joe Garcia, or given him a second thought. Sloan

A Jupiter Beach amiga replied to yesterday’s peculiar channel-widening study article – The Key West Citizen post at goodmorningkeywest.com:

Sloan,

On widening the Channel. Stupid Stupid and expensive. More & more cruise ships are planning to skip Key West because it has become a bit tacky. I was shocked to see the nudity when I visited one time in October I think. Few art galleries and more bars and cheap tourist shops. It has become too touristy. I now try to avoid cruises that stop at Key West and go straight to Cozumel or Belize. I have visited Key West 5 times on cruises and that is enough. Also, I personally don’t want to travel on those giant cruise ships with 5000 passengers. I wont fly the giant air buses. Frankly, 3500 passengers is too crowded. And forget returning to Miami and Customs with that many people. It’s hell. I know many of my friends won’t book the larger cruise ships now and are booking the windjammers and small cruise ships. Key West might spend all this money and find out it wasn’t worth the loss of the coral, the money, etc;

Virginia

And this on yesterday’s post:

Hi Sloan-

I am a regular reader of your website and enjoy many of your postings.

I have a couple of questions about today’s post. You say:

“I can’t imagine the Navy, or the U.S. Government, having any legitimate interest in widening the channel, but I can imagine Republican Senator Bill Nelson beating the national security capital interest drum in Congress.”

But Senator Bill Nelson is a democrat and I always thought he was a proponent of the environment. Am I missing something?

Also, about Commissioner Yaniz. You said

I swan if I can understand what Yanis is reported to have said. Maybe he was covering all of his asses? Maybe he just ought to say whether he is for widening the channel and much bigger cruise ships, or he is against it. Maybe he should consider, if he votes for the channel-widening study, he will be voted out of office at the earliest opportunity. Hard to imagine how his Old Town constituents want more cruise ship passengers being bussed through their neighborhoods in slow-moving, traffic-congesting, loud-amplified conch train and trolley tours. Any chance DeSantis and The Citizen ever will publish this channel-widening study?

But his constituents are in New Town. Tony is not personally in favor of the study or for dredging but he is aware that this push to widen the channel is not going to go away without a study. And a portion of his constituents are for the channel widening and the study. I think he believes that Congress will not approve the dredging project anyway so a study is the only way to put the dredging issue to rest. I think Tony is one of the best commissioners that we have.

Regards,

Patti _______

Key West

I replied:

Hi, Patti Thanks for writing. You got me pretty good.

I looked up Bill Nelson yesterday on the Supervisor of Elections website, and I be darned if I didn’t remember this morning having seen that he is a Republican. I imagine, therefore, that I would have done pretty much the same if I had looked up Tony Yaniz this morning on the Supervisor of Elections website. I remember feeling this morning that I needed to call Todd German and make sure I was right about Yaniz’s district, but I didn’t call Todd. Maybe if I had, I also would have asked him about Bill Nelson’s party affiliation. I wasn’t in a good mood to begin with, after the angels had waked me up at 4 a.m. to start busting rocks again. So like any good politician, I am trying my darndest to pass the blame around. As for Bill Nelson being a friend of the environment, I did not get that impression when he came down to Key West several years ago and did a town hall meeting in Old City Hall, much of which was about the super loud F-18 Super Hornets flying over most of, but not the rich folks’ side of Stock Island. Nelson made it real clear that, whether or not the Navy had complied with US regulations, whether or not an environmental impact (noise) study was required, whether or not the Navy’s claim that it had complied by doing a virtual environmental impact study (simulated on a computer somewhere on the mainland, instead of using decibel-measuring instruments on the ground around Stock Island), he was not going to do anything that interfered with national security. That was after two former Navy carrier pilots, Ed Davidson and John Hammerstrom, had spoken in favor of the Navy doing a real environmental impact study. Before he got started good, Nelson let us know he had been a US Astronaut, to show us he knew plenty about flying and was important. When Ed Davidson spoke, he led off saying he was flying on John McCain’s wing when he was shot down. I nearly burst out laughing. I left that meeting feeling Nelson was going to side with the Navy, and not feeling much use for him. As far as I know, Nelson did side with the Navy. Otherwise, why was it left to John Hammerstrom and County Commissioner Kim Wigington, in whose district Stock Island lies, to keep after the Navy to do the environmental impact study? Last I heard, they were still talking about the Navy doing the study. I wrote in several posts, and said in late 2010 or early this year at a county commission meeting in Marathon when a Navy honcho was there, that what would put it all to rest was for the Navy to go back to using the same flight contours (flight patterns) around Boca Chica air field that the Navy had used before it stopped flying F-18s over Key Haven and the golf course community. I said back when those older contours were used, there was no controversy over the F-18 super noise. But after the F-18?s were rerouted away from the rich folks toward the poor folks, that’s when the controversy started. I also said I had learned that the new contours required tighter turns and put the pilots at greater risk, and that was another reason to go back to the old contours. I said, they had a shorter runway they had used for F-18s when the longer runway was down for repairs, and when that shorter runway was used, F18s took off and landed mostly over water and there was little noise controversy. I said F-18s and their equivalent Air Force fighters were using runways of similar length at US military airfields in other parts of Florida, but the Navy didn’t want to use the shorter runway at Boca Chica because it put the F-18s over the Navy’s sports facility and Navy personnel didn’t like the super noise. I ended by saying the Navy should return to using the old, safer contours; spread the sound of freedom around. In sum, the contours were changed because of political pressure from Stock Island rich people. From all I have heard said, the Navy base Commandant Jim Scholl was in on it, even as he moved toward retirement from the Navy and being hired as the new Key West City Manager. I heard several times that Jim becoming city manager was quid pro quo for the contours being changed. Can I prove that? No. Do I wonder about it? Yes. Do I trust Bill Nelson to not kow tow to the Navy, if it comes out for widening the channel? No. Do I wonder if some sort of smelly political thing like what happened to the contours will happen with the channel-widening study? Yes. As for where Tony Yaniz stands on the channel-widening, I read three times what he was quoted in The Citizen today as having said:

“The concern a lot of people have is that once we open up the process and open the door it can’t be closed,” Yaniz said. “But what happens if we go ahead and then impact our industries and then 20 years from now the cruise ships don’t come here anymore? If the impact to tourism, based on clean water and viable reefs, if we trade that in, how do we take that back?”

I just now read it again, and it still looks like double talk to me. If I were Tony, I would say now where I stand and will vote on channel-widening. I would not need to know how the feds come down on a channel-widening study. I would already know the impact of widening-the channel and I would say no to it. I wrote in a post the other day, that if I were mayor, I would bring a resolution before the City Commission asking the commissioners and myself to assume the channel-widening study already is approved, and knowing that, how do we vote on widening the channel? The issue is not the study. The issue is widening the channel. Everyone knows where Mark Rossi stands: he clearly is in favor of widening the channel, and he has a clear conflict of interest because his businesses on Duval Street make a bundle off of cruise ship passengers. As far as I can tell from all I have heard and read, the other commissioners and the mayor have not said where they stand on widening the channel. If I were living in Key West, I would want them all to state for the record, in plain English, where they stand on widening the channel – yes or no. Perhaps Tony Yaniz will lead that charge, but I will not hold my breath after what I read in The Citizen today. As you suggested in what you wrote to me, Tony will go on channel-widening the way his constituents want him to go. That’s a big difference between between politicians and me. I go the way I feel is right regardless of what other people, or even lots of other people, think is the way to go. But you well might right, it might take Congress saying no to put the dredging issue to rest, since the attached photo seems to be having zero effect.

Congress is where Bill Nelson, politics and the Navy come in, and that bothers me. You could get a reputation if word gets out who wrote wrote your email to me today :-)

, so I won’t tell my readers who wrote to me unless you want me to do that. Again, thanks for writing. I hate making dumb mistakes in posts, but they need to be corrected, and on the “bright side”, you got me back up on my rocky horse in ways I had not yet thought to hold forth on these important subjects.Sloan

On a Keyswide shell game front:

Development wins after much debate

BY TIMOTHY O’HARA Citizen Staff

tohara@keysnews.com

Balancing the right to develop and the safe evacuation of people prior to a hurricane has long been a thorny and complicated issue. The Monroe County Commission agreed Friday on an agreement with the state that will allow for the continuation of the annual state-issued ROGO (Rate of Growth) building allocations for the next 10 years and keep the Florida Keys residential hurricane evacuation time under the state-mandated 24 hours for the next decade. The agreement could result in at least 3,540 new homes being built in the Keys during that period. The agreement, called a memorandum of understanding, came after four meetings by a hurricane evacuation committee, which was made up of county and cities of Islamorada, Marathon and Key West leaders and planners and state and county emergency management officials. However, the debate about public safety and development once again resurfaced Friday. Commissioners Kim Wigington and Sylvia Murphy and several residents questioned the integrity and honesty of the process that came with the agreement, which they argued appears more to be set up to protect development, not public safety. “This was a game,” said Murphy, who served on the hurricane evacuation committee. “It was designed to bring us to 24 hours. No more, no less. We were given the modeling and that’s it. It was a foregone conclusion that we were not going to go over 24 no matter what we did. I did not like the way it was done, but it came from the state.” However, Murphy still voted in favor of approving the agreement, which still has to be approved by the governor and cabinet. Only Wigington voted against it. She called the process “dishonest.” Wigington and others argued that every time the Keys get close to reaching the 24-hour mark — which would end future development — state and local leaders change calculations or criteria in order to allow for more development. Bravo, Kim. Why did Sylvia vote for what she knows is a shell game? Allowing more development at the expense of public safety would seem to run contrary to government interests. However, allowing more development will keep the county from being sued for denying people the right to build on their land and from having to purchase property to keep it from being developed upon. One of the issues of contention — and one the evacuation committee debated — is whether and how many mobile homes to include in the 24-hour residential hurricane evacuation model. The group agreed to factor 1,248 of the Keys’ 8,134 mobile homes into a model that previously only considered site-built homes, according Mayte Santamaria, a Monroe County planner. Mobile home residents are ordered to evacuate 36 hours ahead of a predicted hurricane. However, Murphy and others have argued that mobile home residents do not leave before their site-built home neighbors and should be included in the 24-hour model. Naja Girard, speaking on behalf of the environmental group Last Stand, called the plan an “exercise in flimflam” and argued that all mobile home residents be included. Many mobile home residents are workforce residents who are the last to leave because they are helping their employers batten down the hatches. Mobile home residents generally are full-time residents. I am a mobile home resident. “The way they deal with hurricane evacuation in Monroe County is to pull out a pen and make a certain segment of our population evacuate before the rest of us,” Girard said. “This game is not making us any safer.” Amen. However, Naja and everyone else living in the Keys knows hurricane evacuation orders are not mandatory. No permanent residents have to leave and most of them don’t leave. Lodging businesses comply with hurricane evacuation orders, so tourists have to leave. If all permanent residents left, who had the means to leave, an evacuation might take 48 hours. Even then, there would be many people who stayed in the Keys, because they had no means to leave – no vehicle. More poignant, everyone in the Keys, including tourists, knows just how dangerous hurricanes can become. All grown people in the Keys, including tourists, keep up with approaching hurricanes, which receive lots of TV coverage. All grown Keys people make up their own minds whether or not to evacuate, regardless of the issuance of evacuation orders by local governments. To argue that local governments are responsible grown Keys people looking out or not looking out for themselves is nuts.Doubly so, when hurricane evacuation orders cannot be enforced by local governments. I bet Naja and her husband Arnaud, whom I know, do not pay any attention to hurricane evacuation orders. I bet they watch television and make up their own minds whether or not they are going to get their children in a car and they all leave the Keys ahead of an incoming hurricane. I bet that’s how 99 percent of permanent Keys residents do it, who have the means to leave the Keys. Rebecca Jetton, who oversees Keys planning issues for the state Department of Economic Opportunity, defended the process and said the evacuation committee came up with a model that takes into account “the way you actually evacuate. Tourists leave first, then mobile homes,” she said. “We did this with clarity and without flimflam,” Jetton said. Jetton is mistaken. Mobile home residents do not evacuate before other permanent residents evacuate. Jetton would know that, if she lived in the Keys. She would know Keys residents watch TV and make up their own minds if and when to evacuate. I watch my dreams, which tell me if and when to evacuate. I don’t need to watch TV or my dreams to know the Keys already are way over-developed. I see that nearly everywhere I go in the Keys. I see the only real cure, terrible as it would be, is Category 5 hurricanes removing the invasive species and its artifacts from the Keys. It was not known as of Wednesday when the governor and cabinet will vote on the agreement.

tohara@keysnews.com

While I’m in such a good mood, I received this from the ever persistent Larry Murray, addressed to the school board chairman:

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:59:03 -0700

Subject: Back On The Front Page

To: John.Dick@KeysSchools.com

John:

Last Friday in your interview with Bill Becker, you suggested that the School District was off the front pages despite the efforts of outside agitators. I suspect that you meant me among others.

Well, that lasted two days. Come Monday, the District was back on the front page over the 21st Century grant fiasco. I told you last January that I would not want for campaign issues, that the District would provide them. And it did, in spades. The fact that I lost the election does not alter another fact. The School District cannot help itself. It continues to wind up on the front page because of unending ineptitude.

The 21st Century grant fiasco is not the only issue percolating at the moment and I am confident it will not be the last. If and until Superintendent Porter cleans house of his overpaid and incompetent support staff, calamity will follow calamity. All that we “outside agitators” do is simply call the public’s attention to the continuing School District mismanagement.

Larry

Dr. Larry Murray

Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate

I entered this campaign season at Hometown! PAC’s Call to Candidates at Salute on Higgs Beach in Key West, by saying Solares Hill Editor Mark Howell had only just told me that my websites are required reading for school district issues. Then, I told the audience that the school district is terminally dysfunctionally insane and one solution was to turn the district over to the State of Florida, and another solution was for the district to go charter throughout. As time passed, I clarified that each traditional school should vote to go charter, and divorce itself as much as possible from the school board and the school superintendent and administration. At Hometown!s’ Meet the Candidates at the Key West airport in June, I said there were 6 strong candidates in the Dist. 3 school board race, and they all were insane because they wanted to be on the school board. At the recent Hometown! PAC candidate forum at the Key West airport, in which Dist. 3 school board candidates did not participate, someone asked me how I felt about the school board? I said I wanted to get rid of it. That produced raised eyebrows. Keys people really should know by now that anyone who wants to be an elected official is crazy, a crook and/or an ego maniac. I am the Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate the angels told to run, if he knew what was good for him. Make no mistake, you have to be crazy to live with the angels.

Sloan Bashinsky

goodmorningflordakeys.com

goodmorningkeywest.com

Post-script:

I was given this by the angels in August 2000, on Maui, a few days after I first went homeless because I ran out of money:

Paradise

All fig leaves burn

All ugly seen

All pain loved

All truth beauty

All people one

All time now

It was easy to write down when it was forced through me, but I knew living it would be quite something else altogether.

A few months later, waking one morning, I was told, “Go to Big Pine Key.” I awoke, said okay, I like Big Pine Key, but I have no money. I had been told to go to Big Pine Key in early 1995, when I lived in Colorado and had plenty of money. I booked a flight from Denver to Miami and drove down to Big Pine and had a life-changing supernatural experience on No Name Key Bridge, about which I have written in a few posts. That event set the stage for my eventual return. In three days’ time after being told on Maui to go to Big Pine Key, I was in the air, en route to Los Angeles. I had done nothing but accept what was offered to me. From Los Angeles, I was put on Greyhound by a friend, with a ticket to Key West and about $75. Passing through Tallahassee, I fell asleep on the bus and was told by the federal judge for whom I had clerked after graduating from law school, that I was going to get into politics. He had run the Democrat Party in Alabama from behind the scenes. No Democrat ran for state or national office in Alabama without getting his blessing. I awoke, terrified. I hated politics.

more or less peculiar Florida Keys school district happenings update

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

There is a peculiar channel-widening study article – The Key West Citizen post today at goodmorningkeywest.com. Meanwhile …

Received this from Larry Murray the other day, parallel to my efforts, unrewarded so far, to get a report on the Sunny Booker investigation out of the school district:

Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 16:59:20 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: More To Come To: robin.smith-martin@keysschools.com; ron.martinsb@keysschools.com; duncan.mathewson@keysschools.com; John.Dick@KeysSchools.com; andy@fishandy.com CC: keysmyhome@hotmail.com; mhowell@keysnews.com; matt@mattgardi.com; johnlguerra@gmail.com; gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com; news@us1radio.com; rd.boettger@gmail.com

John:

As you discuss, evaluate and vote on a settlement with a teacher at Sugarloaf School charged with allegedly striking an autistic student, bear in mind that there is more to come. Nearly a year ago, the Board voted to suspend an elementary school teacher in Key Largo for allegedly touching a student inappropriately. There was even talk at the time of criminal charges. According to conversations with staff, that teacher remains on the payroll in the Maintenance Department.

One would think that the District, after nearly a year, could investigate and resolve the charges. Instead, we have an experienced professional, at a time of a teacher shortage, fixing equipment rather than doing the job for which he was hired. The man dangles in the wind, his reputation and perhaps his career in jeopardy, and the District cannot figure out what to do. As Martin Luther King intoned: “How long, oh, Lord, how long?” Additionally, as you decide on the current settlement Tuesday, bear in mind that this is the third instance in recent months of the District’s decision to terminate an employee being reversed on appeal. That’s some track record!

Larry

Dr. Larry Murray Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate

I say again, it’s really wrong for the school district to bring grave charges against a district employee, which get a big splash in the newspapers and derail the employee’s life, and then the school district does not follow through on the investigation and reach a decision and let the employee and the public know about it.

In The Key West Citizen today, my thoughts in italics:

Criticism on lost fed grant

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff

gfilosa@keysnews.com

School administrators should have known they wouldn’t win, for a second time, a five-year federal grant that paid for free after-school care for needy families, the School Board chairman said Tuesday. John Dick noted that the district had scant after-school attendance at schools such as Glynn Archer Elementary, where about 40 percent of students showed up for the free programs last year. The 21st Century Community Learning Center Program expects an 80 percent attendance rate of eligible children. Grants Manager Nancy Romain said that Monroe County schools overall did have good attendance for the program. She said that the application this year even omitted the two Marathon schools, since their after-school program drew few kids. The federal money is available to Florida school districts that show a need, as well as for and nonprofits. “It’s highly competitive,” Romain told the board, adding that the federal program targets poor-performing schools, which Monroe lacks, being an A-rated district for six years running. “There was $15 million on the table,” said Dick, seemingly skeptical of the district’s handling of the whole matter. “They did move $5 million for ‘D’ and ‘F’ schools.”

Maybe, John, if the school district stopped teaching to the FCAT and got lower FCAT ratings, the school district could get more grant money.

Dick said the board should have been told immediately of the rejected grant application. He also lamented the fact that the grant, which infused Monroe with $1.2 million the first year and $800,000 in the last, is meant to be seed money, and the district didn’t prepare for the possibility of losing it. “All this time we were supposed to be setting it up so it’s sustainable,” Dick said.

Well, John, the fellow who was supposed to stay on top of it, but didn’t, was the fellow you wanted to keep on as superintendent. Why don’t you call him and let him know how you feel about losing the grant?

The School District will apply again next year for the five-year federal grant, along with free after-school care for needy families, Superintendent Mark Porter said Tuesday. Next time, Porter said, the schools will partner with a nonprofit.

Consultant’s pay is questioned

Board member Ron Martin, a former high school principal, questioned an item on the agenda that promises $39,000 for 26 days of work by a Florida psychologist to review the district’s special needs program. Timothy Vollmer, a behavior analyst, will consult with special needs students and their teachers throughout Monroe County. The board unanimously approved the contract, but added a requirement that Vollmer make a report explaining his work. “Fifteen hundred dollars a day for up to 21 days?” Martin asked, addressing Catherine Kanagy, the district’s Exceptional Student Education specialist. “One hundred and fifty dollars an hour to talk on the phone?” The item had been on the consent agenda, a list of items on which the board votes in one move, without discussion. Martin apologized to Kanagy, but compared Vollmer’s contract to “teachers that don’t have $50 to spend on supplies for one year.” The contract drew a few sarcastic smirks in the room. “He is one of the top behavior analysts in the nation,” Kanagy said. “The difference he has made in some of the lives of our children is remarkable.” Vollmer, a professor at the University of Florida at Gainesville, observes the district’s Exceptional Student Education program and provides written recommendations and reports for the staff to use year-round, the contract states. Martin pointed out that the contract has the district paying Vollmer for five days of paperwork, at $150 an hour, for a total of $5,250. Vollmer will also do 15 hours of consulting work over the phone at $150 an hour, for a total of $2,250. Kanagy said that Vollmer hasn’t raised his rates since he got hired. “My God, I hope not,” Martin said. “That’s a virtue?” asked Ed Davidson, a regular spectator at the board meetings, who is running for the District 3 seat on the nonpartisan panel, from the seating gallery. Davidson, who faces former Principal John Welsh in the Nov. 6 general election, also said, “Don’t apologize,” to Martin, for airing out the contract.

I wish specific examples were provided in this article of Vollmer’s value to the school district. Without that, I am unable to evalute his value to the school district and the need to use him. Ron Martin is the only school board member who proposed, maybe in February of this year, that the school board put a school operations tax increase on the ballot, so teachers would not have to be fired. Martin was pounded by the rest of the school board for suggesting a tax increase. The former superintendent, whom John Dick wanted to keep on, told the school board a school operations tax increase was needed. I was at that school board meeting, and I told the school board it needed to put a school tax increase on the ballot. Ed Davidson has consistently said he does not favor a school tax increase. As has his and my other opponent in the Dist. 3 school board race, former career Keys educator John Welsh. I was the only candidate in either school board race, who told the school board it needed to put a school operations tax increase on the ballot. There is no other way to resolve the poor teacher and administrative staff morale problem in the school district.

Board settles up

Also last night, the board approved a settlement with special needs teacher Janet Faber. The district says Faber is resigning, even though she successfully fought a push to fire her over an allegation she spanked a 5-year-old girl in a Sugarloaf classroom last year. She will receive $23,213, the back pay and benefits she lost while suspended from February until July after a kindergarten teacher accused her of twice spanking the girl, who has a form of autism. Faber denied touching the student, and this year agreed to transfer to Glynn Archer Elementary in Key West. Dick questioned why the district tried to fire her based on the word of one teacher. Attorney Theron Simmons, who represents the board, told Dick that teacher Charity King was found to be a “sincere witness” by a state administrative law judge, who also found her testimony vague. The judge simply didn’t believe King over Faber after reviewing the evidence, Simmons said.

My recollection is the former superintendent John Dick wanted to keep on, and the entire school board, including John, did not believe the testimony of maybe ten witnesses, including the assistant principal of Marathon High and Middle School, that the principal of that school was sexually harassing one of his female staff. In the face of that, I find John’s distress over the Faber case a bit odd. I also find Faber’s resignation after winning her case, a bit odd. What it looks to me happened in the administrative law hearing was what lawyers call a “dog fall”, or a “he said, she said.” When one person says this happened, and the other person says it didn’t happen, and there are no other witnesses or evidence, the judge leaves the two people where he found them. This is known to all lawyers who go to court.
Faber, of Ramrod Key, most recently earned $49,791 a year and was hired by the district in July 2005.

gfilosa@keysnews.com

Also received this from Larry Murray, yesterday: ?

Sloan:

Had a very productive conversation this morning with Melanie Stefanowicz, the Director of Adult and Vocational Education. My purpose in speaking with her was to gather information. Will get back to you with what I learned. Suffice it to say, the District isn’t doing much in the land of vocational education. But, you already knew that. Larry

There is more to this. In earlier emails, Larry said he had tried four times to reach Melanie by phone, and she did not return his calls. Finally, Larry took it up with Superintendent Porter, who replied that he would have Melanie call Larry. Am wondering, if there is no vocational education, does Melanie do something else in the school district to justify her pay and job? Am also wondering why there is no vocational education, given the school district’s mission is to have students career and/or college ready upon graduation from high school? Well, that used to be the school district’s mission. After I started raising hell about the career ready part of the mission, I no longer was able to find the mission statement on the school district’s website. I am the only school board candidate in either race this year who has pushed for vocational training in Keys schools. I am the only candidate who has challenged the teaching model being used. However, Dist. 2 school board candidate Yvette Mira-Talbot has strongly criticized teaching to the FCAT and has shared at candidate forums the distress the FCAT caused her children.

Yesterday afternoon, I drove up to Big Pine Key to meet with US House of Representatives Democrat candidate Joe Garcia, who had called me the day before on my cell phone and had said he was coming down here en route to an event at the Hog Fish Pub on Stock Island. I suggested we meet at Coco’s Kitchen in the Winn-Dixie shopping center. First off, I asked Joe why he wanted to see me? He said I had made a nice donation to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. I said, yeah, and then I had quit liking Obama and had asked for my donation back and was promised it would be returned but it wasn’t. I told Joe, also a lawyer, that driving up to Big Pine to meet with him, it had come to me to tell him that his best chance of winning in the Keys is to push for normalization of relations between America and Cuba. He said he is in favor of that and has pushed for it in the past and has alienated a lot of Miami Cubans. I told him to keep pushing for it, many people in the Keys want to see it happen. I said when I ran for Mayor of Key West, I had promoted Key West and Havana being sister cities and former Key West Mayor and former County Commissioner and County Mayor Sonny McCoy, who is half Cuban, being Key West’s ambassador to Havana. I said once upon a time Sonny slalomed, one ski, all the way from Key West to Havana. An architect, he had designed buildings in Caribbean countries. I said I had promoted the Marathon Airport, which has a mile-long runway and can handle larger aircraft than the Key West airport, handling regular commercial flights between the Keys and Cuba. Joe said he had spoken with the Mayor of Marathon, who is enthusiastic about the same use of that airport, which has a nice terminal and is sorely underused. I told Joe that our meeting was arranged by God, there was no doubt of that, and while I was not in a position to make a donation to his campaign, I had told him what I was supposed to tell him. I gave him my “business card” for goodmoringfloridakeys.com and said I might write about him today. He said he was running late for the Hog Fish fundraiser and he hoped I would not write something that got him further in dutch with the Miami Cubans. I said maybe I would not write about our visit, I didn’t know yet. After he had left, I remembered that I had wanted to tell him that I felt fluency in Spanish should be required for all Keys students. The meeting was brief. He was late for the Hog Fish, and I had told him I would not contribute money to his campaign. I drove home thinking, once accused in The Key West Citzen by Tim Gratz, a Congresswoman Illeana Ros-Lehtinen anti-normalization of America-Cuba relations devote, of being racially prejudiced against Hispanic people, I met with Joe Garcia, whose parents had fled Cuba, in a restaurant run by two Nicaraguan immigrant amigas, where I told Joe his best chance of winning the Keys is to go all out for normalization of relations between America and Cuba, and to heck what the Ileananites feel about that. That was my donation to his campaign. Keys kids who are bilingual in English and Spanish have a head start in the job market. You had better believe that Joe Garcia being bilingual gets him clients in his law practice that English-only-speaking lawyers up his way do not get, and opens doors for him through which English-only-speaking lawyers cannot walk. My second daughter is bilingual in English and Spanish. She majored in Spanish at Bryn-Mawr, which is on the level of Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford, as universities go. Later, she went back to school and took her pre-med courses. When her Bowman-Gray (Wake Forest) Medical School professors learned she was bi-lingual, they took her with them to their free clinic in the Hispanic neighborhood in Winston-Salem. He told them what their patient said was bothering them, and the told the patients what the doctor wanted them to do about it. I told her when she asked me what I thought about her majoring in Spanish, instead of doing pre-med, her life dream had been to be a doctor, that she could always go back to school and take pre-med courses, but being bi-lingual in Spanish and English would open the Americas to her, and Spain. Before she went back to school, she and her boyfriend went to Vail to ski one winter. He had paramedic training and had been on the ski patrol in prior years, and he got a job right away on the rescue squad. When the ski lift company learned my daughter was bi-lingual, they hired her on the spot and put her in the ticket booth that had an “hablas Espanol” sign on the front. They got lots of skiers from South America, and most of those families’ children did not hablas Anglais. When America and Cuba resume normal relations, every Keys kid fluent in Spanish and in English will be ahead of the job curve in the Keys. Dr. Ed Shine, the runner-up superintendent candidate from upstate New York, has every student in his school district learning Spanish. Mark Porter lost his superintendent job in Minnesota because he did not buckle to a small but loud group of parents in a small school who wanted the students to be bi-lingual in English and Spanish. I wonder if Mark will lose his superintendent job in the Keys, if he insists on all Keys students being bi-lingual? Regardless of how traditional Americans feel about it, Spanish-speaking people are rising in numbers in America, and that trend will increase. Head in the sand is about the same as head up the wazoo.

Sloan Bashinsky, Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate keysmyhome@hotmail.com

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49148792

more Florida Keys school district fooling around mostly but not entirely

Tuesday, September 25th, 2012

Re yesterday’s article in The Key West Citizen on the lost $800,000 after school grant, on which I commented in yesterday’s Key West homeless art, poetry and music exhibition, and more pesky Florida Keys school district redevelopments – post:

From Nashville J:

Sloan:

DICK has the same statement for everything:

School Board Chairman John Dick said, “Everyone understands reductions but I expect to know why we lost it. I find it troubling the board has not been informed as to why we lost the grant.”

Why didn’t the School Board know? Hey DICK, you are the School Board Chairman and it happened on your watch – just like lots of other things that you didn’t know about.Maybe, just maybe, DICK, you are not doing a very good job of being School Board Chairman and that is the reason no one knew.

My thoughts: I don’t think the $800,000 grant for after school care was John Dick’s to oversee and stay on top of. That was the superintendent/CEO and his staff’s duty. As I read The Citizen report, I didn’t see anything the superintendent could have done to save the grant. What Dick seems upset about was he learned of it in The Citizen, and not from the superintendent or his people.

Key Largo Sue weighed in on the loss of the $800,000 grant:

Hi Sloan,

The real grants question is – what’s the status of all their other grants? What other grants are also tied into need + performance ? The grants admin person should provide a list of grants to the school board at least 2x a year. What’s been applied for, awarded, about to expire. And why didn’t the grants admin person advise the board much sooner that money might not be available, so the board could start working on alternatives ?

Although, it seems like the school board members don’t want to get involved – or want to know – until something’s a problem. Like they’re always playing catch-up.

Some board member should ask – where all the money coming in comes from, and can they rely on that money continuing to come in.

This is the inherent down side of grants. They’re not a guaranteed forever thing.

I help write the grant for an NPO that works with school students.The grant money comes from the Sheriff’s Fine Fund (SFF.) Every year we compete with every other NPO agency in the county – kids teeth care, driving them to Miami, handing out bibles in jail, kids activity programs, women’s health, church activities, stop drug & alcohol groups … the list goes on. And every group is just as worthy as the next. It’s a hard job the SFF panel has deciding who gets how much.But what is most striking, the SFF awards is only a pittance of what each agency really needs to keep operating.If you ever look at the list of NPO’s that apply for the county’s funding, you will see the same agency names on applying for the SFF. Actually, the same agencies are competing for the same grants all over the county, and state.

Sue

Larry Murray weighed in yesterday on the lost $800,000 grant:

Sloan:

A couple of things about the loss of the 21st Century program:

1. You can argue the purpose, function and scope of the program, but the facts of the matter remain the same. What disturbs me is that the District had good reason to expect, right, wrong or indifferent, that the program was not likely to be renewed.

Among other things, the 21st Century program has a seed money quality about it and was not expected to last forever. Further, only $5 million was allocated to the entire state and the likelihood of Monroe County receiving $800,000, other aspects notwithstanding, was slim and none.

Consequently, there should have been some discussion, a Plan B if you will, as to how to proceed should the grant not be renewed. Instead, when the grant was not renewed, the District once again fell into a crisis management mode.

2. I spoke today with Stuart Kessler about the situation. A comment that he made, with which I heartily concur, is that this situation is another good illustration of why the District needs a healthy Reserve Fund. You are correct in your observation that it is hard to plan for the unexpected, though I do not think that this circumstance was wholly unexpected. However, when the unexpected occurs, a healthy Reserve Fund makes it much easier to deal with.

3. Do you plan to share with your readers my missive about the elementary school teacher in Key Largo who has dangled in the wind for the last year?

Larry

Still looks to me that the school district needs a crystal ball and a more predictable revenue stream, which only can happen if the school district raises taxes locally for school operations. As for the reserve fund balance, the Audit & Finance Committee, over Stuart’s opposition, recommended a 6 percent. However, when Stuart reported that to the school board, he said 5 percent would be as good as 6 percent, which he did not have the Audit & Finance Committee’s permission to say. I know that, because I attended the Audit & Finance Committee meeting and the ensuing school board meeting. If the angels tell me to publish Larry’s missive about the elementary school teacher, I will publish it. On the school district dangling of Sunny Booker in the wind, I told the school district’s Chief Operating Officer Ken Gentile the other day that it is not right for the district to make grave charges against employees, which get a big splash in the newspapers, and then the outcome of the investigation is never dealt with or reported. Ken told me he is going to try to get whatever the school district has on that and get it to me, and he will speak with Superintendent Mark Porter about getting it done.

Moving laterally, after attending as a spectator Hometown! PAC’s candidate forum in Key West yesterday evening, I told Hometown!’s Chairman Todd German that his inquisitors continue to improve. Some candidates answered the piercing questions directly, most candidates answered so so, and some candidates went off into their own little worlds, even as the panelists kept trying to get them to just answer the questions. The candidates I felt best answered the questions were State Representative Claude Bullock, Supervisor of Elections candidate/Deputy Supervisor of Elections Joyce Griffiths, and Dist. 2 school board candidate Yvette Mira-Talbott. Joyce received two heartfelt spontaneous applauses from the audience. I told her afterward that I had attended a lot of candidate forums and had never seen that happen before last night.

Here is The Key West Citizen report of the forum. My trailing thoughts in italics.

School Board candidates grade district at forumBY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff

gfilosa@keysnews.com

School Board incumbent Andy Griffiths defined his 20-year tenure as “stability” at a political forum Monday night, while his political opponent Yvette Mira-Talbott questioned what he could possibly do with a sixth term. The two will face off in a runoff election Nov. 6, as neither could wrest 50 percent plus one vote in August to win the District 2 seat outright. Although the campaign so far has been markedly polite, the candidates have kept up the basic debate of whether the School Board needs change, in the form of newcomer Mira-Talbott, or a veteran’s years on the job, which Griffiths brings. “What’s going to be different in the next four years?” Mira-Talbott asked Griffiths, seated beside her at a table before a crowd of at least 60 people. “I don’t know. What will you do differently? How can you be more effective in the next four years?” Griffiths, who owns a charter boat business and donates his $28,000 School Board salary back to the district, answered with a short list. “We’ve gone from deficit spending to a balanced budget,” Griffiths said directly to Mira-Talbott at the Hometown PAC’s first post-primary event. “The hired superintendent that I have longed for, for many years, has arrived. I think we need stability for a change. My experience at this point in history would be extremely valuable. I’ve never been more passionate about public education.”

A great deal more change needs occur before this school district will be on even keel. Maybe Mark Porter will right the ship. I hope he does. But the more school district crud comes to light, the more I wonder if Mark will be able to get it resolved. I imagine he is only just now getting a glimpse of this school district’s deep systemic resistance to change. Mark told me last night that his wife is still in Minnesota. They had planned for her to come down later, after their home sold, but it sold quickly. However, they have a new grand baby in Minnesota. I felt for Mark. I would not want to be down here in paradisenot all by my lonesome, as I try to right this school district’s ship. One of the forum’s panelists, attorney Ed Scales, had Griffiths and Mira-Talbott ask each other a question at the forum hosted by the Conch Flyer restaurant inside the Key West International Airport. Earlier in the evening, candidates for the mosquito control board, state representative, state senate and supervisor of elections took turns before the panel of questioners. But the final political contest of the night was reserved for the nonpartisan School Board contest. Griffiths paused for a few moments before asking Mira-Talbott his question: What would be your first priority in your first month on the board? “Have a meeting with the superintendent and get our finance department in order,” she said. “It is completely unacceptable that we’ve had so many (state audit) findings. People need to regain the public’s trust.” Another panelist asked the candidates to grade the district’s principals. Griffiths said a 90 percent, while Mira-Talbott said they each deserve an A-plus for Monroe County’s continued academic success in the state rating system. Monroe has earned an A for the past six years and last year ranked no. 8 among Florida’s public schools. Griffiths gave the recent superintendent search process a 98 percent rating after taking credit for getting it started by calling “a friend” in Tallahassee to come and kick start the hiring. Mira-Talbott said perhaps the School Board could have let the district’s human resources department lead the search. She gave the process a B. I give Andy credit for getting the school board off their butts. However, as I heard it, Andy would have voted for Jesus Jara to remain on as superintendent anyway, if Todd German and others had not kept telling Andy he would lose the election if he supported Jara. I wrote in posts that the school board members should have done the superintendent search, vetted the candidates’ resumes, etc. I thought it was crazy for the superintendent search committee members not to speak with the candidates, if for no other reason, than to explain to them just how messed up this school district was. The final grade was for the School Board’s performance. Griffiths gave it an 80 percent. Mira-Talbott flunked them. Amen As a whole, I’m going to have to say a failing grade,” she said. Board members seemed to love blaming ousted Superintendent Randy Acevedo for all the district’s woes when he and his wife were nabbed by the state attorney’s office for embezzlement, Mira-Talbott said. “Since his departure, we continue to find ourselves in the headlines of the newspaper on a daily basis,” she said. Hometown PAC’s next forum is set for 5 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Conch Flyer, with the School Board District 3 candidates, Ed Davidson and John Welsh scheduled to meet at the microphones. I will be at the microphone, too. In the contest for District 3, made vacant by Duncan Mathewson’s decision to resign after having served since 2004, there is a third write-in candidate who is not on the ballot. That’s blogger Sloan Bashinsky, who at one point Monday night booed Scott Hopes, the Republican candidate for state senator, who was trying to explain an answer rather than say “yes” or “no.”

gwenfilosa@keysnews.com

Hometown! PAC panelist Richard Grusin tried three times to get Republican Hopes to say whether or not he supported Republican Governor Scott gutting of the state health care program, and three times Hope went off on a rambling politician dodge of a very simple question. When Hopes dodged Grusin the third time, I said pretty loud, “You are losing votes, answer the question.” Hopes never answered Grusin’s question. Hopes’ Democrat opponent Dwight Bullard then said he did not like what Scott had done to the state’s health care.

Not reported, when one of the panelists asked Andy Griffiths about his having called for the firing of Ken Gentile, Andy told the panelist he had not done that. In fact, at the Finegan’s Wake school board candidate forum, which I attended, Andy told the audience and host JeanStar Dillon and the other candidates and Gwen Filosa that he was going to get Ken Gentile and Michael Kinneer fired. Were I Gwen, I would have reported that contradiction in my report of Hometown!’s candidate forum.

Were I Gwen, I would have reported that state representative candidates Holly Raschim (REP) and Ian Whitney (DEM) were asked what they thought of the FCAT and standardized testing in schools. They said they saw the FCAT going out, but not standardized testing. They said they favored some kind of standardized testing to be able to measure a school district’s performance. The state senate candidates were not asked how they felt about the FCAT and standardized testing. Off to the side I asked Claude Bullock, a career educator, what he felt about the FCAT. He said he would get rid of it. He wasn’t raised on it. It isn’t needed.

None of the panelists asked Andy and Yvette about student drop out rates and having high school graduates career and/or college ready.

On career training, Nashville J sent a link yesterday, which I strongly recommend you open and read:

Sloan
Thought that I would pass this along after our brief email discussion the other day about training students in high school and that everyone did not need to go to college.While most do, it appears it gives them skills that will help them down the road.

Education Nation: Rural Arkansas Town Rethinks High School

Photo by Jessica Golden for CNBC.com

Basketball playing robot built by students at the Mountain Home Career Academies High School.

A group of students in a high school gym hovers over a remote controlled robot while it shoots basketballs from the free throw line with better precision than Dwight Howard. They built and programmed the robot themselves, and it won first prize in a global robotics competition. In a classroom nearby, other students are studying leeches recently used in microsurgery to reattach a severed hand. And down the hall, a third group of students is working on a team building exercise—competing against each other to build the tallest tower using nothing more than marshmallows and toothpicks.”We need to break these right here,” says one student, as the exercise tests their communication skills and math. (Read More:Broken Education System To ‘Destroy Everything’ If Not Fixed: Langone) You might think you’ve landed in a high-priced private high school, prepping teenagers for America’s top colleges.Instead, this is a public high school in a small town in Northern Arkansas. Mountain Home Career Academies High School has taken a big gamble over the last decade. It transformed itself from a traditional high school into one consisting of three academies–engineering, communications, and healthcare. Unlike many high schools which have career mentoring programs tucked inside a regular curriculum, Mountain Home is “wall to wall” academies. Each of its 875 students were tested as freshmen, and based on their learning styles, skills, and interests, the students have chosen which academy to join. “Our community came to us and said their workforce was retiring, and they were looking at different areas where we could continue to grow our community and keep our graduates in town,” says principal Dana Brown, who oversaw the switchover. “At first it was scary…but if you empower people, people support what they help create.” Brown says nearly a decade in, student test scores are above average, and more students are going to two- and four-year colleges after graduation. “There is a passion behind these students,” says academy coordinator Brigitte Shipman. “You can see it, and you can’t fake that.”

Jane WellsCNBC Reporter

Thomas McLees is a senior who moved here from Montana, where he attended a traditional high school. After some thought, he chose Mountain Home’s engineering academy. “I knew I was more ‘hands on’ because all my life I had been taking apart computers, toasters, my mom got really made at me for that.” He comes from a long line of military veterans. “I want to make military body armor and medical stuff.” Do career academies better prepare students for life after high school? Social policy research group MDRC looked at results from nine academies in or near large urban school districts and found that graduates earned, on average, 11 percent more over eight years compared to non-academy peers. The effect was concentrated among men. Nearly all academy students–95 percent–graduated or completed their GEDs. (Read More: America’s Top States for Business 2012- Education Rankings) Principal Brown says Mountain Home has thrived in this new format because of community support. Businesses like Baxter Healthcare [BAX61.150.14(+0.23%)] and Wells Fargo [WFC35.0950.125(+0.36%)], along with other local professionals, come in regularly to mentor students. At the same time, students do internships, and teachers participate in what are called “externships”–pairing them with businesses to learn what kind of job applicants are needed. “We bring real life applications for things out in the community to the kids, things they wouldn’t have the opportunity to see if we were a regular, traditional high school,” says medical professions teacher Alecia Czanstkowski. Still, it was a learning curve for teachers. “When I first heard we’re thinking about academies, I thought, ‘Ok, is this the next big educational thing we will go through…and then not?” says teacher Kathy Gonten. “But when I saw the real makeup of it, I thought, ‘This IS the next big thing. This is where we should be heading.’” While more kids are scoring better and going to college, it’s not clear they are coming back to work in the town of Mountain Home, population 12,454. Dana Brown admits they need to improve their post graduation job tracking. There’s also been some concern that putting teenagers into academies limits their choices at a time when they should be exploring all options. “I don’t think it limits them, I think it enhances what they already have,” says math teacher Kathy Wham. “We’re giving these kids opportunities already that other kids don’t have until their third or fourth year of college.” Students in each academy are exposed to classes in the other career tracks, and they can change their minds.Thomas McLees vacillated between engineering and health services. “Instead of going to college and taking a major and not wanting to finish it, and having to switch and pay thousands of extra dollars, you will go to college knowing, ‘Hey, I liked this, but I didn’t want to do it,’ so you can jump into something you know you are good at.” Mountain Home administrators and teachers also think they’ve better prepared the students for job interviews and public speaking. Rachael Arp is in the communications academy, where students have to make business presentations in the community. “I think it has definitely made me more confident.” The school boasts several examples of students who suddenly realize, through an internship or a mentor, what they’re passionate about. “I was just born to be there,” says senior Megan Cantrell of the health services academy. Cantrell, raised by a single mom who is a probation officer, has chosen a very different career path for herself. “I want to go into anesthesiology.” Why? “When I started going through medical classes, I was like, ‘This is what I really want to do.’”

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

Whew! What I really wanted to do when I was a kid was be a flats and back country guide in Islamorada, but I didn’t have the guts to do it. Now, I’m the fool on Little Torch.

goodmoringfloridakeys.com

goodmorningkeywest.com

Key West homeless art, poetry and music exhibition, and more pesky Florida Keys school district redevelopments –

Monday, September 24th, 2012

Erika Biddle of Key West contacted me about my participating in a month-long showing at Studios of Key West on the theme of homelessness. I pulled this from what she sent. My thoughts in italics. Apologies for formatting. It was cantankerous and I ran out of time.

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

“Hidden in Plain View: Faces and Voices of Homelessness” is designed to bring attention to the national and local disgrace of homelessness. We will engage the community, through artistic expression, in understanding the personal struggle of the individuals facing life on the streets. The project will involve a variety of local artists, including painters, sculptors, photographers, musicians and filmmakers who have volunteered to contribute their talents.

This project aims to lessen the intimidation factor that many people experience when encountering the homeless, magnifying instead what connects us as humans. By bringing the arts community with their various perspectives to the issue of homelessness we seek to reveal the threads of our common humanity.

An exhibition and multi-media event will be held at The Studios of Key West from November 15th through December 15th, 2012. ( the scheduled time contains the Thanksgiving Holiday and the National Hunger & Homeless Awareness Week.)

The event hopefully will ease social boundaries and provide a platform and opportunity to share a communal experience utilizing the unifying power of the arts.

The exhibition will feature:

Black and white photographs by Sheel of individuals who are or were homeless and have agreed to participate. The images will be displayed with short biographies and/or quotes intended to provide insight into the struggle of their personal journey. These photographs are intended to represent the different layers of homelessness, for example: US veteran of war, runaway youth, abused women and children, homeless person with pet who is not allowed into the shelter, the working homeless (minimum wages are enough to exist, but not to pay rent), family who lost their home due to foreclosure, and homeless individuals with disabilities. And homeless people who do not fit into any of those categories.

Additionally the exhibit will contain a ‘timeline’ informing about the history of homelessness, highlighting events that changed society and led to a larger homeless population. (i.e.,Great Depression nationally and the Great Fire of 1886 and several severe hurricanes in the Florida Keys).

Other elements will include:

* A medley of silent Charlie Chaplin movies with homelessness as a central theme such as “The Tramp” and “The Kid” will be continuously projected against a wall. Charlie Chaplin lived homeless on the streets of London and drew on this experience in most of his silent movies.

11-minute documentary about the successful reintegration of homeless individuals with the help of local organizations and produced by the Emmy-award winning Digital Island Media Group to be run in a loop on a flat screen TV.

‘Buzz’ a video documentary following a homeless man on his daily routine in KW

Images of celebrities who have experienced homelessness in their lives, i.e. Cary Grant Ella Fitzgerald, Jim Carrey and David Letterman

We have contacted Monroe County Schools looking for entries with the theme: “Homelessness -what does it mean to you?” Literary and visual art expressions.

* Currently we are collecting poetry about homelessness submitted by local poets to be integrated into the visual aspect of the exhibit. The poetry and images will communicate on their own terms, rather than merely illustrate each other.

Miscellaneous drawings, paintings and sculptures by the “invisible homeless” who live in uncertain conditions and continue to create art despite the hardship.

The Washington, DC based National Coalition for the Homeless has committed to send 6 unique quilts to be displayed for this project on loan from their permanent collection

3 paintings by Pamela Eden who became homeless in Key West and transitioned out sustaining herself by never giving up

Key West resident and Broadway performer Terri White, formerly homeless is lending her support (CD and photograph)

Valerie Carr: singing Nina Simone – street musician Bill Jackson: Woody Guthrie

‘In memoriam’ -Installation by Kimberley Narenkivicius

‘The Taste of Hunger’, sculpture by Janet Mueller

‘ Home sweet Home,’ mixed media collage by Joyce Carpenter

Digital Island Media Group, Steve Panariello and Chad Newman, who are committed to the project through their ongoing in-kind donations of equipment and expertise, have already produced at cost an 11 minute documentary on the work of the Florida Keys Outreach Coalition (FKOC) and have pledged continuing support.

Solares Hill Design Group, JT Thompson, founder of “One Human Family” (the official motto of Key West) has offered to assist with promotional materials.

SeaStory Press, Sheri Lohr, Bone Island Graphics, Alan Kennish, Fine Art Printing and many individuals and members of the businesses community have volunteered to sponsor different aspects of the project as needed.

“Help Yourself Cafe”, Charlie Wilson, will cater the food for the opening reception.

The Studios of Key West will provide the exhibition space and ongoing technical support, help with assembling the artwork, and all around assistance, as well as promoting the event to their members and the media.

We plan to create a Social Networking Site to promote the event and exhibit but also to network, update and expound on the homeless situation in Key West.

We believe – hope, works better for me than believe - that this event will help reduce stereotyping of the homeless that is often triggered by the visibility of those with the most severe mental and physical problems, including psychiatric illness and substance abuse.

Through the arts we can communicate on a deeper level. Through the many different expressions in the arts we can shed light on the many layers of homelessness.By combining useful information with visual art, poetry, photographs, video footage, music and film we encourage the attendees to consider a deeper perspective about individuals experiencing homelessness, resulting in a broader interest in the plight of hunger and homelessness. It is almost impossible to distinguish by looking at a drawing, painting or listening to a poem or music if the artist has shelter in the night or not.

We will invite all Monroe County service providers that have “homelessness in their mission statements” to strengthen the opening event by encouraging a call to action to the attendees inviting them to get involved. The participation of these groups can provide the community with information and useful material on how to take action after the exhibition has concluded.

Erika told me homeless people will be invited to show their own homeless art, poetry, music, etc. I said I had something to contribute there, related to when I was homeless. I said Jesus was homeless during his ministry. She said, yes, the foxes have their dens, the birds have their nests, but he had no place to lay down his head at night. She said she loved this art work, which she had seen before. I said I had found it on the Internet and had gotten the artist’s permission to use it in this way, not for profit.

I told Erika the homeless art exhiition is a great idea and she needs to focus solely on the event, and not on what might result from it. She agreed. I said I will donate $1,000 in cash to help defray the costs and make it easier or her to bring the event off without having to rely on cash contributions from organizations which might put strings, conditions or demands on their cash contributions. Perhaps Key West Mayor Craig Cates will personally match my contribution, as part of his mission to help Key West’s homeless people. Perhaps other Key West and Keys citizens will do the same. Here is Erika’s contact information:

Erika Biddle

305-587-1610

305-295-0153

erika.b@earthlink.net

Erika said she had noticed on Facebook that I listed my employment as a janitor in God Inc., and she wanted to know more about that side of me. I sent her this today: You said you wanted to get to know my “story”. These two links - mutant message down under – the Darwin factor and spiritual alchemy ain’t a whole lot of fun - at goodmorningbirmingham.com, the second a sequel to the first, tell a little bit of it.On a parallel front, in The Key West Citizen today:

School Board chairman wants answers about lost after-school funding

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff gfilosa@keysnews.com

The Monroe County School District is scrambling to provide enough after-school tutoring and child care for needy families in the wake of losing a federal grant this year worth about $800,000. Having received a hefty annual bonus for five years through the 21st Century program, which in its first year sent $1.2 million to the county, the School District’s grant application this year didn’t earn enough points in the competitive process to draw the money. “It’s a competitive grant and everybody puts in an application and they only have so much money,” said Nancy Romain, the district’s grants manager. “It’s not a loss, it’s that we had to reapply because it’s only a five-year grant. Grants are getting more and more competitive.” If the grant was not lost, Nancy, where is the $800,000 and why was this article written? The 21st Century Grant was considered seed money for the district to create more after-school enrichment programs, which didn’t happen. But even with the simple explanation that the county’s need didn’t trump other Florida applicants, word that the grant is no more still stings, said Superintendent Mark Porter. “It’s very disappointing and it’s going to create some challenges,” said Porter, who plans to update the School Board on the issue at its 5 p.m. Tuesday meeting in Key West. “It’s a resource that some of our neediest kids were using effectively. We have to make do without it.” In Key West, schools feeling the worst of it are Horace O’Bryant Middle School, and Glynn Archer and Gerald Adams elementary schools. Marathon’s only elementary, Stanley Switlik, used the grant money. In the Upper Keys, Key Largo School depended on the free after-school programs. Monroe County is familiar with school district cuts, having endured about $13 million in budget paring in the past two years. School Board Chairman John Dick said, “Everyone understands reductions but I expect to know why we lost it. I find it troubling the board has not been informed as to why we lost the grant.” Romain, who has administered the grant and has a doctorate in educational leadership, said there is nothing that the district could have done differently when applying. The 21st Cenutry grant is intended to help school systems in trouble, and only schools that qualify for the help can use the money. “We’re an ‘A’ district,” said Romain. “We have no ‘D’ or ‘F’ schools. A big chunk of the money is set aside for schools in need of improvement.” Academically, the district has held onto its state-given “A” rating since 2005, and before that had received a B for two years. In January, Monroe County ranked no. 8 in the state. Monroe County public schools have 52 percent of students able to pay full price for lunches, the benchmark for poverty in a school district. Romain said that the grant provided great community service in the Florida Keys. Her application drew the five-year grant in her second year of applying for it. “In addition to the academics, it’s an enrichment program,” said Romain. “We had bands, music, art, drama and weight training. It’s these kind of enrichment opportunities that parents who are struggling financially cannot afford.” At Glynn Archer, 78 of the 388 students received free after school programs through the grant. Principal Henry Boza said he is talking with the Boys Girls Club, a Keys nonprofit, about possible solutions to fill the gap left by the grant becoming history this year. Porter, in his first year as superintendent, said he will search for some solutions. “It was a critical funding mechanism for us,” said Porter. We’re trying to work with some local groups. It’s going to be a challenge for us to increase that academic tutoring component.” But Keys nonprofits have troubles of their own this fiscal year. The Boys Girls Club in Key West serves about 90 to 110 children after school each day, while the Big Pine club has more than 40 each day. The nonprofit’s child care program costs $50 a week and includes snacks. A family’s second child may attend for half-price. Executive Director Dan Dombroski said his agency is willing to help the school district but it can’t offer anything for free. He has his own funding problems. The city of Key West gave the nonprofit $25,000 this year, but plans to begin cutting that amount by 25 percent until it is phased out to zero. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Dombroski. “Why is the city doing that? This is what a community has, it has resources and they’re there for citizens. That’s why we pay taxes. Is ‘One Human Family’ just a bumper sticker?” He recently was among the Keys nonprofit leaders who met to discuss the state cutting Monroe County’s annual child care funding by $206,000. At least 46 spots for Keys children will disappear due to that cut, which is unrelated to the loss of the 21st Century grant.

Maybe I’m confused, perhaps I am. But is the loss of this $800,000 grant related to a lot more emphasis being put on schools doing well on the FCAT, than on schools teaching kids how to read, write and do arithmetic? Saying it another way, if our schools had lower grades on the FCAT, would this $800,000 grant have been lost? Maybe I’m confused, perhaps I am. But is the loss of this $800,000 grant yet another one of those unexpected school district budget “blips” we have become so accustomed to seeing reported in The Citizen? Maybe I’m confused, perhaps I am. But will the loss of this $800,000 grant be made up in the way we have come to expect unexpected “blips” to be made up: by raiding the reserve fund balance? Maybe I’m confused, perhaps am. But Isn’t it time the school board tries to make this school district more self sufficient by generating more local school tax revenues, so the district is not so vulnerable to the loss of grants such as this one, fluctuations in state funding to local school districts, etc? Larry Murray, school board member Robin Smith-Martin, the school board’s Audit & Finance Committee and others keep harping on the school district having a strategic financial plan, but how is that possible when there is so much dependence on funding over which the school district has no control? Also in The Key West Citizen today:

At Gerald Adams, students work together

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff gfilosa@keysnews.com

Third grade math isn’t for the squeamish. Jeremiah Osborne, an 8-year-old who is tall for his age, and whose eyes seem incapable of concealing a single emotion, proved this on Thursday morning inside his classroom at Gerald Adams Elementary. Here, the kids mostly work in teams. They listen to one another and work together. But Jeremiah now sat alone at his desk after huddling with a group of four classmates and their teacher, Meghan Taylor. He put down his pencil and silently rested his head in his hands over his math book. Page 54 wanted him to write a question for a story problem, using a series of five-digit numbers. The point was to teach the kids that certain words go with subtraction, like “difference,” while words such as “sum” and “altogether” are clues that the problem requires addition. Can’t, Jeremiah’s expression read. He stood up and leaned forward over his desk, pulling a red satin sports team jacket over him. In an hour or so, he’d find success during science, measuring pictures with a ruler and then using a magnifying glass. But today’s math was a different story. From the back of the classroom, Taylor’s teacher-radar picked up Jeremiah’s quiet frustration, even though she was huddled up with a second group of 8- and 9-year-olds. She gently coached Jeremiah back into the academic starting blocks. “Sit in your chair and take a deep breath,” said Taylor, looking up from the blue half-moon shaped table, where five children sat, chewing over the same problem as Jeremiah. “Look at the chart before you read the question and before you give up,” Taylor told him gently. As the new five-kid huddle worked it out, listening to one another’s attempts, Jeremiah sat down and picked up the pencil, eyes back on the page. Trying, his face clearly said. This is the type of team learning that goes on daily inside Gerald Adams, which as of Friday, had 73 children in three separate third-grade classes, and which last year, rose an entire letter grade on the state’s rating system to earn an “A,” after a prior year at a B. For a few years prior to the B, Gerald Adams had remained an “A” rated school. In the 14 years that Florida has used the letter grade system to rate schools, Gerald Adams has received five Cs, four Bs, and five As. The elementary, which has pre-kindergarten through Grade 5, and is located on Stock Island, celebrated the A rating like an underdog football team marvels in its newfound glory on the field. Then-superintendent, Jesus Jara, name checked the school in an announcement and proudly singled out the achievement to the School Board. In a district of 12 public schools, Gerald Adams became the ninth to carry an A rating last year. One of three traditional public elementaries in Key West, Gerald Adams reflects the district’s academic prowess for Florida’s tests and rating criteria, it does not reflect Monroe County’s overall public school demographics. At Gerald Adams, 48 percent of students are Hispanic, 25 percent are black and 24 percent are white. The district’s combined 8,300 students are 52 percent white, 34 percent Hispanic and 10 percent black. Poorer kids make up the majority of Adams’ student roster, as 73 percent of the children qualify for and receive free and reduced lunches — the national barometer for measuring low-income families. Throughout Monroe County schools, the majority of students can afford to buy lunches, while 48 percent qualify for free and reduced meals. Last year, Principal Frannie Herrin went before the School Board to inform them that some of her students were new to the U.S. and, until arriving, had never before seen a working faucet or toilet. Many do not speak English, she told them. Florida changed its grading formula on the standardized FCAT test to include scores from special needs students and students who speak English as a second language, which previously hadn’t counted. The FCAT, required to pass in order to move on from third grade and then, in 10th grade, to graduate, looms large over schools such as Gerald Adams. At the mention of the acronym “FCAT,” 8- and 9-year-old eyes widen in Taylor’s classroom. They know it’s serious business. “It’s hard,” Jeremiah said. The district’s new superintendent found Gerald Adams an engaging school. “It’s a great school because of the diversity,” said Superintendent Mark Porter, who is in his first school year. “They’re doing a great job. There is something to be said about the ‘open classrooms’ there. It creates a kind of collegial feel.” Porter, a veteran educator from Minnesota, spent the first day of the school year visiting Gerald Adams. The air-conditioning went out, but students and teachers pressed on in the heat. Porter said he likes an elementary school that makes him feel over-sized. “I’ve always been a little biased toward the older buildings,” he said. “The architectural scale is a little smaller, more kid-friendly.” Taylor’s classroom, which has partitions as walls separating it from other classes, is a tight-knit space. Taylor worries about the noise level often. But the learning goes on. Like that math problem: There was an election of some sort between Jacob and Martin, the math book advised. Martin won 16,888 votes, while the total ballot box take was 18,736. Taylor told him, and the rest of her 25 students that spend the day learning reading, math, writing and science with her. Jeremiah wasn’t alone with his mental wrestling over Jacob and Martin and this election, and Taylor could sense it. “You know why it’s hard? Because it’s taking you to a different place,” Taylor said. “We’re just trying to look at it from a different perspective.” Soon, there was P.E. and then lunch, two periods that the students aren’t with Taylor, whose planning period is included in that space in the daily routine. Taylor’s class is just over the Florida class-size mandate, which allows for a teacher-to-student ratio of 1-to-18, plus three students. Of the three third-grade classes last week, one held 22 students and the other 23. The numbers fluctuate throughout the district at the start of every school year. By Oct. 1, the district must report its enrollment, which on Friday was 8,300, in order to receive Florida’s per-student allocation. Porter said the district is fine-tuning its class sizes and teacher roster, and will abide by the law. “We are committed to being compliant with class-size mandates,” said Porter. “We’d like to say we could have it all done sooner and quicker.” The class numbers don’t faze parent Gerald Fisher, whose son Joseph attended Gerald Adams for seven years before moving on to Horace O’Bryant Middle School. Joseph, 12, is autistic. Fisher’s daughter, 10-year-old Deshawn, is in fourth grade at Adams. “The teachers kept me informed about things that I needed and whenever Joseph had a problem, the teacher made me aware of it,” said Fisher. “We kept in communication.” Fisher, 61, is a Vietnam veteran battling throat cancer and raising his two children alone, as his wife is serving a prison sentence. Gerald Adams is close to his Stock Island home, and his kids can catch the school bus, said Fisher. Adams has been a longtime part of the Fisher family, through tough times. “As far as students in the classroom, there is just enough to a class for one teacher,” said Fisher, praising the school for helping his children. “I think it’s very nice.”

Is the point of this article, Jeremiah cannot do third grade math because he is from a poor family? I ask, because that’s sort of how the article comes across to me. I wish the math problem had had been provided in the article in the same way it was given to Jeremiah and his class, so I could see what Jeremiah had to try to figure out. I also would like to know if it was a regular math problem, or was it an FCAT math problem? Gerald Adams was built next to the city’s toxic waste dump, aka Mt. Trashmore, in an area where few, if any, elementary school children lived. Many Gerald Adams students are bussed Bahama Village, even though Glynn Archer Elementary School is much closer to Bahama Village. Mostly white kids Poinciana Elementary School is more distant from Bahama Village, but still is much closer to Bahama Village than Gerald Adams. Most of the kids bussed from Bahama Village are black kids.

Sloan Bashinsky, Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate keysmyhome@hotmail.com goodmorningfloridakeys.com goodmoringkeywest.com

Mutant Message Down Under – the Darwin factor

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

This Sunday homily was spawned by a religious/political forward allegedly about Australian politics, which I received from an American fellow who winters in Marathon, Florida, who loves playing duplicate bridge. The post begins with my reply. After which comes a reply from someone claiming to be Australian. After which comes the forwarding parties, and then the forward (propaganda) itself. Then, a reader’s comment on this post, and my reply.

Hi, Russ (and others)

Quite a while ago, I received something very similar, if not identical, to this on Australia and its Prime Minister. Don’t recall who sent it to me, but I did not forward it. Although I am not familiar with Australia’s politics today, I was puzzled by the claim that Australia was founded on Christian principles, because my recollection from history is Australia started out, from the western view, as a British penal colony; its British “founders” were deported convicts.

The religious/conservative right put a lot of doctored stuff onto the internet with requests for it to be forwarded. I have yet to see anything from the religious/conservative right that was not doctored.

The other day you forwarded me a rabbi’s sermon, urging everyone to stand beside the America/Israel alliance, against radical Islam, which was compared, literally, to the Nazis under Hitler. The history of what gave rise to the enmity of radical Islam toward Israel and America was not provided by the Rabbi, but only history which supported his position was recounted. I did not forward that one, either.

The religious right keeps claiming America was founded as a Christian nation, but the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as I read them, do not agree with that right claim. I suppose Republican Party, or Tea Party, could be substituted for religious/conservative right, when it comes to these kinds of forwards. Sometimes such forwards look to me like Neo Nazi output.

I do not receive forwards which seem to be generated by the far left. Instead, I receive invitations to support President Obama, which ain’t gonna happen, because I don’t like him, but for different reasons than why I don’t like the left’s polar opposite.

I’m not gonna vote for Romney, either.

As things now stand, when I vote for President of the US this year, will write “None of the above” on my ballot.

As you know, Russ, I am deeply involved in local politics in the Florida Keys. As you may not know, I detest politics. I detest running for local offices. I do so only because I am terrified of what angels assigned to run me will do to me if I do not run for local office.

These angels don’t seem to care a twit for American politics, nor for other brands of politics. They don’t seem to care for the religious right, or for the left. They don’t seem to care for any system humanity came up with. They don’t seem to care for the way I think or want to go about things. They don’t seem to care for the way humanity thinks or goes about things.

However, these angels do seem to have a fondness for the old Australian aborigines, who, from all I have read, were seriously tuned in to the interface between this world and the heaven dimension.These angels also seem to have a fondness for some of the Christian saints who lived in that interface, and saints from other religious traditions who did likewise, even if they were not officially recognized as saints by their religious traditions.

I call these particular angels, Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek. They have associates, whom they sometimes let have at me also. Altogether, they give me bloody hell and cause me to long for my days on this planet to end. They are never satisfied with me. There is always more that needs to be dealt with about me.

You and I have had some conversations in the past about some of that. I write about it from time to time in posts to my websites. My impression is people who know me, or know of me through what I write, or by what they hear about me, think I invent the angels to get attention, to cause controversy, or because I’m insane. I do not invent the angels. Nor can I prove them. Only by experiencing them can they be “proven” to the hapless pilgrim they conscript.

Looks to me that the angels do not care for political forwards from the right or from the left. They do not care for politics. They do not care for religions. They do not care for how humanity has developed. I keep telling them they are wasting their time trying to redirect humans on this planet. I use myself as Exhibit 1.

Look at how screwed up I am, despite all the effort they have put into redirecting me, I tell the angels. If I’m a product of their 25 years of effort, they ought to remove humanity from this planet and put the species somewhere it has a chance to move forward, instead of backwards, I often tell the angels.

I was in Australia briefly in November 1995.In Darwin and nearby. [Darwin is named after Charles Darwin, who spent time there.] During an outback tour in Kakadoo, I was visited from dream time by a male and female member of an aborigine tribe living in the old way. The tribe described by Marlo Morgan in Mutant Message Down Under, which I had read a few years before traveling to Australia, where I’d long felt I wanted to live.

Artistic impression of Australian aborigine

After the brief encounter with the two aborigines, my longing to live in Australia evaporated, and I soon returned to the States, where I was pounded unceasing by the angels who had traveled half way round the world with me, and back to the States. They sent me to the Keys in late 2000, and mostly that’s where they have kept me writhing.

They may clobber me for writing this today. I’ve had a rough past few days. My dreams are all jumbled up. This from Australia is what seemed on my plate when I dragged myself out of bed this morning. So I responded.

Ciao,

Sloan

Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 04:52:13 -0400
From: hymus@optonline.net
Subject: Re: FW: Fw: W O W ! She Did It Again!!!
To: bridgebum1@yahoo.com
CC: janetspedaliere@gmail.com; bottomlinekathy@aol.com; rsayer9454@aol.com; sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com; ELJUDO@AOL.COM; lenkuker@optonline.net

Did you copy me last year on very similar trash?Or is this the same trash from 12 months ago just regurgitated?Stop it, and don’t proliferate such USA right wing evangrlical christian (and perhaps Jewish as well) fabrications of what Julia Gillard “should have” said to make them happy.She did nothing of the sort. And culturally just couldn’t have. While Australians might have reservations about multi-culturalism, and are not backwards in saying so, no Australian couldhave come up with this filthy rhetoric, based upon the myth of the Christian foundations of the United States. Australians just don’t think like this, and argue like this (from a “christian” standpoint) and never have.

As you know, or perhaps you don’t, I am an Australia citizen, and here in Australia right now, in the midst of the fallout over “the” movie.In fact, the story right now is the extreme agreement between the police, politicians and Muslim leaders in Australia all condemning violence and extremism by all sides.

A year ago, similar web postings were also rife, and were proved to be totally fabricated, and fabricated by the American Religious Right (in league with radical right wing Zionists for another manifestation of this little mentioned unholy alliance) as it turns out. Are you very sure that this filth is new and just not a regurgitation of last year’s trash?

Such verbiage provides clear indications that this is a total fabrication of the American right, where such things ARE important.Australians just don’t think like this. The references to the “founding” of Australia in the christian tradition is complete fabrication, nonsense, reading wishfully into Australian traditions what Fundamentalists believe (incorrectly) about the founding of the US. Australia was founded as convict settlements for excess British felons for heavens sake, nothing to do with any “Christian” wishes and aspirations of “free” peoples.For Pete’s sake, rum was the prime currency vehicle until this was put down by one of the greatest Australian (New South Wales) Governors in 1812, the first army man after a string of three incompetent Navy men.

You might notice that the original posting had ZERO prime source reference, just like the ones form a year ago.

The US extreme right wing Christian lobby and extreme right wing US Zionist lobby (a truly unholy alliance if I may say so), or certain ultra extreme factions of the same, are playing fast and loose with the truth. Again.

I deplore it. I wish those of you that did would not have retransmit this grossly inaccurate and indeed libelous stuff about the Australian Prime Minister and Australians in general. As I said above, I think this is just vomiting back what was said last year. Shear fabrication by the Christian and Jewish rabid right. It was then, and is similarly now. Shame…

Frank.

On 9/22/2012 7:19 PM, Russ __________ wrote:

— On Sat, 9/22/12, lenkuker <lenkuker@optonline.net> wrote:

From: lenkuker <lenkuker@optonline.net>
Subject: FW: Fw: W O W ! She Did It Again!!!
To: “KAGAN RUB/JUDY” <ELJUDO@AOL.COM>
Date: Saturday, September 22, 2012, 3:27 PM

From:PoppyAllenC@aol.com [mailto:PoppyAllenC@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2012 10:42 AM
To:MMFANTBB@npacc.net; beatbee@hotmail.com; donaldcbeck@me.com; beyondac13@hotmail.com; taxhelp@att.net; bjeweld@gmail.com; brett_spurr@yahoo.com; alexbuz917@gmail.com; catron35@gmail.com; sidcaplan@gmail.com; EYECONE@aol.com; cohenr2@live.com; Mann23ca@aol.com; adiapp@hotmail.com; dfurton@yahoo.com; merleebner@yahoo.com; fenfield@charter.net; mgfreund@gmail.com; telebenta@verizon.net; gailzimmer@optonline.net; gambaronysr@aol.com; jgottlieb@resintech.com; lgottlieb@resintech.com; lynnegott@comcast.net; bsgreenw@uic.edu; ahaveson@optonline.net; hips662002@yahoo.com; htrinkler@gmail.com; ilana@pekar.org; jayhkatz@yahoo.com; jmargo99@gmail.com; mamakatz2jjj@yahoo.com; MPKAZIN@GMAIL.COM; KJAGODNIK@yahoo.com; joyce.kramer@hotmail.com; lenkuker@optonline.net ; jetsea@aol.com; nmarchewka@hotmail.com; jem39ish@earthlink.net; mcgott@comcast.net; Bipamima@aol.com; deeox12@aol.com; MapVegas@cox.net; ceciliaromano9992000@yahoo.com; samantha.boris@aya.yale.edu; esanders100@comcast.net; schlager01@aol.com; davidschnur9527@gmail.com; rhschnur@aol.com; glamkazh@aol.com; riho1123@yahoo.com; twosistersestate@aol.com
Subject: Fwd: Fw: W O W ! She Did It Again!!!

From: qbn221@yahoo.com
To: brett_spurr@yahoo.com, beth811s@yahoo.com, mommomsherry@aol.com, poppyallenc@aol.com, eyecone@aol.com, remimar@optonline.net, carrierakvica@comcast.net, TBKen@aol.com, roseynan@aol.com, tinamoss20@gmail.com
Sent: 9/22/2012 9:56:54 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Fw: W O W ! She Did It Again!!!

—– Forwarded Message —–
From: Joanne B <jmb1222@hotmail.com>
To: Barry S <qbn221@yahoo.com>; Carol K <tinydancercdk@comcast.net>; Grace P <gmpuccio1@comcast.net>; Ishy <querico21@comcast.net>; marilyn w <wahlmj@msn.com>; Paul B <pebecker@hotmail.com>; sean b <spbecker67@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2012 4:18 PM
Subject: FW: W O W ! She Did It Again!!!

Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 11:23:55 -0700 Subject: W O W ! She Did It Again!!! From: vicbartkus@gmail.com To:

Now this is an example of the leadership this country needs!

Australia says NO — Second Time she has done this!

She sure isn’t backing down on her hard line stance and one has to appreciate her belief in the rights of her native countrymen.

A breath of fresh air to see someone lead.Australian Prime Minister does it again!!

The whole world needs a leader like this!

Prime Minister Julia Gillard – Australia

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

Separately, Gillard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying she supported spy agencies monitoring the nation’s mosques.Quote: ‘IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT… Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture.Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.’

‘This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.’

‘We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language.Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!’

‘Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.’

‘We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why.All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.’

‘This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, ‘THE RIGHT TO LEAVE’.’

‘If you aren’t happy here then LEAVE. We didn’t force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.’

NOTE: IF we circulate this amongst ourselves in UK , Canada & USA , WE will find the courage to start speaking and voicing the same truths.

If you agree please SEND THIS ON and ON, to as many people as you know…

After posting the above, received this email comment from a Nashville, Tennessee email correspondent who checks my blog each morning:

Sloan:

Made maybe 8 trips to Australia in the late 90′s and early 2000/2001.Visited the Big Red Rock (Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock) and Great Barrier Reef for two weeks.Really enjoyed the country and the people, if they threw my ass out of the USA, I would head to Australia or New Zealand because I like the people and I speak the language. Besides they have some interesting creatures – maybe even more interesting that Key West!

I replied:

Am feeling inhibited, resistant, uninterested in writing about Keys stuff today – perhaps will be clobbered later. I fully intended to go from Darwin to Ayers Rock, then to Alice Springs, then to south Australia. Then, I read in a local publication of a big rukus the aborigines were making over tourists visiting Ayers Rock, which was a high holy place for the aborigines. The way the aborigines wanted to resolve it was tourists paid a fee for visiting Ayers Rock, which went to the aborigines. That felt really weird to me. I didn’t feel right about going to Ayers Rock and helping the aborigines prostitute their souls and their high holy place. Then, two American women came into the hostel, who said they were going to Ayers Rock. I told them what was on my mind. They said they had heard of the controversy and they understood my position, but they were going there anyway. I decided not to go. I decided instead to head back to the States, although I had intended to spend six months in Australia. How that decision came about, I was at an outdoor restaurant across the street from the hostel, struggling with my future. I knew I was headed back to the States eventually, but when? I asked the angels for guidance. The next song on the restaurant’s sound system was the song “this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.” The next song was Glenn Campbell singing “by the time I get to Phoenix.” The nest song was, “Sweet Home Alabama.” I saw at as an itinernary. I booked a flight to Sydney the next day, at the Quantas office in Darwin. Then, I called a hostel in Sydney and reserved the last bed they had available for the next night. Arriving at the Sydney hostel the next evening, I signed in, got my bed. Then, I went back to the office and asked if there was a pub nearby where an old person could go and eat and not get his ears broken by loud music? I was directed about three blocks up the street. Entering the pub, “Sweet Home Alabama” came on the sound system. There was little sweet about it after I got here, however. The white Australians I met in Kakadoo seemed to travel at two speeds: full and dead stopped (asleep). Although the flies were few in Darwin, there were a trillion trillion trillion of them in Kakadoo. Never saw anything about that in the come visit Australia advertising. I had heard some of the first “Crocodile Dundee” movie was filmed in Kakadoo. Lots of strange non-human creatures down under, for sure. Different strange than Keys and Key West strange. Sloan

getting information out of the Florida Keys school district is sort of like wishful thinking but not as productive

keep stirring the pot and beating a dead horse – Florida Keys school district

Saturday, September 22nd, 2012

There is a Key West cruise ship channel widening, sort of rhymes with rape, sez Mother Nature post today at goodmorningkeywest.com.

The ever joyful Nashville replied to yesterday’s getting information out of the Florida Keys school district is sort of like wishful thinking but not as productivepost:

Sloan:

So glad to see that the angels have gotten you hot on the trail of the FOIA requests which have gone down the deep dark hole.I really don’t see why any of your requests should take more than a few hours, at most, to respond – unless they just decide that they do not have to answer and say *uck you!You know they are certainly capable of doing that and have done that to lots of things over just the last year.Stay on them and keep

From Larry Murray, responding to yesterday’s post:

Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:19:12 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: request for investigation of school district for not complying with public records/foia requests
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com; dennisward@aol.com
CC: mark.porter@keysschools.com; andy@fishandy.com; john.dick@keysschools.com; robin.smith-martin@keysschools.com; ronmartin4mcsb@aol.com; gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com; news@us1radio.com

Sloan:

Look forward to reading whatever you send to Dennis Ward and I especially look forward to reading his response.

I had a pleasant cup of coffee earlier today with Ken Gentile at Harpoon Harry’s. We discussed a wide variety of subjects, one of which was District responses to requests for information, whether those requests were informal or formal FOIA inquiries. I stressed to Ken the importance of thoroughly responding to inquiries and he seemed to understand.

I told Ken that when a request is made, formal or informal, that there should, at a minimum, be a reply that the request was received. That reply should include some indication, some sort of date certain, as to when a complete response can be expected.

For example, I asked Superintendent Porter the other day for an update on the status of a teacher in Key Largo who was suspended a year ago for alleged inappropriate behavior toward a student. That incident did not occur on Porter’s watch. I understand that he may need to be “brought up to speed” on the totality of the issue before he can respond to me. Not everything lends itself to a quick response.

To date, I have heard nothing from Superintendent Porter, no reply acknowledging receipt of my email, no reply indicating that he was looking into the issue. What do I conclude? I do not know. What I do know is that MCSD has a longstanding tradition of ignoring requests. Is Superintendent Porter stiff-arming me or is he investigating? Would be nice to know, if Superintendent Porter would only take a moment to keep me in the loop. As I told you earlier, ignoring me, initially, irritates me. Ignoring me at length infuriates me and I will not go away.

We shall see if there is any change as a result of my conversation.

Larry

From: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
To: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com; dennisward@aol.com
CC: mark.porter@keysschools.com; andy@fishandy.com; john.dick@keysschools.com; robin.smith-martin@keysschools.com; ronmartin4mcsb@aol.com; gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com; news@us1radio.com
Subject: RE: request for investigation of school district for not complying with public records/foia requests
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:38:21 -0400

Hi, Larry.

This is another time will tell situation.

You already read what I sent to Dennis Ward this a.m., except for the email header:

From: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
To: dennisward@aol.com
CC: mark.porter@keysschools.com; andy@fishandy.com; john.dick@keysschools.com; robin.smith-martin@keysschools.com; ronmartin4mcsb@aol.com; gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com; news@us1radio.com
Subject: request for investigation of school district for not complying with public records/foia requests
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:06:21 -0400

You are supposed to be able to get to today’s posts at goodmorningfloridakeys.com and goodmorningkeywest.com by clicking on the links above the pics.

In the school district post, I ask State Attorney Dennis Ward to investigate why two public records/freedom of information act requests I made to the school district months ago have not been complied with. I then sent this “teaser” to Dennis, with copies to the school board members and schools superintendent Mark Porter, and also to Gwen Filosa at The Key West Citizen, Sean Kinney at the Keynoter and Bill Becker at US 1 Radio.

It’s late in Dennis’ term. I don’t know if he will look into it, or not. Had no luck getting him to look into the big kid stuffing the little kid into a locker for an hour at Coral Shores High School, which incident, and the bizarre way the Coral High principal handled it, I view as astronomically more serious than what John Dick said on US 1 Radio about heads had rolled, or the school district winding up the Sunny Booker investigation.

Maybe we should thank our lucky stars that little kid didn’t come to school the next day with a stiletto, which he shoved into the big kid’s stomach. Being shorter, the knife would have traveled upward toward the heart. Imagine the furor that would have caused, and the ass-covering by the principal and the superintendent and the school board. Imagine nothing changing despite even that, except the little kid got put in the juvenile detention center and prosecuted as a juvenile by Dennis Ward.

Imagine that gay kid at Key West High School, who was subjected to several rounds of hazing for being gay by different groups of KWH kids, finally giving up and taking his own life. Imagine the furor that would have caused, and the ass-covering by the principal and the superintendent and the school board, and nothing changed but the kid was dead.

I told Sandy Downs last night over dinner at Coco’s Kitchen that I mostly don’t give a shit anymore; I just get up each morning and start breaking rocks. Day after day, I get up in the morning and start breaking rocks. Today, I got up and started in again on the school district’s apparent terminal mind set of not providing information it doesn’t want to furnish.

Sandy has been a public watchdog in the Keys a few years longer than you, Larry. She gets really pissed off when people don’t do what they are supposed to do, and do what they are not supposed to do. I keep telling her to quit expecting people to behave, and to simply call them out when they misbehave. Then move on to the next misbehavior and call it out, then move onto the next misbehavior and call it out. I keep telling her to let God punish people who misbehave.

Mark Porter is up to his eyeballs in trying to get on top of what all this school district is. He has inherited a great big morass, which he did not create. He cannot possibly provide information, or look for information, he does not have. He should delegate such information requests. I think by State Law, he has to delegate Public Records Requests, or do the information searching and providing himself.

Today I brought Mark up to date and again reminded the school board and Ken Gentile of my public records requests. It’s on them to delegate, or respond themselves. Certainly, John Dick can write to me and say he misspoke on US 1 Radio, about heads had rolled, if he misspoke. Otherwise, the school district should furnish the information I requested.

Do I expect a response to either information request? No. Do I expect any response I might receive to actually answer my questions? No. Do I expect prevarication? Yes. Is that going to piss me off? Briefly. Then, I will laugh, because I know karma will have the final say, and they might not even connect the dots and will not know what they did to themselves.

It is as Jesus told his disciples: As you sow, you reap. Ken Gentile is a Christian, and from what Mark Porter said at the school board meeting when he was hired as the new superintendent, he and his wife are people of faith. Because of that, I sometimes drag Jesus into my correspondence and posts, which involve Ken and Mark.

I dragged Jesus into my original Sunny Booker information request, which I addressed to Ken. Ken emailed back that he was going to follow up on my request for a report on the allegations against Sunny Booker.

Today, I was made by the angels, prompted by your email yesterday, put that public records request, and the other one to John Dick about what heads rolled in the school district, to them again, and to ask Dennis Ward to get involved.

I don’t know anything else I can do. I am fed with beating on this hard rock pile. I am not angry. I am not determined to keep after them until they do what I think they should do. I would be very happy to be told by the angels in my sleep tonight that I don’t have to pound that hard rock pile anymore. Then, I’m shown the next rock pile to pound again, or a new rock pile to pound, tomorrow.

I can bust rocks until hell freezes over, and I won’t even make a dent in the rock pile. Hopefully, though, by the time I leave this life, I will have busted enough rocks so that I don’t have to do it again.

I think Mark Porter needs to make arrangements with his staff to respond to and investigate all of your informal and formal public information requests, because I know you well enough to know you will keep at it, and the angels have told me in a dream that they hope you will keep putting information requests to and that you will keep raising questions and pointing out weaknesses and misbehavior in the school district.

Sloan

Ken Gentile replied:

Subject: FOIA Request
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 19:03:51 -0400
From: Ken.Gentile@KeysSchools.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
CC: Mark.Porter@KeysSchools.com

Sloan,

I spoke to Larry today and he reminded me that you were still waiting for information

from your FOIA request. I have contacted Dirk Smits today for information to satisfy your

request. I will bring Mr. Porter up to speed and I should have an answer for you next week.

Ken

I replied to Ken, and to All:

From: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
To: ken.gentile@keysschools.com
CC: mark.porter@keysschools.com; andy@fishandy.com; john.dick@keysschools.com; robin.smith-martin@keysschools.com; ron.martinsb@keysschools.com; dennisward@aol.com; gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com; news@us1radio.com; citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: FOIA Request
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 20:30:33 -0400

Hi, Ken

In May, you wrote something similar to me about the same information request, except that time it was Richard Collins to whom you said you had referred it. I later poked you and the school district and school board a couple of times about not responding. I poked again today.

I have the agreement Sunny Booker and the school district signed. It does not exonerate her, but contains the kind of mutually self-serving language such documents tend to contain.

The public is entitled to know, for a fact, whether or not Sunny abused the ED Options online course program when she ran the ACE school.

The public also is entitled to know, for a fact, whether or not Key West High School sent athletes over to the ACE school to get passes in courses they were unable to pass at KWHS.

That information is not anywhere in the settlement agreement between Sunny and the school district, and Dirk, you, Mark, John, or anyone in the school district saying that was all dealt with in the settlement agreement will not satisfy my information request.

So far, nothing back from the school district re the other information request: whose heads had rolled, as per John Dick’s heads had rolled comments on US 1 Radio. I poked about that a few times before poking again today.

Sloan

Larry replied to me:

Sloan:

Keep me posted. I told Ken to send you the entire Booker report. He told me that there were two halves, one that he did and one that Richard Collins/Dirk Smits did. Ken assured me that he would send, or resend as he thought he had sent it to you earlier, his report and that he would forward the Collins/Smits report, in toto, as soon as he received it from Smits’ office. My understanding in our conversation is that what you were to be sent was to be complete.

Larry

I look forward to seeing both reports and publishing them, if I can format them into an email or onto goodmorningfloridakeys.com. I will provide them to Gwen Filosa at The Key West Citizen, Sean Kinney at the Keynoter, and Bill Becker at US 1 Radio.

I will do the same with the report on the heads that rolled, if I receive it. But I be danged if I am going to pay the school district to find out what is inside of John Dick’s head when he can tell me himself.

The other day, Larry Murray wrote to Mark Porter requesting information on a teacher charged some time ago with improperly touching a child. Perhaps that is reported in the Key West Citizen today:

Cleared teacher resigns

Wins fight against spanking allegation; accepts settlement

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com

A Monroe County teacher accused of spanking a 5-year-old special needs student in December has agreed to a settlement and is likely to resign, despite her successful fight of an administrative push to fire her, according to School District attorneys.

Janet Faber, who began teaching this year at Glynn Archer Elementary in Key West — having transferred from Sugarloaf School after a kindergarten teacher reported that she twice spanked a student in class — agreed to take a lump sum of $23,213, according to the paperwork signed Friday.

Faber, of Ramrod Key, most recently earned $49,791 a year and was hired by the district in July 2005.

A state review of the incident found there wasn’t enough evidence to show Faber spanked the child, and recommended the district drop the matter and give her back pay.

Faber, who did not return an email request for comment sent Thursday, testified that she did not strike the child. But when initially asked, she said she had no recollection of it, the district’s attorney pointed out in its petition to the state.

Many times have I heard an accused say he/she had no recollection of doing wrong, and I nearly always took that as an admission of guilt.

The School Board will review the settlement agreement at its meeting set for 5 p.m. Monday at the district’s administration building, 241 Trumbo Road in Key West.

Faber agreed to hash out the settlement, said Superintendent Mark Porter in a memo to the board attached to Tuesday’s agenda.

But the resignation and the settlement are two separate issues.

“It is expected that the settlement and resignation will be approved by the board at the same time,” said attorney Theron Simmons, who represents the board.

In the two-page settlement, Faber agreed to forever give up her right to make any legal claims against the district if the School Board pays her $23,000 in back pay and insurance benefits she lost while suspended from Feb. 22 to June 8 as the spanking allegation went before a state agency.

The case began Dec. 16, 2011, when Sugarloaf School kindergarten teacher Charity King told the assistant principal that a week earlier she had watched Faber twice spank the girl, who has a form of autism, according to an administrative law judge’s order.

King testified that on a scale of 1 to 10, each of the two blows rated a 7, and that she had seen Faber “handling (the student) roughly” between Nov. 30 and Dec. 7.

But the allegation didn’t hold up under scrutiny of the state Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH).

On July 25, law judge Claude Arrington recommended that Faber get her job back with back pay and benefits.

Arrington called King “a sincere witness” but said “her vague, uncorroborated testimony is insufficient to support a finding of guilt.”

In such cases, the School District bears the burden of proof and the legal standard is “by a preponderance of evidence,” meaning that more than 50 percent of the evidence points to some wrongdoing.

In February, former Superintendent Jesus Jara recommended the School Board fire Faber, having found that she violated the board policies of corporal punishment and ethical standards.

The School Board suspended Faber without pay on Feb. 28, pending the resolution of Faber’s appeal to DOAH.

The case is likely to draw questions from School Board members on Tuesday.

“I find the whole thing very troubling, that we went forward with such a vague allegation,” said board Chairman John Dick on Friday. “The hearing officer basically threw it out as unfounded. There’s no corroboration of anything there. I’m concerned as to what’s going on. How did we get this far down the road?”

It got this far down the road, John, because Superintendent Jara, whom you later backed all the way in the superintendent selection process, believed King’s report that Faber had administered corporal punishment to a 5-year-old autistic child. Apparently, the school district’s lawyer backed Jara. And apparently you and the other school board members went along with it. Did you and the other board members not question King and Faber yourselves?

The student at the center of the matter was 5 years old at the time, and one of 16 kids in a kindergarten class at Sugarloaf.

Her mother is Maria Fappiano, a staff member in the Exceptional Student Education department who was working at Sugarloaf last year; her father is a school psychologist employed by the district, according to online state documents.

After a formal hearing May 31, held via video conference in Tallahassee and Monroe County, Arrington found that Faber had “testified, credibly, that she never mishandled the student and did not know what Ms. King was referencing.”

The judge questioned why King waited until Dec. 16 to make the report and chose not to confront Faber the day of the alleged spanking.

I would have wondered the same thing, if I were law judge Arrington. I would have wondered the same thing, if I were Jara, and if I were the school district’s lawyer. But then, I also would have wondered why Faber initially said she did not remember spanking the child.

Faber was “totally surprised” by the allegation and said she had no idea what King was talking about, according to her testimony.

None of the other students in King’s class recalled witnessing anything inappropriate that day, said Principal Harry Russell, who interviewed the children.

Did Russell tell the school board this before they went along with Jara’s charges against Faber?

Last year was the first time that Faber worked with students in grades kindergarten through second grade. She had previously worked with high school kids and students in third to fifth grades.

“I think it was a big change for her this year to go to kindergarten through second grade,” said Maria Fappiano in her deposition. “You know, it’s a whole new skill set that you have to develop because the students are much younger.”

In his deposition for the state hearing, Russell was asked why he did not recommend “progressive discipline,” that the district has adopted.

Progressive discipline for the 5-year-old child? For Faber?

“I’ve had experience working with pre-K through 12th grade over my career, and arguably some of the most vulnerable children in any school district would be a 5-year-old special needs child,” Russell said. “In this case, a kid that had autism that cannot, you know, really articulate if they’re having major concerns because of their disability. So you know, this child was a very vulnerable child.”

Russell said in his deposition that certain acts rise to the level of termination.

“If you strike a child, if you have sex with a child, if you did drugs with a child, there’s certain things that you should not be allowed to work with children if you conduct yourself in that manner,” said Russell, according to the judge’s order.

Anyone who knows anything about autistic children knows they live in a world of their own and do not respond well to discipline, if they respond at all, and spanking them is unconscionable.

I wonder how King and Faber would have held up under polygraph exams?

If I had been Faber’s lawyer, I would have asked her if she was willing to take a polygraph exam on her dime, and if she had said yes, I would have offered that to the school district, and that they could choose the polygraph examiner.

If Faber had said no to a polygraph exam, I would have asked why? That would have led to a very serious conversation, because I would not feel okay trying to prove the innocence of a teacher I felt had spanked a 5-year-old autistic child. I would feel okay working out a termination settlement, such as the one reported above.

Sloan Bashinsky, Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

goodmorningkeywest.com

getting information out of the Florida Keys school district is sort of like wishful thinking but not as productive

Friday, September 21st, 2012

There is a Key West’s Father Steve Braddock is not like most religious types post today at goodmorningkeywest.com. Meanwhile …

Larry Murray replied to yesterday’ princes into frogs and other less known Florida Keys school district magic acts post:

Sloan:

I agree with you that it can be very difficult to get the School District to respond to questions and FOIA requests. There has been some improvement with the new superintendent, but you still have to be tenacious. Like many bureaucracies, the School District sometimes hopes that if they stiff-arm you long enough, you will go away and leave them alone.

I am not the type of person who will just go gently into the good night when I am ignored. To the contrary, ignoring me irritates me and I consider it an insult. If the issue at hand is sufficiently important, to continue to ignore me simply enrages me and makes my desire for an answer that much stronger.

It took former Superintendent Jesus Jara almost his entire term to realize that I was not the kind of person who, when ignored, would go away. In the last couple of months of his administration, he began responding routinely, as he should, to my inquiries and relations between us improved markedly. In simplistic terminology, Jara decided that “if you can’t beat him, join him.”

As I said, there has been some improvement under Superintendent Porter and we shall see if that is a honeymoon or a longterm change in behavior.

Larry

I replied:

Hi again, Larry. See my reply to your other email on same topic. This is a time will tell thing. Sloan

Here’s Larry’s other email:

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:26:42 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Early Retirement Savings
To: mark.porter@keysschools.com
CC: Ken.Gentile@KeysSchools.com; michael.kinneer@keysschools.com; robin.smith-martin@keysschools.com; ron.martinsb@keysschools.com; duncan.mathewson@keysschools.com; John.Dick@KeysSchools.com; andy@fishandy.com; dombrosl@bellsouth.net; rogermcveigh@bellsouth.net; bill@andersenfinancial.net; mgrady@my100bank.com; skessler@kesslerlegal.com

Superintendent Porter:

Two years ago, the District instituted an incentivized early retirement program as a means of saving money. The plan was established at the recommendation of CFO Michael Kinneer.
Now that we have two years of data, does the District have an estimate of how much has been saved as a result of the early retirement program?

Larry

Dr. Larry Murray

Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate

I replied to All:

At the rate you are going, Larry, I wonder if the school district will have to hire a few professional information gofers to answer all of your questions? Or, maybe they will just keep on not answering questions because they don’t know the answers, don’t know how to get the answers, don’t want to know, or get, the answers, or don’t want to spend the time and money getting the answers – any, some and/or all of the above perhaps. I gave up trying to get them to answer my few questions, as they had intended, I suspect.

Larry replied to All:

Sloan:

So far, Superintendent Porter has been generally responsive to my inquiries. Occasionally, it takes a little extra effort. Like his predecessors, you have to stay with him or you will be ignored in the hopes that you will go away. The School District has always had an aversion to answering difficult or embarrassing questions.

Larry

I replied to All:

That’s good to hear, Larry. Please copy me with Mark’s answers to any questions you [sent to] him, which you sent to me and I published, so I can update my readers.

Despite several requests to the school district, I have yet to receive an explanation of the outcome of the insubordination charges filed against Sunny Booker by Superintendent Jara. Those charges splashed in the newspapers, but the public never heard the outcome of the investigation. All I was told, by Ken Gentile, was the investigation had been given to Richard Collins to handle, and he had had medical problems, but the investigation needed to be done and the outcome reported ( or something along that line). That was months ago.

I also never received an answer to my requests for what heads rolled in the school district, as stated by John Dick on US 1 radio. I was told that request had been passed on to someone else, and I was told by that person that it had been passed on to yet someone else, and that someone emailed me and said I would be advised of the estimated cost of gathering the information, and I replied that I was waiting to hear back. That was several months ago.

Perhaps you, Mark, can ask John whose heads rolled, and what positions they had, and what they were being paid, and did they get fired, or were they demoted, or were they moved to another department or job description, which is basically what I asked in my FOIA request. Perhaps you also can find out and let me know the outcome of the Sunny Booker investigation.

Every school board member was copied with those two FOIA requests. If I’d been on the board, I would have left no stone unturned until that information was provided to the person who had asked for it. I would have used every means available, including US 1 Radio, the Keynoter, The Citizen, etc., to pressure the school district and John Dick to provide the information requested.

Thanks,

Sloan

Larry replied to All:

Sloan:

Agreed. One strategy you might try is to reissue your requests, directing them to Superintendent Mark Porter. That clearly makes him a responsible entity, not someone who inherited something about which he may or may not be familiar. I believe that both of your questions deserve an answer. You might wish to copy Dennis Ward so as to apprise him of the situation.

I wrote to your blog on this same subject about the reluctance of the School District to answer questions that are difficult and embarrassing. Certainly your questions fall into that category.
I should have included the School Board as part of the reluctance to act timely and responsibly. For example, the issue of Ken Gentile and his CPA has been sub rosa for almost four months. Since Gentile is technically an employee of the Board and not the District, former Superintendent Jesus Jara bucked the issue to the Board.

Purportedly, there was some investigation by Dirk Smits. Yet the issue remains unresolved. My belief is that the Board should have acted long ago and either fired Gentile for misrepresentation or exonerated him. It is unconscionable to keep Gentile dangling in the wind not to mention the Board’s failure to fulfill its responsibility to the public.

I am told that there is a parallel investigation into Gentile and his CPA by the state. Perhaps the Board is awaiting that outcome. If so, should Gentile be found to have misrepresented his credentials, the Board will look inept and spineless for failing to have acted promptly. Conversely, maybe the Board has their fingers crossed and hopes that the state will exonerate Gentile and thus rescue them. That’s a bit of a gamble that I would not take considering the evidence.

Again, I repeat my point about the need to be persistent and diligent with the School District and the School Board. One should not have to, but the reality is that you will be ignored if you are not consistent in maintaining pressure.

Larry

I replied:

Hi, Larry, others

Ken Gentile and John Dick have been in the loop of my FOIA requests from the beginning. John can respond to my FOIA request he triggered by saying on US 1 Radio that heads had rolled. Either they did, or they didn’t, and either way, he should be able to answer my FOIA request.

Ken was Jesus Jara’s #2, and he should be able to answer my FOIA requests re the charges brought against Sunny Booker, which were two-fold as I recall: the alleged insubordination over the ACE school’s graduation celebration at Salute in KW, and the alleged abuse of the EdOptions online course program at the ACE school, which Sunny headed.

As I recall, the ACE charges against Sunny were announced by Jara with considerable emotion at a school board meeting I attended, shortly after, or at the same time, it came out that 500 Key West High School students had used the Ed Options program to make up flunked courses. That got swept clean under the rug when Jara leveled grave allegations at Sunny re the ACE school’s use of EdOptions, which apparently was the only way some of those troubled boys could take the courses they needed. There also were allegations someone anonymous[l]y sent to you of KWHS sending jocks over to the ACE school to get passing grades they were unable to get at KWHS.

Sunny told me the “insubordination” occurred when Jara told her that he wanted to move the ACE school to the juvenile detention center at the county jail on Stock Island, and she told him that he could move it there if he wanted to, but she wasn’t going to be a part of it. Sunny viewed what came later as retaliation. I often heard Jara was known to not like being told no, and that he was vindictive.

John and Ken were around back then, Mark was not. If I were Mark, I’d ask John to clean up his own mess re what he said on US 1 Radio about heads has rolled. I addressed that FOIA to John.

John did all he could to get Jara chosen to stay on. Maybe John should be in charge of answering both of my FOIAs.

Mark has far more important things to do than personally get involved in these two FOIA’s. If John won’t take care of them, if I were Mark, I’d tell Ken Gentile to take care of them.

Being a lawyer, Mark knows there are legal penalties for not responding to FOIA’s. Maybe he should explain them to John and Ken, to whom I made the heads had rolled and the Sunny Booker FOIAs respectively.

Sloan

P.S.

As for Ken’s CPA status, I wrote several times that it was a bunch of senseless noise, because the school board who hired him had before them in plain English from the firm they hired to vet Ken’s resume, that they could not verify that Ken was a CPA in Florida, but they were able to verify that he had been one quite a few years before in New York. My position was back then, is now, if Ken is fired, then the school board members still around, who voted to hire him, should quit because they hired Ken knowing he was not a Florida CPA. I think that would be John Dick and Andy Griffiths and Duncan Matthewson. My recollection is, Robin Smith-Martin and Ron Smith were elected later to the school board. My concern is, can Ken do the job he is being paid to do, and is he doing that job ? If so, leave the CPA thing lay. Being a CPA is not part of his job requirement. I think now that Ken is Chief Operating Officer, that is Mark’s call?

Sloan

P.P.S. My dream maker said I didn’t go far enough. I am supposed to ask State Attorney Dennis Ward to investigate the school district’s failure to answer my FOIAs. I will do that today, by sending him this post with a special heads up.
To assist him, here is the pertinent chain of emails on FOIA to John Dick, which are followed by the Sunny Booker FOIA chain of emails:

Subject: RE: Rolling Heads
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:54:15 -0400
From: Sally.Smith@KeysSchools.com
To: Jesus.Jara@KeysSchools.com; keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Mr. Bashinsky,

I have received your request. It will be sent to the appropriate staff for fulfillment. As Dr. Jara indicated, you will receive a cost estimate prior to commencing with fulfillment. Thank you.

Sally M. Abrams Smith
Administrative Aide to Members of the Board | District Legal Dept
Monroe County School District
241 Trumbo Road |
Key West, FL 33040 | O: (305) 293-1400 x53323 | F: (305) 293-1408
E:Sally.Smith@KeysSchools.com| W: www.KeysSchools.com

From: Jesus Jara
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 3:40 PM
To: sloan bashinsky; Rick Boettger; John Dick; Ken Gentile; Sally Smith
Cc: Mark Howell; Coconut Telegraph; johnlguerra@gmail.com; Gwen Filosa; skinney@keynoter.com; bigpinenews@aol.com; news@us1radio.com; Larry Murray
Subject: RE: Rolling Heads
Importance: High

I am copying Sally Smith in our office- She will be able to log as a public records request. Sally will respond accordingly.
We will send an estimated costs for the request before we complete the work.

Mr. Bashinsky- should we communicate with you directly?
Thanks for your interest in Monroe County Public Schools!

Jesus Jara

From: sloan bashinsky [mailto:keysmyhome@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 11:47 AM
To: Rick Boettger; John Dick; Jesus Jara; Ken Gentile
Cc: Mark Howell; Coconut Telegraph; johnlguerra@gmail.com; Gwen Filosa; skinney@keynoter.com; bigpinenews@aol.com; news@us1radio.com; Larry Murray
Subject: RE: Rolling Heads

Sorry Rick, I don’t agree.

If we don’t get the names of the dismissed administrative staff, how do we know for sure anyone was dismissed?

Florida operates in the sunshine, this school district does also, therefore.

This is public information, it can be obtained by a Public Records Request (aka Freedom of Information Act request).

While I am not yet convinced any administrative heads rolled recently, John, please consider this email a Public Records Request for the human names of any school district administrative staff cut from employment in the past 30 days, in the past 60 days, in the past 90 days, and their respective job descriptions, salaries and supplememental pay, and severance payments.

To insure this request reaches all responsible, I am adding Superintendent Jara and his chief assistant Ken Gentile to this email email chain.

Regards,

Sloan Bashinsky
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:25:53-0400
Subject: Re: Rolling Heads
From: rd.boettger@gmail.com
To: John.Dick@keysschools.com
CC: keysmyhome@hotmail.com; Jesus.Jara@keysschools.com; Ken.Gentile@keysschools.com; mhowell@keysnews.com; island@bigpinekey.com; johnlguerra@gmail.com; gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com; bigpinenews@aol.com; news@us1radio.com; citizenlarry007@yahoo.com

John, your position on not revealing non-elected names is not unreasonable, and I appreciate your emailing Sloan with it.

However, the issue of administrative jobs is important. Also, during campaigns is the only time that we the voters get to have any controlling say in the overall running of our schools. That high informative purpose should be weighed against privacy issues–which are not clear to me at any rate–and some attempt should be made, I feel, to give us, the voters,some factual information about administrative changes.

Names are not important to me. But could you please tell us, the voters, how many positions, what general kind of positions, when they were eliminated or how they were consolidated, and how much salary and benefits money was saved on each and overall.

Thank you again for your response and service over these many years.

Respectfully,

Rick Boettger
On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 7:44 AM, John Dick John.Dick@keysschools.com> wrote:

Sloan,

As an elected official I am well aware that my name will come across in the media and I have no control as to whether it will be reported in a good or bad way. I of course have control on what I do, but how it is reported is left up to the interpretation of others. In my opinion the media have always been very fair to me, and I feel they try to treat everyone with respect, but of course they do have articles or stories to report.

I have elected to not respond to Dr. Murray because I am well aware that any response will be sent directly to the media as part of his campaign. We have made changes and since these people are not elected officials I do not feel it is proper for me to bandy about their names for his campaign fodder.

I would ask respectfully that you do not put this reply in your blog.

John

Subject: RE: Freedom of Information Act Request – ACE ED Options abuse allegations outcome
Date: Sun, 13 May 2012 10:24:34 -0400
From: Ken.Gentile@KeysSchools.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
CC: John.Dick@keysschools.com; Jesus.Jara@KeysSchools.com

Sloan,
First, my apology in not getting back to you sooner. I was involved in the financial allegations related to Sunny Booker which I investigated and reported. The academic allegations were being addressed by Mr. Richard Collins in conjunction with the curriculum team. I know there was quite a bit of research and review being conducted. I have reached out to him to get a final status. As you may or not be aware Richard has been undergoing some medical procedures.

Typically statuses of ongoing investigations are not reported while they are ongoing but I agree that there needs to be an official closure and decision reached. I will get an answer and inform you of the results.
Ken

From: sloan bashinsky[mailto:keysmyhome@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2012 7:30 AM
To: John Dick; Ken Gentile
Cc: Gwen Filosa; skinney@keynoter.com
Subject: Freedom of Information Act Request – ACE ED Options abuse allegations outcome

vaya con dios, Sunny Booker

Sunday, May 6th, 2012

From: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
To: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
CC: john.dick@keysschools.com; ken.gentile@keysschools.com; gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com; dennisward@aol.com
Subject: Heads up, John Dick, Ken Gentile
Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 16:35:12 -0400

Ppadding:0pxfamily:Tahoma

Hi, Larry.

I’d heard something like that change was in the works. However, Michael Kinneer is an accountant, not a criminal investigator. Same can be said for Theresa Axford, not a criminal investigator.

Am now wondering why the female employee making the allegations did not go to the State Attorney? Maybe she went to EEOC?

Way things have gone in the past with this school district, I won’t be holding my breath on how the investigation proceeds and ends up.

Wonder what the “reassigned” principal is doing on the taxpayer’s dime, while he hangs out in the administrative offices in Key West?

Wonder how the sex harassment allegation is affecting his married life, and his three school-age daughters?

Wonder if polygraph will be offered to the accuser and the accused?

Wonder if polygraph should be offered to lots of school district employees, some names come quickly mind

You know, Larry, I never did get a reply to my Freedom of Information Act Request, made to John Dick and Ken Gentile, re the internal investigation of Sunny Booker re abuse of ED Options when she ran the ACE program. I wonder if John and Ken think I’m going to forget about it? I’m not going to forget about it.

Again, John and Ken, I ask you what I asked you in the email last below, to which neither of you replied:

What became of the allegations that the ACE program abused the ED Options online make up course? I ask that question under the Freedom of Information Act. Sunny and the public are entitled to know.

I believe it is a crime not to furnish information requested under the Freedom of Information Act. If there was no investigation of Sunny Booker and the ACE program re ED Options abuse, then say so. If there was an investigation, what did it entail, and what was the final outcome?

I do not read the settlement agreement between Sunny and MCSD as pertaining to what Sunny was smeared with in The Citizen and Keynoter, and in a school board meeting I attended, by Superintendent Jara, re her alleged abuse of the ED Options program while she ran the ACE program.

I am asking for a direct answer from you, John and/or Ken, in plain English any first-grader can understand.

Sloan

From: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
To: john.dick@keysschools.com; ken.gentile@keysschools.com
CC: gfilosa@keysnews.com; skinney@keynoter.com
Subject: Freedom of Information Act Request – ACE ED Options abuse allegations outcome
Date: Sun, 6 May 2012 07:30:17 -0400

vaya con dios, Sunny Booker

Sunday, May 6th, 2012

Sunny

Sunny Booker texted me this re yesterday’s Sunny Booker exonerated: the price for pissing off Mother Nature post, she was given my cell phone number by a mutual acquaintance:

“Sloan, it’s Sunny. Read your blog. Trying to work positively and collaboratively through my contract with MSCD because I took the job for the kids and that hasn’t changed. I am trying to leave with some dignity. It hasn’t been easy but your blog helped a bit.”

Thus begins today’s sequel to yesterday’s post. Lots of questions are asked, answers are attempted, which seem to make sense to me and do not reflect well on the School District. However, one question I am unable to answer, because there has been a dearth of silence from the School District about it.

That question is: What became of the allegations that the ACE program, under Sunny Booker, abused the ED Options online make up course? There is no mention of those allegations in the settlement agreement reported in yesterday’s post.

Nowhere I asked, was that question answered. It is as if those allegations simply disappeared.

Thus, in this post today, I ask that question of the School District and School Board: What became of the allegations that the ACE program abused the ED Options online make up course? I ask that question under the Freedom of Information Act. Sunny and the public are entitled to know.

You can read all about it by clicking on this link: vaya con dios, Sunny Booker, which is supposed to take you to today’s crowing at goodmorningkeywest.com, where this post formatted best today.

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

As things now stand today, September 21 , 2012, I have heard nothing further on either FIOA request, despite promises from Sally Smith and Ken Gentile, and despite several reminders from me to the school district that I had not received the requested FOIA information.

Sloan Bashinsky, Dist. 3 write-in school board candidate

goodmorningfloridakeys.com

goodmorningkeywest.com