This is a notice from my friend George Nafziger about a candidate forum for the Butler County commissioner and the Clerk of Courts. These kinds of things are great opportunities to let your public servants realize that they are in fact servants and not deities behind a name plate on their desk. Events like this are what make government work and if you are one of my local readers and will be in town during the time period indicated below, you should plan to attend.
Below is the notice:
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Folks,
We’re having a candidate forum on 9 February. If you would be so kind as to share this with your members, we’d be most appreciative.
The following will be present at a Candidate Forum to be held at 7:00 p.m., on 9 Feburary, at the Lakota West Freshman School on Tylersville Rd., approximately 1/2 mile east of Rt 747: Mary Swain, Jeff Wyrick, Corky Combs, T.C. Rogers, Jodi Billerman, Daryl Olthaus, and Don Dixon. Commissioner Furmon has declined 2 invitations to come.
The forum will be in two parts. First will be Clerk of Courts, second Commissioners. The Clerk of Court Candidates portion will be 15 minutes. Jeff and Mary will both get two-minute opening statements. The will be asked 4-5 questions and will be given 1 minute to answer. We will have a time-keeper, so they know how much time will remain.
The Commissioner candidates will also have 2 minute opening statements. They will receive 8-10 questions with one minute to answer.
Perhaps it’s part of Superintendent Mantia’s Global Education program, or maybe it’s just sheer stupidity, but for some reason, Lakota is promoting the work of Ron Henrich, a social studies teacher at Hopewell Junior School at Lakota and his recent trip to China to help teach there. You can read the story for yourself on Lakota’s website at the link below.
It is not wise to fund our own demise, then brag about it as though it were a benefit of great merit. To learn more about China, I suggest you watch this very good film by Richard Gere called Red Corner (1987). I present it here in its totality. So grab a snack and enjoy a peek into a country run by communists who are seeking Lakota teachers to help educate their society.
By the way, Red Corner is banned in China. You can’t even see it on YouTube. And the execution scene was real, provided to the director at great risk to themselves. 1987 was not that long ago folks.
The goal of the global socialists, those of Socialist International is to destroy the United States with a smile on their faces while they embrace us in the chambers of the United Nations. (See my article on Socialist International here):
Upon this announcement The Cincinnati Enquirer interviewed me for my comments. I gave a frustrated response to the questions which can be read here. The answer to Lakota’s budget trouble is rather easy.
At some point Ohio will have a Right-to-Work amendment to our Ohio Constitution which will break up the union monopoly forever. This will happen because Indiana is going to get it, and Ohio will have to follow to remain competitive economically.Once the unions no longer run our public schools, we can then see how much money education will really costs. But not until that time should any additional funds be allocated for public education under any circumstances. Because it is obvious that the school board and administrations have no control or courage to even ask the labor force to take a 5% cut to save those 42 jobs that are in jeopardy. I know a portion of the teachers of Lakota are willing to take a pay cut, because I asked one of them on 700 WLW, and they said in the affirmative, “Yes I would take a pay cut to save the jobs of teachers.” Listen for yourself.
The politician brings nothing but lies, and are utterly worthless, and must be overhauled in the minds of America for what they are, based on what they do, and not on what they say. For more on this sleazy salesman proposal read my detailed article on the concept here:
Speaker of the House Congressman John Boehner Butler County Office 7969 Cincinnati-Dayton Road Suite B West Chester, Ohio 45069
Subject: Appointment of Richard Cordray for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Dear Mr. Boehner:
It is certainly not against Mr. Cordray that I address this to you, nor is it the involvement of presidential politics in an election year. It is simply a matter of the current President of the United States, Barack Obama taking steps, most notably the recent appointment of Richard Cordray for a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to abuse his power as president by-passing congressional approval for initiatives he desires to set in motion.
The law means nothing if it is ignored, or manipulated out of convenience, and the President has openly participated in “high crimes and misdemeanors” as defined by Article 2 section 4 of The Constitution with his willingness to abuse his power to bypass the checks and balance system put in place with a congressional body. I understand fully that such an act by a Congress led by you is difficult and would go in the opposite direction of your attempts to work in a bi-partisan way with the president and his political party.
I sympathize that any act of impeachment or censure that would be mandated by a majority vote of Congress most likely does not have the two-thirds vote in the Senate to pursue such a measure to its end. But that does not eliminate the necessity for action by the branch of government that you represent on my behalf. I am troubled to consider what inaction by this Congress will mean in the future, if this abuse of power is not checked against the balances of protection the Constitution creates to prevent extreme activism on behalf of this President and future Presidents who will point at this time and the case-law that follows to maneuver and erode away the United States Constitution even more.
The acts of aggression were not done by you or your Congress, and I would hope that you would do as you swore to and protect our Constitution with your office and not feel you must shoulder the blame on yourself or your political party. But feel free to declare it was me, your constituent who demanded action in the pursuit of justice, because it must be done, or worse will befall us in the years to come.
The Delphi Technique is the creation of Saul Alinsky and is commonly used by community organizers derived from the written work by that known radical. This is why Obama is so good at it. President Obama as a lawyer has learned the very dangerous game of using The Delphi Technique to create a consensus in public opinion as he tests the waters in violating the Constitution bypassing congress to pass new laws. In the following clip you can see that prior to his executive orders as he tested the waters to build consensus among his political base prior to taking the unconstitutional actions against congress. What he’s doing is using the Delphi Technique to build support in mass by using the falsehood of a mythical democracy to use mass to defeat the Constitutional Republic that is the United States.
“This is just another spin for trying to manipulate the public. If Lakota wants to be sensitive to the public’s needs, they need to present to their teachers’ union a proposal to reduce their labor costs by 5% instead of asking the tax payers to pay even more,” Hoffman said.”
LAKOTA RELEASES INFORMATION ABOUT THE DEPARTURE OF A SENIOR EMPLOYEE 1/6/2012-1/26/2012 School District agreed to settlement Lakota Local School District has paid $90,000 to its Executive Director of School-Community Relations as part of an agreement to end her employment. The district agreed to the settlement after discovering an internal administrative oversight that raised questions about whether the district had complied with Laura tim contract. The oversight involved Lakota’s failure to complete an evaluation for Ms. Kursman during her employment. The failure to complete an evaluation for Ms. Kursman occurred before many current members of Lakota’s Executive Team, including Superintendent Karen Mantia, came to the district. Dr. Mantia, who started her job in August 2011, noted it’s common for a new chief executive to make changes in senior personnel. “The district needs to move forward and the demand for communication and public outreach is critical at this time. This agreement ensures we can do just that,” Lakota said in a Dec. 12 statement. Ms. Kursman did not sue Lakota. But her lawyer, Elizabeth Loring, sent an Oct. 11 letter to the district, raising legal claims. Such a letter is a typical preliminary step before an employment action is filed. Ms. Kursman’s lawyer did not raise the issue about Lakota failing to complete an evaluation for Ms. Kursman. It was the district that discovered that oversight. Dr. Mantia and other Lakota administrators have taken steps to ensure that employee evaluation processes are followed properly. Ms. Kursman’s lawyer, however, did make other legal claims alleging, in part, that the district had asked Ms. Kursman to engage in improper activities. After Dr. Mantia learned about the allegations, she directed Williams Deters, the district’s attorney, to conduct an internal inquiry. Mr. Deters found no evidence to substantiate the allegations nor did he find any complaints, made by Ms. Kursman before she left the district, alleging improper activities. The inquiry included reviewing district records and interviewing School Board members as well as past and present members of Lakota’s administrative team. “As Lakota’s chief executive, I needed to find out if there was any truth to the claims,” Dr. Mantia said. Ms. Kursman’s employment ended Dec. 13 after the School Board unanimously approved her negotiated separation agreement. The $90,000 payment included $2,000 in legal fees to her lawyer. Ms. Kursman could have potentially earned a total of $285,000 if she had stayed with the district until her contract ended on July 31, 2014. Ms. Kursman had worked for the district since April 2008. Her latest annual salary was $79,517. She’d been on leave from Sept. 2 to Dec. 13, 2011. The district is seeking a replacement for Ms. Kursman. That process is expected to be completed no later than March. Contact: Elliot Grossman, elliot.grossman@lakotaonline.com; 513-240-9801 Date: January 6, 2012
INFORMATION ABOUT THE KURSMAN SETTLEMENT –How much did Lakota pay Laura Kursman as part of the agreement that ended her employment? $90,000, which includes $2,000 payable to her attorneys. –How did the district arrive at that amount? It was a negotiated settlement. Ms. Kursman could have potentially earned a total of $285,000 if she had stayed with the district until her contract ended on July 31, 2014. –Why did the district agree to this settlement? Lakota agreed to the settlement so it could make a personnel change in her position and because of an administrative oversight by the district. The administrative oversight raised questions about whether the district had complied with her contract. –What were the administrative oversights? Lakota neglected to complete an evaluation for her during her employment. –A letter from Ms. Kursman’s lawyer alleged that Ms. Kursman lodged several detailed verbal and written complaints regarding “potentially unlawful activities” in which she was requested to engage. She was also “unwittingly instructed to falsify information to the press.” Is there any truth to these allegations? Lakota does not have any records that Ms. Kursman lodged such complaints. Additionally, because of the serious nature of these allegations, Superintendent Karen Mantia directed Lakota attorney William Deters to conduct an internal inquiry into the claims. He found no evidence to substantiate them. –In the same letter, Ms. Kursman’s lawyer alleged that Ms. Kursman’s “complaints were met not with concern and remedial action, but retaliatory treatment.” Again, Lakota does not have any records that Ms. Kursman lodged such complaints. And Mr. Deters found no evidence to substantiate the claims. –Ms. Kursman’s lawyer further alleged that hostile acts were taken against Ms. Kursman, including “false and disparaging statements to Ms. Kursman’s media contacts, setting of unrealistic deadlines and expectations, unwarranted and disparate scrutiny of her work, and reprimands for working at home to accommodate her disability.” Mr. Deters found no evidence to substantiate these claims. –Her lawyer also alleged that Lakota was trying to replace her while she was on leave for a disability. Is that true? No. After Ms. Kursman went on leave, Lakota began using a consultant – a temporary, part-time independent contractor — to help perform some of her work because there was no one else at Lakota available to do her work. –Her lawyer asked for copies of policies, plans and rules applicable to district employment, discrimination and other subjects. Do you know why? This is a standard request during a legal dispute. Mr. Deters found no evidence that any district policy, plans or rules were violated, except the failure to complete Ms. Kursman’s evaluation. –Did the district overpay Ms. Kursman at some point? Yes, in prior years, the district inadvertently overpaid her. In 2010, the district and Ms. Kursman agreed to a payback plan. When she left the district, Ms. Kursman was still repaying the district. As part of the separation agreement, the district agreed to waive $1,513 she owed the district. –Can Ms. Kursman apply for future Lakota job openings? No. The agreement precludes her from doing so. –Should Lakota have been more forthcoming sooner with this information? Lakota takes seriously its responsibility to be as open as possible with the community. But the district needs to balance that responsibility with its legal, financial and managerial responsibilities. In this case, the district felt it needed to let the agreement with Kursman be executed before it provided more information. That execution included making the payments to Ms. Kursman after the School Board approved the agreement and waiting until Ms. Kursman’s seven-day time frame to change her mind about the agreement had expired.