Last Wednesday night, instead of working, or doing something fun, I
went in for a two hour reminder of why Democracy no longer works in America.
(full disclosure- my firm has done some work and printing for the
following candidates or their businesses, Jocelyn Rhynard, Shenise
Turner-Sloss, Darryl Fairchild, Karen Wick-Gagnet)
When this country started, it was easy to pick people for elected
office. You’d have a town hall of all the white male property owners, they all
knew each other, and they chose the people based on personal knowledge and it
was done.
Now, we just let anyone on the ballot, at least anyone that can make
it through the political parties barricades and hurdles enforced by the board
of (S)elections, and then to raise as much money as possible to run for an
office that very few of the candidates and even fewer of the voters really
understand.
Both the Dayton City Commission and the Dayton Board of Education
positions are limited in their actual scope and power. This is by design. They
are only allowed to hire a few people, and are there as a corporate board, to
guide and review the performance of the leader they hire, be that person called
a City Manager or a Superintendent. Instead, we’ve got ego-maniacal demi-gods
running who think they not only steer the ship, but also are the guys running
the engines, standing guard duty, manning the radar, cooking the food and even
scrubbing the decks- all for a mere pittance on the school board and on a salary
way richer than it should be for the city commissioners, who only have to show
up for one meeting a week.
That said. Sorry about the audio in this video. The PA provided by the
City of Dayton at the Northwest Recreation Center badly needed a new XLR cable,
but, we’re too busy giving away millions to downtown investors to spring for
$15 for a new cable (or less if you go to CCT). I’m even sorrier for what was
recorded.
Of the school board candidates, only one actually talked about what we
might need to do to change the way we deliver education in the classrooms to
move achievement forward- that from Mario Gallin, a former school member who
works at Ruskin for East End Community Services and still attends every board
meeting. The Ruskin/EECS educational delivery method is based upon the Geoffrey
Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone model of comprehensive wrap around services. The
only other candidate to mention anything of the like was slate member Paul
Bradley who spoke of the Oyler school in Cincinnati which he knows about
because his fiancee worked there.
The seating and speaking arrangements were telling. First came “the
slate” from the left, then the soloists, who have their own alignments, and the
sole incumbent, Joe Lacey who cited parenting duties for calling him away and
leaving early. Then the Commission candidates, less Joey Williams. In an
unprecedented concession, Priority Board Chairman David Greer allowed Jeff Mims
to have Williams time allotment, which judging by Mims reactions to questioning
the city’s loss of funds due to internal errors, was a mistake. Mims got
defensive and blamed the mess on former planning director Aaron Sorrel, which
Darryl Fairchild was quick to call him on. Somehow, despite massive failures in
her past, City Manager Shelley Dickstein always gets a hall pass, no matter how
much taxpayer money is wasted, and the city commission is never to blame
either.
The “slate” is four candidates running together for the school board.
Insiders believe them to be hand-picked by Mayor Nan Whaley. Mohamed
Al-Hamdani, William E. Harris Jr., Paul Bradley, and Karen Wick-Gagnet have
hired a campaign manager (Nan’s old campaign manager) Uriah Anderson, who works
for the ever popular Burges & Burges out of Cleveland. They are the folks
Sinclair and the Health and Human Services levies both hired (hence the dual
billboards around town). This kind of money, power and help hasn’t been seen
since the “Kids First” slate ran in 2001 with the sole goal of putting a ton of
money into the hands of demolition contractors, construction companies,
architects and adding a $645 Million jolt to an ailing Dayton economy.
If you want to read an interesting excerpt on Kids First, follow this
link. They spent over $200K on a campaign where all their opponents collectively
spent $13,000 between 5 candidates. Note that the four seats that are up this
time- were filled by unopposed candidates (Lacey, Roundtree, Lee and Baguirov).
The last cycle, we had 4 candidates for 3 seats, and newcomer John McManus
spent north of $35K to unseat Nancy Nearny by a mere couple of hundred votes
forcing an automatic recount, while the other incumbents Walker and Taylor
waltzed on in.
When asked (by me, via Chairmen Greer) why the slate hired an outside
consultant, and how much they paid them, the room seemed to turn on Mohamed
Al-Hamdani who tried to pass off the question with “we haven’t paid them
anything yet” – while defacto saying their campaign manager worked for Burges.
The slate is keeping quiet about how much they’ve raised or spent, and because
the first reporting deadline isn’t until Oct 28th- the voters will have very
little time to learn who is buying their candidates and for how much.
Needless to say, if you look back to the Kids First promises, and the
whys, the district is in the exact same sorry shape now as then. Still at the
bottom of the barrel for educational achievement, yet with a much higher staff
turnover, more turmoil, a third less students, funded by an ever shrinking
property tax base (often thanks to Nan Whaley and her love of tax abatement as
economic development). The only difference between that slate and this one is
that the Kids First slate actually would openly embrace charter schools, while
anyone running for school board now has to categorically blame them for the
failing of the district.
I still plan to listen to the candidates again, yet, I threw up a
little when I heard Reverend Harris saying that he was going to concentrate on
truancy as his platform. This is the simpletons solution to educational improvement-
and why I also laughed at Dr. Roberson’s entire presentation of his case for
why he should be superintendent. The other single issue candidate seems to be
Jo’el Jones, who thinks all of our problems can be solved by the office of
family and community engagement rising from the ashes. I agree it’s needed,
but, it won’t solve the problems of this sinking ship.
While there is no doubt more to Jocelyn Rhynard than her four kids in
the district, and her involvement in her kids school, River’s Edge, I didn’t
feel she had a fully formed plan and was way too nice in her response about how
she’d work with current superintendent Rhonda Corr. Going back to being on the
campaign trail with former Dayton City Commissioner Dick Zimmer, it’s always
bothered me that procreation counted as qualification for office- he’d start
out with “I was born in Dayton, grew up in Dayton, had 9 kids and 19
grandchildren” – as if he chose where to be born, grow up. Mim’s also tells the
same sorry story about how he told his family to move to Dayton when he was 3
months old. Rhynard, like Gallin, actually attends school board meetings
regularly. Jo’el Jones is also sometimes there. I’ve never seen any of the
slate attend.
We need more than platitudes and feel good stories- which is also part
of Mohamed’s approach. He’s got a great story to tell of how he came as an
immigrant and Dayton’s been good to him, but, he moved back into the city the
same day he filed to run, a part he conveniently leaves out.
Hopefully, in the Wednesday night Dayton Education Council candidates
night at Ponitz High school (741 W. Washington Street) – starting at 6pm we’ll
here speeches sounding more like cogent solutions to stop the turmoil, turnover
and terrible achievement scores instead of homilies and grand standing.
If any candidates need an example of what a plan to improve
school/student performance looks like, I offer this video I made last December
to make a case for a trans-formative plan to discussion. Of course, since no
one on the board cares about anything except their own agenda- it was never
discussed.
If you are looking to research candidates online- here are the
websites I can find:
Mohamed Al-Hamdani, William
E. Harris Jr. Paul Bradley Karen Wick-Gagnet all have a single facebook site
(not accessible to all) https://www.facebook.com/theABHWGCommittee/
Jocelyn Rhynard
Jo’el Jones facebook only
incumbent, Joe Lacey old
blog.
Shenise Turner-Sloss
Darryl Fairchild
incumbent Jeffrey J. Mims
Jr. site dead
incumbent Joey Williams
Of course in most of my searches, more shows up about many of these
folks on esrati.com.
Thanks for reading.
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