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Archive - February 2009
So, I went to the town hall meeting on school funding at the King Center last night. Got there at 7pm. Left there by 7:30pm. What a colossal waste of time. I was absolutely blown away by the number of people who showed up, and that was at least somewhat encouraging. By the time I got there, they'd already locked the doors because there was no more room inside, so they set up speakers and a couple of display screens outside the King Center for the overflow crowd. But almost everyone there was on a mission: Save (insert name of school that my kid happens to go to) School! That was it. Nobody seemed to be there to ask any tough questions about funding priorities, or eliminating wasteful spending, and certainly nobody asking why the next superintendent is getting a raise or why we have three area superintendents on the payroll under the overall superintendent. It was all "Don't close my school! Close someone else's!" (I hope to God we don't make school-closing decisions based on how many signs people were holding up for each school. "Okay, I count 12 signs for Seaside but only 8 signs for Hoover. I guess we'll close Hoover then.") Thousands and thousands of people, all missing the point entirely. It's not about how much money is spent... it's about how that money gets spent. We could double school funding tomorrow, and if it all gets spent on bureaucrats' salaries in Viera, it won't do one bit of good. And how the money gets spent mainly gets determined by the School Board. But the School Board members weren't up on the stage, just Brevard's delegation to the State House and State Senate in Tallahassee from what I could see on the outdoor screens. There may have been School Board members in the crowd, but not up on the stage. And from what I could hear, every one of our esteemed legislators simply got up there and said they would do everything they could to bring home as much funding for Brevard County's schools as possible, which is the exact same thing every other county's delegation is going to be saying for the next three months. And none of that talk is going to magically make any extra money materialize for schools or make sure it's spent wisely, so all it's good for is earning applause from the crowd. Oh, the applause... true story. As I wandered around outside the King Center to take in the scene and figure out if it was still possible to get inside, I rounded a corner of the building and hit an area where the sound from the outdoor speakers wasn't carrying very well at all. But there were still a lot of people hanging out there anyway, holding their Save X School signs and talking. One of the politicians must've said something popular, because a burst of cheering erupted from around the corner from the people who could hear the speech. After a second or two, everyone around me started cheering too, even though nobody around me could hear what had just been said. Then one person next to me, a grown man a little older than me, stopped cheering. He turned to his friend, about the same age, and yelled over the cheering, "What are we cheering for again?" The friend shouted back, "I have no idea!" Then they both started cheering again. I'd say that summed up the entire night right there.
With the Orlando Magic tipping off a game at 7:00pm on Saturday 2/28, The Vince Young Show will be pre-empted on AM-1300 WMEL. But don't fret! I'll be back on the air on Saturday, March 7th at 7:00pm for three more hours of live, local talk. I'll also still do a few blog updates later this week, and of course I'll be at Florida Today's town-hall meeting about
Brevard's school budget cuts at the King Center tonight at 7pm. Hopefully I can get an answer as to why
the new superintendent will be making $22,000 more per year than the old one, even though
we're talking about laying off teachers and closing schools.
Get ready for three hours of live, local talk! Here's a preview of what we'll be talking about tonight on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL from 7pm to 10pm. Oh, don't forget to call in during the show! (321)631-1300.
Then there's the case of Colorado high school student Marie Morrow, who was expelled from her school earlier this month for violating Colorado's zero-tolerance law for weapons in school. Her crime? She had fake wooden prop rifles from her Young Marines drill team in her car in the school parking lot. She had to appeal her case to the local school superintendent, who reduced her expulsion to a six-day suspension, basically time-served, and allowed her to return to school immediately. But the suspension remains on her disciplinary record. And finally, there's this local story from Palm Bay. At first glance, it's a mildly entertaining crime caper, nothing more. Police respond to a home burglary and vandalism case and follow a trail of candy wrappers directly from the scene of the crime to the front door of another house, where they found a group of teenagers who confessed to the burglary and turned over the stolen loot. Recovered items included computers and other electronics, plus two firearms. Happy ending, right? But check the Comments on FloridaToday.com, specifically this comment from a user named DankRimski on 2/18/2009 at 11:34: "Why did they give the firearms back to a guy who doesn't secure them?" Earth to DankRimski: he did secure them. They were locked in his house, which these teenagers broke into in direct violation of one of the most basic laws in our country, and stole his guns in direct violation of another one of the most basic laws in our country. And instead of blaming the people who broke two laws, you're blaming the law-abiding gun owner who did nothing wrong? How dare he be the victim of a home break-in! What is it about the very concept of firearm ownership that makes some people lose all common sense and perspective? I have only one quibble with the teacher Betsy Ramsdale: gun safety. The first rule of firearms is that every gun is loaded, and the second rule of firearms is that every gun is loaded. Pointing a gun right at someone so they can take a picture down the barrel of your rifle is reckless, and it's a poor example for a teacher to set for her students, some of whom will go on to own their own firearms someday. The school district was absolutely right to tell her to pull the photo down from her Facebook profile. But they didn't do it for that reason. They did it because parents and staffers complained that she was encouraging gun violence, and they basically suspended her for a week while they investigated her. I get the feeling most of those same people would complain if the photo just showed her holding the rifle off to the side in a safer pose. Guns are evil, don't you know. As for the high school student Marie Morrow, technically, yes, having fake wooden prop rifles in your car is against Colorado's zero-tolerance law because they can be mistaken for real rifles. She should've known the law, especially living so close to Columbine. But why does the law call for an automatic expulsion over something like this? This could've all been resolved in an hour. Someone sees the prop rifles in the back seat of the car and reports them, you call in Marie Morrow, she explains what the deal is, and you have her drive the prop rifles back home and come back to school. She misses a class or two and learns her lesson, and that's it! It's over! Expelling her over a simple mistake like this is so overkill, it makes Gilbert Gottfried look restrained by comparison! Find me one news story anywhere in the world where a gun killed somebody all by itself, with no intervention at all by a human being. Just one. Guns in and of themselves are not dangerous. They only become dangerous in the hands of the wrong person. None of these three people are dangerous, and yet there are people out there who want all three of them to be treated like criminals. Gov. Crist: let's make our property tax system MORE complicated!
So then we passed Amendment 1 last year to make Save Our Homes "portable," and those people were happy, because now they could move from one part of Florida to another and still keep their Save Our Homes property tax exemption. But first-time home-buyers from within Florida, business owners, snowbirds, and renters weren't happy, because now they were getting stuck paying the property taxes that the other people weren't paying because the stateof Florida still had to get that money from somewhere. (Spending cuts? How brutish and uncivilized!) So now, Governor Charlie Crist and State Senator Mike Haridopolos want to take our already ridiculously convoluted property tax system and make it even more convoluted! Guys... stop tinkering with a bad system and just replace it with something else. Something better. We already fund the state government quite well with a retail sales tax. Why not let cities and counties fund themselves the same way, like with a localized version of the FairTax? Other stories
On my radio show last Saturday night (as well as in my program notes), I broke the news that the Brevard County School Board had approved a $22,000 pay increase for the new Superintendent who will be replacing Richard DiPatri when he retires this summer, even though the school budget is in such dire straits that they're talking about laying off teachers and closing schools. I pieced together that news from two different Florida Today articles from last week, and I was kind of surprised that nobody there at Florida Today had put two and two together, but I figured eventually they would. They still haven't. Neither has anyone else, either in the traditional media or in any of the alternative media here in Brevard. Am I literally the only person in Brevard County who has noticed this? Or do I have something way wrong? The fact that I'm the only person so far talking about something this big makes me want to get all my ducks in a row, so here we go. Here's how Florida Today initially broke this story in two parts without even realizing it. On Thursday, February 12th, Florida Today ran a story with the headline "DiPatri: Sacrifice pay for jobs' sake" by Megan Downs. The story was about Superintendent Richard DiPatri agreeing to give up his performance bonus for the 2008-2009 school year to help with the budget. Four paragraphs in, Downs wrote this:
On that same day, February 12th, another story ran in Florida Today with the headline "School board seeks input" by Michelle Spitzer. The story was about the School Board asking the public to give their opinions on what to look for in the next Superintendent. Seven paragraphs in, Spitzer wrote this:
So, the current Superintendent makes a base yearly salary of $217,941 while the next Superintendent will have a base yearly salary of $240,000. That's an increase of $22,059 for the Superintendent's pay at the exact same time we're talking about laying off teachers and closing down schools. And the School Board expects us to believe them when they say they've trimmed all the fat from their budget? Granted, $22,059 is a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the school district's overall budget. But each $22,000 drop has a way of adding up fast when you start putting them together. How many other $22,000 drops have they missed in the budget? Hey, School Board: show me the money!
(EDIT - 2/15/2009 at 10:00am - I goofed last night! At 7:00pm, WMEL was still airing a high school basketball game. But the game ended at 8:30pm, so I was still able to sneak in 90 solid minutes of live-and-local talk until 10:00pm. And I should have a full 3 hours again this coming Saturday, February 22nd. Sorry for the confusion!) Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a preview of what we'll be talking about tonight on The Vince Young Show, live-and-local on AM-1300 WMEL from 7pm to 10pm.
What I'm not hearing is much talk of cutting back at the School Board headquarters in Viera. DiPatri did promise to give up his performance bonus for the 2008-2009 school year, and he asked all of Brevard's school district employees to consider accepting lower pay so that people won't have to be laid off. But maybe some people do need to be laid off. Government is not a jobs program. Everyone who gets a paycheck from any government agency is there at the expense of you, you, you, me, and anyone else who pays taxes to that government. They should only get that paycheck if their job is vital to the continued operation of that agency. If it's not, then I'm sorry, but there is no justification for them to take money out of our pockets so they can keep working in their cushy government office. But instead of laying off bureaucrats, the School Board is looking at laying off teachers, cutting after-school programs, and closing schools. Meanwhile, after Richard DiPatri retires this summer, the next superintendent will make $240,000 a year, not counting benefits, bonuses or a retirement package. That's a raise over DiPatri's current base salary of $217,941! That's also about as much as the superintendents make in Charlotte or in Albequerque, and it would make our superintendent's pay the 7th-highest among the ten largest school districts in Florida, even though we're only the 10th-largest school district in the state. That's also nearly seven times as much as the salary for a new teacher. Is any superintendent worth more than seven teachers? I think not. And with decisions like this, I'm not at all convinced that the School Board has the right priorities with this budget. State looks for new sources of tax revenue
A lower tax bill should be good news, but it really isn't. (Yes, I really just typed that.) First of all, not everybody's tax bills dropped. As has often been pointed out, all of the various and sundry attempts to cap property taxes over the years have led to a messy, complicated system that creates all sorts of inequities. If you're a long-time established homeowner who has lived in the same house in Florida for 20 years, you're in great shape. But if you're, say, a young native Floridian in his late 20s who recently got married and is looking to buy his first home, you, my friend, are going to pay through the nose in property taxes. Ditto if you own a vacation home in Florida, or if you own a business and own the property your business sits on. Long-time homeowners get all the tax breaks, and everyone else gets all the tax bills. It's a horrible revenue system that seriously needs to be replaced. (Localized version of the FairTax, anyone?) Second of all, when government's tax revenues start to drop, we all know how governments react... rather than trimming down bloated and redundant bureaucracies or eliminating unneeded spending, they instead slash essential services and try to raise taxes. Raise taxes? Oh look, right on cue! Let's apply the state sales tax to Internet purchases, raise cigarette taxes so that the state government makes more of a profit on tobacco than the eeeeeevil tobacco companies, and get rid of sales tax exemptions, all at a time when everybody's disposable income is dropping due to salary cuts and lay-offs! That'll end well! Brevard Section 8 still missing $2.5 million
How does this clown still have a job? He's either incompetent for losing track of $2.5 million, or he's a crook. I don't care which one turns out to be the case. Fire Ron Sellers now! Cocoa Village "outdoor" ice rink might return next year!
Guess what: it failed to turn a profit, and cost the city of Cocoa $46,000 in taxpayer money. Guess what else: they're thinking of doing it again for Christmas 2009! President Obama's Government Stimulus Package
Other stories
The Vince Young Show made its grand return to the radio airwaves last Saturday night on AM-1300 WMEL! Kind of a rough start due to working with an unfamiliar control board, but I managed to fill 3 hours while sounding semi-coherent, so hey, I'll take it. And I'll get the chance to sound a bit more polished next Saturday night, 7pm to 10pm on AM-1300 WMEL. As promised, here are links to some of the stories we discussed on the air, so you can make sure I'm not just feeding you a total line. :)
Based on Matt Reed's analysis of how a similar effort worked over in Hillsborough County, I'm not optimistic. They increased adoptions significantly, but not enough to offset the tide of incoming animals, so they simply had no choice but to continue euthanizing almost as many animals as before to make sure they didn't run out of space. And if a major metropolitan area with far more resources couldn't make this work during better economic times, what makes us think we can make this work in Brevard during a recession without spending more tax money? Don't get me wrong... finding a way to reduce euthanizations is a good thing. But just because a deed is good doesn't mean government should force the taxpayers to pay for that good deed... especially while people are losing their jobs and struggling to pay their mortgages. "Sorry, we know you need money to pay your bills, but this shelter dog gave us such a cute look today, and we just couldn't bring ourselves to euthanize him, so we need to take your money to feed him instead." If people want to support no-kill animal shelters, they can make charitable donations to private no-kill shelters voluntarily. Red-light cameras
Obama's stimulus package
Other stories:
The Vince Young Show will air every Saturday night from 7pm to 10pm on the Talk-To-Me Station AM-1300 WMEL, broadcasting from Cocoa, FL. The debut episode will be this Saturday, February 7th, which is just 3 days from now, so make sure you tune in! Better yet, make sure you call in! (321)631-1300. We'll talk about local politics, national news, and anything that affects your life here in Brevard County, especially Central Brevard. The media in this county tends to focus more on Melbourne and Palm Bay since more people live there, so there's a lot that goes on in Cocoa, Cocoa Beach, Rockledge and Merritt Island that gets overlooked. I want to make sure everyone in Brevard can have their voice heard. As Saturday gets closer, I'll start updating this site with links to some of the news stories I plan to discuss, along with my initial thoughts on those stories. And if there's something you want me to look into or talk about, send me an e-mail at vince.young@gmail.com. Talk to you on Saturday night! :)
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Gun paranoia strikes again
Okay, maybe I'm just missing something here.
Brevard School Board considers budget cutbacks
Making Brevard's animal shelters "no-kill"
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I am
returning to radio!!!
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