Facts Get In The Way Of Germantown Press Editorials
I would have to completely disagree with Mr. Helmers’ assessment of the school board meeting of July 27 as published in his August 5 Germantown Press Letter to the Editor. As there are two sides to every story, I can provide a rendition of the meeting based on something more factual and not the emotional scolding that was eventually published.
Shame on you
The first error Mr. Helmers makes is the last minute change in the meeting date. While the meeting didn’t occur on its regular day, the date change had been posted on the District web site since May. The same web site Mr. Helmers quoted in his July 15 Letter to the Editor (the same letter that contained a litany of factual inaccuracies). It was even noted at the previous board meeting and public hearing that the next meeting date had slipped one day.
The School board did not refuse voter input on their decision. The School Board made it abundantly clear at the start of the meeting (during what Mr. Helmers describes as a brief introduction) that Public Participation was the third item on the agenda. To report that Board President, Jenny Michael, breezed by that part is highly inaccurate, especially since Mr. Helmers didn’t feel that it was made clear. (How would one know the public forum was breezed by when they didn’t know that was the time for public participation?) Mrs. Michael also was clear when agenda item number three was reached that, “at this time we will open the floor for Public Participation.”
I was certainly astounded, as I looked around the room that no one spoke up. And it appeared to me, that the board members were equally astounded that no one stood to speak. I say that they looked astounded because I watched as each board member surveyed the room looking to see who would stand and speak. What Mr. Helmers probably perceived as members cowardly looking down at their papers was them looking to see what agenda item four contained when Mrs. Michael finally said, “If no one has anything, we’ll move on to agenda item number four.”
It may have been the first school board meeting for those in attendance, maybe even their first government meeting of any kind. If so, then for future reference, Public Participation is when the public gets to stand up and speak. It’s done this way by every government entity in this area and virtually every meeting I’ve attended regionally. There is a reason parliamentary procedure exists. If people were allowed to speak up throughout the entire meeting, no business would ever get done and meetings would last well into the night.
In addition, there was a public hearing in which people had the opportunity to speak. For the headline to infer that the “School Board refused voter input on decision” because of failure to speak up at the proper time during one meeting, is ludicrous and inaccurate.
I didn’t see any arrogance emanate from the board, as a whole, or by any single member. I did see a significant amount of arrogance in both Mr. Helmers July 15 and July 27 letters. Arrogance that there is only one right answer when it comes to this issue. Arrogance that only one side has been wronged. This kind of grandstanding, that occurs regularly in the editorial section of the Germantown Press, is not “guiding your representatives in a productive manner.” This is nothing more than some ostentatious performance to ridicule our elected representatives into succumbing to the will of the minority. This isn’t productive guidance.
Researching and presenting the facts is productive guidance. The problem with this issue is the facts bear out that the school district will save money without any additional taxpayer dollars being spent and that certainly doesn’t suit the agenda of those wanting a new superintendent.
The missing components from the two letters to the editor are facts and “guidance”. Since the facts get in the way of what the minority want as a resolution, it’s easier to ridicule the school board. And since the solution is counter to the inaccuracies provided, it’s easier to say we need to give our elected representatives “direction.”
The facts on this issue are very simple. The superintendent has three years remaining on the contract. The superintendent intends to fulfill those three remaining years. If the school board allows her to retire and then rehire at a lower salary, the school district saves $63,000 over the next three years. If the school board bends to the whim of the less-than-silent minority then the superintendent doesn’t retire, completes the remaining three years left on the contract, and costs the school district $63,000 they didn’t have to spend.
This crazy loophole by the state is not limited to just administrators, as suggested by the distinguished Lois Campbell’s July 15 Letter to the Editor. Anyone is eligible including teachers and public employees and other local leaders in our police and fire departments that have also retired and subsequently rehired.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. It happens in the private sector as well. We should be directing that jealousy towards changing the state law. Denying an individual’s rights to take advantage of the law doesn’t fix the “problem.”
Don’t think that for one minute the Germantown Press isn’t culpable in this indictment of the school board. Over sensationalizing the headlines of “editorials” that provides no basis in fact makes for a great buzz, but it’s time the paper start writing editorials of their own. Does the editor of the paper even understand the issues in Germantown and Farmersville? It has appeared for a very long time that they are just content to take local advertising dollars and hope that these “editorials” will suffice as local coverage of the issues.
How many times (every week is the answer) can you recycle the same story about immunizations in Farmersville? How many times can you take a paid advertisement for pee-wee football, baseball, or soccer sign-ups and turn it in to an article? When are you really going to provide full coverage of local news and sports and not rely on parents sending you pictures and information just so there is something in the paper about an event? When will there be real editorials and not the syndicated filler you use to boost the number of pages you have in an issue so that you can justify the advertising volume? It’s obvious how you have been overcoming that content shortage. Too much advertising and not enough content and you would lose your status as a newspaper.
Allowing such editorials, that distort the facts and are based entirely on emotion, is not good for our community. I’m not suggesting denying these “editorials.” I’m suggesting the Germantown Press act more responsibly by writing intelligent articles of their own that provide the facts, and when they do, headline it as such without the blatant editorializing.
One final point. Mr. Helmers didn’t mention that he left before the meeting’s conclusion and did not hear the board members express why they had voted the way they did. Had he stayed, he would have not only heard the board acknowledge the calls and letters they received on both sides of the issue, but also the facts behind the issue. Facts he still may have disagreed with, but the facts none-the-less.
And, by the way, for the woman Mr. Helmers described as a “hero”.” A person might commend her for interjecting, but to label her a hero certainly punctuates the low criteria one sets for someone to attain hero status. I guess that makes me a hero too?
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Part-time Photographer, Web Application Developer, and former Mayor, you can generally see him wandering the sidelines at most football games. You will recognized him from the picture. Usually he can be found on the phone troubleshooting computer user errors. Mike has been contributing to Valley View Online since its inception in 1996.
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