Last night, Josephine Posti gave this report at the Mt. Lebanon School Board Business Meeting. http://jposti.blogspot.com/2011/01/111711-board-presidents-report.html I find her comments about the selection process they "chose was public, unprecedented, and postitve" were humorous since she failed to mention that two residents made the only recordings of the process. WE chose to make it public by putting the interviews on lebocitizens.com. There was no effort of televising the interviews even though the technology was available.
Josephine Posti goes on to say that our new School Board Director is highly regarded in the legal community. This may be true, but I just found this letter from State Representative Matt Smith in my files. Online anti-outsourcing petition letter Highmark was one of the clients listed in this link. http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/cohen.html
Josephine Posti also takes a shot at blogs. This blog has supplied link after link of documentation. It is hard to ignore what has been viewed nationally. How could this NOT generate dialogue?
6 comments:
Yes - I read her post and I think that Jospehine has a guilty conscience. In my opinion, "our neighbors" wouldn't act like fascists, divide our community, and advocate unpopular positions that have brought our community to the point of financial armageddon!
Instead of talking about the factual evidence brought up on this blog, people prefer to dinner party gossip about the folks who bring the factual evidence to light. David Huston
How do these statements, excerpted from Ms. Posti's Center Court blog, square with the never-ending lack of transparency practiced by the school board, most recently demonstrated by the demand that meetings with commissioners not be open to the public?
"Citizens have a responsibility to keep their elected officials in check. We expect scrutiny and each take our responsibilities to remain accountable very seriously.
"each of us is here to serve you and answer your concerns in an honest, respectful manner."
Joe Wertheim
Superintendent Allison responded to the Kansas Governor’s Education Budget and the loss of Federal Stimulus funding by saying, “There is no doubt we have very serious conversations in the near future as we take a look at budget-cuts. The question right now is how big of a cut is that going to be? We’re beyond the point of making a tweak here or there, or delaying a purchase here or there and get by. It’s going to have to come from programs and staffing and that is going to be painful for everybody.”
Can the same thing happen in Mt Lebanon? Let’s look at some facts that apply here: 1) The Mt. Lebanon School Board voted an IRREVOCABLE resolution to limit our District tax millage increase to 1.4%. 2) Our Stimulus funding runs out this year. 3) Teachers' salaries (about 50% of the Budget) increase 4.15% less retirement savings. 4) Health insurance costs are estimated to rise 5%. 5) Retirement healthcare is not fully funded. 7) Pensions are not fully funded. 8) Tax Receipts are not robust. 8) Employers are hiring foreign workers at lower prevailing wages instead of American workers at the going wage rate. 9) The new Field House will cost approximately $25,000,000, and 10) Building C is being demolished and rebuilt at a cost of $40,000,000 according to architect Dan Rothschild’s Act 34 testimony.
I have a great concern the math doesn’t work for Mt. Lebanon. Will we need to cut staffing and programs in a painful way because our Board allowed the construction of an Athletic Field house without financial contributions from athletic supporters? Will the construction of the Field House and the destruction and rebuilding of Building C at a combined cost of approximately $65,000,000 - more than one-half the cost of the project - affect our staffing and programs? Did the Board vote a limited millage increase because it is an election year?
Joe W., Josephine Posti keeps showing her transparency i.d. card every chance she can, but her actions are far from transparent. Her reason for the Joint Steering Committee to be closed to the public is that the meetings would often involve legal agreements between the two bodies. What legal agreements? Where are the District and Municipality’s Solicitors? Will they be at these meetings? I understand there will only be two members from each side in attendance. According to the Sunshine Act, three members would make a quorum. At that point, it has to be public, wouldn’t you think? Josephine Posti can’t stand that her meetings are being recorded by the public. The interviews were not recorded by the District. Dan Remely said that he listened to the interviews to make his decision. Listened to the interviews? Can Mrs. Posti get passed this issue to see that it is beneficial? At Monday’s meeting, she interrupted a resident’s comments to announce that the meeting was being recorded by a resident. What Mrs. Posti failed to mention to this resident, who has been coming to meetings for over twenty years, was the meeting was also being televised. Was it really necessary to make that announcement? It was insulting to the resident. In addition, I wasn’t the only resident recording. The constant focus on residents recording meetings is an indication that she is very uncomfortable about it. It is our right, as clearly stated in the PA Sunshine Act. What is she hiding?
Josephine likes to whine.
First her friends whined to elect her president of the board before two reorganization meetings. She finally got the job when nobody else wanted it.
Second, she whined about Right to Know Requests and the Board said they might post them on the Internet. That idea collapsed when Elaine Gillen called their bluff and told them she would post the District responses and the District’s compliance with the Sunshine law on her website.
Then Josephine whined about financial disclosure forms. That whine resulted in an administrator and board members refiling incorrect financial disclosure forms. How embarrassing is it that Mt. Lebanon Administrators and Board Members can’t complete a financial disclosure form properly?
Now Josephine is whining only about residents recording the meetings and forgetting to warn folks that the District is recording the meetings too – and the District has been recording for over ten years.
Her website whines about personal attacks on a new School Board member who is running an American worker displacement service at his law firm.
Josephine, defending displacing your neighbors from a job puts you on the wrong side of another issue; stop whining about it and fix your mistake. Nobody cares how hard a new Board Member studied - we all did that - get Leobowitz off the Board.
Josephine is demanding private meetings with the Commission over legal agreements. What legal agreements? The Sunshine law clearly states the items discussed in the executive sessions are to be revealed to the public in general terms so we can know if the executive session is held legally. The School Board has routinely ignored that part of the law for years. In fact last year the School Board sued a mom because she asked for notices of emails that were sent to board members announcing an executive session.
What is the District hiding? Why didn’t the District release those emails?
John Ewing
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