Tuesday, October 24, 2017

School Board Meetings Videos are back up!

Evidently, Nick M. and I have both been questioning the removal of the school board meeting videos. This email was sent to both of us, and the school board members cc'ed.

Good afternoon,

In response to your recent concerns regarding the school board meeting videos removed from the website, here are the facts:

The server is on site at our district office; it is not housed at the AIU;
In an effort to free up space on the server, one of the technicians began removing the largest files; the school board meetings are HD recordings, and as such, are the largest files;
The board neither requested nor oversaw the removal of these files;
We will now keep a trailing 12 months of school board meetings on the website. 

For the Board,
Mary D. Birks

****
Sure enough, the videos have been uploaded.

Here is what I had been sending to the school board. I never did hear from any of the other school board directors.

From: egillen476 <egillen476@aol.com>
To: mbirks <mbirks@mtlsd.net>
Cc: schoolboard <schoolboard@mtlsd.net>; TSteinhauer <TSteinhauer@mtlsd.net>
Sent: Mon, Oct 23, 2017 10:49 pm
Subject: Re: Meeting videos

I guess you realized that July 2017 had been removed, when it shouldn't have, based on your explanation below.

It has been uploaded again. Thank you. Now, how about removing some of those old concerts and upload some more meetings from 2017?

For the Community,

Elaine T. Gillen

www.lebocitizens.com


-----Original Message-----
From: egillen476 <egillen476@aol.com>
To: mbirks <mbirks@mtlsd.net>
Cc: schoolboard <schoolboard@mtlsd.net>; TSteinhauer <TSteinhauer@mtlsd.net>
Sent: Mon, Oct 23, 2017 8:27 pm
Subject: Re: Meeting videos



I forgot to include the fact that my piddly, insignificant website has both commission and school board meetings dating back to 2010. I would be willing to work with your IT staff to show you how it can be done.

For the Community,

Elaine T. Gillen
www.lebocitizens.com


-----Original Message-----
From: egillen476 <egillen476@aol.com>
To: mbirks <mbirks@mtlsd.net>
Cc: schoolboard <schoolboard@mtlsd.net>; TSteinhauer <TSteinhauer@mtlsd.net>
Sent: Mon, Oct 23, 2017 7:45 pm
Subject: Re: Meeting videos

I beg to differ, Mary. Why do you have concerts and plays dating back as early as June 10, 2008, if your server has limited storage? 

From my blog,  "Even though eighteen school board meetings videos have been removed, concerts and plays are still available as early as June 10, 2008." 

Why not purge those? You might want to change servers. The one I have for www.lebocitizens.com has unlimited storage.

School board directors, you are entitled to give your personal opinion. How do you feel about the removal of the school board meeting videos as new as July 2017?  I would like to publish them on my community blog. Consider this a media inquiry.

For the Community,
Elaine T. Gillen


-----Original Message-----
From: Mary Birks <mbirks@mtlsd.net>
To: egillen476 <egillen476@aol.com>
Cc: SchoolBoard <schoolboard@mtlsd.net>; Tim Steinhauer <TSteinhauer@mtlsd.net>
Sent: Mon, Oct 23, 2017 7:27 pm
Subject: Re: Meeting videos

Ms. Gillen,

As our server does not have unlimited storage space, the district will have only the current school year's meetings on the website. Any and all meetings that took place after June 30, 2017 until July 1, 2018 will be available. Then they will be taken down so that the next year's meeting can be stored.

For the Board,
Mary D. Birks

On Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 1:06 PM, 'egillen476@aol.com' via SchoolBoard <schoolboardemaillist@mtlsd.net> wrote:

To ALL school board directors,

Who made the decision to remove all but six meeting videos from the school board channel? http://multimedia.mtlsd.org/channel/SchoolBoard/

Per Board Policy BBAA, http://www.mtlsd.org/uploaded/District/School_Board/Policies/B-BoardGovernanceAndOperations/BBAA_-_Board_Member_Authority_and_Responsibilities.pdf

Direct media inquiries concerning an official District position to the Board President, Superintendent or official designee, provided, however, that this does not preclude Board members from providing their personal opinions so long as they are identified as personal views;

For the Community

Elaine Gillen

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too many school board posts. We get it. The board is corrupt. We know to vote for Riemer, Diamond and Strotmeyer. We are convinced. You win. We can't read one more word or see one more movie or financial statement about it. OVERLOAD.

Anonymous said...

How convenient that Mary and the board are willing to cut their historical comments, actions and votes from public record while at the same time see 100 years into the future.

We got to start voting these people off the board.

Lebo Citizens said...

Deep breaths, the first 5:10 PM, while you take a brief rest.
Elaine

Anonymous said...

It’s not overload 5:10, until after the election is over and the Timmy Team is done.
Every post, every comment here every day hopefully will convince one more voter that Birks, Cappucci, Caste and Remely are not the best people to be running our school district.

Anonymous said...

I'm convinced.

Anonymous said...

I mean it. I'm on your side, but I have to take a break from your wonderful blog if you are going to write about nothing but the school board until election day. I'm going mad.See you in mid-November.

Lebo Citizens said...

I write about Gorilla, 5:42 PM. Another photo went up today. Check it out.
Elaine

Lebo Citizens said...

And an Airbnb in Orlando. Where I would love to be about now. You think you are sick of reading about the school board? Ha! Believe me, this is no picnic for me either.
Elaine

Anonymous said...

If you want to take a respite from reading about our free spending school board 5:42, I’d recommend watching one of the local TV channels. There are lots of ads for judicial candidates.

Anonymous said...

"Overload". (takes time to post, sits back in smug satisfaction, gets tingle, realizes comment is dumb, tingle disappears, comes back for another comment to tell everyone this is it for serious realz...)

Lebo Citizens said...

I added a countdown clock. Thirteen days plus until Election Day. Maybe that is when I will take a break.
I have noticed that some CCRB yard signs have come down. Not in my neighborhood, but in other areas of Mt. Lebanon. Mary Birks did not do herself any favors at the last school board meeting. Same with Elaine Cappucci. She sounds so angry all the time.
Elaine

Anonymous said...

I'm voting for Cappucci et al. I'm tired of your politics of misinformation and hate.

Anonymous said...

As best I can tell, the more you blog about CCRB, the more likely they are to win. Think culling, turf, lawsuits, Linfante, the rest of the Commisson, Dr. Steinhauer. Everything this blog goes up against seems to win in the end. Wonder what the underlying message is in that.......

Lebo Citizens said...

I'm thinking all of it, 11:32 PM. It is time to clean house and you are part of the problem. Thanks for making my point.
Elaine

Lebo Citizens said...

10:13 PM, I guess that is what happens when I rely on Jan Klein's spreadsheets. I'm just uploading the misinformation and hate that are coming from videos and RTKs.
Elaine

Anonymous said...

We will see if you’re right in 13 days, 11:32.

Anonymous said...

OK, 11:32, please explain... what did they win.
They spent a lot of money culling deer and accidents went up.
The school district spent a lot of money in a court battle with the municipality over parking spaces.
They spent lots and lots of money in a laughable fundraiser that is losing money.
We won’t even go into discussing Linfante, she’s gone and good riddance.

If that’s winning I don’t think we can afford much more of it!

Anonymous said...

10:13--misinformation and hate? Have you ever been to a school board meeting?

Anonymous said...

Here’s their biggest win, 11:32.

“In Allegheny County, 35 of the 43 school districts requested and were approved for an exception in the past 10 years. The Mt. Lebanon School District was approved for $17 million in exceptions, the most of any school district in the county. It was followed by the North Allegheny and Pine-Richland school districts. All three are among the state’s 40 wealthiest school districts.
However, those districts also demonstrate the differences between how often the exceptions are actually used.

Even though Pine-Richland was approved to raise property taxes above inflation six times in nine years, it increased its property tax rate three times. Mt. Lebanon increased property taxes at least six times and requested a hike above inflation every year.”

Hope you feel good. 😳

Lebo Citizens said...

We got the videos back up on the school board channel, 11:32 PM. That's a win. Now you can see the meanness and misinformation from the CCRB firsthand. You're welcome. <3.
Elaine

Anonymous said...

Hey 11:32, do not forget that these “winners” as you call them are the same people that originally thought they could run a fundraiser for 6 years and bring in $30 million dollars. They had to hire Pursuant Ketchum for $40,000+ to learn they were nuts. Many taxpayers, especially here on this blog told them the same thing for free.

It’s also interesting to note that Remely came around after only 4 years and said they should approach the community and focus on small donors. More advice given to them by residents for free, that the board unanimously ignored before going out and hiring expensive campaign chairs.

Yep, they’re winners alright!

Anonymous said...

Instead of the Timmy Team, we should call Birks, Cappucci, Caste and Remely the ‘Can’t win for losing’ Team.