Both evenings of interviews can now be heard on lebocitizens.com. Unfortunately, Tuesday's first interview was not picked up by my recorder. It should also be noted that Sue Rose was not there and Dan Remely missed the first part of the meeting on Tuesday. If the School District had been more transparent and televised the interviews, the technical difficulties that I experienced wouldn't have been an issue.
I was quite impressed with one young man. He is twenty years old and was the last applicant to be interviewed on Tuesday. Another applicant, Keith O'Toole, was a school board director in another district for 12.5 years. After reviewing our February forecast and considering the teachers' contract was over 4% in wages, he identified our tax and debt level as a critical issue, both short term and long term. Experience, fiscal responsibility, and recognizing that our taxes will go up 50% in five years may not be what the School District is looking for. Direct links to the podcasts:
1/3/11 interviews 1/4/11 interviews
Updated 1/5/11 Josephine Posti's Center Court Blog has the list of applicants listed. What Ms.Posti continually states is how "rather than making the decision in executive session, which is how vacancies are normally filled and have been filled by us and other districts, we've chosen a very public process." She continues stating how this is unprecedented in our District. The reason is because the law has changed. What she fails to mention is, according to the PA Sunshine Law, the appointment or selection of any person to fill a vacancy in any elected office must be public. I also noticed that the solicitor was not present either evening. Maybe that is why President Posti is unclear about the PA Sunshine Law. I am also confused about her description of the process being public. There is nothing transparent about not televising or recording the interviews. No names were printed on agendas and if I didn't ask for the one applicant's name during an interview, I would not have known his name until reading Ms. Posti's blog today. Is that being open? The first commenter last night started speaking about how the meeting should have been televised. He purposely did not state his name. President Posti interrupted him and asked him to state his name "for the record." His answer was, "What record? There is nobody taping." Dr. Steinhauer said there was. I guess he was referring to my recording.
Updated 1/5/11: Ms. Shardt has withdrawn from the list of applicants.
