Trails in the Sand by Peter Traceit, the Street Detective
The trails led Ol’ Pete right smack into the Broward School Board holding area where employees waited for hours to hear word that they would receive some long sought after positions and lofty salary increases. The day’s showstoppers were Board Members Torey Alston and Daniel Foganholi and surprisingly, Board Attorney Marilyn Batista. Item H-3 was the bone of contention with hypocrites, Sara Leonardi and Nora Rupert flipping the script from just a year ago when their positions were that then superintendent, Vickie Cartwright was within her right to take a machete and massacre hard working, loyal and otherwise effective employees. These two sang a different tune this time and used the pitiful excuse that this time it is different because Superintendent Earlean Smiley was creating a chart and filling positions for a new Super while Cartwright was creating an organizational chart and filling positions for herself. Ol’ Pete finds this position full of sand as a new superintendent from the outside would have to lean on Smiley or the Chief of Staff to select employees to fill positions because he would not know the work of the people anyway.
As usual, Rupert spoke through a throat full of dirt as she inquired if Smiley was willing to change the appointments of middle and upper-level executive staff from permanent to task assigned. As only the “unbossed”, “unbothered”, “unbullied” and “unbought” interim Super could do in the most direct but respectful way, she declined.
In her usual form, Ol Pete listened as Leonardi joined Alan Zeman in playing to Anna Fusco about teacher salaries and raises, yet Alston kept it all the way real when he eloquently asked if people really thought a Chief of Staff or Deputy Superintendent should make the same salary as a teacher. Ol’ Pete chuckled and thought it was like purporting that a bank teller should make the same salary as the regional bank manager.
Ol’ Torey began to bring up grand juries, people being removed from their board seats and being hauled off to jail. These very pointed statements froze Ol’ Alan in quicksand and he quickly waded back out of the quicksand and let his planned motion of postponing the reappointment and appointment of employees quickly become buried in the sand.
Pete’s all-time favorite was Daniel Foganholi. Foganholi reminded his colleagues who were on the Board last year (Hixon, Leonardi and Rupert) that he stood by his position from a year ago when dealing with Super Cartwright and her very unpopular organizational chart. Foggi gave a shout out to the Westside Gazette’s publisher, but not without Brenda Fam throwing a little dirty shade Bobby Henry’s way. It appears from Fam’s muffled comment that she is a little sore that Ol’ Pete hasn’t been especially kind as of late regarding some of her poor decisions to assassinate the character of people without the facts. Pete just glides through the dirt in search of news and doesn’t want to muster up a sandstorm with nobody. There’s no worthy news that doesn’t go unreported and not a single person who is exempt from a dirt bagging when warranted… Fam included.
The Detective nodded rigorously as Pompano resident; Vicente Thrower advised the Board that they ought to stop talking to the press. It reminded Pete of the comments Leonardi made to the press about not selecting Wanza to move forward as a finalist for Superintendent. The Street Detective found the comments irresponsible and reckless, especially about an employee who has dedicated more than 30 years to an organization and at least a dozen as an executive level leader.
The time on the wall is telling Ol’ Pete that, that’s all for this week, except to say this. The time is now to begin planning for who to put out there to replace Leonardi, Rupert and Zeman. Despite being told what state statutes and district policies dictate, they voted NO on the appointment and reappointments. Specifically, Leonardi and Rupert voted the opposite way a year ago. Join Peter Traceit, The Street Detective in finding viable candidates early to run against and wipe this board clean of the corruption that plagues them, and they have the audacity to place blame on others. They may get caught up in their own made-up sand storm.
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