Once upon a time in South Carolina, even within human memory, each county had one senator. That senator controlled EVERYTHING, including patronage, that went on in his (usually his) county as though he owned it and was consulted about EVERYTHING on the state level that might affect it. Funny thing, the names (and number of senators) may have changed to meet rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, but the melody lingers on.Lingers on in a STATE slush fund that a reader of Charleston Watch was saavy enough to post on this blog. [See article from the State posted under comments on my previous post and http://charlestonwatch.com/2007/03/pc_criticizes_countys_contribu.html#more] for the gory details.] One of those deserving "charities" just happens to be Teach Charleston--you remember it? That's the New Teacher Project that found only 20 instead of 90-100 teachers (and whose contract with CCSD was recently terminated to avoid further blood loss) receiving $100,000 as promised. Your tax dollars at work, folks.
But, you know, it gets better, because Charleston Watch rightly points out that the CITY Council has never been criticized for its participation in this game, in fact, never received publicity or notice in the Post & Courier at all. The City Council's recipients are also an interesting bunch, some of which appear on the County Council's list AND the State list. [You can download the list from the previous website.] Always interesting on the state list is the money received by Chip Campsen's sister for Heritage Services. Or by Communities in Schools, recipient of largesse from both City ($10,000) and County ($3,000) Councils, run (I am told) by a close relative of Mayor Riley?
Why this deafening silence? Well, I can think of reasons, but they're all fairly cynical.
Here's the bottom line: On the city, county, and state level, thousands, tens of thousands, in fact, hundreds of thousands of earmarked funds are being donated to entities, some of whom are religious and some nonprofit, with few strings and less oversight, USING YOUR TAX DOLLARS in many cases TO PROVIDE LOCAL PORK.
It's the "we're all gentlemen here, so we can trust that the funds will be used for the good of the [fill in the blank--city, county, state]." You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
Let's think about the working poor, for a change. Should the tax dollars of those in the lowest tax bracket be used for festivals upstate or elsewhere?
You decide.
Posts
20 comments:
Bable's real name is Clelia Casey.
She teaches English at Bishop England High School.
(That's right, she doesn't even work for CCSD. She just criticizes those who do.)
To 7:53 poster who calls me Bay-ble: is this news?
Go ahead and say it. Joe Riley's sister runs the Cities in Schools program. It isn't very successful either. Oh, everyone talks about how successful these programs are from the "touchy feely" do-gooders like the Cities in Schools to the College of Charleston Education Partnership on the Blue State Left to the Heritage "No Sex Please" people on the Red State Right. They measure success in how much OPM (Other People's Money) they can collect and spend. It's never measured in terms of how many little people really get helped because they've been taught how to fish for themselves. It's just one big continuous fish dinner. The cooks get rich and the poor are left waiting to be told when the next meal is scheduled. Any elected official concerned about their integrity should steer clear of this sort of pork barrel politics. On second thought they should outlaw in...unless it meets a real test for measuring broad public benefit. Some of this stuff should be under competative bidding contracts...not grants that look like political patronage.
I'll give Greenwood its $900,000 sewer system, and other community grants like it, because those infrastructure improvements that are truly broad based public projects (not like the one for the legislator/preacher’s church). They brick and morter projects usually do raise the standard of living for a lot of people for a long time to come. Unless you've experienced the humiliation and shame associated with living with a failed community water system, don't knock those grants. I mean like septic tanks backed up in yards and streets where children wait for school buses or where drinking water is delivered by garden hoses. Those grants should be awarded. Unfortunately, under this system even the best intended ones are handed out like pork...a humiliating process in itself.
It's those fluff items like "minstrel shows" and "snake oil conventions" that I find revolting. Nancy Cook has been on both ends, giving and receiving. She has some explaining to do, if she's even listening.
And if the $100,000 went to the Teacher First project then I’d like to expose the sponsors (legislators and school officials) and let them answer to the taxpayers. Yes, I'd like to shine a bright light on all of these slush funds.
The blame should be shared by right wingers and lefties alike. The slush funds (including the givers and the receivers) have one thing in common; they are all managed by thieves with no integrity at all.
The local press should be all over this. Show us were our money is going. Give us a reason to trust our officials and the press, too. Until we see a response to this call, we ought to say "no" to trusting public officials (and the P&C) and show that we have "no confidence" in all those elected officials who fail to disclose what they know and when they knew it.
If some of them are just as confused as we are, then they should just admit it in public. We might even give Brownie points to an elected official who is honest enough to say they were in the dark, too. Praise should go to the members of Charleston County Council who refused to go along with this boondoggle this time around...even the one who was absent for the meeting. I assume she didn’t put in her laundry list of handouts. If that's true then she should get some credit for not participating in this circus. What's wrong with shifting to competative bid contracts using RFP's (Requests for Proposals), especially for anything over $5,000.
What is the deal with the 7:53 pm goon?
It's getting old. Can't you think of anything else to write?
Mr. 7:53 poster, Butzon or Meyers.... we don't care who "Bable" is. She is my hero and I will continue to come to this site until it leaves. But, you may leave. We don't care to hear your "babble" anymore. The truth is the truth, not the truth as you want to make it. It appears that most of these county and city council folks are simply crooks working under the disguise of concerned council members. Ask Cook how when her salary is 58K that she can live in a 600K house and drive a mercedes. It doesn't add up. Someone is greasing the palm somewhere. The newspaper is just as bad. They report on the Engelman's travel which was less in a year for two of them than the two new "Sisters" on the board. And they both have already put their names in the hat to go to the National Convention next year in Orlando. I smell a free Disney trip going on!!
Ever notice that the further away these conventions are, the more likely they want to go? Hilton Head, San Diego or Orlando all get their attention. But these involve paid per diems and resort vacations for the family partially subsidized by Charleston County tax payers. But in 2005 when the the Southeastern US Regional School Board's annual conference was held in downtown Charleston at Charleston Place, with Nancy Cook listed as one of its officers and a member of its executive committee, not a singe Charleston county school board member saw fit to attend. Even Nancy Cook was absent. I guess attending a conference that didn't involve travel would have felt more like work.
At least our District Superintendent is not married to our representative to the State School Board as is the case in Dorchester School District Two Patsy Pye and Joe Pye often go to conventions together at the taxpayers' expense. Next time there is a school break, I suggest that everyone e-mail them at jpye@ dorchester2.k12.sc.us and ppye@dorchester2.k12.sc.us to see if they are in town.
You may also want to try this with Nancy Cook at ncookchas@aol.com and Nancy McGinley at NANCY_MCGINLEY@charleston.k12.sc.us
This should be good for a few (frustrating) laughs.
As I write this, I am reminded of the Alice's Restaurant song. Maybe we should just e-mail the two Nancys every day and ask them to please see that no more slush fund money goes to Nancy 1 (Cook) until Nancy 2 (McGinley) fixes the Buist cheaters.
For those who do not get the Alice's Restaurant reference, I recommend that you listen to a little Arlo Guthrie. He's good in small doses.
Do you think now that Stacy Murray, the administrative CCSD person that is going to Seattle, that she will take her boy friend Jerome Heyward with her? Perhaps he can be their lobbyist!!
Speaking of the Buist cheaters and remembering this blog is the "Newsless Courier" -
I wonder how Principal Ballard can flat out lie to an investigative reporter of the Post and Courier regarding a "special list" for students who didn't quite score in the 75th percentile on the YCAT and get away with it??? Where's THAT story, P and C?
P.S. Dr. Nancy and the Cook aren't going to do squat with those cheaters.
Why bother? These people don't answer their correspondence anyway.
You'd think public officials would know to at the very least they show the public the same courtesies they would like to receive in return. They should lead by example. Maybe they they could help change the tone of their critics.
Oops. Didn't proof read it first. Should have said:
Why bother (to e-mail them)? These people don't answer their correspondence anyway.
You'd think public officials would at least know to show the public the same courtesies they would like to receive in return. They should lead by example. Maybe then they could help change the tone of their critics.
Log on to http://www.scclubforgrowth.org/legislative/2005_senate.asp to see which State Senators supported Governor Sanford's vetoes according to the SC Club for Growth. Campsen supported him only 45% of the time and McConnell and Grooms 2% of the time.
On the House side, Ben Hagood came in at 82%, Jim Merill at 44%, Wallace Scarborough at 28%, Chip Limehouse at 25%, Shirley Hinson at 14%, Converse Chellis at 9%, Bobby Harrell at 4%, and Catherine Cieps at 2%. See, http://www.scclubforgrowth.org/legislative/2005_house.asp.
Of particular note is Chip Limehouse, who is so busy brokering a insider/sweetheart deal with Charleston County to sell property to the County that it neither needs nor can afford that he can't stop other foxes from raiding the hen-house. And "hero" Paul Thurmond could not protect us from Limehouse's greed move because he is friends with the guy and is contemplating future business deals.
With friends like this, who needs...friends?
Memminger194:
Sending e-mails wil result in return e-mails that say something like "out of office." When we get enough of them we can print them and take them to various news outlets to show how little time the administrators spend administrating and how much time they are on retreats, conferences, etc.
I don't disagree Anonymous 400 but we don't know the name of McGinley's live in girl friend so we don't know the depths of the possible corruption there. She may be someone that really feeds at the trough but they are clever enough to keep her name out of the press so she may be getting a lot of perks through schools
SCDept of Educ. has just released this morning its statewide PACT reports for 2007. Charleston's results look mixed. Here's the address that leads to the reports:
http://ed.sc.gov/news/more.cfm?articleID=828
Anonymous 9:28:
Who cares who McGinley sleeps with if she does her job and does not use our money to pay for sex?
Who cares as long as they successfully get the job done. Sort of like Don Kennedy. Who cared if he couldn't communicate and sounded as if he was uneducated, as long as he was a wizard at accounting. The problem Don Kennedy is that he was an idiot at accounting, too.
Skip the side issues like race, gender, orientation, politics, you name it. Just hold these people accountable for doing a job commensurate with their pay which is often well into six figures with multi-year contracts. We haven't been holding the board or the people they hire to any where near the level of performance that we should. Until we do, we deserve the second rate ding bats and equally poor results that we get each year.
Just look at how our county schools rank against Greenville or Horry…not to mention the rest of the nation. We did this to ourselves by electing who we have to lead us and by the people they in turn hire to C.O.A.** in the annual reports instead of properly investing in the education of the next generation.
(** plural possessive of CYA)
Start holding county board members and senior administrators responsible. Ultimately, we hired them. However indirectly, we can ultimately fire them if they fail to deliver as promised. No more excuses (or side issues...unless they contribute to performance failures).
The Charleston NAACP demanded today that school board Vice Chairwoman Nancy Cook apologize for suggesting that unfit parents should be sterilized.
The group also asked Cook to commit to enrolling in sensitivity and diversity training and that other members of the county school board condemn Cook's remarks.
If Cook fails to follow the Charleston NAACP's requests, the group asked that Cook resign from her seat on the board.
Post a Comment