Was There An 'Information Blackout' on School District Realignment?

We previously discussed the Geneva School District Superintendent’s proposal to ‘realign’ elementary schools from two angles: First and foremost, we highlighted flaws in the process by which a decision was reached; and second, we explored flaws in the arguments advanced in support of the change. At the time that we wrote, the proposal was—from our perspective—in its infant stages. We had only just heard about from faculty and staff who themselves had only just heard about it. We never expected the discussion was as far along as we now know it to be.

So, in keeping with our initial framework, we are devoting two additional posts to the topic. This one deals, again, with the process. An upcoming post again takes a close look at the merits, or lack thereof, of the plan, using the information circulated by district officials.

There’s also the question of how all this is being communicated—or not-- to District residents. We are baffled by the ‘information blackout’ that seems to be surrounding this issue. Less than a year ago, the school district hired a public relations firm (at the cost of $150/hour) to improve communications. We were unable to get a copy of any proposal submitted for those services, but we were unsuccessful because there was none. You can read more about that issue here.

You might think that an issue as critical as the total restructuring of the elementary schools, eliminating the ‘neighborhood school’ concept, and adopting a K-2, 3-5 model would be the kind of thing the District would go out its way to publicize. But, apparently not. The most recent Panther Pride newsletter focused on the successes in the existing elementary buildings, and contained only two sentences about the realignment, tucked into a letter from the Superintendent. He said, "Our administrative staff is leading discussions about reorganization of the elementary schools, from the current arrangement of two Kindergarten to 5th grade schools to a Pre-K to 2nd grade primary school and a 3rd grade to 5th grade intermediate school. More on this review, including opportunities to comment, during the coming weeks."

Just a week after that newsletter came out, the Finger Lakes Times ran an article on the realignment, announcing boldly in a headline: “Nothing Decided” (February 9, 2009). The article featured interviews with parents who were concerned about the proposal and who asserted that the move was much farther along than District officials were letting on, that it was more than just an 'administrative review'. As the title of the article indicated, the Superintendent attempted to reassure the public that nothing had actually been decided.

We’ve already commented on this “He Said/She Said” journalism, and how it is not an adequate substitute for true journalistic fact-finding and follow up. The local paper did, at least, announce a public meeting on the issue. It was to be held the following evening (February 10th) at the High School auditorium.

What the paper failed to report is that the very night the article ran, the Geneva City School Board was meeting (in a session open to the public) to receive a report from Assistant Superintendent Darnall about the merits of the realignment proposal. The Board also heard that night from several community members about advantages and disadvantages of the proposal. No story ever appeared about information presented at the Board meeting, or even that it had taken place. Likewise with the public meeting held the following night. That meeting was well-attended, much information was shared and many questions were asked, but no coverage of the meeting has ever appeared in the paper.

While the Superintendent stated several times at the February 10th meeting that went unreported that the realignment was not a “done deal,” there was every indication that it was a very-close-to-being-done deal. It’s worth noting that the meeting was scheduled for 7pm on a Tuesday night and the audience was repeatedly prompted to share its concerns and reservations that would, it was promised, be considered by the advisory committee before a recommendation was made. It's also worth noting that he stated several times that the committee would be voting on its recommendation at its next meeting—THE VERY NEXT MORNING.

We never heard, and it was never reported in the local paper, whether the advisory committee made a recommendation or not. ZERO reporting in the newspaper and NO “Splash” made by the District’s public relations firm. Taxpayers, district residents, parent—all left in the dark, by the local paper and the school district..

Assume for a moment that this realignment proposal is the best thing since sliced bread. Assume that it is the best academic arrangement for our children, the best financial reform for our taxpayers, and the best social arrangement for our community. Wouldn’t that be all the more reason to be open, honest, and transparent in the decision-making?

If it’s a great idea, why not simply say, “We, the administration, are charged with making recommendations in the best interest of the district. This realignment is the best thing to do because of X,Y and Z, and, therefore, here’s how we’re going to move forward with it and we welcome your help with the transition.”

Or if you’re not sure it’s a good idea and you really want public opinion, why not say, “We are interested in this proposal and we are interested in your fact-based point of view about whether it is a good fit for our children and our District’s resources.”

Instead, the District and the local paper seem to be holding fast to the doctrine of “don’t ask, don’t tell” -- leaving the facts by the wayside and letting rumor, innuendo, and untested opinion carry the day. This sacrifices the key element of good decision making: ACCOUNTABILITY. There’s a reason that newspapers are supposed to be asking “Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?” It’s because the alternative is a universe in which no one knows how we got where we are or where we’re headed next.

What Exactly is 'Hope'?

When William Sloane Coffin— 1960s college chaplain, anti-war activist, and minister of Riverside Church-- died (2006), we were reminded in his many obituaries of how he would always differentiate between hope and optimism:

"Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful."

Hope eventually became a staple of Democratic presidential rhetoric. Jimmy Carter talked about “a year of hope” when he accepted the nomination (1976). Bill Clinton, taking advantage of his roots in Hope, Arkansas, introduced himself to the electorate as “the Man from Hope” (1992). Barack Obama has made his way into the White House-- and through the first few weeks of office-- with his message of hope and change. But, what, exactly, is hope? For Obama And for the American people?

Obama launched himself into national political prominence with a speech he gave at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The speech was titled, “The Audacity of Hope.” In it, he talked about “the politics of hope,” not “blind optimism,” but the “hope of slaves,” the “hope of immigrants,” the “hope of a lieutenant patrolling the Mekong Delta” [John Kerry], the “hope of a millworker’s son” [John Edwards], the “hope of a skinny kid with a funny name” [himself]. Then, “the audacity of hope.” (read the full text of the speech here)

The phrasing, and perhaps to some extent part of the substance, of Obama’s speech was derived from a sermon given in 1990 by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. That sermon was titled, “The Audacity to Hope.” Wright’s sermon (which you can read here) was, itself, derived from a lecture he had heard, in the late 1950s, by the Rev. Frederick G. Sampson, on a painting titled “Hope” (see the painting here) and scripture (Samuel 1: 1-18).

The painting features a woman, Hannah, sitting on top of a world which is in sorry shape playing a harp. Even though the world appears to be on the “brink of destruction,” Hannah has “the audacity to make music and praise God.” That’s the audacity to hope: while she could easily despair when she looks “horizontally” at the world as it is, she is able to find hope when she looks “vertically,” which is to say, toward God. Wright concludes his own sermon on the audacity to hope by saying the real message is about “how to hope when the love of God is not plainly evident.” (to listen to Wright’s 1990 sermon, click here)

As an aside, we observe there is a strange paradox involved in hope. While we often think of the hopeful as optimists, they are actually the most pessimistic. If there were grounds for optimism, then hope would not have to be invoked.

Obama developed some of the themes from his 2004 speech and spliced in a number of anecdotes about his life and work as a U.S. Senator to author a bestselling book by the same title: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006). The book explores his own views and what he sees, among Americans, as a “common set of values that bind us together despite our differences,” with its purpose to “begin the process of changing our politics and or civic life.”

There’s little, if any, discussion of hope in the book. Not even in the chapter on faith, another virtue. Here’s the problem with hope as the basis of politics and government. On the one hand, if it is meant in a religious sense, then, it calls on those voters so inclined to look vertically—as Hannah did—to a higher, transcendent deliverance from their troubles, i.e., to look beyond politics. On the other hand, if it is only a religious metaphor applied to secular democratic theory, it leaves unspecified the higher, secular authority.

So what might Obama and his hopeful followers mean by hope in a secular and political context? Perhaps Obama's invocation of hope is meant to signal a sense of common purpose. While he may mean that we look up, to the Lord, he might also mean that we simply ought to look up from our individual pursuits and recognize the community that exists all around us.

Today's television and radio are full of pundits imploring Obama to return to the 'language of hope' as he addresses Congress and the Nation tonight about the economic situation. And we think the 'hope-speak' would be meaningful in a way the pundits may not have intended. The civic sins that led us to the current situation--greed and envy, a desire for people to buy more than they could afford and others to make speculative investments in unregulated 'shadow markets'--are the very hallmarks of self-centered thinking. Continuing in that vein will surely lead us further and further down a path of economic, social, and political disaster.

But connecting with the American Dream, through the language of hope, reminds us that the values of this society are not simply wealth accumulation and personal gain, but the need to trade value for value, to take only what is earned and to labor for a collective improvement of our situations. This language, this shift from the personal to the political (in the best sense of that word) would truly be the transcendent idealism that gives us a hope for a better tomorrow.

Tempest in a Tea Pot: Resolution Puts Community Based Planning Back on Track

While the last minute resolution placed on Councilors’ desks at the February 4th meeting left the public feeling that Council had ‘pulled a fast one,’ it was not so bad after all. But unanimously approved surprise resolutions can not be standard operating procedure if the Mayor, City Manager, and Council want to engender public trust. We know that motivation matters, and there was no sinister intent here, but we have seen a lack of predictability erode public confidence for years, and we don’t expect the new administration to fall back into the bad habits of the past.

With that resolution, City Council authorized submission of paperwork formally declaring the City’s intentions to establish a “visitors center” on the lakefront. It is the next step toward the possible drawing down of $5 million in state dollars earmarked for Geneva last year by State Senator Mike Nozzolio. The state’s budget crisis has raised doubts about the ultimate availability of the funds.

This money, part of Nozzolio’s self-proclaimed “21st Century Geneva Initiative” was initially described as seed money for a dynamic destination on Geneva’s lakefront. Here’s how the Senator’s website currently describes it:

$5 million – New Finger Lakes Visitor Center in Geneva

A new Finger Lakes Visitor Center located in Geneva will be a signature building for the Finger Lakes region that will serve as a destination for tourists and the Finger Lakes region. The Center will be interactive for visitors and will place an emphasis on the natural beauty of our area as well as the wineries in the region. The Geneva Chamber of Commerce will relocate to the new facility and will continue their work to promote tourism in the region. The Visitor Center will be state-of-the-art and will serve as a destination for all those seeking information on the many attractions of the Finger Lakes region.

The Finger Lakes Visitor Center will be modeled after the very successful New York Wine and Culinary Center in Canandaigua, which highlights the food and wines produced in New York State.

However, at the time the grant was first announced, the City was already undergoing a significant downtown-waterfront planning process with help from Bergmann Associates. That plan, according to records of numerous focus-group and other community-input sessions [contained in the report's Appendix that you can read here], was initially aimed at some sort of ecological or cultural ‘interpretive’ center on the waterfront. It also focused on other tourism-based facilities, like hotel and conference center space in the downtown.

The Bergmann report, unveiled to the public last August, took a sharp turn away from that vision by plopping a massive residential/ commercial/ professional office structure on the lakefront, what became known as the notorious Building 12, next to the Ramada Inn. The report called it the “Visitors Center” to dovetail with the Nozzolio earmark.

No need to re-visit our entire analysis of how the plan got to that point, of how “residential” reappeared as a way to subsidize a “visitors center” when the project was determined to be an unsustainable money-loser. There is now general agreement in the City with our point of view about that. However, we do want to examine links between the Nozzolio earmark and the Chamber of Commerce, and how, through that association, the scope of the project moved away from ‘dynamic tourism destination’ and instead towards ‘enhancements of existing services.’

An earlier post discusses the Chamber of Commerce’s strong and public support for “Building 12” and their position, given voice by board member Kelly Mittiga, that Council “should not wait for all lights to go green before moving forward.” But a closer look at the project makes it clear why ‘running red lights’ is not a good public policy!

The initial Bergmann draft proposal appeared to use the State’s money (i.e. our state tax dollars) to build what we might refer to as the “Chamber-Plus” on the lakefront: a large display area for the existing history of the Finger Lakes’ panels (currently stored in the basement of the City owned “Chamber building,”) some office space for the Chamber staff, and a lake view board room.

Basically, the Bergmann plan took what existed on two levels in the Chamber building and made it a bit grander and located it in a more prominent area. But it was not clear from that plan what elements, if any, would be a new draw to the facility. In other words, the same people who stop at the Chamber now might in the future continue stop at the new location, but there was nothing to indicate that gobs of new visitors would be generated. The business plan for such a ‘Chamber-plus’ facility mirrors that contained in the Fairweather report which showed that a small scale wine tasting facility added to the existing Chamber would require heavy operational subsidies.

To be sure, in rejecting “Building 12” as presented by Bergmann, the community was flatly rejecting any notion of residential on the lakefront, and to a lesser but significant extent, protesting the size of the building—its footprint and its height. If a low-impact 'interpretive center,' without a residential component and modest in scale, had been proposed for that site, we do not think it would have drawn the same ire as the Building 12, dreamed up to subsidize the relocated Chamber of Commerce operations.

Immediately following the bungled resolution securing the $5 million earmark, the City Council rightly passed the amendments to the Masterplan that drew heavily on the action items initially suggested by Bergmann, but had been clarified to meet the community’s objectives.

As passed by Council, the plan resolves to:

1. “explore the feasibility, programming, and location of an Ecological Interpretive Center on or near the lakefront (policy area 1, action item A-2)”
2. “focus on tourism related activities that retain visitors downtown (policy area 1, action item E-1)”
3. “create a taskforce on the programmatic elements and best location of a Visitors Center and/or Interpretive Center that will draw visitors into Geneva and provide information to enhance their experience while in the area (policy area 3, action item C-4)”
4. “investigate the feasible development of an Event Center on the lakefront located adjacent to existing lodging for utilization by public and private groups (policy area 3, action item D-2);”
5. “consider the development of four-season structures that would permit the enjoyment of the lakefront during winter months (policy area 4, action item C-2).”
   

This plan was unanimously endorsed by the planning board and supported by Council in a 7-2 vote (Greco and Alcock opposed).

Following up on the resolution, Council has formed a group of community members and agency representatives that will meet every Tuesday at 4pm in City Hall to discuss the use of the State monies within the context of the adopted plan.

It is clear, from these Master plan amendments, that the use of the money has the following parameters:

1. It must be invested in a project that “will draw visitors to Geneva.” This is different than simply providing information to people who already found their way to the area.
2. It might be used for an ‘Ecological Interpretive Center’ on the lakefront, but not at a location that prohibits the potential development of an ‘Event Center’ adjacent to the Ramada.
3. It might be used for the development of an ‘Event Center’ adjacent to the Ramada only if the Center can be utilized by public groups and it meets criteria #1.
4. It might be used for the development of four-season structures that permit public enjoyment of the lakefront, but only if it coexists with, or does not prohibit, the development of an Ecological Interpretive Center or Events Center.
5. It can only be used for a ‘Visitors Center,’ in the typical Chamber-type function, if such a center coexists with one of the aforementioned projects that meet objective #1.
   

So, although the statements by Chamber of Commerce representatives might give the impression that the State money is to be used simply to upgrade their facilities, we find that to be an invalid assumption. Senator Nozzolio has stated plainly, on many occasions (most recently during an interview on Ted Baker’s morning radio show) that he wants the money to be used in a way that is best for Geneva, consistent with the identified goals and strategies of the newly-adopted Master plan amendments.

This means that the Council-appointed committee is free to consider dynamic ideas such as the recently discussed Finger Lakes Boating Museum, botanical gardens, a showcase conference facility, public beach and marina, and other enhancements to the lakefront that will not only provide new opportunities to residents, but draw new visitors to Geneva. Each committee meeting is open to the public and we encourage all of our readers to attend—now that things are back on track after all.