Is the Red and Black In the Red or in the Black?City Schools Seek $12.5 million in New Borrowing

A year ago, we ran a series of posts concerning the Geneva City School District's proposal to shift from two K-5 neighborhood schools to one primary (PreK-2) and one intermediate (3-5) school. The plan was brought to our attention by faculty and staff who were concerned that the effort was misguided in several ways. We don’t deal in leaks and rumors, so we didn’t post until we’d checked out the facts. And when we did, we were compelled to speak out about what we’d found, especially when the Finger Lakes Times was giving the plan a pass.

First, we shared worries that the plan was educationally unsound, and that it was likely to lead to greater disassociation between students, parents, and their school. Second, it was foreseen that there were serious logistical difficulties with such a move: scheduling, bussing, and adequate classroom space would be a problem.

Underlying those concerns, and creating a situation of distrust within which those issues could not easily be discussed or addressed, was the perception that the District administration, in conjunction with favored insider faculty members, was moving full steam ahead in insulated, secretive, non-public meetings.

Sure enough, the Finger Lakes Times towed the "company line" that no decisions had been made and there were no foregone conclusions. But they didn't press, and they didn't ask the hard follow up questions that would have revealed the facts behind the well-controlled sound bites. Despite the newspaper's headline "Nothing Decided" (2/9/09), the final public hearing on the proposal was held March 25th, and the decision passed with the support of five of the seven school board members on April 6th.

In less than two months, the District maintained (according to the resolution that you can read here) "the reconfiguration of the elementary schools will maintain and/or enhance the quality of educational programming for students and will also maintain fiscal discipline during this time of economic uncertainty."

You might wonder, as we do: Has the reconfiguration of the elementary schools enhanced, or at least maintained, the quality of educational programming for students? Did the move maintain "fiscal discipline" during a time of economic uncertainty? While we abhor the concept, we wonder if at least the ends justified the means? Did the perceived Machiavellian maneuvers of the District administration at least pan out?

If so, you wouldn’t think this move would require, in its first year, the pursuit of a $12.5million building project to remedy a lack of classroom space that, apparently, went unnoticed or unplanned for during the very process that the District said was guided by a thorough, responsible, and detail-oriented advisory committee. We wish it was otherwise, but alas, the district is putting just such a request up for a public referendum on March 9, 2010 (one year and one month, to the day, after solemn reassurance to District families and taxpayers public that this wasn’t a ‘done deal’).

Here’s the referendum item:

SPECIAL REFERENDUM
SPECIAL REFERENDUM OF THE QUALIFIED VOTERS OF
GENEVA CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a special referendum of the qualified voters of the City School District of the City of Geneva, New York, shall be held at Geneva High School, 101 Carter Road, Geneva, New York on Tuesday, March 9, 2010, between the hours of 12:00 o’clock to 9:00 P.M., for the purpose of voting on the following proposition:

PROPOSITION

SHALL THE BOND RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF GENEVA, NEW YORK, DATED JANUARY 19, 2010, AUTHORIZING CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS CONSISTING OF ADDITION TO, CONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF, SCHOOL BUILDINGS AND FACILITIES, VARIOUS SITE IMPROVEMENTS, AND THE ACQUISITION OF CERTAIN ORIGINAL FURNISHINGS, EQUIPMENT, AND APPARATUS AND OTHER INCIDENTAL IMPROVEMENTS REQUIRED IN CONNECTION THEREWITH FOR SUCH CONSTRUCTION AND SCHOOL USE, AT AN ESTIMATED MAXIMUM AGGREGATE COST OF $12,500,000; AND PROVIDING THAT SUCH COSTS SHALL BE RAISED BY THE LEVY OF A TAX TO BE COLLECTED IN ANNUAL INSTALLMENTS WITH SUCH TAX TO BE OFFSET BY STATE AID AVAILABLE THEREFOR, AND IN ANTICIPATION OF SUCH TAX, DEBT OBLIGATIONS OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AS MAY BE NECESSARY, NOT TO EXCEED SUCH ESTIMATED MAXIMUM AGGREGATE COST, SHALL BE ISSUED, AND, IF THE PROPOSITION FOR THE APPROVAL OF SUCH BOND RESOLUTION SHALL HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY AT LEAST A SIXTY PERCENT VOTE, SUCH OBLIGATIONS MAY BE ISSUED IN EXCESS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEBT LIMIT OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT PURSUANT TO APPLICABLE LAW, ALL BE APPROVED?”

For the complete referendum, click here.

It's probably wise for the Board of Education to separate the vote for $12.5million of new debt from the May vote for the election of new Board members. Is it to cover their lack of foresight—or, the old bait and switch? Whether it was poor planning or misleading the public, or something else, perhaps board members feared that residents who care about accountability and fiscal responsibility would not re-elect board members who supported this ill-fated reconfiguration.

In upcoming posts we will delve into this issue in more detail, fully presenting this case study of bait and switch. But we are again reminded that one of the values in public, inclusive decision-making processes (which the reconfiguration debacle certainly was not) is the ability of governing board to be clued in to 'public intelligence' on critical issues. We see what happens when those in power think they know better than those they are elected to represent. Unfortunately, it's the represented that end up footing the bill for their representatives’ mistakes.

Bait and Switch Anyone? "The Bloggers" Preview Posts and a Citizenship Academy to Come in 2010

Our recent appearance on Ted Baker's WGVA morning radio show featured a discussion of our post on Tiger Woods, Obama, and spin. We also previewed the themes we're looking to cover as NoStringsGeneva enters its fourth year, this coming March.

True to our original mission, we remain focused on public decision-making and accountability. We also remain committed to providing a fact-based point of view, resisting the urge of other media sources to rely on sound bites from local leaders without verifying the accuracy of those statements. We believe that our readers have come to rely on us for the "whole story" surrounding critical local issues, and we plan to keep delivering on that. As we mentioned to Ted, we will be starting with a look back at critical issues that have dominated community discourse in the past year.

Those include the Geneva City School District elementary school realignment plan (Were the projections accurate?), the City's Neighborhood Initiative (Is it catching on and how much is it costing?), City subcommittee work (What are those groups up to?), leachate (It keeps coming in, but what is the ‘it’?), and the ever looming national, state, and local budget crises (Who’s going to be hit the hardest by a failure of forward-thinking?).

Baker also engaged us in discussion of “bait and switch,” a political term Capraro first encountered when he entered public life in a big way in the early 1990s. He has been intrigued with it ever since, because it is so common in public affairs.

The term refers to presenting one set of reasons, rationalizations, premises, arguments—whatever will get elected officials, boards, or the public to agree on a certain action—and then, once taking that action is passed, changing the action, or the reason.

Ted’s example was selling the U.S. invasion of Iraq with fears of weapons of mass destruction, and then, once it happens, saying the invasion was about regime change and state building all along. And locally, we can think of several examples, like promising job creation to receive Empire Zone benefits, but never actually producing any new jobs, or pitching a new idea as a cost-saver but then watching costs soar after it’s implemented.

According to WiseGeek, “bait and switch” is an old marketing ploy:

“The bait and switch begins with the bait, an advertisement for a product at what seems like an extremely low price. Sometimes these products, such as a mattress, are of very low quality. Other times, the price may apply to one specific style of, or model of an item. In general, the bait is stocked in very low numbers. In some cases, only one or two of items are available at the low price.
Once the customer has walked into the retail establishment, the bait and switch moves to the switch. The salesperson will inform the customer that the store has sold out of the advertised item and offer a similar item at a higher price. Alternately the salesperson may push hard to be certain the customer understands that the lower-priced product is of inferior quality, and try to sell a better quality product at a higher price. Bait and switch may also be used to bring in customers with bait, low prices, and also raise prices of unrelated items that customers might also pick up at the time.”

Any sportsperson will tell you that deception is inherent in a bait scenario. If there were no barbed hook inside the worm, you’d just be feeding the fish one worm at a time on a string. We told Ted we’d be doing more posts on bait and switch, perhaps some case studies, of which there is never a shortage.

Our hope is that our readers will come to recognize the bait, uncover the hook, and not get caught up in the deception! This is the essence of accountability, getting to the core reasons, the true reasons, for public decision-making and making sure those, and only those, guide the public policy debate.

Of course, we want to cover the issues that matter the most to you. While we think the topics above are a good start, we welcome your suggestions!

In 2010 we also hope to begin a NoStringsGeneva “Citizens Academy” that will give anyone who's interested the opportunity to learn about and participate in local government decision-making, from filing FOIL requests to effectively debating the policy that arises from those assembled sets of facts. All in all, it looks to be an exciting year and we look forward to having you join us on the journey!

Are Things Going "The Blog Way?"

At the end of our most recent WGVA radio appearance, host Ted Baker asked us to reflect on the blog’s influence on local politics over the years. Capraro was quick to point out that it ought to be up to our readers to determine how effective we’ve been in advocating for open and accountable government, and community based civic engagement. But with the third anniversary of www.NoStringsGeneva.com on the horizon, it’s worth a look back: Have we made a difference?

After we were up and running about six months, on August 1, 2007, we outlined the principles our blog was founded on: accountability, open government, fiscally conservative taxing and spending policies, shared services and inter-municipal cooperation, sensible programs for improving the quality of life of city residents.

Of course, underlying each of those, and critical to the success of all, is our focus on process. We believe that the first and foremost goal of any democratic government is a democratic government. We rejected the notion that City Council should ride roughshod over the how in favor of the what.

Councilors and the citizenry should speak up and out when things are not progressing in accordance with democratic principles, including transparency. “Going along to get along” might spare the public a few squabbles, but it is better for government in the long run to insist on accountability. We, therefore, encouraged public participation, public access to documents, a meaningful seat at the table for the public interest, and a vigilant local press that, in keeping with democratic theory, ought to be more watchdog than cheerleader for local government.

In our view, good information + good dialogue = good government.

At its outset, the blog was attacked by some Councilors and some members of the previous administration-- largely for letting the sun shine in on local government, i.e., sharing information that had previously been regarded as ‘privileged,’ even though it never was. A short lived panic and worry emerged among those who feared everyone would eventually “go the blog way,” which meant asking lots of questions, FOILing documents, challenging the authority, speaking truth to power, and confronting those who appeared not to be acting responsibly in the public interest.

Ideas we raised here slowly made their way into the community and even into the hearts and minds of many of our detractors. Some of the ideas we discussed are actually making their way into public policy. Of course, we don’t claim ownership of those ideas, nor do we believe that good policy begins and ends with the blog. Instead, we see our role as another avenue of participation for the average citizen. Anyone who wants a say can have it here, so long as they’re willing to stand by it (by signing their name) and have a good faith discussion about the merits or drawbacks of particular ideas.

At NoStringsGeneva, we’re guided by two concerns: unchecked government power and blind populism. Who keeps us in check? We strive to be a fact-based point of view. We take a stance on the issues, but we do our best to support our position with sourced facts and information, readily accessible to our readers. We also post responsible, signed responses to our posts, with our additional comments, Whether our ideas are seen as good or bad is, for us, secondary to our larger purpose of attempting to model responsible civic engagement, to get the facts, to let the facts do the talking and to make sure that those facts ground any and all policy-making. In that vein, we think we’ll take some credit for at least being mildly successful—for the time being. Check out the rest of our interview with Ted Baker in the radio archive.

Tiger Woods:A Case Study of Public/Private in an Age of Spin

Golfer Tiger Woods— AP Athlete of the Decade and the wealthiest athlete in the world— is taking “an indefinite break from professional golf” in response to a flood of reports on his now admitted “infidelity.” (you can find the full story here)

Since professional athletes and politicians have a great deal in common—they live in the public eye and are celebrities of sorts—we thought aspects of the Woods affair might be of interest to our NoStringsGeneva readers.

Recalling our previous posts on trusting public officials, the resignation of Eliot Spitzer, and the plausible deniability of John Edwards, and others, we thought we might look at the public/private dichotomy in the Woods affair and the ways celebrity politicians and athletes manage their image, and the implications for our own civic engagement.

Athletes and politicians ultimately depend on the public, or various publics—voters, fans, etc.—for the positions they hold, so their image is important. Individually, fans and voters are relatively insignificant; but, in their collective actions (watching/supporting events and casting ballots) they confer wealth and power on athletes and candidates.

Most of these ‘transactions’ take place in the “public” realm: Voters respond to constructions of candidates built from messages about image, issues, and biography; Sports fans react mostly to athletic performances. What goes on in the “private” lives of athletes and politicians, we say, doesn’t matter much, unless they have done something terribly wrong, or flat out illegal.

But it’s not quite that simple. Politicians and athletes actively manage the disclosure of certain aspects of their private lives—such as information about their families and their likes and dislikes. They invite voters and fans into their private lives, mainly, we believe, to suggest something good about their character. “Family man” and “good son” or “hard working” and “sober” fill out the picture of a candidate or athlete worthy of our support and our trust.

Such disclosures are selective, so we can never be sure we are getting the whole story. Take President Barack Obama, who both smokes cigarettes and plays pickup basketball. He lets cameras into the gym, especially if he’s shooting hoops with servicemen, but he is shutter shy when he lights up.

ABC News observes, “Clearly mindful of the image issues smoking may cause, Obama has been careful to keep images of him with what health advocates call ‘cancer sticks’ out of the newspapers. Unlike Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton, members of the media have been unable to find photographic images of Obama smoking even a cigar or pipe.”

However, as The Huffington Post reported this Fall, “White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs enlivened his daily press conference by showing reporters a blown up photo of President Obama blocking a shot by his bodyman Reggie Love during a basketball game.”

Now consider Tiger Woods. He made his reputation and created his image mostly with his amazing performances as a golfer. When it comes to any high performing athlete, and even though we are frequently disappointed, a certain amount of good character is assumed. Inherent in our admiration of athletes is an unstated assumption that underlying their performance is good character at work: hard work, discipline, sacrifice, self-control, etc.

For all his notoriety, Woods was said to be a private person. But, as private as he was, he selectively disclosed aspects of his private life. As he approached his late 20’s, his private narrative— the story of his life off the course—evolved from the good son of Earl Woods to a family man in his own right.

Earlier this year he released the family photo, at left, following the birth of his son.

The combination of ranking number one among the world’s golfers and stepping into the role of family man (husband, father, and good provider) created a powerful image of high performance and responsibility. Corporate sponsors loved the combination. The Tiger Woods brand was premised on a guy you could trust.

There was a lot of truth in that image of Woods. Athletes have something few politicians can claim, a public performance of actual, objective accomplishment. You could, in fact, count on Woods to win. No spin, he has won 93 professional tournaments, including 14 majors, since joining the tour in 1996.

And he is married to Elin Nordegren—former swimsuit model and nanny, and they do have two children. But, in light of his confessed “infidelity,” and a myriad of allegations adding up to promiscuous sex, the image was ultimately false.

With most politicians, we have less to go on. Barack Obama rose quickly from relative obscurity to prominence based largely on image—an image of intelligence and hope and charisma. That’s one of the reasons we’re always trying to get at the bedrock of a politician’s character and, in turn, why they are always managing their image. We want to know who we are putting in office: is this someone you can trust?

In all fairness, we all edit our self-disclosures, with a particular audience in mind. Erving Goffman’s classic sociological study, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), captures that sense of theater in our lives. What’s more, most would agree restraint in what we reveal about ourselves is the mark of a mature, sane, and civil person.

Our notion of a right to privacy, in its everyday social and legal dimensions, suggests that we want to be protected from unconsensual intrusions and that we ought to be in charge of what is revealed about us. It is up to us to decide what we wish to reveal, and to whom. The State of California, home to Hollywood and other dream factories, just enacted new legislation to further protect celebrities from paparazzi profiting from invasive photos.

In short, because we are after character, there is an approach/avoidance dance between the public and private lives of politicians and star athletes. That’s why they all manage their image in an age of spin—so that we will move our votes, our money, our very trust over to them. If we are lucky, image and reality match up, but they didn’t with Woods, Madoff, W. Bush in Iraq, Spitzer, and so on.

But what about the co-conspirators? Since Woods hit the tour, prize money has increased fourfold, so the entire PGA tour membership and their various dependents benefitted from Woods’s accomplishments and star power. When he missed most of the 2008 season with knee surgery, the audience for golf went down 50%.

Certainly, a great many folks must have known about Woods’s antics, but no one has spoken out. There’s too much at stake. Only a conspiracy of the tabloid press and several apparently jealous or fame-seeking lovers could bring them to light.

The same is true in politics: powerful people develop an extensive network of dependents who then help to submerge any scandalous behavior. In the case of Eliot Spitzer, how could the governor of the State of New York sneak off with prostitutes on a regular basis without a fair number of people knowing about it? So, too, with John Edwards, and with Bernie Madoff, dozens of folks must have been aware of his ponzi scheme but were in some way benefitting from it and therefore remained silent.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich-- reflecting on America’s “flight from truth” in the past decade, says we allowed ourselves, almost willfully, to be “spun silly” and “bamboozled” and “conned” by “shams” and “flimflams” and “ruses” and “fraudulent images,” i.e., by “men who played us for suckers.” He then drew direct comparisons between Obama and Woods:
“Though the American left and right don’t agree on much, they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama’s brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger’s public image.”

For Woods, does it really matter to us, even his sponsors, that he cheated on his wife so deliberately, so repeatedly, recklessly, and hurtfully? People say his next victory, perhaps as early as the 2010 Masters, will put all this behind him, and fans will forgive him. What matters is his awesome achievement on the course.

The problem with spin in the real world is that reality ultimately catches up. Lives are lost fruitlessly in Iraq. Fortunes are lost on Wall Street. And so, too, the public purpose can be lost, and the people lose.