Making Sausage, Part II

Grinding Meat to Make Sausage is a messy process--that's why most people don't want to look at how it is made from the slaughterhouse to the Publix meat case; people just want to enjoy eating the delicious finished product.  Politics, and especially heated debate, is sometimes compared to grinding meat to make sausage---for good reason...

The Escambia Board of County Commissioners recently settled the sheriff's budget appeal, and now that this is behind us, all of the transcripts of our 7 shade meetings are a public record.  Yesterday afternoon, board members received the following email from attorney Alison Rogers:

"Commissioners,

Just a note to let you know that Jim Little of the PNJ requested and has now received copies of all seven of the Sheriff’s budget appeal shade meetings.

 Please do not email back, but do get with me if you have questions.

Alison"

So this means within the next couple of days, one or more news articles will appear, and more than likely some of the more choice exchanges from these transcripts will be published void of the context that generated the exchanges.  In an effort to get ahead of this, I will be publishing all of them, in their entirety, so citizens can read them for themselves if they so choose--in their entirety.

It is like the old saying, these deals are like making sausage--it's messy, stuff goes in, stuff comes out, and most people "don't want to know" how the sausage was made.  The internal deliberations of the sheriff's staff will never come out--so in some respects this is not fair.  But oh well, at least we got the deal done and we have a 4-year deal.

But because we are a public body, subject to open meeting laws, all of our private deliberations are now fair game for those who want to look.   So I'm releasing three more of these transcripts from February and March of this year  here, here, and here.  Lots of frank dialogue in here, lots of interesting conversations.... (and full disclosure--I wouldn't publish these if they weren't going to be coming out in dribs and drabs void of context in the media in the days and weeks ahead...)

Facilities Plans Move Forward for Escambia County.....No Independent Study Will Occur

After a two hour meeting on the subject of student growth in Beulah and how to best meet facilities challenges district-wide going forward, the plan remains the same despite my objections.

I brought a PowerPoint presentation where I delineated some of the rationale for the need of an independent, unbiased study to provide the board sound recommendations based upon science, facts, and trends.  Such a study would have been good as it would have either validated the current plan or perhaps it would have illustrated a better plan.

I've previously stated my legitimate objections to this plan here, here,  here.  here, here,  and here.

In a nutshell, I strongly feel that current capacity should be examined and school attendance zones re-balanced before new large scale construction is funded.  We have too many schools that are way, way under capacity, to include Molino Park that sits half empty and Warrington Middle School that is less than 60% occupied.

The next school in Beulah should be either an Elementary or a K-8---that is what is desperately needed there; Re-locating the Woodham Middle School population out to a brand new school in Beulah is not the answer when currently, as a district, we dramatically under-occupy our existing middle school capacity already---we only utilize 76% on average----and our student population is declining.  This is occurring even as big housing  projects emerge Beulah--which is another problem all together:  Why are parents choosing Pace, Gulf Breeze, Baldwin County or even Okaloosa over Escambia when they come here for jobs?

Brown Barge Middle School and PATS center sites should not be shuttered and moved, that building, despite its age, is in decent shape.

Bottom Line:

We have made BIG facilities mistakes in the past and we're about to do so again in my opinion, with the taxpayers footing the bill and too many students in portables for too long even after this plan is implemented..

With an independent, unbiased planning firm conducting a study--- it would have more than likely been free of political influence and the board could have chosen a better path.  Only two board members felt this was a good idea ( a study ) so instead we go forth with the plan which puts a new middle school next to an existing middle school, does not remove students from the Beulah portable farm, and does NOTHING to help Jim Bailey Middle School's massive overcrowding issues.

Yes I'm disappointed, but at least I'm on the record with an alternate plan that would have revealed the optimal plan.  But I  realize this is politics and decisions will not always go the way I want them to go.  Doesn't mean I will ever go along with a plan that is badly flawed....

The PNJ covered the meeting, you can read their piece here.

or, you can watch my presentation to the board beginning at minute 42 of  the meeting here.