Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Dekalb County School Board at it Again! Mayor's State of the City Speech

By Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The DeKalb County school district filed a lawsuit Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to derail a process that could unseat all nine members of the school board.
The action, filed in Fulton County Superior Court by an attorney paid with taxpayer funds, elicited outrage from parents and other observers. The suit seeks a temporary restraining order to prevent a hearing by the Georgia Board of Education on Thursday.
The state board could recommend suspension of the DeKalb board, giving Gov. Nathan Deal authority to remove the DeKalb members under the provisions of a 2011 law.
Click Ty Tagami at AJC to read the full story.

Good question: To spare system and save money, why doesn’t the DeKalb board resign?

By Maureen Downey
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Today’s AJC story by Ty Tagami gives a great summation of the lawsuit filed yesterday by the DeKalb Board of Education to keep their elected positions by challenging the constitutionality of the law that permits the governor to oust them.

Taxpayers are underwriting this legal challenge, which is upsetting many DeKalb parents tired of crowded classes and dwindling resources.
As I wrote in a piece yesterday, there may well be good cause to question the state law. But should a costly legal challenge come from DeKalb, a system with a $16 million deficit and a parent community that seems delighted at the prospect of getting rid of its board?
Click Maureen Downey at AJC to read the full story.

Dunwoody Talk's Take

The blogsite Dunwoody Talk also has a take on the school board fiasco - click Dunwoody Talk to read it.   I respect Dunwoody Talk's author, Rick Callihan, who's a friend, but I disagree.  It's time for the entire DeKalb County School Board to go.  I agree, Nancy Jester and Pam Speaks appear to have done everything they possible can, but in order to remove the dead wood, the entire pile has to be burned.  And in the case of Nancy and Pam, they can be reappointed by the Governor.  It's simply time to remove the board, and hope that when elections are held again, the bad apples don't get re-elected.

Mayor's State of the City Speech

Dunwoody Mayor Mike Davis delivered his State of the City speech last night at the Crown Ravinia.  John Heneghan has posted the video of the speech on his blogsite - all 65 minutes! 
The mayor did a nice job, but he's got to learn to be more concise.  His speech started a little after 7:40pm, and at 8:20 I said, "I gotta go!"  So I didn't get to hear the end. 
Remember mayor - always leave them wanting more.  No one knew that better than Abraham Lincoln.  Below is the entire text of one of the greatest speeches of all-time, the Gettsburg Address.  The speech lasted less than 10 minutes!

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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