During my career, I’ve interviewed literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of elected officials, policymakers and authority figures. I’ve covered just as many press conferences. After all that I’ve heard, trust me, I know when I’m being snowed.
That’s why I have to shake my head at some of the statements made in the
article reporter John Neville posted today on the District Attorney’s investigation into charges of misconduct by Franklin officials during the recent school referendum. Some of the quotes are incredibly breathtaking in their posture that Franklin school officials saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing, and did nothing wrong.
For example, School Board President James Ward said “he doesn't know of any pro-referendum materials disseminated by school district officials.”
With regard to the much-publicized, much-talked about assembly for Franklin High School senior students the Friday before the election, Ward “said the reason he knew about the assembly was that his daughter, Anna, a senior, attended the event and told him.”
How can the School Board President be so left out of the loop and the decision-making process about an assembly of 348 students in the high school the Friday before the election?
How can the School Board President, one of the top cheerleaders for the referenda, not be aware of pro-referendum literature in the community, and literature that was actually handed out in the schools?
Then you have Franklin High School Principal Mike Cady.
In an interview about the assembly, Cady said, “No information was presented with any kind of an angle or slant."
Oh, really??
Neville writes that, “Cady said students were shown a 13-minute referendum video, sample ballots and a map with polling locations. Also discussed, he said, was the impact of a passed referendum on local property taxes.”
Seems to me that during the assembly, school officials certainly pointed all the arrows to a YES vote.
Was the 13-minute video produced by the school district?
Was the video produced with school district resources?
Was the video produced on school time?
Did the video present both sides of the referendum issue? (The answer to that is an obvious NO).
How naïve do they think we, the taxpaying public, are?
They conduct an assembly with voting-age students on school property during school time the Friday before the election. They play a one-sided video. They hand out ballot instructions and maps with polling places. As I stated in previous blogs, it was a last-minute desperate, highly questionable and unethical measure to take.
This was clearly an election primer geared toward getting positive votes. And we’re supposed to believe school officials when they throw their hands up in the air and claim they did absolutely nothing wrong?
Sure James Ward didn’t know anything about those pro-referendum pamphlets. He first found out about that assembly when his daughter who attended it came home and told him about it…….yeh, that’s it. My daughter told me, after it was all over.
And that assembly? They weren’t trying to pull some shenanigans. Principal Cady says it was just a “civics lesson.” You mean like a seminar on honesty in government?
If this was such an important "civics lesson," why weren't the non-voting age students included in this educational endeavor? Because they specifically and purposely targeted students who could go out and vote YES....that's why. Their intent was clear.
This is simply amazing. This same band of folks tried to sell us a bill of goods with the $78-million tax increase. You didn’t fall for it. Now they’re trying to pull the wool over your eyes again by claiming innocence on the one hand, and ignorance on the other (I didn’t know anything about those pamphlets. I didn’t know anything about the assembly. We weren’t telling the kids how to vote……it was a…..civics lesson. That’s it……a civics lesson).
They must think we’re really stupid. Guess what? We’re not. This doesn’t even come close to passing the smell test.
Remember everything that’s transpired here the next time they come asking for a tax increase claiming they know what’s best and you should trust them….
