THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510120111
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
You plant a weed, you eat a weed.
For years the City Council has pretended it was carefully selecting qualified persons to represent us on the School Board. That is sheer rubbish. Behind the scenes selections have been made based on personal interests and whether the Virginia Beach Education Association would approve so council members would not lose votes the next time they ran.
Having watched all School Board meetings and observed what I believe to be a lack of ``due diligence'' throughout, I am not surprised that the board suddenly opened its purse and found it filled only with debits.
As a taxpayer, I am irate to see our council hand over a pot of gold to be indiscriminately used. Most responsible persons plan their work and then work their plan. When the nine full-term board members failed to protect taxpayer dollars, they should have had the decency to admit failure and leave the scene immediately.
All that appears to be taking place now is a ploy by council to preserve the image or financial reputation of the city; the taxpayer be damned. As Councilman Robert Dean stated, when the ship is run aground on a sandbar, most of those on the bridge, as well as the captain, are asked to pack their bags. Fast.
All this hype about the need for an audit, peculiarly to be produced on Election Day smells of political nature. The record clearly indicates that much of the deficit resulted from poor planning and frequent straying from the stated course of budget. The cancellation of the Serv-iceMas-ter contract, which supposedly caused part of the problem, gained VBEA membership, if I heard correctly.
We had a preview of the lack of responsibility on the part of City Council, the School Board and all those professional educators when they all tacitly or actively cooperated with board member Charles Vincent when he attempted to be credited with an academic degree by mail.
The current School Board chairperson told me she had received complaints from both teachers and students about being required to recognize Vincent's degree. She is now championing loss of school credit for a number of absences for little kids who might want to improve their abilities by being active outside school. What a skewed set of standards.
Some time ago a current School Board member asked me whether the School Board meetings ``looked like a circus.'' Obviously, I responded ``yes.'' Now the council and the School Board and administration are trying to mislead us with the story there is a new ``ringmaster.'' Sadly, all the acts are the same.
Superficiality has been the course here at the Beach for years. Unfortunately, candor is an unknown word in higher circles of Virginia Beach. The kids deserve better role models than we currently have here.
George D. Hamar
Ben Gunn Road by CNB