Interestingly enough, the comments on another blog that I discussed in my previous post seem to have sparked additional interest in my sleepy little blog.  It seems that posting anonymously to try to smoke out someone’s true identity is now being equated with some no-name person out there taking pot-shots at people they don’t like.  I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to take someone’s opinion seriously, I’d like to know who they are and what their motives are before blindly following along.  Yes, I played the anonymous game but only in search of answers.  When I didn’t get any answers, I revealed myself.

Yes, I am a two-time former BOE candidate and lost both times.  Some have called me a two-time loser.  I’m not ashamed of that.  I learned a lot about this town, its people and its schools and had the joy of meeting lots of good people and making many new friends by running for the Board.  It’s probably a good thing that I wasn’t elected because my current job as a corporate accountant would not allow me the time to do right by the community if I were on the school board.  My mom always said that things have a way of working out the way that they’re supposed to.  I know in this case that is a fact.

But if the occupation of your school board members matters to you, let’s look at our 5 current members.  Only 1 of the 5 is employed full-time outside of the home.  2 of the 5 have experience in an educational setting.  None of the 5 has any type of financial background.  4 of the 5 have children in the schools, and 3 of the 5 come from an area that represents 10% of the voters in the school district.  The voters have to decide what out of all those facts are important to them.

If you’re going to listen to a tape of a meeting that took place almost a year ago, you should be listening to audio of all meetings.  If you took the time, you would find examples of all 5 members acting unprofessionally and irresponsibly.  It’s easy to cherry-pick inopportune moments out if you’re looking for them.

You should check the roll call over the past 3 years and see who has actually made an effort to show up to most of the meetings.  If you look at the origins of the BOE members and look at the transparency of some of the “anonymous” comments ( i.e. Floraga, I hear the Gators are doing well these days, or PrincessPeach, need I say more) on the blogs over the past few years, you would see that no hands are clean here. 

The visitor logs of my blog clearly indicate that the top 2 visitors to my blog are a business and a residence located in a city (not in Ohio) well known to one of our BOE members because they have a very close relative who lives there.  But that’s the risk you run when you put yourself out there on the Internet.  I knew that when I started this blog.  Having a family member stalk someone you don’t agree with is the risk you run as a public official.  I don’t know if mental illness runs in families but it makes me wonder.

Ultimately the voters will decide: do you want to elect someone who is willing to put their thoughts, feelings and opinions out there with their name behind them?  Or, do you want to be led around by the nose by the stranger hiding behind the curtain?  I’m not afraid of the stranger behind the curtain because eventually the Yellow Brick Road will lead to the truth.  But me, I’d rather follow the words of someone who isn’t afraid to put their name behind it and get to the truth that much faster. 

But in the end, it’s in the hands of the voters.  What is really important to them?