House Republicans, you are all we have left to stand for the American people against the dictator Obama, his… http://t.co/RMu2rgFL3B
— Brooks Imperial (@broimp) October 4, 2013
C-1 Board Candidates
the smoke from a distant fire
The Left says, “Do what we say, or terrible and awful [hyperbolic] things will happen.”
Children will spontaneously combust. The earth will cease to support human life. Total Hollywood stuff – looks flashy and sells well. The more extreme, the better it sells.
The Right responds, “When we do what you say, bad things happen in reality.”
Things get more expensive, people lose choices in the market, regulators get more power – bad, but kind of boring things. There’s no flash in these outcomes, little screen potential. They just slowly grind us down, take away our options, make things more expensive, and cause our freedoms to evaporate. It’s a slower process, not the stuff of big budget disaster films.
The Right is generally correct. But the Left has a bag of saleable images, so they have market share. [Read more…]
the market responds
Stocks up, dollars up, gold and oil down, sounds like we should keep the #governmentshutdown
— Brooks Imperial (@broimp) October 1, 2013
suffocating political indoctrination
– The College Fix – http://www.thecollegefix.com –
After Told He’s Racist, UW-M Student Rejects Further Diversity ‘Training’
Posted By Jennifer Kabbany – Associate Editor On September 23, 2013 @ 7:58 pm
Jason Morgan, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student earning his doctorate there, has told his supervisor he objects to the school’s mandated diversity training for teaching assistants (TAs) because leaders of the first session he attended essentially called him – and the whole class – racist.
The letter, sent by email Sept. 22, states all new TAs in the university’s history department are required to attend one orientation session, two training sessions, and two diversity sessions. Morgan, in his letter, called the first of the two diversity sessions, held Friday, “an avalanche of insinuations, outright accusations, and suffocating political indoctrination (or, as some of the worksheets revealingly put it, ‘re-education’) entirely unbecoming a university of our stature.”
Below Morgan’s letter has been reproduced in its entirety. Morgan, a College Fix contributor, also sent copies of the letter to various Wisconsin news outlets:
Dear Graduate Director Prof. Kantrowitz,
Please forgive this sudden e-mail. I am writing to you today about the “diversity” training that new teaching assistants (TAs) are required to undergo. In keeping with the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, I am also blind-copying on this e-mail several journalistic outlets and state government officials, because the taxpayers who support this university deserve to know how their money is being spent.
As you are probably aware, all new TAs in the History Department are required to attend one orientation session, two TA training sessions, and two diversity sessions. Yesterday (Friday, September 20th), we new TAs attended the first of the diversity sessions. To be quite blunt, I was appalled. What we were given, under the rubric of “diversity,” was an avalanche of insinuations, outright accusations, and suffocating political indoctrination (or, as some of the worksheets revealingly put it, “re-education”) entirely unbecoming a university of our stature.
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and students at probably every other public institution of higher education in this country, have long since grown accustomed to incessant leftism. It is in the very air that we breathe. Bascom Hill, for example, is roped off and the university is shut down so that Barack Obama (D), Mark Pocan (D), and Tammy Baldwin (D) can deliver campaign speeches before election day. (The university kindly helped direct student traffic to these campaign events by sending out a mass e-mail encouraging the student body to go to the Barack Obama for President website and click “I’m In for Barack!” in order to attend.) Marxist diatribes denouncing Christianity, Christians, the United States, and conservatives (I am happy to provide as many examples of this as might be required) are assigned as serious scholarship in seminars. The Teaching Assistants Association (TAA)–which sent out mass e-mails, using History Department list-servs, during the attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker, accusing Gov. Walker of, among other things, being “Nero”–is allowed to address TA and graduate student sessions as a “non-partisan organization”. The History Department sponsors a leftist political rally, along with the Socialist Party of Wisconsin, and advertises for the rally via a departmental e-mail (sent, one presumes, using state computers by employees drawing salaries from a state institution). In short, this university finds it convenient to pretend that it is an apolitical entity, but one need not be particularly astute to perceive that the Madison campus is little more than a think tank for the hard left. Even those who wholeheartedly support this political agenda might in all candor admit that the contours of the leftism here are somewhat less than subtle.
At the “diversity” training yesterday, though, even this fig leaf of apoliticism was discarded. In an utterly unprofessional way, the overriding presumption of the session was that the people whom the History Department has chosen to employ as teaching assistants are probably racists. In true “diversity” style, the language in which the presentation was couched was marbled with words like “inclusive”, “respect”, and “justice”. But the tone was unmistakably accusatory and radical. Our facilitator spoke openly of politicizing her classrooms in order to right (take revenge for?) past wrongs. We opened the session with chapter-and-verse quotes from diversity theorists who rehearsed the same tired “power and privilege” cant that so dominates seminar readings and official university hand-wringing over unmet race quotas. Indeed, one mild-mannered Korean woman yesterday felt compelled to insist that she wasn’t a racist. I never imagined that she was, but the atmosphere of the meeting had been so poisoned that even we traditional quarries of the diversity Furies were forced to share our collective guilt with those from continents far across the wine-dark sea.
It is hardly surprising that any of us hectorees would feel thusly. For example, in one of the handouts that our facilitator asked us to read (“Detour-Spotting: for white anti-racists,” by joan olsson [sic]), we learned things like, “As white infants we were fed a pabulum of racist propaganda,” “…there was no escaping the daily racist propaganda,” and, perhaps most even-handed of all, “Racism continues in the name of all white people.” Perhaps the Korean woman did not read carefully enough to realize that only white people (all of them, in fact) are racist. Nevertheless, in a manner stunningly redolent of “self-criticism” during the Cultural Revolution in communist China, the implication of the entire session was that everyone was suspect, and everyone had some explaining to do.
You have always been very kind to me, Prof. Kantrowitz, so it pains me to ask you this, but is this really what the History Department thinks of me? Is this what you think of me? I am not sure who selected the readings or crafted the itinerary for the diversity session, but, as they must have done so with the full sanction of the History Department, one can only conclude that the Department agrees with such wild accusations, and supports them. Am I to understand that this is how the white people who work in this Department are viewed? If so, I cannot help but wonder why in the world the Department hired any of us in the first place. Would not anyone be better?
There is one further issue. At the end of yesterday’s diversity “re-education,” we were told that our next session would include a presentation on “Trans Students”. At that coming session, according to the handout we were given, we will learn how to let students ‘choose their own pronouns’, how to correct other students who mistakenly use the wrong pronouns, and how to ask people which pronouns they prefer (“I use the pronouns he/him/his. I want to make sure I address you correctly. What pronouns do you use?”). Also on the agenda for next week are “important trans struggles, as well as those of the intersexed and other gender-variant communities,” “stand[ing] up to the rules of gender,” and a very helpful glossary of related terms and acronyms, to wit: “Trans”: for those who “identify along the gender-variant spectrum,” and “Genderqueer”: “for those who consider their gender outside the binary gender system”. I hasten to reiterate that I am quoting from diversity handouts; I am not making any of this up.
Please allow me to be quite frank. My job, which I love, is to teach students Japanese history. This week, for example, I have been busy explaining the intricacies of the Genpei War (1180-1185), during which time Japan underwent a transition from an earlier, imperial-rule system under regents and cloistered emperors to a medieval, feudal system run by warriors and estate managers. It is an honor and a great joy to teach students the history of Japan. I take my job very seriously, and I look forward to coming to work each day.
It is most certainly not my job, though, to cheer along anyone, student or otherwise, in their psychological confusion. I am not in graduate school to learn how to encourage poor souls in their sexual experimentation, nor am I receiving generous stipends of taxpayer monies from the good people of the Great State of Wisconsin to play along with fantasies or accommodate public cross-dressing. To all and sundry alike I explicate, as best I can, such things as the clash between the Taira and the Minamoto, the rise of the Kamakura shogunate, and the decline of the imperial house in twelfth-century Japan. Everyone is welcome in my classroom, but, whether directly or indirectly, I will not implicate myself in my students’ fetishes, whatever those might be. What they do on their own time is their business; I will not be a party to it. I am exercising my right here to say, “Enough is enough.” One grows used to being thought a snarling racist–after all, others’ opinions are not my affair–but one draws the line at assisting students in their private proclivities. That is a bridge too far, and one that I, at least, will not cross.
I regret that this leaves us in an awkward situation. After having been accused of virulent racism and, now, assured that I will next learn how to parse the taxonomy of “Genderqueers”, I am afraid that I will disappoint those who expect me to attend any further diversity sessions. When a Virginia-based research firm came to campus a couple of years ago to present findings from their study of campus diversity, then-Diversity Officer Damon Williams sent a gaggle of shouting, sign-waving undergraduates to the meeting, disrupting the proceedings so badly that the meeting was cancelled. In a final break with such so-called “diversity”, I will not be storming your office or shouting into a megaphone outside your window. Instead, I respectfully inform you hereby that I am disinclined to join in any more mandatory radicalism. I have, thank God, many more important things to do. I also request that diversity training be made optional for all TAs, effective immediately. In my humble opinion, neither the Department nor the university has any right to subject anyone to such intellectual tyranny.
Thank you for your patience in reading this long e-mail.
Sincerely,
Jason Morgan
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Kiowa
Cavuto nails Obama & Obamacare
School board reforms
See: The Most Interesting School District in America?
In a DPO column today, Mike Rosen cited a number of beneficial reforms the conservative Douglas County School board implemented:
- [T]rue merit pay based on individual performance, not seniority and post-graduate college credits of dubious value
- Poorly performing teachers can be dismissed; talented teachers can be rewarded
- Teachers with specialties in high demand and short supply can be paid premiums
- Rigorous instruction in basic academics is emphasized instead of touchy-feely social engineering
- A pilot program for true parental choice was crafted
Apparently these reforms have led to a waiting list of teachers wanting to work in Douglas County.
What are Elbert County school boards doing along these lines to imitate Douglas County’s success?
9-29-13 Two candidates respond to Aaron Brachfeld on the issues:
C-1 3B, more analysis
After listening to the BEST grant work session from September 9th, it’s clear why the C-1 board likes the professionalism and construction management tools that the BEST program promises to make available.
It appears that, notwithstanding the quality of estimate costs that went into writing the grant proposals, the BEST grant process has mechanisms to economize grant fund spending. Contractor evaluations and bidding will be done from a set of detailed roof plans written by an independent roofing engineer specified by BEST. The program is funded from lottery and state land funds, not tax money. A BEST objective is for state buildings to have non-problematic construction using quality products with long economic service lives.
The grant appears to be a high-water funding authorization. If subsequent spending for the grant object comes in below authorization, BEST will not disburse the remainder. Unspent funds from grants stay in the BEST program for subsequent allocation to other projects — to the next grantee on the waiting list.
The BEST program promises to have safeguards and quality control measures built in throughout the process. That is all encouraging.
Turning to the bond language, voters will be asked to approve $3.8 Million in taxes to be collected over 10 years. In addition to debt service, spending of that revenue stream is limited to 6 categories:
- Acquisition of emergency communication systems and installation of such systems in classrooms and updating of school facilities with emergency alarm and communication systems to enhance safety and emergency response.
- Replacement of roofs at Singing Hills Elementary and Elizabeth High School.
- Repairing, replacing and installing necessary building upgrades to ensure health and safety needs at school facilities.
- Acquiring and installing fencing, gates and berm walls to address safety issues at various district facilities.
- Resurface the high school track and modify the pole vault area to address safety issues.
- Acquisition of new school buses to replace aging and obsolete fleet and to acquire and install an additional fuel storage tank to take advantage of bulk purchase pricing.
Note, the BEST grant quality control protocols only govern the roof replacements. A maximum of $1.4M of the $3.8M cash flow will fall under the strict scrutiny of the BEST program, leaving $2.4M to spread between debt service and an assorted mix of other projects not under BEST program scrutiny.
Remaining questions about 3B are:
- $1.1M, or almost 29% of the total tax money collected will go to pay off bond holders for the use of the money. That means everything that C-1 buys under this program will come at a 29% premium for the debt cost.
- The remaining $1.3M of expenditures to spread among the non-roof bond categories won’t fall under BEST grant protocols for engineering, estimating and spending control.
- The expense category for “building upgrades to ensure health and safety needs at school facilities” is an unconstrained spending object. It lacks specificity for internal control.
The decision is up to the voters of the C-1 district.
B_Imperial
P.S.
I received email comments from a C-1 Board member about the above questions.
On the 29% debt cost, he thought it would be less. Debt cost, however, will be determined by bond market conditions that won’t be known until the bond is written. As I understand the bond market, bonds get written and sold at a coupon rate of return, which presumably matches market conditions at the time of writing. The market then trades those bonds at a discount or a premium until maturity, depending on how the coupon rate compares to other rates of return in the market. Ballot language asks voters to approve a 29% total cost of bond money, therefore voters must be prepared to accept that cost estimate.
On the matter of the BEST construction management and finance protocols which don’t apply to non-BEST grant spending objects (other things than the roofs), the C-1 Board intends to apply similar “BEST-like” processes to moneys spent with funding from the 3B bond.
On the matter of the general 3B spending category of “building upgrades to ensure health and safety needs at school facilities,” the C-1 Board apparently approved a detailed list of spending objects to be paid for with 3B funding, though I haven’t seen a project list divided into the categories of spending that the ballot language contains.
Even if such categorizations exist, the controlling law will be the ballot language. Future actions by this C-1 Board, and future C-1 boards with different members, will only be bound by the law that gets written. In other respects – construction management, bidding, accounting, quality control, spending objects, to the extent these matters aren’t constrained by law, they may be changed by subsequent board action.
In sum, voters must decide whether to approve the 3B ballot as written. Circumstances change, intentions change, governing bodies change. If the law allows for governments to do something other than what was originally intended, experience shows they eventually will.
it’s money grabbin’ time
The mail-in electoral season is now. Ballots will hit mailboxes shortly and the voting will commence. As a conservative Republican, I must apologize for our local Republican leaders who put tax and debt increases on our local ballots for voter approval.
For example, I’m not sure what they were thinking over at the C-1 school district. Campaign material, and rhetoric from a couple board members, says that overwhelming love for children drives them to support the 3B tax for a bond debt. But it’s going to cost over a million dollars in interest for this 3B deal! Can love make you sign a bad deal? Not only will C-1 taxpayers have to buy all the stuff at top dollar contemplated by the 3B ballot measure, but the money they’ll get from the Colorado BEST grant program won’t even cover the cost to finance the bond.
Apparently C-1 doesn’t have enough money to service/repair/replace necessary infrastructure in the C-1 district, at least not at the level the current directors would like. But with over a million in financing costs alone, this seems like a pretty expensive way to get things done. It’s a good thing taxpayers will be on the hook to make up the deficits because I’m sure the directors don’t have the money. They just have love.
And then over at Elbert County, it recently took a good six hours for all of the department heads to parade before the BOCC and lay out how cash starved each of their departments is, and describe some of the things they could do for us if only they had more revenue to spend.
So impressed were our Republican BOCC members with the department head tales of budget deprivation and public service in potency, that they put two perpetual tax measures on the ballot for our approval. These taxes will just feed the general revenue fund, allowing the county to direct spending wherever they want, and not have to identify spending objects up front.
That’s a pretty sweet deal! In personal terms, it would be like someone saying, “Give me an endless stream of money for something I might do in the future, and I’ll let you know what that is when I make up my mind.”
Elbert County hasn’t even published its 2012 actual financial performance yet. How do county leaders even know if they don’t have enough money to keep things going?
More importantly, when you look at the past decade of financial performance for the county, there’s a disturbing feature in the numbers — spending always meets or exceeds revenues. There is never too much revenue! No matter how much revenue goes up in a given year, spending always goes up by at least a comparable amount.
Republicans have a reputation for valuing smaller governments that do less for citizens, thereby making room in society for the private sector to do more, thereby increasing profit opportunities to enlarge private economic activity, and thereby generating new wealth for the society.
Democrats have the opposite reputation of valuing public non-profit spending for the collective good, which they don’t hesitate to define, which generally doesn’t work out too well for anyone they don’t like, which generally doesn’t include wealth-generating private enterprise, except for some enterprises owned by people they like.
So, when I see Republicans acting like government-growing Democrats, all I can do is offer my apologies. I wish they wouldn’t do things like that.
And until our Republican BOCC repeals the oppressive zoning that keeps any significant economic activity and jobs from taking root in Elbert County, I wouldn’t reward them with any more money.
B_Imperial
dodo birds
I’ve been assured the days of the BOCC accepting partisan regulatory language from ad hoc citizen committees for incorporation into county zoning regulations are over.
This begs questions of what new hobbies Rick Brown, Ric Morgan, Grant Thayer, Paul Crisan, Tony Corrado, their assorted chums and Green acolytes, will find to occupy themselves on Tuesday evenings. Nothing springs to mind off the top of my head that might satisfy their needs for social justice and environmental redemption, absent dictatorial empowerment.
A local bowling alley with an attached bar might be nice for them to repair to on Tuesdays, but under the wisdom of their planning commission hats they’ve probably turned thumbs down on those sorts of plans dozens of times. Had they not done so at least they could topple a few pins and imagine the sound of cracking an environment-despoiling conservative skull, over a few brews.
This isn’t to say the planning work product of purely governmental origin will be any better. I set the bar pretty high in favor of free markets, contractual rights and remedies, personal responsibilities, and adult citizenship in my planning expectations — principles which planning documents from Elbert County don’t generally recognize on the part of applicants.
In Elbert County, planning applicants are treated as some sub-human species who have forsaken citizenship — incapable of exiting a bathroom without a planning document for cleaning themselves properly, complete with inspections, time-line loops, bureaucratic blessings, and penalties for non-compliance, not to mention the elaborate building code specifications for the construction, location, and approval of such conveniences.
I contingently welcome this BOCC planning epiphany, lament that it came too late to save us from the mess of Special District Regulations, and eagerly hope for a reversal in the heretofore repressive planning saga of Elbert County.
Freedom built a great country. It could build a great county too.
Farewell dodos. Happy trails.
B_Imperial
A fair trade
Will trade tax vote for zoning repeal.
If the BOCC repeals land use zoning regulations, I’ll vote for their tax increases.
If Elbert County wants to take more money from citizens, citizens should be free to earn money in Elbert County.
B_Imperial
RE: (land use zoning regulations)
Please click on the links below to download various Regulations & Plans:
- Elbert County Master Plan
- Elbert County Housing Section Final
- Elbert County Zoning Regulations pdf files are broken into two parts – please see below
- Elbert County Zoning Regulations Part I
- Elbert County Zoning Regulations Part II
- Elbert County Subdivision Regulations
- Guidelines and Regulations for Areas and Activities of State Interest
LAND USE APPLICATIONS
(Please refer to the Section identified on each application in either the Subdivision or Zoning Regulations for more information.)Please click on the links below to download various Applications:
- Land Use/Zoning Districts
- Land Use Application Form
- Application Agreement Form
- Disclosure Letter
- Fee Schedule 09
Administrative Applications
(All administrative applicants shall meet or talk with Community and Development Services Office staff prior to application submittal to determine if application can be handled administratively.)Non-Administrative Land Use Applications
(All applicants shall meet or talk with Community and Development Staff to find out about the required Pre-Application Meeting, its submittal requirements and scheduling prior to formal application submittal.)
- Temporary Use Permit
- Special Use Permit
- Plat Amendment
- Variance
- Concept Plan
- 1041 Application (Application available in Community and Development Services)
- Rezone
- Planned Unit Development
- Preliminary Plat
- Final Plat
- Water Supply Information (Please include with all applications)
Please contact the Community and Development Services Office if you have questions.
antelope close
delay, confuse, obfuscate
Several of the below issues have already been effectively adjudicated negatively in the first round of failed regs that conflicted with COGCC rules. Persistence in their inclusion reveals a purpose to delay oil & gas development by any means until leases run out on operators.
Enough with the oil & gas zoning edit committee sideshow.
RE:
Elbert County Oil and Gas Regulations/MOUs Update
September 14, 2013
The county commissioners continue to undermine public input. The commissioners and the Director of Community and Development Services have held meetings to rewrite the regulations in secret venues; public participation was denied. There is supposed to be an ‘editing committee’ meeting at the administrative building this Tuesday, the 17th, at 6:30 pm. The CDC director is going to present her rewritten regulations and ask to send them to the Planning Commission (their meeting will be held on the 26th).
If you can attend, stress the importance of:
1. No open pits should be used for fluid storage in the county. Only closed loop systems can be used in the county.
2. No flow back or produced water should be spread on open land or roads.
3. All residents, and other resources, should be used to determine if there are abandoned wells in the vicinity of new exploration.
4. Vapor recovery systems, to minimize escaping gas, must be required.
5. Increased setbacks from homes and public places must be required.
6. Extensive baseline water well testing (and continued testing) is imperative.
7. Elbert County should allow green frack fluid only. (This may be a ‘sore point’ and ultimately against State regulations (but will certainly help protect our water, for which the County does have a right to ask.))
Commissioner Schlegel has told us that he does not have to rule by ‘committee’; he wants to run us over for his own personal gain. Commissioner Rowland follows suit
Friday night light
Help Kickstart World War III!
antelope morning
3B or not 3B, not really the question
No one has questioned the necessity to mitigate faulty roofs, fix infrastructure, get new buses, etc. Everyone wants safe and secure schools. That has never been an open question.
Questions, however, have been raised about the numbers inflation that seems to have come sua sponte from the C-1 Board after the BRP and IAC work products were delivered. This line of questioning has enervated all manner of aspersions upon those asking the questions, impugning the motives of the questioners, and has shut down legitimate inquiries on several Facebook threads.
Public forums are not like C-1 Board meetings where directors control allowed speech. Out here in the world the 1st Am. protects civil speech, and financial questions about the 3B Bond justifications are certainly in bounds.
Reasonable people should keep asking questions until the answers come forth. Mr. Swan’s unprofessional theatrics bring discredit to the C-1 Board, and to the extent he speaks for the C-1 Board, make them look evasive and disingenuous.
After all, Swan’s not even a candidate. People want to hear the candidates speak. Swan should allow that speech to proceed without further interference from him, because he’s not adding any useful information for voters to make decisions about potential future directors for C-1.
Why “go here” at all with this comment? Because you have to call out bullies. You can’t just sit quietly while they tromp around hurting good people.
Broadmoor night shots
red line hypocrite
C-1 Bond language
Note where the C-1 Board increased the cost estimates used to justify the Bond.
More importantly, note how the ballot language – which will become the controlling law in this deal – clouds the source & use control of funding. The Board combined project estimates into ballot groupings, and then put everything under the funds flow from the BEST grants. Since the C-1 Board had analyzed the ballot language for some time before tonight -video- one could conclude that rigid internal control of Bond funds flow wasn’t an objective.
Also, the repayment cost of the debt of $3.8M is the real cost to the taxpayers. Focusing on the bond value as the measure of the impact of the debt, disguises the real cost of all the chosen projects. You need to add 40% to each project to estimate its indebted real cost. [Read more…]
Reeves, roof, BEST Grant
Subject: Fw: BRP
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2013 12:29:35 – 0700 (PDT)
From: Frank Reeves
To: <Members of BRP> [Read more…]
evenin’
more on the C-1 Bond experience
Brooks Imperial shared a link. [Read more…]
BEST Grants and C-1 Bond
Two BEST Grants for roofing at Singing Hills Elementary and Elizabeth High School are key justifications for the C-1 Bond issue planned for the November Election. [Read more…]
A straw man format
Fenner calls returning the proposed zoning language to the planning commission a “straw man format.” [Read more…]
Elbert County in a state of nature
BOCC & TOE, k. i. s. s. i. n. g.
One of the three theological virtues that Christians uphold is hope – hope for all things religious to exist and turn out for the best in eternity. That’s my layman’s take on the virtue; a theologian would probably say it differently. Without a doubt, most Americans are raised in a Christian ethical framework. Just as faith, hope and love infuse our theology, those virtues contribute to every other American milieu. One raised in America simply cannot avoid them. [Read more…]
Islam is not a peaceful religion
Standing before the BOCC
By definition, complaints not grounded in an injury, an injustice, or a wrong, are groundless. [Read more…]
The Museum of American Speed
We toured the museum yesterday. Each of these cars represent a story of a legendary racer or engineer or team who made a milestone in racing or automotive history. They’re owned by Bill Smith, founder of Speedway Motors in Lincoln, Nebraska, and these pictures only scratch the surface of his collection there.