The Observation Deck

My wife received an email today from a Lincoln parent that took her email address off the school directory and put it on a list that she sent the following spam email.

"As you are likely aware, at Tuesday's election we will be voting for 3 Lakewood's School Board members. I had an opportunity to attend a forum in September to listen to all 6 candidates positions on numerous issues. For me, three candidates emerged as strong choices. They are Linda Bebee (current school board member who is running for another term), Tom Einhouse, and Emma Petrie Barcelona. All of these individuals have strong ties to our community, a clear understanding of the financial and other challenges facing our schools in the coming year, and strong desire to make Lakewood a top school system. I urge you to consider voting for Tom, Linda, and Emma for Lakewood School Board on Tuesday.

Many of you also are familiar with the planned Phase 3 of the Lakewood school renovations which includes the second half of the high school and the remainder elementary schools. Two years ago, the state determined that due to declining enrollment, Lakewood would likely need to close one of its neighborhood elementary schools. After much discussion, debate and input from the community, the school board voted to keep Lincoln open. The three candidates mentioned above have publicly stated that they will stand by that decision. At the forum I attend, my understanding is that the other candidates would be open to revisiting the decision. Phase 3 is on hold until we receive the funding from the state and a matching levy is passed, but it is important to me and my family, that the decision that the board made to keep Lincoln will be honored.

So please vote in the school board election this Tuesday. Do your research and vote for the candidates that you think would be best serve our students, teachers and our community. Also please urge your family, friends and neighbors that are Lakewood residents to do the same.

Thank you.

BLANKED OUT
Parent of 3 Current and 1 Future Lincoln Students

p.s. If any of you are wondering how I obtained your contact information, please note that for most of you your child is in one of my boys' classes at Lincoln, and I found your e-mail address in the school directory. Also note that I do not have any affiliation with any of the candidates. This is just an opinion of a concerned parent."

I am wondering if any other parents received similar emails. I spoke with the principal at Lincoln and she is sending out an email reminding folks not to use this school resource for political purposes.

I am also wondering if any of the 3 candidates endorsed in this spam email knew it was going to happen. Too bad none of those 3 participate in open dialogue online.

Ryan-- thanks for pointing this email scam out. Besides the clear possibilities of abuse of a mailing list the overriding questions stand out---- namely, how can the three candidates who are mentioned possibly be identified with any, ANY, known postions? One has put up some signs, the other two have failed to show up for public, community campaign forums.
The circulator of this junk is not Lakewood.

Stan Austin (and yes, supporter of Kristine Pagsuyoin who has attended, participated in, and gone door to door to talk about these issues. That's what Lakewood is.)

Ryan Salo wrote:My wife received an email today from a Lincoln parent that took her email address off the school directory and put it on a list that she sent the following spam email.

Ryan

Are you really surprised?

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Are you really surprised?

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The three candidates mentioned above have publicly stated that they will stand by that decision. At the forum I attend, my understanding is that the other candidates would be open to revisiting the decision.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, any candidate promising to honor the Phase 3 decision (to finish Lakewood High School, and rebuild 2 out of the 3 older elementary schools) may or may not be able to honor that promise. It doesn’t make good financial sense or put what is best for our district first (nor is it very responsible) to promise to honor a decision that is now outdated. One of the candidates mentioned in the email currently serves on the city’s planning committee, and the other worked in the planning and development department. I don’t know—maybe they know something I don’t. To be fair, I believe all of us except one (Barcelona) said we would re-visit the decision. The tape is available at the library for viewing if anyone would like to check this fact.

Much has been written here on The Deck regarding Phase 3 which can be researched, but the point that I want to make is that our ability to move ahead with Phase 3 is not happening anytime soon. In addition, the OSFC will re-evaluate our district since our number didn’t come up to move forward within the 2 years since the Phase 3 decision was made. In fact, Dr. Madak explained many times during his reports that putting off Phase 3 and being re-evaluated by the state would be positive for our district. If our enrollment is not dropping we may qualify for the original plan of having all 3 older elementary schools rebuilt or renovated (and finish the high school). I know this because, not only did I serve on the Phase 3 committee, I have attended school board meetings on a consistent basis where these issues are discussed.

Part of the failure of Phase 3 was the inability to get everyone to look at what was best for the entire district instead of what was best for their kids or neighborhood. The other failure, hard as some of us tried, was that many don’t understand how rebuilding the schools would work. Let’s say the decision to rebuild Lincoln happens in 2014 (current plan). The first thing the district would do is close Lincoln. Keep in mind though, that the property is not large enough to build a new school according to OSFC requirements and so homes around the school will be demolished—that is if every home owner is willing to sell. Our district has said that they will not use eminent domain. I will leave it up to readers to decide whether that could happen in our city after the last time this approach was tried. If the school closes those students will attend Grant, Horace Mann, or attend school in church basements. It is possible that a kindergartner in the Lincoln district would never actually attend the school.

I think we ought to keep in mind that many residents living in the Lincoln district didn’t support the Phase 3 process, the school board’s unwillingness to explain their decision, or the decision to close any school. The best thing a new school board can do is to communicate more effectively the truth about Phase 3 and try to unite our neighborhoods to support our district. We have challenges ahead and this “us versus them” behavior is not productive to moving our district forward.

I would ask this parent, and other members of the community, to consider that it might be better for our city if we could keep all of our elementary schools and build right-sized buildings in each of those neighborhoods. It is not positive for a district wanting to attract families and keep our population up to close schools. For more on my opinion on that subject please refer to the story I wrote, Keeping 7 Elementary Schools Is The Right Thing To Do For Lakewood (April 2010), http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/read/2010/04/06/keeping-7-elementary-schools-is-the

I believe in making decisions that put all of our kids first no matter where they live in the district. I think we should maintain 7 schools (the Phase 3 committee never reached consensus to close any schools), and make finishing the high school our top priority. See the recent thread, Just How Reliable Are The Schools Financial Forecasts?, http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10485.

"Two years ago, the state determined that due to declining enrollment, Lakewood would likely need to close one of its neighborhood elementary schools. After much discussion, debate and input from the community, the school board voted to keep Lincoln open. The three candidates mentioned above have publicly stated that they will stand by that decision.

I believe the decision by the BoE was to close Grant. If these three candidates intend on honoring that decision despite increasing enrollment, then those are three candidates that I would not consider voting for.

Today on my doorstep I found three pieces of campaign literature anchored together with a paper clip.

Meg Ostrowski wrote:Today on my doorstep I found three pieces of campaign literature anchored together with a paper clip.

We got the same thing. One of them was a sliver of paper. It had a QR code on it...where did they get that idea?

Let's scale this back to the local level.

dl meckes wrote:Let's scale this back to the local level.

Excellent,

yes



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I'm voting for Linda Beebe, Tom Einhouse, and Emma Petrie-Barcelona.

Just sayin'.

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Steve- Your votes for school board are quite expected as is mine---Kristine Pagsuyoin.

I think you would agree that all of the candidates have brought forward excellent ideas, backgrounds and skills for Lakewood voters to consider.

That is what will make Wednesday a great day for Lakewood's kids which is after all, what this school board race is all about.

By the way, a tip of the hat for your efforts in explaining the Charter issues to us.

Stan

Steve,

Do you care to disclose how much you were paid by any/all of the candidates you endorsed to print their literature?

Maybe you should add a "paid for by..." disclaimer to your post.

Stan Austin wrote:I think you would agree that all of the candidates have brought forward excellent ideas,...

Stan,

No, I wouldn't agree, but to your point, I wouldn't say that ALL of the ones that aren't on my list don't have something to offer.

Keep on working for what you believe in.


Steve

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Got love this city.

Every election cycle it is like fighting for water rights in LA back in the 20s.

This city has got to come to grips with itself.



I am in with total agreement with Val.

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