Assemblyman David Gantt pretty much runs the Democrat Party in the City of Rochester, everyone knows that. Gantt manipulates the “democratic process” to make sure his cronies get nominations to run for elected office. In the City, the Democrat line guarantees your success. The real lock is getting the line, not going before voters to earn their trust and support. That’s fine if the people who are chosen by Gantt to run are good people who really have the public’s interest at heart, but time and time again these very same people prove that is not the case.
Take the local party’s rules for selecting candidates at their nominating conventions. In a nutshell, committee members submitted weighted votes for candidates which their respective leaders must cast only in the first round of voting. Say there are two spots open and five candidates running. If a candidate doesn’t not win the majority in that round, a second round of ballots are cast. Let’s say that one of the above mentioned five received a majority but none of the remaining four beat the threshold. The committee leaders cast ballots again, but this time they do not have to vote the way their rank and file committee members want them to. They can cast ballots for whomever they as individuals want. The rank and file are removed from the process. These are procedures easily manipulated by party leaders, rather – party leader, Boss David Gantt.
Gantt selects the committee leaders who in turn will do his bidding by voting for his cronies. He’s found a way around those pesky rank and file committee members who think they actually get a say in who their candidates will be. So far it’s worked pretty good for Boss Gantt.
But look are what City residents get when Boss Gantt is calling the shots.
This is a cross post from the local blog Smugtown Beacon run by local political pundits Aaron Wicks and Christopher Wilmot. They give City residents a first look into how the City party is run and expose the elected bad apples. This one is on an email exchange between City School Superintendent Jean Claude Brizard and who we now know to be City School Board Member, and David Gantt political crony, Cynthia Elliott. Check out Elliott’s professionalism in true Gantt form. What a great student of The Boss.
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Behind Closed Doors — Public Officials’ Dark Side
By: Aaron E. Wicks
Posted: Sunday, June 21, 2009 7:16 am
Rochester, NY (June 21, 2009) — The headquarters of the Smugtown Beacon is like any other newsroom: half eaten pizzas, ink-stained page proofs and piles of Pulitzer Prizes lay scattered about the place. Sometimes, among the detritus of research, old stories and the latest flash from the telegraphic wires, a nugget crosses our news desk that bears a second look.
Generally speaking, the communications among public officials are difficult to confirm: one official might want information shared, but others might not. And since confirmation from at least two of the participants is the generally-accepted standard, all sorts of juicy talk lies in the dustbins of the major media newsrooms.
But not at the Beacon.
Recently, a little birdie brought a rather interesting email thread to the newsroom. The names and specific references have been removed to protect the innocent — and also to be fair: although the birdie seemed credible, it could simply have left the editors a gift of fiction (Email is notoriously easy to edit). No matter — even if the following is fiction, it makes for a fascinating hypothetical exchange among a school superintendent and a member of a School Board who is elected to oversee that superintendent’s activity.
So, without further ado, an exchange we call “Is This Any Way For an Elected official to Behave?”:
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[Message from Concerned Board Member]
“Superintendent,
I continue to hear that there are schools that you have not visited. I really am disappointed by this. How can you effectively communicate your vision, have buy-in from the rank and file, develop a different organizational culture and have significant academic outcomes if you have not been in those schools. They need to see you. They need to know that you care about their schools. I am deeply concerned.
Concerned Board Member”
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[Response from Superintendent]
“Concerned Board Member,
I believe that I have been to every school – some as many as ten times. I do not sit behind a desk. I created the current structure of school chiefs so that my ears are always on the ground. In fact, I intently minimized the number of layers between myself and principals and teachers so that I know what is happening in schools. Will you please identify the school(s) that you claim that I have not visited? I am not sure where this is coming from but my calendar is archived and I believe that I can give you dates of my visits. I meet with principals, teachers and many others regularly. In addition I write a weekly message to staff. I met with more than [xxxx] teachers since arriving and met with each principal for at least one hour – some more than that. We message very often.
You should know that despite my youthful appearance I am not inexperienced. I have more than 23 years in this business, have presented on the national level on visioning and executing. The last was in [major American city] on our budget, strategy and union negotiations. [A state educational official] thought so much of me and my understanding of State issues that I was one of two finalists for [a high-ranking position] two years ago. I am the one who withdrew from the search because I wanted to stay closer to schools and the work of improving student achievement.
I ask that you please do not accuse but instead ask me direct questions based on facts or allegations (I like to face my accusers). You will always find me to be honest and direct. I do not have a hidden agenda.
Thank you
Superintendent”
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[Response from Concerned Board Member]
“First of all… don’t send me any threats. You know I have no problem in saying any and everything I want to say to you. Please don’t even get it twisted!!!!
The fact is I have spoken to you about you not visiting schools. And you said to me that there were [number] schools you had not been visited. I don’t know who you think you are writing this email to, but I know you and you know what you have done and have not done.
Are you calling these principals liars? It seems to me that all you want to do is get your face in the public eye. And you certainly don’t seem to care about the poorest schools. Almost everyone I attend and ask if you have visited they have said no. And yes I can give you the names of those schools. I told you before when I heard you hadn’t been to [a certain school]. And as a result every school I attend, I ask have you been there and will continue to ask. REMEMBER YOU REPORT TO ME I DON’T REPORT TO YOU!!! And I have a right to ask these questions of you what you are and are not doing and will continue to ask those questions.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!!!! Like I said I am very dissapointed that you have not been to those schools. Are you saying those principals are lying? Are you calling them liars? What reason do they have to lie? You may have reasons to lie. But I’m sure they don’t. The fact is you have lied to us in the past which causes me to question your integrity.
Stop acting like a little girl, stop whining and do your job. You are too defensive and it is embarrassing. You say you are young, but what you failed to say is that you have some growing and maturing to do. Because anytime you get as defensive as I’ve seen you get just to have everyone to think you are the best thing that ever happened to this District is already in trouble.
The fact is there are skills you DO NOT have as a leader. Not going to every school, allowing them to know your vision from you speaks to your need of improvement with your leadership.
Now, if you want to talk about this offline, bring in on. The fact is I know and you know there are schools you have not visited and you need to stop lying about it.
Everyone knows your game.”
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Ed note: The conversation continued beyond this point with some other characters joining the fray. But by this point, it should be clear that if an elected school board member has communications like this with a superintendent, there are some issues that need to be resolved. Ultimately, such issues can — and must — be resolved by the voters who choose their representatives. Alternatively, if indeed the superintendent is not performing satisfactorily, that Board has an obligation to consider his/her dismissal.
Readers of the Beacon are invited to share more vignettes such as this. Conversations should be on the record — the light of public scrutiny should shine in even the darkest email in-boxes when the public good is at stake. And in this case, the quality of children’s education hangs in the balance.
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Ed note #2: The following response was received to this story after its initial posting. It is reproduced here in its entirety, with full attribution, in accordance with Smugtown Beacon editorial policy:
To the Editors:
“Apart from a book review I did over a year ago, I have never written to the Beacon. But I am concerned about the way this story has been reported.
Conduct by an elected official, as indicated in these e-mails, is newsworthy. I understand and appreciate your heightened alert to the need to confirm, given your recent experience with inaccurate information provided by Democratic HQ., for which I personally think you over-apologized.
In this case, I would not have run the story at all, without identifying who was engaged in the conduct described. The difficulty with the approach taken is that it leaves the good people of this community wondering who is being described. It casts an unfair light on other board members.
In the case of the city school board, where I served the past three years, this is a particularly sore point. Blanket assaults upon the motives and ability of anyone who happens to served there, and on the institution itself, have been the scapegoating tactic of choice by some of our most venal elected officials and editorial voices in Smugtown, since long before I arrived. These attacks are launched by such people, in large part, to distract attention from their own failures, which are manifest.
The public is beginning to catch on. The laughable performance by City Council the other night, in connection with their vote on the school budget, perhaps combined with the arrest histories of a couple of their members, are reminding people that no elected body has a monopoly on virtue or dysfunction.
Most reasonable folks understand that, in any group — a city council, school board, or state legislature — there are bound to be both wise and foolish people. And for that reason, it is important that individual elected officials be held to account for what they do, and for their colleagues to not be blamed for the bad conduct of others.
As it happens, I recognize these e-mail exchanges to be between Commissioner Cynthia Elliott and Superintendent Brizard. I also regret to say that such communications from Commissioner Elliott are not unusual. This is how she addresses her colleagues, and even how she treats people she has authority over, quite often. And you have not published the worst.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I am not a candidate for reelection to the school board, while Commissioner Elliott is. After service on three school boards over 26 year, and my own growing concern about the extent to which Albany, City Hall and Party Hq. hacks seem bent on playing politics with the well being of city children, I have chosen to take the fight to the source of that problem.
I do not agree, however, with some friends who suggest that Elliott’s designation at the Democratic Convention May 14th constituted any injustice to me. I am grateful, and was frankly surprised, to win the support of rank and file committee members in seven of eleven districts across the city. Yes, the rules allowed committee leaders to overrule the choices of their members. If you don’t agree with that rule (and I confess I don’t) — change the rule!
The truth is, I was only reluctantly available at all, for board designation, at the request of some of the very committee leaders who chose otherwise at the convention. I am more puzzled than offended by that, and quite happy doing what I am doing now. Much has been written about this, in the Beacon and elsewhere, so I thought I would offer my perspective .
That said, it is totally legitimate for committee members to question the actions of their leaders, if they strongly object to them, and to support whomever they please in the primary and petition process, including crossing designated party candidates they object to off of party petitions they are asked to pass, which the law and the rules also allow. I applaud the various effort developing in the primaries, which will refresh our party, and the democratic process, and are long overdue.
Any public official should be judged by their record in its entirety. But since you have run this story, I feel honor bound to set the record straight as to who addressed the Superintendent this way. Many people feel that Cynthia’s refusal to even shake hands with Tim Mains, her climbing down from her desk to intimidate a speaker critical of her at a board meeting, and the judgment and temperament shown in these e-mails, all combine to put reservations about her continued service in a unique category. The question that has always bothered me these past few years is this: Why has Gannett, which is well aware of these matters, failed to report them to the public?
Tom Brennan
Rochester
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Kinda speaks for itself. This is who Boss Gantt has personally chosen to represent children’s needs in the Rochester City school District.
Scary, isn’t it?