Wednesday, December 09, 2009

BOE Chairman Brittingham?

Word on the street is that Gerry Brittingham will be elected the BOE Chairman on Thursday night.

Good luck counting those votes though. Though I've had several people tell me that Gerry has four votes... no Board member has told me his/her vote... nor do I recall asking any of them.

I also understand that Peter Massey will be named the Finance Committee Chairman.

Tim White

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is he an "R" or a "D" he has shown Zero support for his "R" party. what is wrong with the Republicans; they win big and now they are giving it away. Dixon is more qualified.

Anonymous said...

Gerry has done one better... He votes for the kids. I do not believe Gerry worries about party lines but listens to both sides of a case and makes his own conclusion. He will be an excellent leader for the boe

Anonymous said...

9:18 AM

Thank you!

Peter

Anonymous said...

Mr. Sobol should be the chairman. He is the longest serving R and deserves the position. He is knowledgeable, middle of the road and makes the most sense at budget time. Mr Brittingham has faltered lately. Mr. Masey as finance chair is a poor choice his time has come and passed.

Anonymous said...

When the Dems were in power did any R's hold a chairmanship of ANYTHING. Why are they making, or even thinking of making Massey chairman again. As a budget person he is terrible, he rubber stamps everything that Florio puts on the table.

Anonymous said...

Whether chairman of the board or of the finance committee (any committee for that matter), it takes 4 votes in favor to pass anything so hopefully each member will be an independent thinker and not a rubber stamper when it comes to the budget or any other vote.

Anonymous said...

Great move!! It will be the best for the children of Cheshire. Gerry will be a great leader and he will have Peter right at his side, good for the BOE.

Anonymous said...

Peter Massey's loyalty is to the Unions and Floriio. What makes you think he has loyalty to the students or tax payers? Gerry is close by. Everyone I talk to prefers Dixon. Tod, "Please we beg you".

CEO of McDonnell Douglas said...

Dixon doesn't say anything how can he be chairman he just sits there

Anonymous said...

Is Dixon's wife a BOE employee? Would it be a conflict?

Deep Toot said...

Todd Dixon doesn't want chair, he wants vice-chair.

Alan Sobol did not garner enough votes from the Rep majority OR across the board in general, I'm told. In fact, I heard Sobol lost to Gerry in a 3-2 vote of the rep majority. The biggest issue with Alan is reliability with attendance.

Which leaves Brittingham, Pavano and Perigini. Pavano and Perugini are too new and were not interested in chair. So that left Brittingham.

As far as finance chair, or any committee chair, that's up to the BOE chairman. Brittingham is making those assignments on his own. I'm told that the BOE reps don't even know what committees they're being considered for and won't find out until Thursday night.

I do know for a fact that at least 3 BOE Reps vehemently opposed Massey as finance chair. Gerry will need to explain this decision (if he's elected).

Remember...the BOE is comprised of 4 Democrats (Dixon, Brittingham, Mrowka, Massey) and 3 Republicans (Sobol, Pavano, Perigini). In reality, with Sobol missing meetings it's really 4-2. I predict the voting will go 4-3 Thursday night for chair. We'll just have to wait and see.

Anonymous said...

Deep Toot. There are 5 Rep's and 2Dem's. Brittingham and Dixon are Republicans.

Anonymous said...

From what I understand Sobol has had some health issues and that is the reason for the missed meetings. As far as being qualified to be chair he is the most knowledgeable and prepared member of the board and should get the chairmanship. Perugini would be far better as the budget chair than Massey.

Anonymous said...

5:55PM
you're absolutly correct, Perigini is the most qualified to handle the finance chair. It has been mentioned that Brittingham has bought Massey's vote with the offer of finance chair.

Deep Toot said...

"Deep Toot. There are 5 Rep's and 2Dem's. Brittingham and Dixon are Republicans."

...on paper but in reality Brittingham is a democrat and Dixon is not far behind. Hence 4-3.

Anonymous said...

That better not be true. This board has long been a rubber stamp board and this would not be a good start. These people should think hard about this or it will be again considred a rubber stamp BOE and they will be voted out next time. The voters wanted change to that board and what this proposal will do is be a 1ST round knockdown from which they will never recover. Mr Brittingham should have followed proceedure and brought to vote the turf before the BOE and not the Lame duck TC. What were they thinking??

Pro Teacher Anti Stupidity said...

Alan Sobol is the most qualified BOE member to be chair. There isn't even a close second.

Anonymous said...

Yes he is and I'm sure that they will get it right.

Anonymous said...

The voters have spoken on 11/3 but Brittingham is not listening nor does he believe in the RTC or the Republican party for that matter. He's not a Republican, plain and simple, he's an independent which is not a bad thing. But this is not the problem with Brittingham as he's shown to be fair and thorough with his decisions.

The problem with Brittingham, Dixon and the 2 dems is that the four of them truly believes nothing needs to change on the BOE. In fact, none of them want the new reps on the BOE and have publicly stated they want Behrer and Hellreich.

I think that the two new Reps are a good start to the BOE but we need to replace the remaining 3 Reps with fresh blood in two years. Only then will we see significant progress.

I do agree with the 4-3 (Dems vs. Reps) analogy posted, it's so true.

Anonymous said...

It's time for the school system to change. It should be run for the students for a change and not for the teachers and other staff.

The teachers are way overpaid for thier parttime jobs. The whole system has to changed and the union stranglehold be broken.

Anonymous said...

9:26. If it keeps going 4-3 I agree it will take the next election cycle to vote new people in. All of them have 2 yrs to prove to the voters that they are doing the job that they were elected to do or they will be voted out just like the others. This insanity has to stop. Close to 70% of our budget is spent on Education without much scrutiny and that is wrong. The kids and the taxpayers are the ones that get hurt.

Anonymous said...

Well Brittingham is Chair, Dixon is Vice-Chair, Massey is Sec'y.
Curriculum Committee - Mrwoka
Finance - Massey
Personnel - Brittingham
Planning - Dixon
Policy - Sobol

And I can't comment on much of anything else about the BOE meeting tonight as it, not surprisingly, was cut off the air of Channel 14 in midstream.

Why is it that you can watch a TC meeting on Channel 14 with no problem, yet there's always some issue with the BOE meetings being aired in their entirety??

I think we need to put Henry in charge of filming the BOE meetings too!!

Pro Teacher Anti Stupidity said...

Yeah, what a joke. You go from watching a live BOE meeting to some taped PSA from the librarian.

Given the frequency of issues with broadcasts of BOE meetings, I'm not sure that I believe all are 'accidental'.

Anonymous said...

If this is true there is no change to what the BOE will do. He has put people in position that have done the same old thing. His term will be short. You can see exactly what has happened. They ignore the people and operate in a bubble. Shame on them.

Anonymous said...

Did anyone hear the committee list?!? Brittingham gave Massey finance chair and Perugini chair of the transportation committee. LOL.

Anonymous said...

Well, as odd or surprising as some of the appointments are, when it comes to the budget the TC has the final word on the amount given to the BoE.

Anonymous said...

The BOE has an enormous challenge ahead and they all know this. All of the predictions going on here are a waste of your time. The BOE may have to make adjustments to their current budget to mitigate what they're facing in 2010. State Funding sources are uncertain, taxpayers won't cope with higher taxes so they have to get on board early. Regardless of committee chair assignments the entire board votes on the final decisions.