Justin Katz
In a letter to the Sakonnet Times, Class of ’09 Tiverton High School student Lexy Halpen expresses her frustration with the ongoing contract negotiations of those responsible for her education: … Not only is it ridiculous that the school committee won’t fix this problem, but myself and my classmates are losing out on everything until…
So you’ve traveled with your daughter on the journey that has led her to freshman year at the University of Rhode Island, and within a couple of weeks of looking to the student paper, The Good 5¢ Cigar, to understand the community of which she is now a part — perhaps to glean some tips…
Having investigated the laws cited in the complaint against Bill Felkner, I’m reasonably confident that I’m either missing something or somebody else is misstating something. In his Westerly Sun article (subscription required), Chris Keegan wrote the following (emphasis added): In a letter to the Rhode Island State Labor Relations Board filed on Thursday, Peter Gingras…
Watch as some MSNBC guy named David Schuster (perhaps a misspelling of “shyster”) ambushes U.S. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R, Tennessee) with a request that she name the last person in her district killed in Iraq. I find the following to be the despicable aspect of his barrage, because it traps the interviewee with the usual…
It may be that the education discussion needs a broader context, because there’s a substantial way in which Thomas’s argument is beside the point: As to the point I was actually raising, yes, it matters what pocket the money comes from. Andrew’s comment raises exactly this issue. My view is that basing education funding on…
A short while ago, I objected to Rhode Island Republican Party Chairman Gio Cicione’s red-meat throwing, and I think the Democrat status of Tiverton Town Councilman Hannibal Costa gives an example of the danger inherent in a party chairman’s drifting away from tempered party building. If the RIGOP could get its act together and come…
For some reason, it didn’t register when last I filled out a Tiverton ballot (for the first time) that most of the town’s key offices are “non-partisan.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that the representatives aren’t affiliated with a party — either officially or ideologically. It just means that voters and taxpayers have to take a…
Apparently — as the janitor informed me when I hopped out of the minivan with bloggerbag (aka a canvas briefcase) in hand — the union and the Tiverton school committee have decided to take eleven days off. So, no school committee meeting tonight. The way things operate ’round here, it’s as if the interested citizen…
Tiverton Town Councilor Brian Medeiros just proposed — and the council approved unanimously — a statement of support for the school committee’s “efforts to contain costs” within the boundaries set by the property tax cap with respect to the teachers’ union contract. Although the movement is largely symbolic, it’s very encouraging to see the council…
This meeting is definitely stretching out, but I’m glad that I’ve remained because I’ve witnessed a notable moment. To paraphrase Councilor Hannibal Costa (who has previously railed against unfunded mandates from the state), on a discussion about advertising to fill administrative jobs: If you look around the town, you’ll see that we have a lot…