Tiverton
The Tiverton School Committee is discussing whether to grant a leave of absence to an elementary school art teacher, and it’s a strange circumstance. Apparently, the custom is to discuss such matters vaguely, so Superintendent Bill Rearick is offering details only inasmuch as is necessary to rebut reluctance from the school committee, but some details…
It’s a relief to see the issue of soil contamination in the Bay St. area of Tiverton headed toward resolution: A settlement of the massive Bay Street area lawsuit has been agreed to and the contaminated neighborhood is expected to be cleaned up by the end of this year, the state Department of Environmental Management…
Amazingly enough, I get email from people around the country who don’t care about Tiverton politics! That’s like not caring about politics in the Shire. Well, yeah, I know; these things have to be fictionalized in order to emphasize the undercurrents. One issue of national interest, though, is the arrival of the first infusion of…
A pre-meeting executive session has occupied the Tiverton School Committee for the past hour and fifteen minutes. About twenty minutes ago, Chairman Jan Bergandy and Vice Chairwoman Sally Black stepped into the auditorium to announce that a discussion of legal issues related to the budget would delay them for another fifteen. Although my reader-funded high-speed…
At the May 12 School Committee meeting in Tiverton, Guidance Counselor Lynn Nicholas gave the following advice to the committee related to the financial town meeting’s $627,247 cut to the schools’ budget: You need to be serious about what you plan on cutting. I am the last person on this Earth that would want to…
A larger-than-usual crowd is in t Tiverton High School library for the first school committee after the financial town meeting cut the district’s budget by $627,247. A healthy TCC showing; the rest, I assume, are teachers and sympathizers. School Committee Chairman: “Our only priority in dealing with this cut is to protect our students, and…
I apologize to readers from elsewhere for all the Tivertonalia ’round here lately, and I’ve got so much on my plate, right now, that I wasn’t intending to come to tonight’s Town Council meeting. But rumors that the council might (at some point) call for a special financial town meeting for a redo vote and…
Self-described newcomer to local politics, Brian Gough, has a letter on the Sakonnet Times Web site criticizing reformers’ efforts. Individuals’ understanding of the appropriate actions of elected representatives, particularly those in leadership roles, may vary, and differences of opinion aren’t necessarily worth the expenditure of much heat. But Mr. Gough’s snap assessment of the sides…
Saturday morning, a majority of electors at the Tiverton financial town meeting (FTM) for 2009 voted to cut the Budget Committee’s recommended school department budget by $627,247 — explicitly subtracting $174,054 from the local contribution and $453,193 from the expected general state aid. Owing to a Budget Committee resolution passed earlier in the meeting, any…
Reflection has not changed my opinion, stated while liveblogging, that Mike Burk, the moderator of today’s financial town meeting in Tiverton made every effort to be fair and, on the whole, succeeded. That said, he did make a few substantial errors, one of which brings into stark relief a problem of governance pervasive in Rhode…