It’s all in the Faces

Priscille and I attended the parade in honor of Raritan’s hometown hero John Basilone.  I took my camera and shot many photos.  But, after I had transferred them to my PC, I noticed one characteristic which seemed common to all. 

Women of the Bridgewater-Raritan High School Color Guard

The facial expressions of the parade participants all reflected an awareness which, I thought, varied only slightly.  

Kids take in the parade as mom looks over the kids.

 Whether they were concentrating on executing their routines or, as in the case of a few, peering back at the crowd, they were all engaged.  Nobody was simply going through the motions.

A kindly face observes the onlookers.

Take a look and see if you concur.

How will Fed $ be Spent in the B-R School District?

I’d like to expand upon a response that I made this afternoon to a comment by Poppet, a reader of my blog. Poppet is concerned about how the $398,882 of Federal $ allocated to the Bridgewater-Raritan School District will be spent. Poppet writes, “I hope it will be directed to the classrooms and not administration or sports.”

Not necessarily. That will be up to the Board of Education.

Below are several excerpts from the New Jersey Education Job Funds Guidance which explains how that money may be spent:

• “A district must use its funds only for compensation and benefits and other expenses, such as support services, necessary to retain existing employees, to recall or rehire former employees, and to hire new employees, in order to provide early childhood, elementary, or secondary educational and related services.”

But

• “A district may use the funds to pay the salaries of teachers and other employees who provide school-level educational and related services. In addition to teachers, employees supported with program funds may include, among others, principals, assistant principals, academic coaches, in-service teacher trainers, classroom aides, counselors, librarians, secretaries, social workers, psychologists, interpreters, physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, information technology personnel, nurses, athletic coaches, security officers, custodians, maintenance workers, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers.”

As you can see, the use of these funds is not restricted to direct classroom purposes. Quite the contrary, it includes a very wide swath of school employees. There are four pages of relevant Q&A points on the link referred to above and it is well worth your time to read, if you have an interest in this topic.

It is highly unlikely that the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education would allocate these funds for anything other than direct classroom use, but it would be a good idea for it to put the matter to rest by passing a formal resolution now, restricting its use exclusively for that purpose in the budget.

A Cooling-Off is in Order

Imputing racism to the Borough of Raritan by means of write-ups in the local press based on the actions of a few people and of several individual comments is an unfair claim.

I’m not going to discuss the details of this issue, because I think that a point-by-point response to what I have read would be to inflame matters even more. But I will say this: The timing is inappropriate, coming mere days before this weekend’s commemorative festivities honoring the World War II service of Raritan’s own Marine hero, John Basilone.

I believe that local media writers and author(s) of letter(s)-to-the-editor who were critical of the reaction that resulted from the sale of the property of the Third Reform Church in Raritan are sincere.

Nonetheless, I don’t like the imputation of the word “racism” to the Borough of Raritan, because it is one of the most incendiary words in the English language and should be used with caution.

My own view is simple and clear: There is enough circumstantial evidence in this matter to call to account all of the participants in the sale of that property. So let’s all take a deep breath and stand down on this issue.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder once said that we are “essentially a nation of cowards,” because we either won’t or don’t know how to have a discussion on race.

Tell me: Just how is one supposed to engage in a civil dialogue if he or she is branded a racist or coward before a serious discussion even begins?

B-R Schools to Receive Minimal $ from the Feds

The Bridgewater-Raritan School District will get only $398,882 from over $268 million that the Federal Government has allocated for the State of New Jersey to save education jobs. That is an infinitesimal one-tenth of one percent of the $268,742,643 from which the state is retaining $6 million in administrative expenses to distribute those funds.

New Jersey’s governor has decided to deal out these federal monies according to the school funding formula currently in effect within New Jersey, thereby applying more pain to suburban school districts. That formula is skewed against the suburbs because, among other factors, it takes into consideration the size a community’s property tax base as a means of supporting that community’s base cost of education.

The state is perpetuating an already existing inequity between New Jersey municipalities because, while employing a controversial formula which uses the property tax base as the main source of school funding for suburban districts, it simultaneously de-emphasizes the use of the property tax base as a source of funding for urban schools.

This mess is a serious funding imbalance which the New Jersey Supreme Court has created, and which the Education Law Center supports through vigorous lobbying (think Abbott Districts).

The result of this re-distribution fiasco is that, as an example, three cities: Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson will get a whopping $50,434,830, or 19% of the $268 million, while the Bridgewater-Raritan School District will settle for a mere one-tenth of one percent of that $268 million.

All that cash from Washington is a welcome gift – if only our school district could have garnered its fair share.

It's Always the Other Guy

Yesterday, I listened to President Barack Obama’s speech outside the White House where he ‘appointed’ – well, not officially – Elizabeth Warren as head of a new consumer watchdog group, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Great! That’s just what we need: Another Washington bureaucracy that will spend millions of dollars hiring thousands of employees who, presumably, will save us from all of those bad bankers and wily Wall Street executives who allegedly have been stripping us of our hard-earned dollars and who, allegedly, led us head-long into this cash-strapped recession.

Well, it didn’t quite happen that way, even though Mr. Obama implied yesterday that it did when he held Wall Street and the banks solely responsible for the national financial fiasco which hit hard in the fall of 2008 and which is now lingering on for who knows how long.

The fact is that the policies set into motion by two powerful Congressional committees chaired by Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and by outgoing Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut were highly influential in setting up the dominoes which would fall with devastatingly shattering impact years later.

Complicit in this disaster were two quasi-federal lending agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which were pushing commercial banks to keep lowering lending standards so that more and more unqualified loans could be made to millions of people who would later default on them.

Yes, the banks accommodated this disastrous Washington policy, and Wall Street hedge fund managers who are still running rings around Washington ginned up the financial instruments which sounded the final gong in this game.

But long before the dominoes fell, a few stout-hearted federal employees testified before Barney’s Congressional Committee that the tsunami was coming its way: These people were marginalized, trivialized and told to beat it. Mr. Obama seems to have had a significant loss of memory about these causal factors.

At yesterday’s announcement, the President made an end run around the Senate confirmation process by naming Elizabeth Warren special adviser with full responsibilities for setting up and managing all of the operations for this new consumer agency. In effect, she will be its de facto director until Congress decides what to do about it.

I like this saying, “Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us – Ronald Reagan.”

Had enough pain yet?

Christie’s Initiatives

Politicians campaign on promises of delivering all manner of changes, most of which are promptly forgotten after the elections are over. Not this governor.

That is refreshing. But Governor Christie, as tough and resolute as he is, will be facing an uphill battle as he seeks to implement his reforms on economic development; education; pension & benefits; as well as ethics reform & government transparency.

A solidly Democrat legislature has already stonewalled Christie’s first new nomination to the New Jersey Supreme Court; and, the public unions are working statewide to prevent even the smallest of reforms.

Locally, the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association has already scheduled a meeting with its members at which a representative of the New Jersey Education Association will be present.

You can expect solidarity to be the theme coming from the Education Associations’ leadership. This school year is the last of a three-year wage package. In upcoming negotiations, the will of the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board will be severely tested to see whether or not it has the resolve to push back hard on the type of demands made in the past.

What’s about to happen in this school district is only one small example of the walls that are going up throughout New Jersey between the governor and his foes. Chris Christie still retains, on the whole, the support of the majority of New Jerseyans. But he is facing well-funded opponents as tough as himself.

God Told Him to do it . . .

I don’t know about you, but I have little patience with people of any religious persuasion who claim that what they are about to do originated from a directive (or was it merely a suggestion?) received directly from God. I don’t mean to trivialize anyone’s faith conviction, but I have yet to find someone who has discovered a direct communications connection to the Almighty, especially when it comes to burning holy books.

Intelligent, faithful mystics have for centuries spent day after day in quiet contemplation and meditation trying to open their souls to the message of the Creator – it’s not an easy task, and certainly not one with any guaranteed results. So don’t believe, much less pay any attention, to any charlatan with questionable credentials who comes along and tells you that he has found the key.

And certainly not when that message is about burning somebody else’s holy book.

Pastor Terry Jones of the unaffiliated 50-member Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida may think otherwise. From all reports, it seems that God wants him to go ahead and make a statement by burning a bunch of Qurans on Saturday, the anniversary of 9/11.

What bugs me about that, and what is just as bad, is the laser-like focus on this situation by the national media which should simply turn the lights out on this guy and take him off the international stage. From the media coverage of this person, you’d think that Pastor Jones is a prominent mega-church leader who is about to start a bonfire with Qurans as the fuel.

This guy is simply not worth the attention.

School Buses Roll Again

Wednesday morning, it will be evident that the first day of school has arrived in Bridgewater and Raritan. The more than abundant evidence will be all of those yellow buses and vans on our streets.

In the B-R school district, dozens of those vehicles will be making hundreds of stops throughout both municipalities, picking up thousands of school children. There will, of course, be some walkers, but most students will be bused.

Probably the biggest exception to the busing rule will be at the high school, where driving privileges are extended annually to some of the students, allowing them to drive their own cars to school.

The task of assigning individual students to specific seating in a vehicle is a not-so-well- appreciated job which begins as soon as the school year ends in June and continues throughout the summer, right up to the Labor Day weekend.

The transportation group assigned to this task is located in tight quarters in an outdated office on Commons Way, across from the new Bridgewater Municipal Complex. Building & grounds supervision, the maintenance garage, and a parking lot for buses and vans, are also situated there.

Opening day at school can be smooth or bumpy for the transportation team, including the bus drivers. Some years, the phone can ring off the hook with complaints, while in other years school opening can be relatively smooth. It all depends . . . !

Considering the geographic size of the B-R School District and its large number of students, the percentage of calls is usually relatively small, although the stress associated with each may not make it feel that way.

If you are a parent and happen to experience an issue with your child’s busing, take a deep breath and compose yourself before calling transportation. Above all, try courtesy instead of outrage. You’ll be surprised how quickly it can get your problem resolved.

Good luck to all other school districts. Thanks for reading; stay engaged.

Improvements at Bridgewater's Harry Ally Park

On a steamy July 16, a lone player practices his serve
 at Harry Ally Park

Thursday evening, September 2 at its 7:00 pm regular meeting, the Bridgewater Township Council will consider and may approve a $150,000 proposal to resurface the tennis and basketball courts at Harry Ally Park in the Finderne section of Bridgewater.

The total cost, however, will exceed $150,000 because, if the ordinance goes through, it will be funded by a bond issue – think of it as borrowing money to improve your home with repayments over time at a certain rate of interest.

An overview of the three tennis courts at Harry Ally Park
on August 20, another steamy day

At least with current interest rates being so low, the Township won’t be borrowing at a high cost of capital – hopefully. Normally, though, the cost of funding such a project should come, at least in my opinion, from annual operating expenses to avoid the added burden of interest costs.

One of the many cracks in the tennis courts
at Harry Ally Park

Both facilities have sinews of extensive cracks running through them. The first photo shows a tennis player practicing his serve on July 16, on one of the very hot days of summer. He was the only person to be seen anywhere at the park on that day. You can tell from the photo that the nets need fixing.

The second photo, taken about a month later on August 20, another hot summer day where no one was at the park, shows that the three tennis courts have well-painted lines, and that the nets are in very good condition and appear to be new.

An example of other fissures which have plagued
the two basketball courts at Harry Ally park

What you can’t see though is the entire network of cracks that prevent good playing and could even cause injury. The last two photos, both taken on August 20, show an example of the deterioration of the playing surface on a) the tennis courts and b) the basketball courts. Those two photos are just samples of the conditions at Harry Ally Park which the council will deliberate.

For a better view of any photo, just single-click on any one and you will be able to see a larger image.

Thank goodness the Township Council is finally addressing this problem tonight.