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| Jerry Seinfeld's original Soup Nazi |
Hueso 660 49.6%
Hampton 488 36.7%
Phelps 2,001 61.5%
Ayala 1,252 38.4%
Dreier 0%
My fellow Sierra Madre residents, you now live in a very special place. You pay taxes to a government agency called the PUSD, and you can also watch as a noticeable portion of your personal equity goes to cover $350 million dollars worth of Measure TT bond debt. But for whatever reason, and thanks to Measure A, today our entire city has now been prohibited from having any influence on how that money is to be spent. There is a new Board of Education being born, one supposedly dedicated to community representation. But it has no place at the table for our community to sit. Taxation without representation, just like they taught it when you went to school.
Today we become the one entire city in the Pasadena Unified School District not allowed to vote for its own Board of Education representative. Taxed? Most certainly. But after today we will have no elected official we can call our own to look after our interests once that money is taken. At least for the next two years, anyway.
So, and after much thought and some very careful deliberation, I have decided to call this new thing the Pasadena Soup Nazi Board of Education. And anyone living in Sierra Madre is most definitely not going to be served any soup today. No vote for you.
It is all being done at a very questionable moment, too. Out of the original sum of $350 million in Measure TT bond money there is now about $240 million left. And with Sierra Madre's Middle School in virtual ruins, certainly some portion of that money should by right be coming our way. After all, we do pay our taxes, and we've been promised by the current Board of Education that it would be built. Twice, actually.
But will any of this matter here? When the newly elected seven member Pasadena Soup Nazi Board of Education is seated in May, there will be no Sierra Madre representative in sight. Nobody that we elected will be allowed to join with the rest, and therefore nobody will be there to represent our interests. As far as the public school system goes, we will have no say. Orphaned by a corrupt and ideologically batty Pasadena-run political machine that just doesn't care to have us around this time.
In other words, only people elected by other towns will decide what the future holds for our kids. You, however, can go and take a long hike off a short pier.
This means that we will be in the hands of people who have no reason to feel any concern for the interests and needs of our community. And as large as $240 million may sound today, in the hands of the SN-PUSD it is not likely to go very far. This money will certainly be allocated and spent over the next two years, and in all likelihood cuts in facilities programs will also have to be made as it inevitably runs short. Cuts that will be decided by representatives who are tied to the other subdistricts. People who are only beholden to the taxpayers whose votes put them on the Pasadena Soup Nazi Board of Education in the first place. No vote for you.
And since we have no vote, why should anyone have to care about what we want? Have you seen any of their candidates campaigning around here lately?
Ask yourself this: Are you really certain that this new Pasadena Soup Nazi Board of Education will approve the funds necessary to rebuild Sierra Madre's Middle School? Or will they instead decide that it makes better economic sense to sell the property and put all of that scarce money into their own districts, and then bus whatever Sierra Madre kids are still stuck in the PUSD system out to some other places. They can do that, you know. Based on recent behavior, I'd say there is a pretty good shot that they will.
All because we will be the only entire city in this school district with no elected representative of our own to defend our interests.
Now ask yourself this: Would you be all that concerned about Northeast Pasadena if the shoe was on the other foot? Or (Sage, forgive me) Altadena? What if Measure A had been rigged to rob minority population districts of their representation instead, setting up a situation where money that should have been allocated to them could be taken away by those having a vote?
What would they call that at the Pasadena Weekly? Social equity? A leveling of the racial playing field? The rectification of 100 years of wrongs? I rather doubt it. So what makes the practice so politically correct here?
Today there is an election, but you are not allowed to play any role in it. You have been disenfranchised. For the next two years you will continue to be taxed, and a portion of that money will go to the Pasadena Unified School District. But don't go thinking that this means anybody there will care about what your opinions might be. You have now become a voteless second class citizen, one with no right to decide what the future might hold for our public schools. Instead others will now be allowed to spend your taxes, and do so with absolutely no regard for you or the educational needs of your kids.
Personally I cannot believe PUSD Soup Nazi government is even legal. We really do need to go and talk to the District Attorney. And by we I mean us. Do you think that he might notice if 20 of us were to show up with a list of grievances?
Oh, but don't expect City Hall to lift a finger. Judging by their profound silence on the topic most of them must think this Pasadena Soup Nazi Board of Education stuff is pretty darn cool.
http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com