The School Board selected two new members tonight to fill the vacancies left by the resignations of Amy Doyle and Cam Getto. Eric Temple and Sarah Devaney are now members of the board for the next year until they have to run for election. The recordings of the interviews are up on the podcast feed. Best of luck to Sarah and Eric because they are going to have an extremely tough job in the coming months and I don’t envy them one bit.

On an unrelated note, I also want to send best wishes to Dr. Maggie Brandt. Maggie is a trauma surgeon and also Steve Pierce’s wife as well as an army reservist and she is heading off to Iraq at the end of this week. Unfortunately it looks like she is going to be very busy for the next few months repairing the physical damage being done to troops over there. Stay safe Maggie.

An article in the Ann Arbor News today makes it appear that the Monroe school district suppressed information about Layne Hunt’s tenure as th high school principal there just so they could get rid of him. The tale of Hunt’s experiences there sound almost exactly like what has happened at Ypsi High this year. It looks increasingly like Hunt has been playing on the insecurities of members of the African-American community in Ypsilanti to make his own inadequacies as a leader appear to be a case of racism when it is in fact anything but.

I’ve avoided writing about the conflict surrounding the resignation of Layne Hunt as high school principal because I didn’t know enough about what was going on in private, but now it’s time to speak up.

During the last three Ypsilanti School Board meetings leading up to the resignation of High School principal Layne Hunt, a lot of people including one Lee Tewson (not sure about the spelling) hurled accusations of racism at members of the board, even though no one on the board ever publicly accused Hunt of anything or even called for his dismissal. The accusations were completely uncalled for. During this entire episode the only thing that I think the board did wrong was Amy Doyle’s the motion to accept Hunt’s resignation. I think Andy Fanta was correct in his comments that the board did not need to accept or reject the resignation. Once the Superintendent accepted the letter, it was not rescindable and there was nothing the board could do. I think that this motion was a mistake only from a politcal perspective as it was unnecessary. But that is neither here nor there.

As Eric mentions the irony of this whole thing is that many of the people standing up to accuse the board of racism were the very same people who criticized the same board for dropping the Braves nickname. This is sheer hypocrisy! It appears that many of the people were speaking in Hunt’s defense based only what they had heard from Hunt himself without any knowledge of what was apparently going on at the High School. Kathleen Conat at the Ypsi Courier has evidently done some actual investigating and it appears that the issues with Hunt go way beyond personality conflicts with staff. It appears that many incidents in the building that should have been documented and report to Superintendent James Hawkins were never reported. Hawkins has declined to speak publicly about personnel matters regarding Hunt and rightfully so.

The fact is almost none of us know what was really going on at the school. For anyone to start hurling accusations of racism around without knowing the whole story is divisive to the community and counterproductive. If this is not about racism, and it certainly doesn’t look like it is, it’s like crying wolf. Every time people cry race when it has nothing to do with it, people are less likely to listen next time. You can find a link to the recordings of all the school board meetings on the Ypsi Government Podcasts page at the top of this page.

Update:I removed Amy’s name as it turns out that although she read the motion she did not originate it.  Amy explains the process:

What happens, most times, is that the wording of the motion has already been determined by the superintendent or board president.  Then it is typed up and included in the board packet.  At the time of making that motion, the board president calls upon a trustee to read it.  I was merely called upon; I did not originate it.

My mistake.  Sorry Amy!  I just want to say one more time that I think that both Amy and Cam did a great job during their tenures on the board and dealt with a lot of difficult issues in difficult times.  The Ypsi School District was lucky to have them as active participants.

I spent a couple of days in Manhattan this week for the New York Auto Show some interesting stuff.  For a city that claims to be as progressive as Ann Arbor they sure have missed the boat when it comes to parking.  As everyone in the area knows downtown parking is at premium.  Unfortunately the choice to build parking structures on small footprints of land like the one at Fourth and Washington is somewhat counterproductive.  The space taken up by ramps so that cars can get in and out as well as stairs, elevators and the supporting structure itself, leaves too too few parking spaces per level.  Overall it’s a very inefficient design and leaves drivers often trolling up and down the levels looking for a parking space.  If you are going to build a structure, it needs to have a large-enough footprint that the ramps don’t take up such disproportionate amount of the potential parking area.

Manhattan on the other hand seems to have the solution.  Rack mount parking that provides the maximum density of parked cars per area available.  There is little wasted space and it’s probably cheaper to install than a parking structure.  I saw all kinds of these structures during my cab rides between the hotel and Javits Center and the airport.

With my limited time in the city, I didn’t get to really do any sight-seeing.  Manhattan is a very densely populated city with stuff going on everywhere you look and all kinds of noises.  The city is very much alive and an interesting place to visit, but the kind of place I’d want to live.  It seems like the majority of actual moving cars on the streets of Manhattan are yellow cabs, with most of the private vehicles sitting in those racks.  Given the traffic in the city, that’s probably just as well.

Getting out of New York was a real pain in the ass.  The Javits Center is on the western edge of Manhattan island while JFK airport was east of Manhattan in Queens.  Judging from my several cab rides over 48 hours in town plus my previous visit in December, going north-south in Manhattan is pretty straight-forward.  Going east-west on the other hand is anything but.  My ride to the airport involved the cabbie continuously turning norht or south trying to find an east-west route that wasn’t backed up.  The 17 mile ride took about an hour and a half.  It’s a good thing I left with plenty of time.  more later…

In case you haven’t heard Cameron Getto resigned from the Ypsilanti School Board today.  We all Cam thanks for stepping up and serving on the board for the past couple of years.  He always did what he thought was best for the students and the district.  He’s had to deal with a lot of difficult issues and done good work.   Given the difficulties of being a single parent and the workload the board has ahead of it dealing with the budget, it’s certainly understandable why he made this decision.  We all owe him a debt of gratitude for even stepping up to serve the community in the first place.   He did far more than most people are willing to do.   Hopefully Cam will stay as involved as his time allows.  Good luck Cam and take good care of your girls.

Jules recently spotted a pair of hawks that seem to be nesting over by the golf course, and I wanted to try and catch them with the new lens before the trees fill up with leaves. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the hawks, but on the way I heard a woodpecker and while scouring the tree, I also spotted a pair of white-breasted nuthatches foraging around and possibly preparing their nest. Click on the photo to check out an album of more shots.

Warning! This tale may make you feel old. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon for more mature folks to get frustrated while trying to make sense of some of the new fangled high tech gear. Even I, uber-techno geek get frustrated at some of the unbelievably idiot user-interface decisions that are made by some equipment designers. However, this particularly phenomenon of feeling like a stranger in time is not restricted to those of us with more experience in navigating through the world.

The young can become equally befuddled by pieces of equipment with which they have not previously become acquainted. Recently, my son Max had the opportunity to become extremely frustrated by just such a device. Those who are of my age or above, having manage to muddle their way through at least four decades of life may remember an odd little electro-mechanical gadget commonly referred to by historians as the rotary dial phone. At one time the phone company (of which there was only one in those dark days) would lease customers a phone (much as cable companies lease you a cable modem today) and it was hard wired to a wall (this being before the days of a phone jack on every wall in your home). You couldn’t stick these things in your pocket, or even wander around the house with one. If you were lucky you might get one with an extra long cord allowing you to reach across the room while talking to someone.

Our two kids have each had a cell phone since they were about nine years old, allowing them to contact us when needed. When I was that age, we had one phone in the house, I can even remember when the phone company technician came to add jacks to our house, allowing us to get an extension! and we could even move it from room to room! what a concept. At any reate on a recent Saturday afternoon, Max was at the sportsman’s club where he goes to do archery and air rifle shooting. He had left his mobile at home and had finished early while I had left to go run an errand.

When I returned a half hour later he was extremely aggravated and upset at me and I couldn’t figure out why until later. As it happens the only phone in the club house area where he was, was rotary dial phone. Max had previously seen one in a museum, but had never had occasion to actually use one. As a result, he had absolutely no clue about how to operate this seemingly straightforward device. He knew my cell phone number, but was completely unable to determine how to input it into this antique machine. It seems so odd, that something that was so ubiquitous in the earlier part of my relatively brief to date lifetime could seem so utterly foreign to a child who grew up with a computer mouse in his hand.  If something so seemingly innocuous can cause so much frustration for one child, imagine the effects of a one culture invading a completely different one, or the mental anguish that could result if time travel actually were possible.