Redistricted

I guess most people can't name their Congressional District, but I've been in the 24th for years, and it seems odd to note that not only will I lose that number soon, but I'll lose my Congressman, too. Dryden will cease to be part of Richard Hanna's district and become part of Tom Reed's, now the 23rd. Out of the frying pan of moderate Republicanism and into the fire of serious Tea Partydom.

I can't think that Tom Reed is delighted to pick up Ithaca on his way toward a district that will extend from our border in Dryden all the way to Jamestown and the Pennsylvania border. It's a horrible district, one that candidates Leslie Danks Burke and Nathan Shinagawa will be hard pressed to cover in their foreshortened campaigns. Meanwhile, Hanna now resides in District 22, a slab that extends from Broome County up through Utica. Dan Lamb will face him there.

The real, true, finished maps are due next Tuesday. For now, here's what things look like, more or less.

Separation of Church and State, Redux

Someone sent me this today, a screed written by a doctor in Dryden who happens to be house doctor for the school district—for a nice annual fee.

Placing an Obama placard on your car is equivalent to saying I have no problem aborting full-term fetuses – I have no problem destroying marriage and I have no problem ultimately destroying God.

I was not aware that God could be destroyed, but clearly I'm not as close to the deity as Dr. Niziol is. I'm fine with his writing letters to the Catholic Courier, but less happy about his being the source of medical information at my daughter's school. What is his advice for the kiddies about birth control, I wonder?

Separation of Church and State, Sort Of

In TIME, Jon Meacham has a pretty good piece on Rick Santorum's misunderstanding of JFK's speech on the separation of church and state.

Here is what JFK said: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President—should he be Catholic—how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him."

Rick, of course, interprets that to mean that JFK wanted to eliminate religion from politics entirely, disallowing (for example) John Kerry's bishop from entering the political fray to spout off about the then-candidate's position on abortion.

JFK wanted fairness, not secularism. It's interesting to note that he included in that fairness that "no church or church school is granted any public funds." Want to take a guess on whether Dryden taxpayers pay for any of the following for Covenant Love Community School, the local K-8 school housed in the old Love Inn, with the mission statement "Covenant Love Community School is Christ-centered and relationally-based, assisting parents to train and equip children to fulfill God’s purposes for their generation": books, computers, special education services, speech therapy, transportation? How about all of the above and more?

Some of this is federal; in 2000's Mitchell v. Helms, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that federal aid would be provided to religious schools in the form of books and computers. Some of it is state: Although the 1894 Blaine Amendment to our NYS Constitution declared that there would be no public monies spent on the running of religious schools except for the purposes of "visitation and inspection," a 1938 amendment to the amendment allowed taxpayer support for transportation to those schools, and in 1970, the Legislature authorized spending taxpayer dollars for testing, reporting, pupil services, building maintenance, and some tuition costs for poor children. This made a stink at the time for violating the separation of church and state, and the law was slightly amended to call for reimbursement of testing fees when those tests were required by the state. But most of it still exists, and nobody thinks much about it. I didn't until I was on the school board and confronted with these costs, and I admit to being completely astonished.

Perhaps Rick Santorum would feel better about things if he understood how thoroughly separation has eroded over the years. If he thinks only about prayer in school and discussion of contraception in health classes, he's seriously missing the boat.

Reading List

Olivia recommended it, and it is really as good as its hype. I bet the movie will just suck, however.

Backyard Visitor

This little guy kept the squirrels away this morning, at least for a while. A few weeks ago, Olivia and I watched him dive under the deck, come up with a junco in his talons, and then sit on the lawn and squeeze it to death. He's small but effective.

Annexation

First, a little history.

New York State has five kinds of school districts: Common, Central, Union Free, City, and Central High School. Ithaca is a small city district. All the others in our BOCES region are central school districts. In 1870, New York State had 11,372 school districts. Over the years, those dwindled through consolidation or annexation, with large consolidations happening in the 1930s and 1940s, until now there are just under 700 districts in all.

Governor Cuomo established a commission to look into consolidation of services across the board, and one of their mandates was to look specifically at schools. They established a pot of money to add incentive to districts and municipalities that might be thinking about merging.

Mergers may take place in five ways: centralization, annexation of a central school district, annexation of a union free school district, consolidation with a union free or common school district, or consolidation with a city school district.

Ithaca City School District is moving to annex Newfield Central School District. This is essentially a hostile takeover. Here's how it works, as I understand it: The districts must be contiguous. The district being annexed is dissolved, and all of it becomes part of the annexing district. Ithaca initiates the study and proves the benefits. Newfield may request a referendum and vote to approve or disapprove. If the vote is no, Ithaca can come back in a year. If that vote is no, the annexation is tabled. If the vote is yes, or if Newfield fails to request a vote in time, Ithaca walks away with $70 million in incentive money.

So why would Newfield vote to do this when (1) they lose their identity, (2) staff lose their jobs, and (3) their kids spend potentially 1+ hours on a bus? Well, it is certainly possible that Ithaca can prove that (1) Newfield residents' taxes will go down, (2) children's opportunities will increase, and (3) any staff retained will get a raise in pay to equalize them with Ithaca staff. In addition, like most small NYS school districts, Newfield faces potential bankruptcy within two or three years.

Interestingly, I can't find a piece of SED law that enables city school districts to annex central school districts. It may be that Ithaca's decision to vote on its own budget takes it out of the city realm, or it may be that they fall into some nebulous category, or it may be that the governor's push to consolidate bends the original rules. All I know is that the decision has been made to pursue this, and the clock is ticking. It will be an interesting spring.

Transparent? Or Maybe a Little Opaque?

It's so nice when elected officials participate in these exercises in transparency; not so nice when they avoid anything that might reflect poorly on them, stir the pot, or cause them to break a sweat.