Martino: Shame on the School Board

The Palm Beach County School Board approved new Mission, Vision, and Equity statements for The School District of Palm Beach County.  I would strongly encourage all parents of K-12 grade level students enrolled in public and charter schools in Palm Beach Gardens and Palm Beach County to read these statements, carefully, to draw your own conclusions. It is too important, for you as a parent not to. Express your concerns to Barbara McQuinn, District 1 School Board representative, phone 561-434-8038, email barbara.mcquinn@palmbeachschools.org

I would opine that a substantial portion of the Mission Statement and Vision Statement is shameful. Much of it should be stricken entirely. It is offensive, inaccurate, antagonizing, accusatory, and divisive. A significant amount of the text is social discourse and racially charged with little association to educational inspiration or excellence. Equity has replaced equality. In a May 4th Palm Beach Post article a School Board member suggests that the pronouncements by the School Board, among other things, where influenced by “last year’s protests about racial justice…”. It is my belief that policy based on emotion is bad policy.

If this is the best Mission and the best Vision the elected School Board members can offer for the 197,000 students in their charge than Palm Beach County, parents you have a problem. The real dangers of the declarations are the curriculums and books that they generate. Will the teachings be based on the traditional American educational classroom basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, if you will permit me, the 3 R’s? Or will the classroom teachings be nuanced in the direction of the questionable and unproven, critical race theory, the 1619 project, cancel culture, and other abstract thought. I ask, are our teachers’ to be educators or social workers?

Palm Beach Gardens and North Palm Beach County enjoy a reputation for great schools which has enhanced our quality of life and economic viability. I would encourage the City Council of Palm Beach Gardens along with the other North Palm Beach County local governments to discuss the consequences and affects of The School District of Palm Beach County’s new Mission, Vision, and Equity policy statements. I would also persuade the business community and organizations and the Parent Teacher Organizations to offer their voices concerning the influences and effects these pronouncements may have on our children and community.

Here is a link to the statements below.  Contact information for all schoolboard members here.

 

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Mission
The mission of the School District of Palm Beach County is to educate, affirm, and inspire each student in an equity-embedded school system.

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Vision
We envision…

The School District of Palm Beach County is an educational and working environment, where both students and staff are unimpeded by bias or discrimination. Individuals of all backgrounds and experiences are embraced, affirmed, and inspired. Each and every one will succeed and flourish.

The School District of Palm Beach County will take ownership for students’ academic mastery, emotional intelligence, and social-emotional needs by creating environments where students, families, staff, and communities will develop agency and voice.

A joy of learning is fostered in each student and a positive vision for their future is nurtured. Each student’s cultural heritage is valued and their physical, emotional, academic, and social needs are met.

…WE SEE YOU.

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Equity Definition
Equity means each student—regardless of race, ethnicity, poverty, disability, language status, undocumented status, religious affiliation, gender identity, and sexual orientation—will have access to the opportunities, resources, and support they need to imagine, nurture, and achieve their dreams.

Equity Statement
The School District of Palm Beach County is committed to dismantling racism and other systems of oppression and inequity. We will create equitable and inclusive schools that ensure students have what they need to be successful in school and life.

Achieving racial equity requires proactive and continuous investment in historically marginalized groups who have endured centuries of systemic oppression. The School District of Palm Beach County is committed to dismantling structures rooted in white advantage and transforming our system by hearing and elevating under-represented voices, sharing power, recognizing and eliminating bias, and redistributing resources to provide equitable outcomes.

The School District of Palm Beach County will take ownership for students’ academic mastery, emotional intelligence, and social-emotional needs by creating environments where students, families, staff, and communities will develop agency and voice.

The School District of Palm Beach County acknowledges the existence of—and will eliminate—systems, processes, and mindsets that perpetuate race, ethnicity, poverty, disability, language status, undocumented status, religious affiliation, gender identity, and sexual orientation as predictors of achievement.

The School District of Palm Beach County will embrace, celebrate, and honor our students, families, staff, and community members and their unique cultural histories, while ensuring each student achieves personal and academic success.

Martino: Let’s Band Together To Defeat this Covid-19 Pandemic

Palm Beach Gardens Residents,

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has transformed our daily lives. Together with each other we must battle the local, as well as, nationwide effects of this virus. These are very demanding times with unprecedented circumstances. Here in Palm Beach Gardens we must collectively do our part with unselfish effort and a total City response to overcome this unparalleled challenge to our community and our country.

If we are to be successful in blunting the spread of COVID-19 it is imperative that we follow President Trump’s Coronavirus guidelines. If you are a Postal Customer you received a post card in the mail annunciating these guidelines. The best and the brightest public health officials, scientists, medical doctors and nurses from all over our country strongly recommend that each of us follow these guidelines. State and local authorities advocate with one voice for these guidelines. Our own City Council and Administration encourage us to adhere to them. As a former Mayor and City Council member I would respectfully request that each resident of the Gardens hold fast to them.

Another opportunity for each of us to do our part to help to defeat the spread of COVID-19 is to respect, support, be grateful for, pray for, and say thank you every day to our fearless front-line first responders to this contagion. With self-sacrifice, dedication, and determination our fire and police departments, our doctors and nurses, our hospital personnel, the grocery store workers, the truck and delivery drivers, and others are at the center of the battle protecting each of us from this life threatening scourge. At great sacrifice to their own families and themselves, these individuals, some our friends and neighbors, are putting their lives on the line for us while holding at bay and helping to defeat this pandemic.

Selfishness is not a weapon against this virus but accepting personal responsibility to one’s self, to one’s family, to one’s neighbors, and to one’s community is. There are a number of other personal weapons each of us can utilize to defeat this COVID-19 pandemic. Mitigation works, embrace it by practicing good hygiene. Wash your hands often, particularly after touching hard surfaces. Disinfect surfaces and used items frequently. Cover your coughs and sneezes. Stay away from crowds. Use social distancing as a show of respect and consideration for others. An old Roman proverb says “Home is where the heart is”, so if you feel sick, if you are a senior citizen with underlying health issues, stay home. If possible work from and study from home. Avoid large gatherings, avoid travel, avoid eating or drinking out – support our local restaurants by using pick-up and delivery options.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread worldwide. This pandemic has been called a “Health War”, an “Invisible War”, and a “World War”. It is an invisible enemy that has penetrated every country’s borders without bullets and missiles in unprecedented ways. In the USA, COVID-19 is attacking us and killing us with a highly contagious airborne and touch viral disease as its weapon. It is creating chaos within our local, state, and national health-care systems. The pandemic is forcing our work force to the unemployment lines while wreaking havoc with our economy.

To defeat this enemy Garden’s residents must join with all USA citizens in imposing our American will and ingenuity. Leadership must begin with each of us as individuals. Unity must be our watchword. Concern and compassion, care and consideration, help and assistance, tenacity and calmness, should guide our actions. We must all band together as one force with one collective purpose, the defeat of this COVID-19 pandemic.

Group 4 Municipal Elections – Tuesday March 12th – VOTE!

Martino: Propaganda and Deception – Vote NO NO NO

The twin spigots of propaganda and deception surrounding the City Council of Palm Beach Gardens unrelenting march to change term limits to match the craving of the incumbents and developers while dwarfing the desires of 80% of the 2014 voters have again sparked controversy that has led to the Courthouse for resolution. The August 28, 2018 three question City Charter Referendum election has been legally challenged by a private citizen of Palm Beach Gardens.

The basis for the challenge, as I understand it to be, is misuse of public funds to pay for a public information campaign deceptively disguised as a solicitation campaign for votes to support approval to push for the passage of three City Charter questions. A local government cannot use public funds for vote solicitation.

In analyzing the three propaganda brochures sent to our homes and the City’s “information” materials on its website it is obvious that the City Council is using their appointed Charter Review Committee as a foil and their recommendations as a shield to justify these three City Charter questions. They are hiding the facts that their appointed appointed Citizens Charter Review Committee was less than representative of the entire City and had two City lobbyists from the business and development communities as members, one of whom is not a city resident. The City Council has not stipulated as information that recommendations from appointed committees are not mandates to the City Council or its constituents and that it is not a requirement, legal or otherwise, to present a ballot question on any or all of the Charter Committee recommendations.

The question than is why is a City Council that has yet to complete a single term in office so obsessed with these Charter change questions. More particularly, what inspires their obsession with changing the 2014 Term Limit Law that was passed by 80% of those 2014 voters who came to the polls to mandate term limits as then presented. Could it be because the advantage of the changes, particularly to the Term Limits, inure to their benefit and the desires of the developers whose monies are fueling a PAC that is allegedly sponsoring a campaign of confusion and deception concerning these Charter change questions? This same Political Action Committee is alleged to be in collusion and cooperation with the City and its hired Public Relations firm.

Under the developing circumstances the argument of being above personal considerations and purity on the part of the City Council members is difficult to accept. The points of order that the City Council may use to argue for underpinning their contention that it has presented an information campaign and not a political campaign for votes has been debated, exposed, and found to be wanting.

Please vote on August 28, 2018. My recommendation has not changed. Its vote NO, NO, and NO!

Please Vote NO on 3/13 – Palm Beach Gardens Election

• A Yes vote on Question 3 means that term-limited Council members can serve again with a 3 year sit-out between each 6 years in office.  There is no limit to the number of cycles that can be repeated.
• A Yes vote on Question 4, switches from Majority Wins (50%+1) to Plurality wins.  In a 2-candidate race there is no difference.  However in a multi candidate race, an incumbent can encourage other candidates to enter the race, thus diluting the votes and allowing the candidate with the most name recognition to win with a small percentage of the vote.

 

Next City Council Meeting on March 1st at 7pm

 

• Purchase award for Aquatic Vegetation and Exotic Species Management – Openly Competed – 2 yr term with no renewal – $74K
• Purchase award for Employee Benefits Consulting Service – Piggyback/Access contract – 2 yr term with no renewal – $140K
• Purchase award for Modifications to Concession Stands at Gardens Park – Bid waiver – sole bidder was too high, so executed bid waiver to come up with value-engineered solution that met budget – one year, not renewable – $513.5K
• Purchase award for Ballistic Helmets and Vests for Fire Rescue – sole provider, bid not applicable – $87K
• Purchase award for Repairs to Roof at Burns Road Recreation Center – piggyback/access contract – $362K, not renewable.
• Purchase award for Banking Services – Openly Competed – 5 yr term – no option to renew – $675K

City Manager Report  – no details listed

Public Hearings and Resolutions: 

• Ordinance 2, 2018 – First Reading – Adopting Regulations Pertaining to Home Solicitation Sales – adopting County-wide registration process.
• Ordinance 4, 2018 – 2nd Reading and Adoption – An amendment to the City of Palm Beach Gardens Police Officers’ Retirement Trust Fund.
• Ordinance 5, 2018 – 2nd Reading and Adoption – A request from A1A Cabana Partners, LLC., for a Voluntary Annexation of a 0.85-acre parcel located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Alternate A 1A and Florida Boulevard approximately 0.5 miles south of Hood Road.
• Resolution 13, 2018 – Approving a Planned Unit Development (PUD) amendment to replace the existing fabric awnings with a louvered metal awning system at the Cooper Restaurant at the PGA Commons PUD

Check the agenda to see if any additional items have been added before the meeting here.

March 13 City Election:

By now you’ve heard from the City via calls, emails, flyers and social media.  Please get educated with  more information before you vote and then VOTE.  Here are some of our most recent articles:

• Vote but Vote No on Questions 1 Through 4
• Rebuttal to City’s Misleading FAQs
• Martino:  “Fixes”…no thank you
• Martino: Charter questions…information is missing

Please read our summary of the February 2nd  Council meeting entitled “Tallahassee Impacts on Home Rule a Significant Concern to the City.”

We get the government we deserve – and it’s up to us to watch what they do.  Hope you can make it. If you can’t make the meeting try and watch live-streaming or on-demand.

Martino: Charter questions… information is missing

I have authored several Martino Minute opinion articles concerning the City of Palm Beach Gardens City Charter Amendments referendum scheduled for election on March 13, 2018. The City Council is pitching four Charter amendment questions on which they are asking Gardens registered voters to cast a “Yes” or “No” vote. After listening carefully to the City Council’s reasons for and discussion of these four questions, and after gathering my own information to examine these questions, I am voting “No” on each question.

It is incumbent upon each of us residents that we understand what the City Charter is. It is the City’s constitution. I would confidently say that it belongs to the residents, not an appointed committee, not the City Council, not the City Manager, and not the City Attorney. In my opinion, it’s will and words ensure that the governing of the City will be by and for the residents. It spells out how the City government should function for the good of the residents. The Charter contains a fair amount of specificity, as it should.  The amending process must be specific to subject and residents must be informed in exacting terms and nothing less. That’s the law talking, not me.

Let us exam the PBG Referendum Questions #1 & #2 for specificity and information…

From my perspective this question is as ambiguous and non-specific as a question can be. What are the recommendations of the CRC? Eliminate what internal inconsistencies? Remove what conflicts with State Law and Council Manager form of government? How is the Charter to be reorganized? Where is Ordinance 26 2017 Exhibit “A”? Also, it does not contain information so the voter can cast an educated ballot. For instance, it does not inform the voter that a “Yes” vote removes the requirement for a Charter review, changes how a City Council vacancy is filled, deletes the requirement for the City Manager to live in the City, erases the requirement for the City Manager Annual Performance Review, and crosses out the Employee Merit System, as just a few examples of what the voter is not informed of.

I would offer that Question 2 lacks the information necessary for the voter to make an informed vote. It is deceptive in its wording because it suggests that the voter is casting a ballot to amend the Charter to institute term limits for three full consecutive terms. It fails to inform the voter that term limits already are in place for maximum of two consecutive three year terms.  A “Yes” vote for Question #2 and a “Yes” vote for Question #3 which allows for a 3-year sit-out and return could allow a Council member to conceivably serve indefinitely.

Another issue that has merit without a satisfactory answer from the City Council is, “Why March 13, 2018?” There is no City Council member election, as this is an off year. Turn out will be minimal. It seems less than considerate of the 20,000 voters who participated in the November 2014 election that considered the need for term limits, and more particularly, the 16,000 that voted to approve of them. The August 2018 primary election or the November 2018 general election is a more appropriate choice but the City Council announced publicly that November was not available per the Supervisor of Elections office. On February 13, 2018 in the courtroom of a Circuit Court Judge the Lawyers for the Supervisor of Elections said there is no legal prohibition to those dates as long as the legalities are met. Hmmm.

Referendum elections offer choices for the registered voter. The voter should be adequately provided with accurate, true and specific information in order to make an informed choice.  It is my considered opinion that the Council could have done more to educate themselves and us. Acknowledging the word and space limitations of the ballot, it is still my contention that more exacting ballot questions could have and should have been approved and offered.

The choice of “No” on these four Charter Amendment questions is obvious.

Rebuttal to City’s Misleading FAQs

The City of Palm Beach Gardens spent $60,000 of tax-payer dollars to hire a consultant to produce a campaign for the March 13 Election.  The flyer, robo-call and website have the theme “help fix our charter” and much of what is in this purportedly neutral campaign is misleading at best.  Here is a rebuttal for each of the most egregious statements found on the ‘Fix Our Charter’* website.

What is the Charter Review Committee?

Martino: “Fixes”…no thank you!

On March 13th the Palm Beach Gardens registered voters are being asked by its City Council to answer yes or no to 4 ballot questions that significantly change the City Charter and dramatically alter the recently passed City Council Term Limit Law. From my perspective, these changes do not upgrade, enhance, or provide forward momentum for the residents and their City Charter or government. In my opinion, the 4 ballot questions deserve a “NO”.  

The City Council and others that support these changes offer nothing of consequence or necessity in the way of rational reasoning. Their basis of reasoning for these substantive Charter changes is…  

• Recommendations of Charter Review Committee 

Rebuttal: This committee was appointed by the City Council. Two of the members were City lobbyists and one of them does not live in the City. The committee was not balanced geographically and no appointment was made from any of the older original Plats of the City. In a hasty fashion, it held only four meetings causing the hired consultant  to remark about the brevity of the process. Finally, recommendations are only that and need not be accepted, adopted, or approved, as has happened in the past.    

• Learning curve for new Council members is steep 

Rebuttal: My answer is simple; the intricacies of the office one seeks should be learned before standing for that office. If you cannot be productive from the first meeting don’t run for the job. In various campaign forums and meetings, these City Council members asserted their experience and fitness for the job. In their campaign literature that is mailed to voters the council members ballyhoo loud and clear about their readiness to perform.  I guess we should not have believed their exclamations.  

• 6 years is not enough time to do the job 

Rebuttal: Above the assertion is the learning curve to do the job is steep. If two terms of three years, or 6 years, is not enough to do the job. Well, are 9 or 12, or 15 or 28 years enough? How much time is enough to be competent in a part-time job that has it work product implemented by a well-paid, well tenured, Administration and Staff.   

• Institutional memory 

Rebuttal: The meshing of the two words, institutional memory, sounds important. Is it politically correct to have it? It’s almost scary to think you may not have it. So I looked it up.  Institutional memory is a collective set of facts, concepts, experiences and knowledge held by a group of people. Institutional memory has been defined as stored knowledge within an organization. There are different ideas about how institutional memory is transferred, whether it is between people or through written sources. It is my opinion, in the case of a Council-Manager form of local government whose elected officials are part-time and elected on a staggered basis, as Palm Beach Gardens does, the main source of memory comes from input by people to be recognized in and through formal hearings, meetings, and then by documentation into public records, and not by any particular individual, elected or otherwise. Institutional memory than, as it applies to a Council-Manager government, is not vested in any one City Council member, but its City Council as a group, augmented by transparent public documented records, and an Administration with Staff that has some degree of tenure and longevity.  

• The City Charter is bush league and broken 

Rebuttal: That’s right; according to our City Attorney’s comment at the October 5, 2017 City Council meeting we have a “Bush League” City Charter. The charter is the constitution for our City. By extrapolation then, is the City Attorney with his “Bush League” utterance inferring that Palm Beach Gardens is a second tier, minor league, City? Probably not is my hope, but his other comments also smacked of insolence for the City Charter. Our City Charter has evolved, been amended, and guided our City over time since 1959, long before our current City Attorney was around to completely understand its history to present day. It has stood the test of time. It has been tested in the Courts and upheld in almost every instance. Our City Charter is not broken. It does not need the 4 “fixes” the City Council is trying to foist on the residents.  

This City Council was elected under the language and laws of the current City Charter which includes the Term Limits, election laws, legal vote counting, and other regulations which they now claim, after the fact, need “fixing”, and  right now. Where was the urgency during their campaigning? Why didn’t they offer these “fixes” as platform issues during their campaigns? The Term Limits that they want to change allowed them to be elected. The above reasoning for the Charter “fixes” they say are necessary are feeble at best and almost approach the absurd. In my opinion, this City Council, that has not yet completed one 3-year term in office, has been a bit self-serving and less than an “honest broker” in this “fixing” process. 

The information I have learned says each of the 4 referendum questions should be answered with a “NO”. 

VOTE BUT VOTE NO ON QUESTIONS 1 THROUGH 4

Palm Beach Gardens has 4 referendum questions on the Tuesday March 13 Municipal Election related to our city’s Charter – which is its constitution. It is vital that you DO VOTE however since so few residents vote in our city’s elections. The Council is taking advantage of the expected extremely low-turnout election with no candidates on the ballot, to get rid of the 2 3-year term limits that more than 16000 of us voted for in November 2014 by adding an additional term and allowing term-limited council members to run again.

They are trying to get rid of “majority wins” (which means 50%+1) by arguing it saves the cost of run-offs which rarely happen; but “majority wins” ensures that the person who is elected is the choice of most of the voters.  The Council does not seem to see the irony in spending the $70,000 or so for the no-candidate election plus the additional $60,000 plus for the related marketing materials – the cost of two run-off elections, in the guise of saving the taxpayer money on future run-offs.

The Council vote was NOT unanimous with Council Member Lane voting NO on all four referendum questions.

The public information campaign will claim that the city’s Charter is simply being modernized – hiding the fact that a yes vote also gets rid of required Charter Reviews, city manager residence, city manager reviews, changing how council vacancies are filled, disenfranchising voters in determining ‘total votes cast’ and more. This was tried previously in November 2012 and rejected by over 11000 of the voters.

Who benefits from all of these changes? The ‘insiders’ and the Council – none of whom have even completed a single term yet.

See details on each ballot question here:

Why Vote NO on Referendum Question 1

Why Vote NO on Referendum Question 2

Why Vote NO on Referendum Question 3

Why Vote NO on Referendum Question 4

 

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