BOE Candidate Endorsements
April 18, 2009

The following is Phil Kramer's endorsement of the BOE candidates. It is not a TUF endorsement because it is the endorsement of only one person. While I asked the opinion of many people the final decision of this endorsement is mine and mine alone. It should be taken only as the opinion of one person who is familiar with the workings of the BOE, has gone to two candidate "debates", read their postings, emails and websites and watched the debate on BOE TV.

Disclaimer
Being heavily involved in politics in Franklin has led to my familiarity with several people living in the political world of the Township. Thus try as I might I can not assure you that I am impartial. I therefore am disclosing my relationships so that you may properly judge my judgments.
1. Nancy LaCorte is a close friend. We have become close in part because of what she has done on the BOE. I have found her to be an ally in my work with the BOE, championing many of the causes that TUF has pushed. I believe that my friendship with her has not so much shaped my opinion of her rather that my opinion of her has strengthened our friendship.
2. I supported Gene Unger’s last candidacy and we were friends at that time. However I've talked little with him in the last three years. We have disagreed about several issues. It was Mr. Unger who decided that my image be used on the Township veteran's memorial that honored those who fought in the cold war.
3. Wendy Wright is the wife of Carl Wright a fellow candidate of mine this coming fall.

First I'd like to state that is the best crop of candidates that the BOE election has seen since TUF has been in business. I believe that all of the candidates are well qualified and will be able to serve the district well, making the job of picking three among them extremely difficult.

My first endorsement is for Nancy LaCorte to retain her seat. Three years ago she ran for BOE promising among other things to televise BOE meetings and to have an outside review of the district budget, both issues pushed by TUF. Of the three who won that year (LaCorte, Unger and Mettler) LaCorte is the only one that who has kept all of her promises. She has stood up for open government and having a BOE that is more responsive to the people. Her hardest battle however was regarding the outside review. LaCorte kept that alive when both Unger and Mettler turned against it. She kept it up despite significant intra-BOE political pressure. When my Township duties expanded to include the Zoning Board, which meets on the same night as BOE meetings, LaCorte kept me apprised of important events of those meetings. I give my unequivocal support to Nancy LaCorte.

My second endorsement is for Teletha Brown to replace the seat vacated by Ms. Mettler. Ms. Brown has been attending BOE meetings for several months. She is bright and has learned very quickly. She appears to care a great deal about education and sees the need for a transition of leadership. She approves of the outside review. My only reservation about her is that she seems reluctant to take sides on certain issues. I do believe her presence will improve the Board.

The final seat is that of Gene Unger. The question is should he retain his seat or should it go to Arline, Gandhi or Wright.

I have spent an inordinate amount of time pondering this last endorsement asking the advice of at least a dozen people from various aspects of the BOE, Franklin politics, and members of the school districts administration.

With regard to Mr. Unger:

1) He promised to support the outside review during his last campaign yet he voted against it. The reason he gave for not supporting it was that he felt it would be a vote of no confidence in regard to Mr. Seto. That does not ring true to me because Mr. Seto was in favor of the review.

2) He also ran saying the budget was full of waste yet the first budget he engineered was the maximum allowed by law.

3) I believe that the board has been dysfunctional. There are two factions on the board. One faction of five people consists of the people who voted for Ms. Nagy to be school board president. The other four are people who did not vote for her. I find to a large extent the latter four have been deprived of information and standing that allowed them to contribute meaningful input into decisions on the board. While by no means solely responsible Mr. Unger, as one of the five, has at best enabled that process and at worst contributed to it. I believe that the current leadership on the board promotes this five-four split and as long as this split exists Mr. Seto will not be able to perform the critical operations that he needs to turn this district in the right direction.

4) On the other hand many have told me that Mr. Unger is a hard worker and has done many good things behind the scenes.

Of the three others, Arline, Gandhi and Wright all are capable but are short on specifics without well-outlined goals. Thus I believe it will take them some time to get up to speed and be able to provide leadership. I will however reiterate that all candidates are capable of serving well.

I have pondered this choice for over a week vacillating between decisions so that now I realize that my picking one over another would be almost arbitrary and would not serve TUFer's well. I therefore chose to not chose.

This leaves the final endorsements for

Phillip Kramer
Taxpayers United in Franklin

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