A Report From The Picket Line: As Facilities Modernization Funds Begin To Flow

A Report From The Picket Line:
As Facilities Modernization Funds Begin To Flow,
(as is usually the case in "Rottenchester," New York)
Politics Are Producing Strange Bedfellows

With regard to the Community Education Task Force and others' ongoing struggle to defeat Robert-Duffy's---Joe Morelle's---and David Gantt's attempted, hostile takeover of the Rochester City School District (RCSD), and thereby protect and preserve our Civil / Constitutional right to elect local representatives to the Rochester Board of Education --- it is becoming more and more difficult to determine who is really with us and who is not.

We are now at a point where it is necessary to admit that it may have been foolish of us to assume that certain elements were really our allies. We had made this assumption, based on (among other factors) the "united front" displayed on February 17, 2010 at the Rochester (Airport) Holiday Inn, when (as members of the Community Education Task Force, after having worked with the Rochester Teachers Association (RTA) and the Board of Education Non-Teaching Employees (BENTE) in particular, in the process of causing Monroe County Democrat Party Chairman Joe Morelle to cancel a planned awards dinner at the same hotel) --- we stood side-by-side; hand-in-hand (in the presence of every major media outlet in town) with a slew of local labor leaders and union members, including many who are members of the Building Trades unions. This assumption had been reinforced by other collective actions --- such as joint-protest-actions at Rochester City Hall on January 19, 2010, which included the largest turnout for a Rochester City Council meeting in years; a joint-protest at Joe Morelle's Ridge Road Office on January 21, 2010 and a joint-protest/picket of the Mayor's Ball on March 20, 2010.

Rude Awakening

On April 29, 2010 we were back on the picket line (again as members of the Community Education Task Force, and again in protest of an event involving Joe Morelle). Namely, the event was a $500.00-a-plate fundraiser held in Morelle's honor at Brio Wine Bar & Grill in Pittsford, New York. However, the April 29th picket lacked the diversity of participants, which we had witnessed during others referenced above, especially the one on February 17, 2010 --- when hundreds of supposedly anti-mayoral-control advocates crowed into a ballroom at the Airport Holiday Inn.

The April 29th picket included representatives from seven of the fourteen organizations that make up the Community Education Task Force and two Rochester Teachers Association members (although, to their credit, both Dr. Adam Urbanski and Mr. Dan Diclemente did express support, and Dr. Urbanski issued a fan-out, urging RTA members to attend).

Some of those who crossed our picket line, on their way to the $500.00-Morrelle-fundrasing-birthday-bash were quite surprising. For example, former Democrat Party candidate for Monroe County Sheriff, Ernest Jones was in the number. Once we check the tape (compliments of our Indymedia partners) --- it will be interesting to see who else is captured on film.

A low point of the picket on the 29th was when Clark Conde`, Managing Editor of The Rochester Building and Construction Trades Council's newspaper, The Labor News --- had the unmitigated gall and audacity to come onto the picket line to let us know that he didn't "feel so bad about crossing --- since only a couple of teachers" were there. He also wanted us to know that "The Rochester Building and Construction Trades Council has not taken a position on the issue" of mayoral control. The way we see it is, if someone is willing to drop 5-bills (for a plate of food) in support of one of the main proponents and sponsors of mayoral control legislation --- then that is in fact equivalent to taking a clear position. Another picket-line-crosser is the school-naming, crusading, black-child "savior" Ken Warner. While these circumstances are disgusting and disappointing (to say the least) --- they made even more sense when we discovered from Mr. Dan Diclemente that "the Building Trades actually SPONSORED the fundraiser, despite Morelle's disparaging treatment toward Labor and blatant disregard for our issues."

Blood-Money Begins To Flow

Word on the street is that many in the Building Trades, among others, including some office-seeking-political-aspirants, have cut behind-the-scenes deals with Robert Duffy and other purse-string-pulling Democrat Party leaders, and are therefore behaving in manners that guarantee they will get elected and/or likely get their money-grubbing hands on pieces of the roughly 1.5-billion-dollar-facilities-modernization-pie, which represents one linchpin of the mayoral control issue. That's right, for many --- this is not (as they claim) about the best interests of children. Instead it is about money and power, including and especially the 1.5 billion dollars allocated to carry out the so-called Facilities Modernization Plan, which has been in the works for several years, and is inextricably linked to the proposed Duffy-Morelle-Gantt mayoral control coup. The 1.5 billion dollars was borrowed by the City for the Rochester City School District (with a promise of almost total reimbursement by New York State). The money, which is to be used to "modernize," and possibly tear down and rebuild some RCSD schools, is finally starting to flow. This reality is what has some in the Building Trades salivating like rabid dogs, and standing ready to sell their mothers down the drain (if necessary) in order to get their piece of the pie. The funds will be received in phases (over the next 15 years or so), and represents the biggest public works project in the history of Rochester. Mister Ken Warner's buddy Robert Brown (the latter of whom recently had one of Rochester's new schools named after him --- as a result of a letter-writing campaign launched by the former --- with no community input) serves on the Facilities Modernization Board, which is composed of operatives chosen by the Mayor and Superintendent. Anyone wishing to obtain information regarding the Facilities Modernization Board's meetings, should write to the Superintendent's Office (Brizard@rcsdk12.org) and ask to be added to the meetings notification list. Their meetings are open to the public. However, I'm quite sure that (as is usually the case in "Rottenchester") they hold private sessions that only the insiders are aware of.

If the above-referenced street-rumors are true --- they certainly would go a long way in helping to explain what we witnessed on the picket line on April 29th, and would make it crystal clear that some of our so-called "partners" (who have really established themselves as our potential, political enemies) are already at newly formed negotiating tables, and have consciously decided (again, as is usually the case in "Rottenchester") to omit the heart and soul of the potential, ongoing grassroots movement (not only to defeat mayoral control, but also) to establish a brand new, fundamentally different reality regarding expansion of the local education-decision-making-apparatus, i.e. to include (for the first time ever) independent, as opposed to hand-picked, grassroots community partners, especially parents, students and activists, and particularly, but not exclusively, African Americans.

We'll be watching, and most importantly --- we'll be organizing.

Leadership Team

Activists Against Racism Movement

ADDENDUM:

Since the time that this Report was first released on May 3, 2010, we have learned the following from one of our allies who is also a member of the regional Labor Council's Executive Board:

"Duffy is trying to court the trades by promising them work for their members. Only three of the seventeen trade unions have signed on in support of mayoral control. The other fourteen are either vehemently against it or remain neutral.

Many of the trades were upset that Morelle used 'The Rochester Building Trades' as a sponsor to his [4/29/10] fundraiser. Basically, Morelle had a few trades supporting the event, and billed it as if the entire body sponsored his fundraiser. Most of the trades did not purchase tickets, nor attend the event.

The Executive Board will be sending Morelle a letter in the near future illustrating the problems [they] have been experiencing with him at the helm of the Democratic Party. The letter will invite him to appear before the Executive Board sometime in early June."