One great tune from one of the best musicals...."The Music Man"

Harold Hill comes to River City with his scam of starting a boys marching band (he just happens to sell band equipment)....in order to drum up support he paints a picture of what will happen if they don't buy his plan....the kids will be running amok, they will all become bad seeds in the pool halls of the once noble town....and the community buys it.

Back in my sales days, this was called "creating a compelling event" in order to close a deal.  Myron Orfield, The Aspen Education Group, Pacific Educational Group, Crossroads Panorama Theatre....they have found a goldmine of the gullible right here in Eden Prairie and they've already lined their pockets on the lies.

Professor Harold Hill's original plan was to skip town....but after falling in love with the savvy town librarian (and the town,) he stays.

But the race-hustlers of 2010 aren't falling in love...in fact Orfield is on record for saying he "gets sad" in Eden Prairie.

No folks, these people don't live here, they don't work here....they didn't choose to make this city their home to raise their families and live their lives and they certainly don't care what you think.

You are nothing more to them than a pocketbook to pick.

Of course this isn't an MGM musical, this is real life where people make choices and just hope that the government will stay out of their way.The public schools are run by the government-- they are highly political environments for that reason.  (I strongly believe in government funding public education, I just don't believe they should be running it- but that's for another day.)

If elected leadership does its job well, things chug along. If not, this is what happens.  Eden Prairie Superintendent Melissa Krull will "stay the course" come hell or high water....she's too far in now. Some might call this leadership, there's only one problem...our Superintendent is not supposed to be a leader, she's supposed to be an "administrator."  She works for the School Board to implement what they direct her to implement.  And we- the taxpayers and voters of Eden Prairie- direct the school board.

While the Board chose to implement a costly and foolish Governance Plan (presented to them by Administration,) they chose to "wash their hands" of any direct accountability for this mess.  They sit in meetings, (do they even take votes on anything?) and they let staff run the entire show.  The Board is MIA in all of the media coverage of this mess...I've seen the same single member of a committee quoted in the press (brave gal.)  Where's the board?  This is what you signed on for and nobody knows where you are or what you think.

The Superintendent is going around telling the media that she makes this final decision.  What do you think of that? Do you care?  Are you going to do anything about it?  Please give me one other example of a district who has signed away their power to an employee?  It's ridiculous!  I hear the feedback has to be provided according to "themes."  How's that for free speech?

We already know they intentionally circumvented Minnesota's open meeting laws.  We know that the committees were hand-picked by the administration- and that there was no formal process or written applications.  (Man, Alinsky has nothing on these people.)

So, where's the Board?  How about an email out to your constituents?  Are you people not capable of writing your own email and telling people where you stand on this and what you're going to do about it?  You've so bought-into the group-think that this idea is foreign to you?  (Instead one Board member has asked to removed from my email list --so much for anyone who thinks the Republican party has one grain's worth of influence over this mess-- you're mistaken.) 

How are all of those "Independents" working out for you?   Aren't they strong?  Don't they stand up and make the tough choices?  Aren't they so independently-minded and free-thinking?  It's so great not to have an evil political party operating in this mess!  (At least the DFL has leaders on the board in the form of Kim Ross and Carol Bomben.)

Stone cold silence because they've signed onto the silence which makes every single one of them responsible for whatever the outcome is of this boundary-line gerrymandering.  The only problem is-- if this passes-- and even if new leadership is elected in 2011, it will be too late. Once they do this--they can do anything they want with your kids.