Only an hour or so to go till the hearing for WCCUSD trustee areas (West County schools may shift elections) and I have to say the odds are certainly stacked against us. The County Board has a pattern of saying no to citizen petitions. And for this type of decision there seem to be absolutely no guidelines for how the Board decides. This makes it easier to just rely on arbitrary tallies for emails “for,” “against,” (when “against” could be just to not have it on the same ballot as the parcel tax), “community persons”, “community leaders,” and on ad nauseam. Or who knows what?

One other side issue that I think might be working here is a concern by the County Board to support the Superintendent, Harter, at any cost. I think they accept that our district is messed up, but in their model having a new superintendent ride in on his horse will always save the day if only he’s given a little time. He wants our proposal off the November ballot that has his parcel tax on it, so it’ll have to be removed. The problem with this model is that the superintendent is not independent but takes orders from a very assertive board majority faction in a dysfunctional political culture. Leaving the superintendent to fix things is not going to fix things.

Well, on the other hand, I could be wrong. The people may be permitted to decide for themselves in November.