Obama-Richardson '08?

New Mexico Governor and former Presidential candidate Bill Richardson finally issued his endorsement today: Richardson says Illinois Senator Barack Obama should be the next President of the United States.

"I believe he is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime leader that can bring our nation together and restore America's moral leadership in the world," Richardson said in a statement obtained by the AP. "As a presidential candidate, I know full well Sen. Obama's unique moral ability to inspire the American people to confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad in a spirit of bipartisanship and reconciliation." [Barry Massey, "Governor Richardson Endorsing Obama," 2008.03.21]

Richardson also emphasized his confidence in Obama on foreign policy and national security:

"There is no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama has the judgment and courage we need in a commander in chief when our nation's security is on the line," Richardson said. "He showed this judgment by opposing the Iraq war from the start, and he has shown it during this campaign by standing up for a new era in American leadership internationally" [Matt Apuzzo, "NM Gov. Bill Richardson Endorses Obama," AP, 2008.03.21].

Richardson knows whereof he speaks on foreign policy, and Obama made a significant acknowledgment of that fact:

Obama said Richardson "frankly has more concrete accomplishments on the international stage than my opponents, Democrat or Republican."

Richardson was a roving diplomatic troubleshooter when he was a congressman from New Mexico, negotiating the release of U.S. hostages in several countries and meeting a rogue's gallery of U.S. adversaries, including Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro [Apuzzo].

Richardson was also President Clinton's energy secretary, UN ambassador, and special envoy to North Korea. How's that for experience?

Speculation is rife that Richardson is angling for the VP slot. I've suggested Richardson would be an asset just for that tough-looking beard.

But seriously, consider the positioning: Obama himself says Richardson has a better record on foreign policy than anyone else in the race. Richardson helps win the Hispanic vote, a key constituency Clinton has been relying on. heck, even geographically, Richardson takes some of the Southwest vote that McCain might otherwise have the advantage with.

The conventional wisdom is that VP doesn't matter much... although the Cheney vice-presidency might suggest otherwise. And we would expect an endorser and endorsee to say nice things about each other. But hearing the words Obama and Richardson used today about each other today, I can't help thinking about the team that could be...

...but let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's still 71 days until the South Dakota primary....

Oil Prices Crowd out Road Repairs

With oil around $100 a barrell and gas prices stuck above $3 a gallon, you may think it's getting too expensive to drive. You may not have to worry about filling up your tank: oil prices may make it too expensive to keep the roads in drivable condition in the first place. Thursday's MDL reports that the Lake County Commission has put off its 2008 road resurfacing plans due to high oil prices.

The county allocated $442,000 in FY2008 for six miles of asphalt resurfacing on County Roads 26, 19, and 29 in northeast Lake County. Unfortunately, they set that budget last September, when oil (the stuff asphalt is made of) was $72-$75 a barrel. The county just received bids for the resurfacing based on current oil prices. The bids ranged from $521,500 (McLaughlin and Schulz, Marshall, MN*) to $605,000 (Bowes Construction, Brookings, SD).

So much for paving this year. The commissioners decided to bank the money and put it toward road repairs next year. So go easy on the Norwegian Boulevard -- if you see me on my bike up there, you'll see me swerving around the potholes.

And with apologies for pessimism, consider this: if the county can't even afford to maintain the roads it has this year, how hard will it be to find extra money at the state and federal level to expand Highway 34 to four lanes? I hope highway funds are available somewhere, but they are, maybe we need to put them toward maintaining existing infrastructure first.

*Funny a Minnesota company that has to pay income tax could still outbid three South Dakota companies.

Petitions, Petitions -- Now for Some Initiative and Referendum

Keep your John Hancocks handy: it looks like folks will be knocking on your doors for signatures well after the candidate filing deadline of March 25. I just received a press release from lobbyist extraordinaire Jeremiah M. Murphy announcing the kickoff of a drive to refer SB 174 to a public vote. SB 174 falls in the "South Dakota -- Anything for a Buck" category of our Legislature's work this year, making it easier for railroads to take your land through eminent domain.

I'm pleased to see Sibby and I aren't the only people in this state who think South Dakota has gone too far in putting the interests of wealthy corporations above the property rights of regular citizens. Murphy's group, "Protect Private Property," will be looking for at least 16,776 like-minded South Dakotans to put this issue on the November ballot. Walk along the proposed DM&E rail line that would benefit from SB 174 (and then take a north-south detour along the Keystone pipeline route), I'll bet you'll find a good chunk of that 16,776 pretty quickly.

The press release mentions Paulene Staben of Oral and Karen Cardenas of Brookings as fellow members of "Protect Private Property." Staben is a co-signer of an open letter on "Track the Truth," a website dedicated to documenting DM&E's record of questionable dealings with landowners and over-reliance on government assistance (might they agree that DM&E is another corporate welfare queen?). Cardenas also appears on "Track the Truth" and has served as chairwoman of Committee for a Safer Brookings to challenge DM&E's efforts on our side of the Missouri.

Cardenas also offers the best line of the press release:

We can have economic development and still protect private property rights,” said Karen Cardenas of Brookings, S.D. “There was nothing wrong with the existing law, which provided recourse for landowners who were being treated unfairly by companies looking to take their lands. Existing law provided a balance between the rights of corporations and the rights of landowners. SB 174 tilts the balance of law in favor of corporations and against South Dakota landowners” [from Jeremiah M. Murphy, press release, "Protect Private Property," 2008.03.20].

And now a hat tip to Sibby: As the SB 174 referral gains steam, the South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government are celebrating the filing of their petitions with 26,500 signatures (yes, that's 10K more than needed) for an initiated measure that would, among other things, establish a searchable state checkbook like what HB 1233 intended.

But as Sibby points out, this initiative does much more than give us Google for Government. It seeks to limit lobbying by state officials and the use of public resources to campaign for anything. For more, see PP's discussion from last November and the petition itself.

As I always say, the more the merrier. The more measures we put on the ballot, the more people will be motivated by at least one of them to pay attention this fall and show up at the polls. And even if they show up to say "No!" to everything, it's still worth the effort. Keep those petitions coming!

Petitions Due Tuesday -- Time for Some Easter Hustle!

Potential District 7 Senate candidate Pat Powers is running up against the wall known as Easter: five days left to get signatures and file for office, and four of them are the Easter holiday. Yikes! That's what we get for waiting until the last minute.

I was able to round up more than enough signatures for the school board run in 48 hours, but then I also wasn't making the rounds during a high Christian holiday. I also didn't have to differentiate among different party members; school board candidates just need signatures from registered voters. Gerry Lange and Scott Parsley got the jump on everyone, so they can sit back and enjoy the long weekend (and the long church services every night at St. Thomas and St. John's). But those of you still circulating (here in District 8, that would be Jerry Johnson, Russell Olson, Mitch Fargen... anyone else?), you have some holiday hustle ahead.

So, neighbors, if you see some stranger come knocking on your door this weekend, don't turn them away. They're probably just friendly and aspiring public servants out on an Easter signature hunt. Check your party registration, then give 'em some love and some ink. Every petition you sign gets us more choices on the ballot, and that's a very good thing.

Goeman Close to County Commission Rerun

Among all the little robins and sparrows twittering and flittering about my muddy yard, another little bird comes by to mention that outgoing school board member Rod Goeman is circulating his petitions to make another run for the Lake County Commission. This comes as no surprise, of course, for faithful Madville Times readers, who know that the Rod Goeman campaign site was updated for 2008 way back in October.

So with five days to go until the petition deadline, we have five candidates for the three four-year terms available on the county commission: incumbent Craig Johanssen (D), City Commissioner Dan Bohl (R), DSU Foundation president Chris Giles (R), and Scott Pederson (R), and now Goeman... hey! He's a Republican too! We have a primary! Yahoo!

But Dems, come out, come out, wherever you are! County commission may not be big partisan potatoes, but we can't let the Republicans have all the fun. You have until Tuesday -- plenty of time to gather those signatures (21 is all you need, Dems -- but check that number with our auditor Kay). The more the merrier, so hop to it!

Why Coddle China?

This South Dakota blog doesn't spend a lot of time on foreign policy, but the discussion of Tibet and China (and now Cuba) over at South Dakota Politics, as well as Anna* Kelsey's rejoinder at Dakota Women, got me thinking.

To review: Dr. Blanchard draws attention to "China's brutal occupation and colonization of Tibet," as demonstrated by China's murderous crackdown on Tibetan dissidents this week. He then commits an odd logical stretch of Madvillian proportions, accusing the international left of spending more time criticizing Israel over Palestine than holding China accountable for its oppression of Tibet. Anna Kelsey offers counterexamples. Dr. Schaff chimes in to suggest the blame for inaction on Tibet falls at everyone's feet:

...it'd perhaps be more accurate that no one really pays attention to Tibet, at least not enough to do anything about it. I take Ken's point to be that the usual liberal internationalist organs of peace, namely the United Nations, are too busy doing other things (such as denouncing Israel) to pay attention to real injustice [Jon Schaff, "Moral Blindness on Cuba," South Dakota Politics, 2008.03.20].

The Chinese Communist government is a bunch of thugs. They proved that to me in 1989 in Tiananmen Square. I spent the spring of my senior year in high school watching the amazing crowds of young people, showing they had the courage to stand up to a dictatorship, to fight for their right to speak and vote, and to do it without violence. Those young patriots didn't raise guns or clubs: they raised a replica of the Statue of Liberty to face down Deng and Mao in the heart of the Communist capital.

And then the Chinese army marched in and killed them, thousands of them. The Chinese Communist government jailed thousands more.

I can still feel how my heart sank that June morning when I listened to the news from Beijing. My teeth still clench when I think of the Chinese government's willingness to murder its best and brightest, its own children, just to hold on to power. Arguments about stability and collective good be damned -- killing people who demand human rights is an atrocity that no nation should tolerate.

And yet we do. My own house probably has the same proportion of cheap plastic junk (and appliances, and who knows what else) and yours does. America bought $321 billion worth of goods from China last year. That's a bit over a quarter of everything China exported last year, and $256 billion more than we sold to them. We're addicted to China's cheap labor and goods... and they're addicted to our purchasing power.

That's why we invade places like Afghanistan and Iraq, embargo places like Cuba, yet embrace China and its president, Hu Jintao, as an important ally.

"Embrace"? Where have I heard that word? Here's what the President said at his Feb. 28 press conference in response to a question about talking to Raul Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Well, talking to him is embracing. Excuse me. Let me use another word -- you're right, "embrace" is like big hug, right? You're looking -- I do embrace people. Mike, one of these days, I'm just thinking about -- (laughter.) Right, okay, good, thank you for reminding me to use a different word. Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castro, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him. He gains a lot from it by saying, look at me, I'm now recognized by the President of the United States.


Now, somebody would say, well, I'm going to tell him to release the prisoners. Well, it's a theory that all you got to do is embrace and these tyrants act. That's not how they act. That's not what causes them to respond. And so I made a decision quite the opposite, and that is to keep saying to the Cuban people, we stand with you; we will not sit down with your leaders that imprison your people because of what they believe; we will keep an embargo on you; we do want you to have money from people here in the homeland, but we will stay insistent upon this policy until you begin to get free.


And so that's the way I've conducted foreign policy, and will continue to conduct foreign policy. I just remind people that the decisions of the U.S. President to have discussions with certain international figures can be extremely counterproductive. It can send chilling signals and messages to our allies; it can send confusion about our foreign policy; it discourages reformers inside their own country. And in my judgment, it would be a mistake -- on the two countries you talked about [President George W. Bush, press conference, official transcript, WhiteHouse.gov, 2008.02.28].

Good thing he added that last line. Otherwise, President Bush would have had more 'splainin' to do about his frequent "embraces" with President Hu. Consider this statement from Bush to Hu at their November 2006 Hanoi meeting:

...you and I have had a lot of meetings. And the reason why is because we recognize that working together we can accomplish a lot for the security of the world and for the prosperity of our people. China is a very important nation, and the United States believes strongly that by working together, we can help solve problems, such as North Korea and Iran.


Our bilateral relations are very good, and we -- you and I are committed to keeping them that way. Obviously, with as much commerce between our countries as there is, there's going to be trade difficulties, but nevertheless, we both adopt a spirit of mutual respect and the desire to work through our problems for the common good of our peoples.

I strongly support your vision, Mr. President, of encouraging your country to become a nation of consumers and not savers, which will inure to the benefit of our manufacturers, both large and small, and our farmers, as well.

I always enjoy our frank and friendly discussions, and I'm looking forward to this one, as well. And I thank you for your hospitality [President George W. Bush, remarks to Chinese President Hu Jintao, official press release, WhiteHouse.gov, 2006.11.19].

China continues to commit the crimes for which President Bush rightly blasts the Castro regime. Yet President Bush will sit down and have his picture taken with the tyrants of China. Neither President McCain, President Clinton, nor President Obama is likely to change that policy... because they aren't willing ask us and none of us appear willing to make that economic sacrifice.

Blaming the "liberal internationalist organs of peace" (a Sibbyesque-sounding scapegoat if ever I heard one) for China's crimes against humanity barks way up the wrong tree. It's the rank-and-file internationalist organs of consumerism -- i.e., you, me, and all our fellow shoppers -- who are supporting the Chinese government and its oppression of Tibet and its own people.

By the way, did you catch that line from President Bush about encouraging China "to become a nation of consumers and not savers"? Consumerism über alles....

p.s.: And not that a policy of never talking to dictators is the right way to go: the Dalai Lama himself, who knows more about oppression than any of us, is willing to talk with his oppressors in the Chinese government.


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*update 12:25: I miscredited the Dakota Women China post to Anna. The author was actually Kelsey; see comments below. My apologies to all for the confusion!

Madison School Board Election: MDL Candidate Questionnaire

Here's a special campaign feature: my responses to the MDL school board candidate questionnaire! Reporter Chuck Clement is compiling the answers for publication in next week's MDL, but you can read and respond to my answers right here, right now. Chuck's questions appear in italics; my responses are indented. I also invite my fellow candidates Jay Niedert, Paul Weist, and Tammy Jo Zingmark to do the same. Jay, Paul, Tammy, e-mail me your responses to Chuck's questionnaire, and I'll add them as separate posts here on the Madville Times, free of charge.
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Questionnaire for Madison Central School Board Candidates
questions by Chuck Clement, Madison Daily Leader answers by Cory Allen Heidelberger, school board candidate
March 19, 2008

Name: Cory Allen Heidelberger

Age: 36

Family: My wife Erin and I have one two-year-old daughter, Katarzyna.

Occupation: Graduate research assistant at DSU, speech contest judge, artist

How long have you been a resident of Lake County? Lake County has been my legal residence since I was two months old.

What civic organizations do you belong to?

• Treasurer, Speech Communication Association of South Dakota
• Volunteer, bacteria monitoring project, Lake Herman
• Treasurer, Lake County Democratic Party

What public committees have you belonged to?

• President, Lake Herman Sanitary District

The Madison Central School Board is currently reviewing its trimester schedule. Do you feel the district should continue with class schedules in this format, or should scheduling change to a semester format?

I prefer semesters. Working in Madison's trimester system and then in Montrose's semester system, I felt that students and I were less rushed under the semester system. Class periods are shorter, but a full semester of class meetings allows more time over the weeks and months for review and for the unexpected. Semesters give students more opportunities for taking distance learning classes, DSU classes, and band and chorus.

A committee proposed the construction of a new gymnasium at the high school in 2007. The voters rejected funding plans for this project. Do you feel a new gym is necessary for the district? If not, why? If so, how would funding be accomplished?

I sided with the 57% of voters who said no in 2007. Immediately after the election, I proposed a Plan B that would have pursued private donations and sponsorships to expand the gym. A bigger gym would be nice, but from the perspective of school board duties and public dollars, it falls behind other priorities like renovating the high school to improve the academic environment and safety, maintaining services for students affected by the AIM High cuts, sustaining competitive wages, covering growing staff needs, and expanding other educational opportunities.

The state will require mandatory kindergarten by 2010. What are your thoughts on districts eventually being required to offer preschool as a mandatory requirement?

We’re a long way from a pre-K requirement. This year’s Senate Bill 26 would have created state standards for preschool while leaving attendance completely voluntary. Even giving that much authority to the state over preschool was too much for many opponents, and the State House killed the bill.

I wish every family could afford to have one parent stay home with their little ones full-time. Unfortunately, our economy requires so many families to have two incomes that we need good pre-school options. But I’m not ready to require 2–4-year-olds to go to school, and neither is the Legislature.

A Sioux Falls elementary school recently proposed teaching Spanish as the primary language to children in elementary classes. Is this something you would advocate for the Madison school district?

It’s probably a moot issue for Madison, due to size: we likely can’t afford to hire the extra language-trained staff necessary to replicate a program like the optional Spanish immersion program due to start at Rosa Parks Elementary in Sioux Falls in 2009.

That said, we should expand our foreign language offerings. Research and experience show that the younger students are, the better they learn new languages. Plus, students who take foreign languages do better in English and math. To compete in the global economy, our kids need all the foreign language we can give them.

Do you feel there's a need to change the district's current disciplinary policy? If so where?

Discipline is first and foremost the teacher’s jurisdiction. Then it goes to the administration, and only then, occasionally, to the board. If the disciplinary policy needs any changes, the people who know best are the teachers who are the frontline enforcers of it and the students (and by extension, the parents) who labor under it. The board should listen to those people, make reasonable rules and revisions as necessary, and then make sure those rules are enforced justly.

The newest challenge facing the Madison Central School District, and surrounding districts for that matter, is finding the necessary funding to sustain the AIM High alternative school. This program has historically been partially funded by the South Dakota Department of Labor, but that agency recently announced that funding is being pulled for the next fiscal year. With budgets being an ever-pressing concern, how will districts find the resources to fully fund this program?

We have a year before the state plans to cut the matching funds: that’s a year to persuade them not to do it or find another funding agency.

Hope and persuasion are good, but we also need a Plan B. We should fully review the program and its outcomes and decide how—and whether—we want to sustain it. If funding falls through, we may have to scale back, team up with other districts, or consider other alternatives. We’ll have to be open to all possibilities and look for the best solution for the students.

Lake Herman Sanitary District: Inspect Your Septic Systems!

I've just posted a recap of the discussion we had at last night's Lake Herman Sanitary District meeting about starting a septic tank inspection regime. No new ordinances yet -- first we want to get information from our local septic tank installers and from the DENR about good criteria for inspecting and maintaining tanks. We'll talk more about that at our April 23 meeting.

Now I'd rather not have the sanitary district imposing a lot of rules and expenses on my neighbors and me, and as a board member, I've tried to avoid exactly that. I've cut the budget and made clear my opposition to building an expensive central sewer system around the lake. But regular inspections of every tank in the district could be a good idea from a number of perspectives:

1. From a water quality perspective, regular inspections are a good idea, as they'll reveal malfunctioning systems and help us take action to replace them.
   
2. From a management perspective, required inspections will give the sanitary district a good picture of just how many and what type of systems we have. I'm embarrassed to say so, but our district files have specs for maybe a quarter of the onsite wastewater systems in our jurisdiction. We don't know exactly what some folks have under their yards... and some homeowners may not know, either.
3. From a policy-making perspective, an inspection regime will provide solid information on existing systems and give us a good idea of whether we need to replace them with a central sewer system. If we do inspections and find most systems are hunky-dory, we can concentrate on getting homeowners to upgrade the few that aren't up to par. If we find endemic problems, we'll have hard evidence to justify a push for community system. Either way, we'll be making decisions based on solid information, not wonderings and wishes.

As I said, next meeting is April 23 (6:30 p.m., Madison Public Library). There's nothing more fun than talking sewage, so mark your calendars and drop in!

Obama Headed for North Dakota April 4

Well, at least I won't have to miss Steve's wedding...

No wonder I couldn't find any confirmation of Senator Obama's April 4 visit to South Dakota. A sharp-eyed reader who missed out on tickets to the big Obama speech in Montana on April 5 forwards me this article* from the Grand Forks Herald, which announces that Obama is coming to Grand Forks, North Dakota, on April 4 to keynote the ND Dem-NPL convention. (He speaks at 5:30 p.m. at the Alerus Center -- tickets free, 20,000 seats available.)

North Dakota. North Dakota. Arrgghh! Even our neighbors in Montana can't keep North and South Dakota straight.

Memo to the Obama campaign: North Dakota already had its caucus. South Dakota has the June 3 primary. Make a swing through South Dakota, seal the deal!

But for those of you looking for some positive Obama spin out of the North Dakota Dem-NPL convention appearance, try this: If Obama doesn't stand to gain delegates with another ND trip, what's his motive? The Grand Forks Herald report suggests he could be playing a little November long ball and maybe even reaching out to help the North Dakota Dems:

A Survey USA poll released early this month showed Obama beating John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, in the state’s general election 46 percent to 42 percent, just barely inside the poll’s margin of sampling error.

Survey USA is a nonpartisan polling firm that conducts surveys for media and other organizations. That same poll showed McCain beating Clinton 54 percent to 35 percent. Many respondents were undecided on both questions.

While the Survey USA poll’s not definitive, [state Dems director Jamie] Selzler said, it does show Obama has at least a decent chance of breaking the GOP’s 44-year hold on the state’s Electoral College votes.

Perhaps more important, Selzler said, Obama could help energize turnout for the party’s legislative candidates lower down on the ticket. Republicans hold a three-seat majority in North Dakota’s state Senate and a 15-seat lead in the state House. With a heavy turnout, Selzler said, he thinks the party has a good chance of taking a Senate majority and a decent chance of taking the House.

“Part of it’s the candidates, part of it’s the (political) atmosphere,” he said. “In the end, what matters is we’re winning. That’s what counts at the end of the day" [Joseph Marks, "Obama to Visit GF," Grand Forks Herald, 2008.03.20].

Even if he's not coming to South Dakota (yet!), Obama's trip to North Dakota well after its caucus is more evidence that he's not just looking for delegates, but that he's out to serve the whole party and the whole country.

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*Whoops! Sorry -- the Grand Forks Herald requires registration. For more on the story, see the following:

1. The ND Dems-GPL blog, which quotes Obama as saying he looks forward to "working with the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party to strengthen our party and achieve victory in November.” (Note also that the ND Dems-NPL blog appears to be written by actual North Dakotans, unlike the blog claiming to be the official blog of the South Dakota Dems. Oh, the ND Dems also manage to do their blog for free, with Google's Blogger service.)
2. Conservative ND blog Say Anything thinks Survey USA "is vastly overstating" Obama's support in North Dakota. Of course, Say Anything has no evidence that their methodology is off, he just assumes that past Republican strength in ND guarantees perpetual Republican strength in ND. Feel free to contact Rob Port of Say Anything and ask when he'll be gathering current data to support his assertion.
   

Side Note on Obama, Wright, and the Company We Keep

Musician and Warholian YouTube celeb Derrick Ashong comments at CNN on Senator Obama's speech on race and his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Perhaps I am not interested in race as I should be, but this non-racial portion of Ashong's commentary stood out:

I watched in a state of minor shock, not so much at the deftness with which he defused the sophomoric conflation of his call for national unity with the inflammatory rhetoric of the retired head pastor of his church -- a conflation that would imply that we must each swallow whole the entirety of views expressed by our friends and associates [Derrick Ashong, "Courageous Obama Poses Challenge to America," CNN.com, 2008.03.19].

A good friend of mine from SDSU, Greg, used to tell me that the U.S. should cede South Dakota to the Indian tribes we stole it from. I agreed with my friend Greg that we took the land by less than fair means, but I also told him I'd be one of the white folks with a shotgun fighting to keep the land if the government ever tried to impose his plan. Greg is still my friend; am I obliged to denounce and disown him because of a radical disagreement on an important political (and racial) issue?

I like Todd Epp. I like Steve Sibson. I really like my wife. But I disagree with each of them on one thing or another (and I can think of some real doozies).

The company we keep would be really dull and our politics all the poorer if we associated only with our ideological clones. But that fact is lost on the campaign mouthpieces and point-scorers.

On Pastor Wright himself: Ben Calhoun, a reporter on NPR's Morning Edition, today offers an interesting observation: He interviews Martin Marty, a pretty smart theologian, who observes that Pastor Wright's namesake, the prophet Jeremiah, was thrown in a pit for annoying the authorities and seeming to speak against his own country. Dr. Marty says the prophet Jeremiah called attention to the faults of his country out of a sincere love for his country.

Check your Bibles, draw your own conclusions. But remember: there's a big difference between criticism and hate, just as there's a difference between friendship and ideological identity.

Not the Typical Spring Break -- IV in LA

Madison's a little quieter this week, as most students have skedaddled for Spring Break. Here at Lake Herman, spring break feels like any other week, balancing diaper changes with research and prepping a presentation on e-Government for class next week.

And then there's the InterVarsity crew from DSU and SDSU. Their spring break probably doesn't feel like a break at all. Instead of sun, sand, and sangría, they're pursuing salvation on a mission trip to Los Angeles. Matthew Paulson, well-known local capitalist and blogger, is one of six IV students and one staffer (Madison First Baptist's Pastor Kimberly) pounding the pavement in LA doing Christian outreach. They're also finding time to reach out to the rest of the world by blogging about their experiences. Take a look, and see how their experience compares to Fort Lauderdale.

School Board Campaign Conversation: Notes from Tuesday

I had my first big public event as a school board candidate yesterday morning. O.K., scratch big: six people stopped by for the open forum I hosted at the Madison Public Library... and two of them were Mrs. Madville Times and Madville Times Jr. :-)

But I can have as good a conversation with four voters as with four hundred. Current school board member Rod Goeman dropped in. He'd just finished pitching a new housing development on Lake Madison to the Lake County Commission (Sioux Falls house hunters, start sending your bids) and had some time to offer some insight on board activities.

One startling fiscal note: Madison Central's FY2007 general fund expenditures are $6.1 million. In FY2000, the general fund was $6.2 million. (See the state Department of Education's Statistical Digest for budget data.) In seven years, our school district budget has seen a real cut -- not a cut in growth, which most policy wonks consider a cut, but a decrease in actual dollars. Compare that to the state general fund: growing from $785 million in FY2000 to $1.093 billion in FY2007. Over seven years, that's 4.7% annual growth. Had Madison Central increased its budget at the same rate, our general fund would currently be $8.6 million.

Special education may create a budget squeeze in the near future. Special ed students used to be, for lack of a more polite term, a cash cow: Madison Central qualified for more funding than it needed, so for a while, drawing more special ed students actually filled the coffers. Now the number of special ed students may be growing faster than the budget can keep up. Special ed isn't an optional program we can cut whenever we need; the law requires us to offer certain services to every qualifying student. So there's something we need to keep an eye on.

We talked a bit about computers. The Legislature's cut to the Classroom Connections program won't affect Madison; the funding is still in place for our HS laptops. But we did discuss going for cheaper computers in the future. If we did bolt from the state's deal with Gateway, we'd have to pay for our own training workshops. Of course, if we can get a good deal on Dell or HP laptops for $600 a pop instead of $1200 per Gateway Tablet PC, we might have plenty of money left over to conduct our own in-house training.

New idea of the day: Charlie Johnson offered a brainstorm about creating a student advocacy position. He suggested students could benefit from having a staffer who would speak on their behalf in disciplinary situations. When a student takes a complaint to a teacher or the principal, the student is at a disadvantage. A student usually doesn't know the district policies or school law as well as the teacher or principal. A student may also not be as good at presenting her or his case without getting emotional or smarting off (hey, kids are like that -- it's called being 16 and having hormones). Even a good kid with a reasonable grievance may not be able to put her or his case forward as well as an adult. Charlie thus recommended having someone like a public defender for kids to help them out in those situations. I don't know if any schools have a position like this -- suggestions, anyone?

The gym came up (it always will). Linda McIntyre said last year's gym proposal failed in large part because its main advocates came across as arrogant. Linda's husband Neal noted that they already pay $800 a month in taxes to support education, and they're happy to pay it. But the gym proposed last year would have added to their tax bill without adding to the educational benefits the school district provides. They agree that a new events center of some sort would provide some benefits in tourism and sales tax dollars. But the school district is already doing its part for economic development by educating kids (education is the bedrock of any development). If folks want more economic development, they should turn to private capital campaigns like Forward Madison and the economic development dollars the city, county, and state can make available.

Just one more gym thought: maybe the school district just isn't the right agency to build a big events center. Maybe the district operates under budget and political constraints that are too tight to build the biggest, best facility possible. The district cut corners on its events facilities in the high school in 1964 (imagine if we were still hosting games in the HS gym). The district hasn't had the finances to upgrades its HS auditorium in 45 years. The district had to cut corners to build the middle school and ended up with a non-regulation basketball court. The school does what it can, but athletic supporters who want a big gym version of the Field of Dreams may need to chase a different funding source. (Hey, how did Ray Schultz get his ball diamond built?)

My thanks to Rod, Charlie, Neal, and Linda for stopping by for a really good conversation. I'll host one more meeting like this, on Wednesday, April 2, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at the same place, the Madison Public Library meeting room. If you can't make the all-candidate public forum on the 3rd, or if you just want a chance to have a more substantial conversation and ask more follow-up questions, come on over!