PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

GRAND COUNTY UNCENSORED

GRAND LAKE, CO grumpyssaloon.com

GRUMPY'S SALOON

Pulling us out of the mainstream

ZXCVBGHDJGVK
grandcountyuncensored.com Opinion and commentary by Reggie Paulk

October 28, 2011 || Volume 1, Number 16 || Free

zxcvbghdjgvka: word used to express ultimate frustration in chatrooms. (Source: urbandictionary.com) For those of you unfortunate enough to attend more than a handful of public meetings in Grand County, I give you my deepest sympathies. No matter the town hall or boardroom you happen to be sitting in, the number of eye rolling events that may occur during any one meeting are sure to exceed the number of fingers or toes on one's body and that's if you're only half paying attention! This week was no exception. On the evening of Monday the 24th, the Town of Grand Lake invited the East Grand School District board to attend what can only be described as a public flogging led by Mayor Judy Burke. The standingroom only meeting was called to order and Burke quickly launched into a diatribe against the school board regarding the closure of Grand Lake Elementary. During her tirade, she pointed out the district didn't even give the courtesy of a response to an earlier letter she'd sent them highlighting her grievances. After she'd given her spiel, the floor was given to representatives of the school district. Superintendent Karas immediately pointed out that multiple emails and a letter were drafted and sent to the town, and she had her computer out to prove it. Whoops! Talk about a gaffe on Burke's part. Burke retorted by asking whether anyone had received a letter and restated that none had been. Karas followed by stating the address the letter was sent to, and this was verified to be correct by the council. The miscommunication set the tone for the rest of the conversation, and highlights just some of the shortcomings of our local representatives. After initial pleasantries were dispensed with, school board president Tom Sifers stood at the podium to speak about the situation. His message was one of seeking unity and trying to work together to resolve the issues between the town and the district. Once he was finished, the questions began. The council immediately went after the budget and the school district's $800,000 'miracle.' This is where the shortcomings of the current school board came through loud and clear. It is also something I've been harping on for months. All of the board members were present except for Chip Besse and Grand Lake representative Barbara Ahrens. Not one budget question was reliably answered by any of them. The only people familiar with the school budget are Nancy Karas and business manager Donette Schmiedbauer a fact that should raise the ire of anyone paying property taxes in the district. What followed for most of the next hour was what can only be described as number confusion. If there's something Karas is expert at, it's causing paralyzing confusion with regard to the school district's numbers. I've sat in on enough school board meetings to become intimately familiar with the technique, and I will say that it's highly effectiveespecially with an audience unfamiliar with school finance. Part of the technique involves handing out a printout of carefully chosen and irrelevant numbers that have no meaning out of context, and building an argument up around them. Her attempt to do the same to Grand Lake's town council failed because they never received the email with the spurious

17page 'document' she kept referring to. Without that context, she was at a bit of a disadvantage because her audience hand't been properly 'informed.' I don't doubt she sent the emailsmy experience with Grand Lake's representatives is they don't respond. With a packed house, the discussion about the budget had everyonewhether they sided with the town or the school boardpractically drooling on themselves. In my experience, this is by design. If school district administrators can keep everyoneincluding board membersin the dark regarding school finance, there's a good chance the community will go along with whatever it is they want them to do. And since nearly every school district in the state and country operate this way, Occam's razor would infer this is by design. But the community is no longer uneducated about school finance or budgets. After the budget charade was finished, the floor was opened up for comments from the general public. The level of anger in the town is palpable. People are either pissed that the school was closed or that people won't get over what amounts to, "crying over spilled milk," as one person stated. Many people are convinced the closure of the elementary school amounts to a death sentence for Grand Lake, and one person told me after the meeting the first question many potential employees ask is what kind of schools are available. No matter what side of the issue you're on, the one thing that should be agreed upon is an absolute failure of leadership from the school board to the towns to the county. Once most people had said their piece, I decided to add to the conversation. Holding up a copy of the East Grand School budget, I asked the town trustees to raise their hands if any of them had personally looked at the budget. The only person to acknowledge looking at the budget was the mayor. I then stated I had sent an email on March 1st detailing what I thought was going to happen with regard to the schools, and even gave suggestions as to possible solutions. I even distilled school finance into a single blog post, with references and contacts to verify the information with the state. This was months before the closure, and certainly in time to avoid the kind of crisis the eventually faced. I lambasted the trustees, along with the leadership of the towns county and schools. The debacle was a collective failure of leadership, and I hold them all accountable. Mayor Burke's attack on the school board was a political move designed to deflect blame. The first rule of leadership states that everything is your faultonce you take on that role, you also must bear the responsibility that comes from decisions made before taking it on. Burke had all the information needed to make an informed plea to the community and the school districtshe failed to use it or act. That's on her. I chose today's headline because, the more meetings I attend, the more I realize the incompetence of the people we've put in charge. Next year is a big election year. We in Grand County have an opportunity to replace a great deal of the current crop of representatives in the towns and the county. Personally, I'd prefer we pick a few random names out of the phone book to choose from than go from, but where's the sport in that?

The Grand County Uncensored logo and grandcountyuncensored.com are trademarks of Uncensored Media, LLC. All content copyright 2011, Uncensored Media, LLC.

BOTTOM LINE ON THE FRAUD

If you want the truth on this, order yourself a copy of Leverage. It contains an entire section on the educational funding crisis. If you want lies, listen to the President: The switch would help borrowers because the U.S. would essentially be refinancing the private loan at the lower government rate. Administration officials estimate borrowers would receive a reduction of up to 0.5% in their interest rate. Great. 1/2%, when the real problem is that the compounded cost of college is rising at about 10% a year and has been. This means it's been doubling about every 7 years, which is about right. This will do exactly nothing but it sure sounds good during an election season, doesn't it? It was not that long ago that you could pay for college flipping pizzas or burgers in your time off when not class. This is essentially no longer possible. This scam began in the 1980s with colleges "conveniently" arranging classes so that it was virtually impossible to complete a 4year degree in four actual years. This clever trick was accomplished by stacking classes required for your particular course of study such that it was almost if not actually impossible to meet the requirements because one or more classes you had to have were either only offered at the same time as another required class, or were not offered during a particular semester when it would naturally fall in your progression of study at all. This essentially guaranteed that your "4 year" degree would take 4.5 or even 5 years to complete. Not because you needed more credit hours or because you failed one or more core classes, but because the college had intentionally arranged prerequisites and class requirements such that it was either nearly or entirely impossible for you to amass the required hours in four years of time with anything approaching a normal load. Oh sure, there were usually ways to achieve the goal anyway, if you could hack it. Taking a 125% or 150% load during one semester might do it if you didn't fail one of the classes or be forced to drop it due to a failing performance. But that makes impossible working through school during that time too, doesn't it? At the core of this problem is the incessant financialization of college

By Karl Denninger, Marketticker.org

educations. By removing the ability of students to discharge bad loans in bankruptcy when taken for this purpose, anyone who could fog a mirror could and did take on nearly unlimited amounts of borrowing. There was no requirement for continued performance in order to continue to receive money, and no analysis by the lenders of whether your chosen profession was likely to lead to enough income to repay your obligations, since there was no risk of you walking into bankruptcy court and discharging the debt that was given to you to pursue an entirelyuneconomic field of study with the full knowledge of the lender. Basic supply and demand tells us that when supply of something is constrained and demand is driven higher price will rise. In this case price rose a lot and continues to rise for this reason. Yet a huge percentage of graduates are employed in a field that has no relevance to their degree at all, which means they bought nothing. This entire racket is a simple scam and the worst offender is the government, closely followed by the parents of these students. The outcome is that our young adults are being turned into slaves. If you're a parent and sit for or participate in this you're a willing co conspirator and when, not if, the Social Security and Medicare system implodes and you're penniless on the street you will deserve it if your nowgrown kid slams the door in your face, telling you that you made your bed in screwing him or her and now must lie in it under a freeway overpass.

County is public land, this is a HUGE local issue. If these lands are indeed public lands, and if these lands therefore belong to all the people, how can closing off access make sense? Would it not make more sense to keep the lands open and put all of the keepers of these lands (that's you and me and everyone else) in charge of seeing that the lands are used with conservation in mind instead of laying this responsibility off on only the rangers and BLM employees? Aren't personal responsibility and accountability sorely lacking at all levels of society? How many times have we driven our Jeep over trails and stopped to pick up litter and outright trash, be it an occasional beer can or an entire campsite? Instead of spending tax dollars on new maps and regulations and enforcement, let's spend the money on education and advertising that "these lands belong to you so take care of them". All of us who care about these lands need to come together to keep these lands clean and speak up when we see abuses. One thing that can be said for our local schools: The Pine Beach (2nd graders) and Monarch Lake (5th graders) field trips are an excellent educational tool for this very thing. There are stations manned by representatives of all the various state and federal forest/park service agencies and these men and women do an excellent job educating out children about proper land use and the importance of wildlife habitats. Public access (Travel Management in BLM lingo) addressed above is only a portion of the proposed regulation changes. Most assuredly, the harvesting of timber, oil, gas, and minerals are where the the most significant impact of changed regulations will be felt. We urge those of you who live in NW Colorado, to show up at the sessions in Walden (Nov. 3, 47 pm) or Kremmling (Nov. 8, 47 pm). Those outside this area will have to do your own homework on when and where your meetings will be held. But beyond that, you MUST let your elected officials know your stance, because the BLM public affairs officer states in no uncertain terms that "your comments do not constitute a vote". We believe that federal, state and local officials will have louder voices. We already know that our federal "representatives" lean toward locking off public lands (especially "Representative" Polis who has drafted a bill to lock up huge portions of public lands throughout the western states). We find more sympathy for public use in some of our state and local "representatives". These people cannot represent you, if you do not let them know your thoughts so, let them all know your thoughts, especially those who will be up for reelection in 2012 when these new regulations are slated to take effect. Sincerely Clark and Maralyn Branstetter
Chip Besse is the interim East Grand School District board member appointed to fill a position left vacant by Gail Delphia until the November 2nd election. He called me up after reading last week's paper because he thought I was printing, as he put it, "bullshit." He further accused me of campaigning for my wife, who is running opposite him in this year's school board election. Besse was angry because I printed the minutes from the first board meeting he attended and pointed out that the board unanimously voted aye on nearly every decision of which he has been part. He felt this didn't properly reflect his stance because the majority of the decisions made were procedural. I guess he failed to read the part where I said that. I offered Besse an opportunity to respond in writing, but he made it clear his phone call was his response and hoped I would write about a decision he voted against regarding the purchase of a school bus for a single student. Although I agree with this particular decision, I let it be known that he hadn't made the decision before I'd gone to print. But that's not the point. He voted in favor of Proposition 103a ballot initiative to raise sales and income taxes statewide to give back to schools. That's the dealbreaker. Any board member who supports initiatives to bring more money into school distrcits is, in my opinion not fit to serve as a representative of their community. Schools currently suck up over 40 percent of the general budget on top of the property tax revenues many of them already enjoy. A case currently under review would divert literally 100 percent of state revenues to schools if the judge rules favorably. This is the height of insanity, and we need people willing to speak out against and stand up to it. Besse vocally supports giving more money to schools, and this is his fatal flaw. Since when has throwing money at any problem in society made it better? And as for campaigning for my wife I told him I wouldn't wish the board seat on anyone. It's a thankless job which, if done correctly, will not produce any friends.

CHIP BESSE RESPONDS

As we see it, this is the crux of the "Two tough questions" being asked by the BLM as reported in the Wednesday, Oct. 26 issue of the SkyHi News article entitled, "BLM seeks input on plan". Those of you who missed this article and those who live outside Grand County must read this article because it pertains to BLM's newly proposed land management update to the Bureau's 1984 land use guide. How does this matter to you? Why should you care? Here's why: The prevailing ideology at both the state and federal levels is that we must save our lands for future generations. We are in total agreement with this statement. "Conservation" is not a dirty word. However, and we stress this point, how much sense does it make to lock up these lands so only those with enough money and/or time can access them? It really is akin to locking up the "crown jewels" for safekeeping and only bringing them out for special occasions where only the chosen few may wear them/lay eyes on them. Since roughly 75% of Grand

Do you consider all the land owned by the various state and federal entities public lands?

Contact the editor: reggie.paulk@gmail.com (303)5527963