Greeley CO District 6 Board's Best Chance at Real Change

It has been a while my friends. With twenty-six thousand reads recorded I always feel an obligation to continue to check up on the well-being of education in Greeley Colorado. Rarely however am I moved to write a new post but I appreciate your emails and calls nonetheless. These are important in filling in the details and movement in District 6.

I agree there have been some good changes made over the years and this must be acknowledged. Especially in the Board of Directors changes have been significant. Plus certainly the decision to not renew Lang's contract is the highlight of all that's good in education for the town of Greeley. The chance for a superbly highly qualified and competent Superintendent with the ability to construct a well-honed team lurks on the horizon. I hope the search is extensive and the interview process inclusive of a high regard for education rather than the political dogma and ideology which has gutted the possibilities of District 6 for so long.

However some disturbing news has reached me and raises some new concerns (the reason for this posts obviously) on this topic. As such I am urging citizens of Greeley to be vigilant on the process of hiring Ms. Lang's replacement. It means everything to your child's future that this process be fair, impartial, and objective--with a formal professionalism.

The selection of Mr. Eads to Interim Director is very troubling. As I blogged on some years past, http://greeleyville.blogspot.com/2010/01/financial-crisis-or-house-cleaning-for.html, for example or here http://greeleyville.blogspot.com/2009/10/part-iii-greeley-school-district-six.html as a second example; As an Interim Director with Mr. Eads tendency towards nepotism and favoritism, and I'll argue manipulation of the leadership of the Board of District 6 through the art of "Credentials over Substance", could lead to a very shaky hiring process when combined with other professional debris Ms. Lang left behind. That spells out an even bleaker future for District 6. It is time for the Board to be strong and do their own homework independently.

Emails and conversations have reached me from concerned parents who have brought some dubious actions into light--citing that those with long ties to District 6 are already feeling the tip of the sword Eads is presumed to have been given to wield. It is not a strong sign of Democratic leadership for the leader who climbs into the throne seat to first thing shed the school district of any person worthy of challenging, logically and reasonably, some of the poor positions and decisions that lurk in the District 6 history. In fact it is the sign of desperation to purge those who disagree or challenge one's authority.

To be fair, a strong and well-reasoned human resources executive, along with an objective Board of Directors should check this power surge. Sadly though these historical nepotistic trends in District 6 are not one of the positive changes the Board has driven. The wagons instead, have been circled, allowing those with questionable credentials to pick and choose their friends with even more questionable credentials and place them in high value jobs. An audit on these selective systems and managers would indeed I believe uncover a murky history or clear it once and for all.

Alas, for now, I will hold out that this newer Board will act fairly and objectively, ensuring that their Interim Director has no conflict of interest in selecting Ms. Lang's long term replacement or influencing the people who will choose that person. A truly professional process must be given the chance to thrive. While the local paper will remain a rubber stamp for the inappropriate, and some will argue, corrupt democratic shenanigans, there are twenty-six thousand others watching and reading as a force for doing what is it right--and above question. Democratic process in public institutions after all is a part of the whole job and the check and balance the public relies upon to curtail abuses of power.

I'll be one of those watching this with interest--keep those documents flowing; I'm reading with great concern; I still have family in D6 schools. :)

Greeley Colorado District 6 School Superintendent: Up to $16 Million in Cuts

Ranelle Lang, Superintendent of Greeley Colorado District 6 School system, has proposed that all department heads produce multiple budget scenarios preparing for cuts of anywhere between eight, ten, to twelve percent or more according to a letter distributed by email (so much for Ms. Lang's personal touch and consideration) to District 6 employees.

Strength is what we need locally over the next several months and even years. We have significant challenges. The State of Colorado, reeling from the recession, must severely reduce the amount of money for K-12 education. These cuts will result in us having to pare $9 million to $16 million from our budget for the 2010-11 school year.

Have those department heads been given any guidance on what to trim? Is the least favorite employee to go? Do they not see the need for this program or that? Out it goes. Who is Captain of this ship anyhow? Where is the strategic planning for the budget cuts? Is the public going to be allowed to determine cuts? "Let's lose educating all those poor and brown people because they are, well, poor, and brown." What a recipe for disaster.

What Ms. Lang doesn't mention is any culpability on District 6's administrative watch. Relying on the fact that people assume all school districts are facing cuts is not quite the same as illustrating the depth of the problem and the history of the problem in D6 schools. Where are the reserves Ms. Lang? In economic good times reserves are created to be spent to soften the blows in economic downturns. Will you be voluntarily taking a twenty percent pay reduction for your own part? Will Mr. Eads, the custodial worker turned manager of operations turned administrative mouthpiece, be turning over his spacious and elegant official digs to save facility costs? Will the administrative offices be closed and the paper-pushers be given a seat in the back of an overcrowded classroom? Will the expansive payroll department be moved to a smaller, less costly, outside facility?

My beef isn't that Colorado is facing a downturn, although Ms. Lang would be well advised to understand the nature and trends in the recession before writing about it, it is that not once, in this letter or any other pseudo communication does the primary mission of the District rule the pages. All signs point to the fact that the Board and Administration in place do not have the skills to be managing a sinking ship. A fully floating ship might be fine under their direction but the 'Shari Lewis Lamb-Chop approach' to fixing this situation is really hard to stomach.

Education. It is about education. Education is the goal here folks. Money is the tool to achieve the goal but the goal must still be met.

Will jobs be lost and will that impact the surrounding economy? Of course it will. It doesn't take a college degree to figure that out. But it does take some intellect, some integrity, and a whole lot of spine to ensure that the cuts made impact the outcome of the educational integrity of the school district in the least intrusive way. And it takes even more character than that to admit that D6 has created, with poor management choices, a much bigger problem than any other school district faces. The voters of Greeley shouldn't escape being chastised either.

This is what Ms. Lang isn't discussing--educational outcomes. She is discussing people. She is discussing shared sacrifice between the adults and she is discussing ways for the community to help balance the checkbook. She isn't discussing educational impacts. She isn't discussing the fact that each student in this district is going to pay a price much bigger over time than any adult will be likely to pay.

District 6 already performs dismally. What is 20% less efficient than dismal?

Ms. Lang needs to be challenged to prove she is worth the money paid. Stand up to the crisis. Demand that educational value be delivered. Hold classes on the field if needed. Go camp on the doorstep of the legislators. Send the kids in who will be paying the price of these cuts for years if not decades. Let them march on Denver. Make them visible so they too can be counted.

Extend the school district into red tape and then let the State explain why it demands the board fire you when you are doing your job of educating the public--and defend yourself with that fact. Is the State really going to subsidize those oil & energy company interests when it has education bills to pay? It is extreme but then again so is the situation and the voters of Greeley just don't get it. They are looking at the checkbook online rather than the objective. They are mad because the checkbook doesn't balance!

Who cares about educational quality?

Meanwhile, behind the curtains, the job is simply not being done--seeing to the education of the youth in this district even when the tools to do the job are not being provided. Get a backbone and make EDUCATION the priority. Do something.

Do anything besides disappear from view and write comfort letters while the executioner runs the guillotine 24/7. Superintendent is a leadership position. The job is to see to the education of the youth and to communicate needs to the community in a way that is clear, concise, and delivers an accurate assessment of needs and brings home the bacon. The community and the State's job is to fund the means to make it happen. The Board's job is to see Superintendents have the tools to do their own job. Put the consequences where they belong on these groups and not upon the backs of the very students without resources in the first place to fight the political battles.

We can fund the military complex but not education? We can fund prisons but not education? We can fund Wal-Mart but not education? What is wrong with this picture? Leaders need to point to the failings of the system not be a jockey on the horse that dissembles the education system for the underclasses. And sometimes it takes a whole lot of courage to stand up and point to the real priorities.

And, by the way, it would also be nice if Ms. Lang attended to the job in person instead of distant, touchy-feeling letters of heart felt consideration as heads of your organization are about to cut off other heads with the axe. Be real. Look the people in the eye and tell them that education is the most important thing to provide when cuts come calling. Look them in the eye and tell them that you truly feel for them while you spend your own corporate salary and Mr. Eads gives operational management suggestions for cuts that will effectively slaughter what remains of the quality of education in this district.

"I am also certain about this: Together we will figure this out. We have no choice given the cards we have been dealt."

Really? From behind a desk you are going to develop camaraderie with those who will suffer? Have you talked to the kids that are about to be thrown into larger class sizes, lose their favorite teachers, or will be turned away by their college of choice because they need remedial coursework just to be accepted? Have you commiserated with those teachers who had a contract forced down their throats or did you send Mr. Eads to do the dirty work? Go to the Greeley Education Association meetings and face the music like a professional should and bring Mr. Eads.

Okay, I'm done with this rant. You asked for my input Ms. Lang and I have given it. In the same cold impersonal way you've delivered your messages. In writing.

Jane Thumbs Up On Greeley District Six Mill Levy Tax And Thumbs Down on School Board

People are emailing and ringing up and asking me what my final opinion is on the Greeley Colorado District 6 Schools Mill Levy Override. I've reposted the closing paragraphs near to the end of my last essay, Part III, on the topic for clarity.

Basically Jane is thumbs up on 3A and thumbs down on the District 6 Administration.

All told, the above suppositions and scenarios lead me to the last question: Is the performance problem a direct correlation to money?

Of course it is. It isn't the only problem but it is a fundamental one.

You get the quality of administration you pay for. If Greeley wants this situation resolved it needs to either clarify what Ms. Lang sees as the real problems in this district and demand a detailed plan and timeline for cleaning it up or replace her with someone who can build a better engine by distributing and using the parts given more effectively. This may also entail recalling and replacing the school board. If Greeley wants the students to perform more effectively against other districts then it is going to have to pay for higher quality administrators and probably better supplies and materials.

I'll also mention it is going to have to pay for high quality teachers as well but that argument is already being made by the Union.

The gist of my post here is that good effective systems are built and maintained and paid for by an involved community. If this community really wants to be fiscally conservative there is nothing bad about being sure money is spent in prudent ways to get effective results. But at the same time trying to micromanage systems after the damage has been done by gutting funding is extremist and dangerous. You have to pay to rebuild the engine and then make sure it is maintained once optimal function is reached. That is the time to get the fiscal conservatism argument in. Right now Greeley has to pay for the mechanics to fix the machine that crumbled while the electorate looked the other way.

Arguing, as some have done, that punishing administrators and making their jobs even harder is the way to get this administration to spend more wisely flies in the face everything this community has voted for and believed in for decades--smaller government is better and fiscal conservatism rules the day. The inflexibility of that ideology has built the system these administrators are now faced with changing and are being pummeled for creating. Even if guilty for continuing poor policies they certainly didn't get here all alone. They are elected.

... I still think that the Mill Levy Override has been poorly and misleadingly sold to a community looking desperately for an easy solution to the performance problems. Measure 3A won't fix what is wrong with the distribution of human resources. But not passing 3A will certainly do the students of D6 more harm than good as new priorities in funding would likely be made on par with ones suggested in the Greeley Tribune scare-tactic editorials. If the poor choices I pointed about above, do indeed exist, I hate to think of the impact of what a new round of cuts would mean. And the consequences of such damage in the long run is a bullet in the heart of this community that Greeley needs to avoid.

Part II: Greeley School District Latino Levy Blues

My "tour guides" tell me it is hopeless. Greeley Colorado has acted conservatively since the first domesticated cow dropped onto the farmer's fields decades ago. Greeley's local systems will remain bound financially and ideologically by voters dedicated to shredding government involvement in just about anything. The current debate over the Greeley District 6 Mill Levy Override is just another notch on the conservative belt.

My response to this mindset is that I don't want to deal with labels. What creates a reasonable and sensible outcome for the citizens of Greeley still makes sense whatever lick-it-and-stick-it label one wishes to categorize it under.

If private industry could handle effective education without the profit interest driving every decision I'd be fine with that. If private industry could create an effective transportation system, that could service everyone at an affordable price, I'd be fine with that too. If the essence of community needs like energy, health care, and other minimalistic survival needs could be handled in the same way I'd agree with that too.

But private industry doesn't work well in the delivery of public goods (utilities, education, transportation, and so on) most simply because demand outstrips supply. Every person requires some regardless of ability to pay. Did it work better in 1940? Yes it did--much better.

There were less people to service. Less diversity of needs. Less developed complexity of needs recognized. The spiderweb of need just keeps spinning bigger as the population expands and society finds new ways to examine the threads. Supply, earlier in the century, could meet reasonable demand without a company having to become a megalithic gigantic-titantic bureaucratic system.

The investment in assets was reasonable in earlier decades and the costs to start up within the means of several companies. Competition could and did flourish. If you could put together the investment capital and had the management expertise on your team a person(s) could build a company to compete and turn a profit without government subsidies. Now the costs to enter the market are so high that competition is very limited and left to the "big guns" and their ever soaring needs to return a higher ROI to their investors.

And when the "big guns" can't do they are enticed through big government subsidies. The ultimate marriage producing the ultimate opportunity for corruption and inflated costs.

My point is that those days are gone. A centrally organized system, like the government, has to be used to create public systems like education because they have gone beyond the reach of the common working man and woman. And the only entity we have that can serve all the people (well most the people), most the time, without making decisions based on profit but on the good the economy receives from the value invested, is the government. (I can hear the boo and hisses from here.)

Not the prudent option for everything but the prudent option in this case. The way I look at it is that I can check big government by being a pragmatic and well educated voter. I can't check big corporate interests without being a big investor or a very powerful politician. Essentially, as a working class stiff, I am shut out when education, transportation, and other public goods are in private hands. I need these goods, my children need these goods, and these are the ladder to success in America. I, with others, can create much more effective regulation and oversight than any politicized federal agency by rallying like-minded people suffering like-minded consequences to vote out elected public officials overseeing any public system. The true beauty of democratic principles in action--equality. In private hands our youths' educational options are doomed to the powers of capitalism and the market forces. Not a pretty sight in my opinion.

My point here is that conservative politics do not preclude building a good education system. Managing the expense of the system is just prudent reasoning not politics. A dollar invested by taxpayers should show a dollar's worth of value at the very least. A dollar + over the long run if we are good at it. Managing the expense of the education system to cut off its blood supply so that less value is returned because it is a government based program is dubious reasoning and political ideology at its worst. It is snipping off your community nose in spite of its face.

So now it is 2009 and we all want to decide how Greeley District 6 will spend its money and whether it really needs more money to create the return investment expected (value to the community) by increasing taxes. Well how many local citizens really know how to manage and run a system this complex and this big? I don't. And I have management background and training. But I do know that I expect elected officials to hire the most qualified people available to do the job and I expect voters to keep a watch over whether that job is being done well or not.

The outcome is the pudding proof. And our pudding is on fire only it is not called a flambe.

In other words, so far the outcome is seriously lacking. The returns on the community investment, the value we are getting, are dubious at best.

Looking at the Greeley Mill Levy Override brings this issue square about in the face of Greeley citizens and taxpayers. If the objective is to create the most education value for the dollars invested then Greeley citizens and taxpayers certainly have every obligation to uncover why D6 performance continues to be sub par and that the plan being put forth by the Administration will remedy these issues just as fast as possible.

According to the Greeley Tribune this week Greeley District 6 School Board President Bruce Broderius infers that Greeley's low performance is due to specific low performers he'd like to be able to cut out of the test score statistics. I hope he intends to clarify this statement.

My response is that Greeley District Six has an obligation to all students and not just choice cuts the District would like to make. Additionally I've decided to take a look at some of the potential causes of the sub par performance of District 6 from my own perspective. I published a list in my previous post in this series. I'll take on the first four items here. Mostly because the first four are the easiest to answer.

• Is the performance problem related to the notion that Greeley is a unique district?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the students?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the parents?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the community?

Really this is just one question. "Is it us?"

I'll just cut to the chase here and address the racism inherent in this discussion and one which many, including authority figures and media figures, are want to use to distract from the real problem at hand. Other districts in Colorado also have high minority populations and immigrant populations without the same performance issues. Additionally Greeley already receives more funding than other local districts, like Poudre, that show a 14% Latino population in their school district. Greeley has a 44% identified Latino population.

Greeley Federal Funds in 05/06 Per Student $845.

Poudre Federal Funds in 05/06 Per Student $562.

Greeley Local Funds in 05/06 Per Student $2,826.

Poudre Local Funds in 05/06 Per Student $5,274.

Greeley State Funds in 05/06 Per Student $4,376.

Poudre State Funds in 05/06 Per Student $3,257.

Okay, close your eyes. Let's take a closer look at what's happening in relationship to these funding dollars. Here come the numbers.

This section will look at a comparison between the Greeley District Six costs and that of the Poudre District. I use ratios to examine the numerical relationship below because Poudre had about thirty five thousand students in 05/06 while Geeley had a bit over twenty-four thousand. We have to compare apples to apples as much as possible and not oranges to apples.

Administratively District 6 with 24,809 students is running .0006 administrators per student while Poudre Valley with 35,630 students is running .0005 administrators per student. However District Administrative support in Poudre is higher at .0046 per student than Greeley's Administrative support which is at .0038. What entails District Administrator support can very widely between districts. One district might hire Vice Principal's for instance whose job duties are very isolated while others may hire for the same position and also assign teaching duties.

Essentially the above ratios are one indicator that Poudre School District is performing more efficiently, in general, than Greeley District Six. What it does suggest is that Poudre is doing more per dollar and returning more value per taxpayer dollar spent based on testing results.

In this regard it is understandable that the District Six Board and Administrators would want to defend its performance achievement by claiming the district has additional burdens of low performing students. In response I'd ask if the additional resources, both Federal and State, which have been received (see above) are meant to provide for this difference, in part or in whole--if the special need indeed exists. With these numbers it would be possible to construct a similar ratio for special instructional services and would give an idea how these monies are being used. If the additional revenue sources have been provided and special services are not being provided I'd imagine that would be a big issue. If there are additional monies and they've been allotted accordingly then there should be no reason to use the "underperforming" populations as a scape goat for general poor performance.

At present I do not have these statistics on LEP and/or IEP learners. If anyone wants to provide them I'd be grateful.

Personally I have no issue with seeing the variety of performance issues related with LEP students or second-language students as a subsection of performance. Unfortunately though these figures are not being reported by either Greeley District Six or Poudre to the National Statistics site or the NCES site is withholding this information. However Greeley District Six, according to the NCES site for 2005/2006, as I stated above, had about forty-four percent of students identified as being of Latino origin to Poudre's 14%.

It is a thin line between inferring that all Latino students are low performers and saying that students with second-language development issues are performance issues. That 44% percent figure means very little without accurate figures on which students are nonnative citizens or first generation immigrants. Racism is not something this District wants to actively promote anymore than it does tacitly already through exclusion of programs directed specifically at migrant and low performance students.

I don't see how anyone can live in Greeley and not be painfully aware of the racial stigma and divides which exist in this city. Programs that have racial implications, probably in the average Greeley citizen's mindset, have been banned, disingenuously dismissed, renamed, and a host of other politically opportunistic political tactics used to avoid creating the very programs that would hopefully address some of the nonperformance issues.

But you will be happy to know the school board is aiming to produce more charter schools which ultimately tend to serve the top performers.

The School Board isn't the only entity at fault here. The citizens of Greeley create this environment and, I'll argue a bit wildly, through their elected officials have institutionalized the scape goat mentality in order to give free reign to arguments keeping government and taxation minimalistic.

Guess what Greeley--It doesn't work in education. Education is an investment. The more you invest the more harvest this community will reap.

As investment examples, in 2005/06 Poudre paid out in salaries per student 24,185.00 Greeley paid out in salaries 17,547.5 per student. Greeley by comparison is running much lower in salary dollars spent per student.

Greeley looks on paper like it is the prudent investor but in reality the job just is not getting done. So which administration/community is the wiser investor?

It indeed may very well be that "we" are the problem. At least in part. But not in the way expedient local mindsets may think. While we probably don't suffer from lower intelligence quotients in general we do suffer from political ideologies applied with two wide a brush stroke. The problem may be the fact that the collective culture of Greeley is being harvested by our youth. And the harvest has turned out to be only "middlin' pickins".

I'll continue this conversation in Part III of this series. if you've got a beef with a statistic--let me know. It wasn't my favorite course.

Shifting Tides of American Politic Rock Healthcare Boat

The tension is in the air. It is between friends. It is in the workplace. It is in the grocery store. We have a jobless economic recovery in our front window and a nasty ideological debate on health care going on in this country rattling all the other windows in our glass houses. Plus we have the latent and aging racists and monarchists in our society bubbling over the top of the kettle throwing scare tactics, guns, Fox News pundits, and labels around like the circus has come to town. Plus the media is ducking responsibility for any worthy journalism on the topic hoping to fend off being the next cartel in line after the insurance industry gets spanked.

None of the above, by itself, is my biggest worry though. I'm always a survivor. I crave a good challenge. But the above are simply symptomatic of the change afoot in the American current. The waterfall is just coming into view and I am not so sure I want to think about what lies ahead. However, what I figure I can't survive is the changing politic in America.

My biggest worry is that America has lost touch with those who struggle in ways those with wealth rarely experience. American institutions have such vast markets that these institutions and the supporting businesses do not have any need or real incentive to cover the lower end of market spectrum. There is plenty of profit to be had by carving up the middle and upper class and developing new markets around the world. Hence needs go unmet if you are on the lower end of the market.

The American economy has done a great job of covering the most people's needs during the 20th century. But now it finds itself, albeit the consequence of too much wealth and population expansion, rather than too little capital, in a parallel situation to third world countries. Stagnated economies or underdeveloped nations have long sufferred their citizens on the lower end of the economic stratum being clobbered by those above. Basically it is a consequence that few "above" care, or need to care, because their cash needs are being met without caring. This is self interested capitalism at its best. Couple, this cash based disconnect, with government stepping out of the arena and either removing or looking the other way on almost all economic regulation between the players under the proclomation of the free market and "government is never a good thing". The resulting consequence is the smoldering embers of standard discontent in a society become open flames.

Furthermore, I will argue, that emotional or intellectual needs in modern American society can mostly be purchased with enough cash so these societal checks and balances have also been substantially eroded. Just ask yourself the question how many families or neighbors you know would approve of their son or daughter currying favor in their job or relationship for monetary gain? There isn't a lot of need to look over the backyard fence at how the neighbors are doing anymore unless their McMansion casts a shadow on yours.

Instead of being pushed to perform in this society I simply feel obligated to produce cash. For myself and for others. There aren't really any ethics or scope of morality attached to the production of that cash just as long as the cash gets produced. This has become the ethereal societal expectation from my fellow citizens. Basically I can, and they can, do as they please as long as they don't harm any little children and as long as they are making money for others as well as their own good. If one is simply making money mostly for their nepotistic "own" that can be a little sketchy too. Especially if caught. Just ask Bernie Madoff.

Now maybe I grew up in the wrong household but as a child I was raised with the expectation that I would be a productive human being. That demand was inclusive of nurturing my own well being and paying my own bills and also giving to others whenever possible so that, together, we all could be safe, healthy, and potentially happy. Hard work was simply an expectation in my working class family. It was how you lived. Whether it produced a lot of cash or just enough to live on--if you did your job well and with integrity then you had met your societal obligation. My father may have been a raging abusive alcoholic but he got up every morning and put in a very effective eighteen-hour weekday six days a week. He helped make the owners of the company very wealthy over a number of years.

As an adult I have learned that people are raised with many variant expectations of their own contribution to society dependent on cultural, familial, and even geographical factors. I guess I just never assumed that this nation would turn its back on people who struggle every day to do their best but don't acquire a lot of wealth mostly because capitalism doesn't value their skills, or what they have to give, as much as they do the person's next door. We pay our sports heroes and bankers mega-millions yet we pay the people who still can dig a ditch, pick up our trash, or take care of our loved ones only enough to meet minimal needs.

First insurance became a response to disaster. Ben Franklin got it right. If your home burned down the potential for replacing the shelter was improbable in times when there was minimal capital in a community. Your neighbors meant everything in a disaster not simply for the immediate response but to stabilize your future. Insurance made a lot of sense to pool the collective capital and lower the risk.

Then insurance became a need generalized to other necessities and larger investments. It at least made a little bit of sense that if you had something worth protecting you wanted it protected. Especially so from those with nothing to protect who might be a little less careful about their approach on life. It also still serviced those caught unaware by natural or man-made disasters.

Then insurance became an institution. A distinguishing and stablizing concept especially rewarding and productive for the middle class. A requirement in many states to be held up by legislation created by those with secure housing, food and water supplies, and a good education. Many legislators simply members of the "Lucy Sperm Club" themselves. By far our legislators and representatives reflect people in our society who have been equipped, mostly by birth, with the assets that open doors to success and stability. The rest of us have to clear a path to the doors and earn our keys to the locks.

Once institutionalized insurance companies have been kissing home plate. The government stepped in to cover 9/11 victims, the vast majority already well healed, to augment and supersede their insurance companies from taking them to court, where it would be plainly pointed out that most those insurance contracts, now required, put a clause in regarding "acts of war" and, too frequently, acts of Mother Nature. The nation stood by watching the misfortunes of families in Katrina. Those of lesser economic means were left without the cash to hire effective attorneys. We stood by and watched while the Katrina victims' insurance companies twisted previous promises like writhing knotted snakes to get out of fulfilling those obligations.

A century ago American media made stars out of those who worked hard and struggled to overcome adversity. As the struggle of life became less and less a standard and the wealth accumulated in families to be passed on to the generations that followed our taste for common heroes rising through the ranks fell to the wayside. The national focus tended more to those whose status came with birth or had already been achieved. The process was not the point of interest any longer. The cool factor became less about the struggle and more about the glitz and glam of the perceived treasures. The glorification of the process and struggle of obtaining status faded as Americans began to live vicariously through the society and entertainment pages.

We drive the media and we become our media. It tends to be a closed ecosystem.

I, personally, cannot think of a group that emulates, in the majority, this modern American representation of paper made icons better than Congress itself. Our for-profit media has not missed out on following the societal trends for opportunistic gains as much as for public information. It has followed these political leaders and icons for decades and held them up for emulation. House and Garden, GQ, Money, INC., Lives of the Rich and Famous, People Magazine, and so on.

Now health care, hopping into bed with its sugar-daddy, has become an extension of the institution of insurance. The idea that people, when sick, should be tended and looked after to be made well again simply because they are a fellow human being has fallen by the wayside. Senator Max Baucus' finance bill wanted every person who could not pay for health care insurance to pay $3,800. as a fine for not participating in the good enrichment of society. The moral assumption reads "If you can't pay to stay alive then obviously your not worth keeping around."

Prisoners on death row get public paid health care. People who get minimum wage get the death sentence. Great idea Senator Baucus. When people are allowed to go homestead a piece of land, cut down their own trees, plant their own vegetables, and not be fined for doing so then maybe, just maybe, it makes sense to force people with little economic means in the first place to pay to participate in the great Baucus society twisted out of the one LBJ once stood over. At least they won't have to lose their homes or go without groceries to make you feel secure in your gilded mansions at night. Or is the general idea here to enslave or outlaw people without means? Can we make the ugliness we don't like to look at go away like the unwanted bags under our eyes? Can we simply pay for someone to make everything look good on the surface and ignore the reality of the situation?

This is what frightens me the most about present day America. Watching the powerful in the Congress and the Obama Administration who seemingly think that coming up with $3,800 is within every person's means. What happens to a nation when its leaders become so out of touch with the workers that actually make the infrastructure of the system go round?

In my world Senator Baucus should have been embarrassed to even whisper such a proposal behind closed doors. We take out public servants who admit to canoodling with lobbyists in the bedroom but we leave in those who would loosen the Hound of the Baskervilles onto the throats of good honest hard working people with less accumulated wealth. We care about the boundaries and civilities of sex and marriage but not ALL the people those marriages produce. Simply because the poor are asking to have a stake and share in the essentials that society demands BEFORE a person can be a fully fledged participant in the economy we are to be fined.

Of course that is only if President Obama manages to get his way and there is some type of viable public option. Which is what the Senate Finance bill is looking to ensure doesn't happen. Senator Baucus is going to make absolute sure that the unworthy, meaning those without accumulated wealth, will suffer some type of second class citizenship if the "Have's" will be footing any part of the bill.

Suddenly I don't need to be walking inside a Castle in the Rhineland to get a feel for what it was like to be medieval peasantry. I can get it all right here in America in 2009. If health care has become a requirement to participate in the education system, to get a decent job, to be allowed to board public transportation, and just to be treated civil in society then society needs to make health care readily available to everyone they expect to participate. If not then the poor should be allowed to stake out a living space where ever they please without fines and stigma. A street corner, under bridges, in tent cities, where ever they can survive. Participation in society is already not an option. Does it also have to come with a fine for not being able to afford membership dues when a person is being actively excluded on many levels from full participation? It doesn't make sense unless we go back to an agrarian society where Senator Baucus can have his own fiefdom.

The only marker of a decent man or woman is not the property he or she owns Senator.

As an alternative we could just put every one making less than a living wage in America on a bus and send them to Canada. It would make governing so much easier for the insurance-controlled Congressional elite. At least Canada has a sense of humanity toward their own even if they would turn the buses away. America used to be the champion of humanitarianism throughout the world. How low we have sunk that we can't even champion our own.

A poor person cannot create their own economy of scale to lower costs. Nor can individuals without many collective resources easily organize political power for their own benefit. Poor people have little representation in Congress because they cannot pay to purchase their senator and representatives ears or their integrity. And often, strangely enough, the lower economic classes suffer from roadblocks on the way to polling. Not to mention that Congress, the Senate the House Richie-Rich built, is heavily invested in the industries which make a lot of their wealth from the backs of labor. Businesses, banks especially, earn a large bulk of their wealth and profit by charging the poor excessive fees, surcharges, and usury interest rates.

Good credit has also become a need for survival. Try having a health care crisis and keeping your stellar credit rating. It has brought more than one middle class Joe into the sewers with the unwashed masses. In many jobs there are so many qualified applicants that the employers screen out those with health care issues and those with poor credit. The public education system has been repeatedly raped by financial conservatives over the past three decades so it can produce only the minimal cloned workers from the masses entering the system. Higher education has become increasingly more and more difficult to access.

In short, the competition for the higher status in society, is being systematically eliminated. Capitalism is all about competition and so is the innate shadow self of humankind. Check-mate goes to the wealthy elite and the others in this country whom they have managed to convince that government is never a good thing and thus compel these citizens in many cases to vote against their own true self-interest.

Left unchecked, both of these mechanisms, bring out cycles of destruction which the world has seen before. Let's just hope we are not doomed to repeat our mistakes of ego.

President Obama is right to make health care a moral argument. The problem still remains that he needs to let us know which side of the moral ideology he is keeping tune with rather than vaguely chastizing both ends of the spectrum. One end has all the power Mr. President and the other end has most of the day to day burdens and consequences.

If the Senate Finance Committee doesn't come up with a plan for all the people please don't just send them back to their room without dinner Mr. President. Publically expose their strategic posturing for what it really is--grotesque, devisive, and a fuedal elitism designed to reappoint and legitimize through the hands of government a second class citizenship for the peasants in America and a ruling first-class citizenship for the insurance industry, corporate monopolies, and the blue blood. Let them hang for social canoodling regardless whether a Republican, a Democrat, or a Republican in Democratic fuedal drag.

Let's just hope he gets a bill in front of him that can knit this nation of opposing forces and ideologies together for another two hundred years. Then President Obama will have done his job well, in my view, and delivered full value on his own obligation to society.

Socialized Medicine is a Lick-It-And-Stick-It Label

Socialized medicine is such a lick-it-and-stick-it label.  It reminds me of a travel bag I had with stickers from Vienna Austria plastered all over it.  I'd been passed down the alligator trunk bag from a good friend.  I've never seen Austria.  The labels are meaningless after the first impression.  They did manage to start a conversation or two for me while I traveled around.

I've been told that debunking the junk put out on health care is a waste of time.  People do not want to know the truth.  Personally I don't buy into that idea wholesale.  Americans tend to be fixated on getting their news and facts through entertainment channels or soundbites for a myriad of reasons.  Word of mouth carries quickly in social circles and some of the more isolated states whose Senators somehow got Magic Proportion Power over our health care still trade heavily on social capital.   So I keep fighting the battle.

In the meantime it looks like the local fish-wrap, the Greeley Tribune, has a bit of a problem covering all sides of the issue.  I've heard tales of people who have written past editorials for the paper having their pro health care reform editorials gutted and placed in the Letter to the Editor section.  Gutted so that the Tribune represented at best a distorted version of the editorial argument and at worst the opinion and information the paper wants the local public to be indoctrinated with.  Social engineering in Greeley Colorado?  Please say it isn't so.

I'm posting in part an article below written by a Canadian insurance executive which a friend also from Canada, who owns one of those glide-and-slide-get-healthy Canadian health cards, forwarded to me.  It is worth a click on the link to read the whole article and to be armed with facts closer to a real knowledge source than Fox News.

TheStar.com | Opinion | A puzzled Canadian ponders surreal U.S. health-care debate

If asked to single out an aspect of Canadian society superior to that of our American neighbours, most Canadians would cite first our health-care system. What I also might have mentioned were aspects of the American health-care debate that Canadians find puzzling, if not downright perverse. These include:

* The use of wildly misleading references to wait times in Canada even though 47 million Americans have no health insurance and, therefore, are forced to line up for treatment in hospital emergency rooms, to say nothing of the thousands who queue in parking lots across the U.S. to receive free treatment periodically provided by "Remote Area Medical" volunteers.
* U.S. opinion polls that show 77 per cent of Americans are generally satisfied with their health care when so many millions of their fellow citizens are uninsured and many millions more under-insured; when three-quarters of the families filing for illness-related bankruptcy actually have health insurance; and when insurance premiums have grown three times faster than wages between 2000 and 2008.
* The negative representation of Canadians' experience with "socialized medicine." That portrayal is at odds with reality. For example: 85 per cent of Canadians have their own primary care physician and 92 per cent would recommend that doctor to a relative or friend; 95 per cent of Canadians with chronic conditions have a regular place of care; of those requiring ongoing medical care most were able to see a doctor within seven days.
* The widespread use of an exceptional and misleading Canadian case. It involves a television commercial featuring an Ontario woman, who (American viewers are told) had to go to the U.S. to have a life-threatening brain tumour removed in order to save her life. Why? Because of a six-month wait time in Canada for treatment. The patient has since admitted to a three-month wait time involving a diagnosed benign Rathkes cleft cyst, the removal of which at a Mayo Clinic in Arizona cost her $97,000 that she is now seeking to recover from the province where its removal would have cost her nothing.
* The fact that a huge contributor to the rapidly rising cost of U.S. health care is the central involvement of insurance companies. They add significant cost due to both administrative complication and inefficiency as well as the pursuit of profit. Canada constructed a health-care "insurance" system from which insurance companies were excluded in favour of single-payer, state-financed insurance. Thoughtful Americans understand that insurance companies are needed for an efficient, patient-oriented health-care system as much as a fish needs a bicycle. Minimizing the payment of health claims by insurance companies is, for executives interested in their compensation and their careers, what the companies' role in health care is all about.

Political Life in Greeley Colorado

Father forgive me for I have sinned.

I think that is how it goes, right? The only Catholic in the family (and I love her dearly for she reads my blog religiously) married in so I apologize if I have breached etiquette.

I said I would never again post a comment as a reader to the Tribune. Unfortunately there just are not many alternative places to get local homegrown news in this town. And, admittedly, I get sucked into the neurotic and wild ranging viewpoints posted about topics like education and economic development issues.

Humans are such interesting life forms. They remind me of the beautiful sea anemones I used to see while walking the beach. They cling precariously to the rocks fearful of that big storm that will come and try to push them out to sea while waving their tendrils about furiously as if they are in complete control. At first they all look the same. Little plasmid soldiers all gathered together to fend off the world. But if you get down and start looking more closely you begin to see the signs of uniqueness in each one. Each sponge has worn spots and chunks missing from its journey through life. Each one is a different size a bit different shape. Each one has a unique story to tell.

Greeley is fascinating in the same way. I have learned new ways of visioning ideas and concepts since I've landed here.

Originally I lumped conservative thinking into one broad category--keeping government minimal and competition stoked regardless if the system that this mindset produces works or not. But this never made a lot of sense to me. For one I look at the government for infrastructure and as a referee. If you have a lot of players in a game you need a ratio of referees to players. So if you get more players, and then more, and then more players again, eventually you need more referees to keep watch. And once the game becomes massively huge you need a whole new strategy for how to manage the game. Which is the point I think America is at right now.

But if you argue that government has no place in that game or needs to continually be cut--well that doesn't work in my view. What always puzzled me is that I have a great many friends and teachers who have been conservatives calling for less government and they have amazing minds and depth of intelligence. Pieces to my puzzle were obviously missing. I like to understand as many viewpoints as possible because it helps me to derive better solutions.

I think I've found some of those here in Greeley. By comparing the systems that have developed here, and driving around (and around and around and around--lost) I began putting what I could see in front of my eyes into context with the people I have met here and discussed things with. It has dawned on me, clearly, there are distinctions within the anti-government folk that come from an ideological base I had never quite fathomed. Call it development of a complexity of a nuance if you wish.

I often speak about systems in the context of human happiness and what the point of life is all about. To do this I like to describe the context in the most primitive of states--before society forms. The Clan of the Cave Bear type outlook. What motivation did these people face every morning when they woke up in their cave? Why go outside? The answer of course is to survive. To experience being human. And, ultimately, to find ways of making it easier to survive and the odds better. And so on, and so on.

Many times I thought back to how we have added in functions and systems since the beginning in the name of survival. Although lately I think in the name of happiness and establishing that one person is better than the other might be more appropriate.

I've always thought the big picture idea was to create an infrastructure for systems which would lead to the greatest quality of life for the most people. To me that requires people having their survival needs met. Clean water, some sort of shelter, basic foodstuff, transportation, and health care are all included in this package. Then comes education. Education fits in here because it serves both the individual's growth and society's need for survival. This is why I pay taxes to the government. I can't provide these things nearly as well as an individual because I can't get the economy of scale that I can in a group. Hence I see government's responsibility not as a parental figure but as one of mediator, the referee between powerful individuals and not so powerful individuals--between systems and the individual, and to create economies of scale that are in the interest of all people. Hence infrastructure.

Of course this idea is people centric. Humanistic in origins. I believe we should take care of each other rather than try to kill each other... imagine that. If that makes me a liberal then I'll wear the lick-it-and-stick-it label proudly.

But now I live in a community where most people don't see the world from this viewpoint. I mean it isn't like I dropped in from Mars or something. I just moved from another state. And I really like the people here. So it has become a current intrigue for me to sort out the various perspectives I am now surrounded by.

And it ain't easy being green, let me tell ya.

I get it that people don't like government and don't want the nose of government meddling in individual lives. They would rather duke it out with their neighbors than have government mediate things. Like land zoning for instance. Why should government be able to tell someone if they can or can't build on land they own? From an individual perspective it is interference. It is a feeling that robs an individual of a sense of being free as a human to live as they choose. Yet from a tribal perspective we all have to live together and that means you have to also act in the interest of the group.

Although I may not be expressing my new found perspective on this viewpoint well it certainly makes much more sense to me than my previous state of confusion. It explains, at least for now until I get new information, how a town can be quite happy not having integrated planning and systems that work well. The freedom of the personal decision making and lack of government intervention simply has more value for the greater number of persons living, and voting, around here.

While I think that this strategy in the short run makes sense, and it would still make sense if the town didn't grow at all and new people weren't added, in the long term this strategy doesn't work for modern times.

When I read the crazy wing-nut posts about various topics discussed in the local news I tend to think "fanatic" less and less. Instead I see people who are scared and frightened and feeling out of control that their world is changing more rapidly than they ever imagined it could. New feelings, new ideas, and new systems are forcing their way in while the magical ideological lifestyle some would choose gets more remote and distant every day.

I am not sure this is how the West was won but I am pretty sure that this is how the West will be changed. I guess the only win/win to be had will be to find a way to express that fondness for independence and freedom from rules, regulation, and the taxes that come with them--while creating an infrastructure that works for the most people, the environment, and the generations to come.

Of course that, the above statement, is not a solution it is just a reiteration of the problem most who live in this community are probably already aware of--whether conscious of it or not.

Health Care: Greeley Colorado Sings the JBS Swift Blues

JBS Swift is in process of acquiring Pilgrim's Pride. JBS Swift is embroiled in fraud and finance scandals in Brazil. JBS is being sued by more than one family over damage from eating E.Coli infected meat products this summer. JBS Swift has just been found guilty by a government agency of treating their workers like '1940's dog-meat" here in Greeley Colorado by firing people for having specific religious needs outside the boundaries of the local mainstream and having the courage to express those needs.

Reuters: The dispute began last year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when the workers walked off the job after managers denied them a prayer break at sunset.

Supervisors had initially agreed to adjust work schedules to accommodate the requests by Muslim workers but later reversed their decisions after non-Muslim workers protested the changes.

So now we understand what gets Greeley citizens moving their feet--the idea that other people who are different might want to be treated humanely too. Is the rest of Greeley just watching from their patios while they grill their steaks and vote the religious conservatives into public office? I like my meat rare and my religion in the church--not in my politics please. Can you imagine the heat JBS Swift would take locally if it refused to allow community Baptists to adjust their schedules so they could attend Sunday Easter Service? Yikes! Now that would outrage the locals. But not much else seems to stir the pot.

And, it looks like, JBS Swift just raised the $2 billion IPO they needed to acquire Pilgrim's Pride. Tasty chicken legs on your grocer's table. Yum. I'll pay the price for organic chicken first, thank you very much.

JBS is currently the world's largest beef producer and exporter with a daily harvesting capacity of 73.9 thousand heads of cattle and the largest global exporter of processed beef. The company's operations include 25 plants located in nine Brazilian states and six plants located in four Argentine provinces, in addition to 16 plants in the USA, 10 in Australia and eight in Italy.

JBS lept to the forefront of world beef production when it bought Swift & Co. of Greeley, Colo., for around $225 million in 2007. Additionally, JBS S.A. is the third largest pork producer in the USA, with a harvesting capacity of 48.5 thousand heads per day.

Does anyone besides me wonder how companies with infamous track records, like JBS Swift above, stay in business?

One thought is, as I have stated early on, the consumers do not know they are buying JBS products when they go to the store. As long as JBS Swift doesn't have to clearly label and brand their products their retailers will take the hit and the FDA, apparently, will protect JBS from having to disclose who they sell their products to.

I'm going to start asking at my local meat departments, "Could you point out the JBS products please so I can avoid giving a dollar to this company?" At least until there is a federal law made that makes it illegal for the meat department worker to disclose any information that might harm JBS Swift's sales by leaning over the counter and whispering into a customer's ear. Now that would be a Dickensonian novel in the making. I keep returning to the Bush era nightmare of protectionism. It has been a traumatic journey for individual consumers and the "little-guy".

And, truthfully, some consumers don't care--as long as they don't get sick or their family member doesn't have to work in a modern pseudo rendition of a Dickens slave ship. I always get that weird-feeling cynical sneer when I think about these "It's not in my backyard so it's not a problem" people. I've met more than a few folks that go to church on Sunday and talk about the importance of community and shared ideas along with their particular philosophy of life yet when it comes down to it--as long as they don't have to pick up that extended price tag for harming people with less political and monetary power, the problem belongs to someone else. As long as the apple trees in their own backyard look ripe and healthy--why bother looking over the fence.

To be fair, I've also seen people in the same situation above who just feel they have no power or know what to do in order to bring about change.

My answer to the situation is "stop putting your dollars on the counter". You'd be amazed at the protection each consumer vote buys for a company like JBS Swift. They don't have to listen to any one, even if they are inclined to do so, as long as their investors still think JBS Swift is a good bet to line their pockets with. Forget the neighbors... what's a little E.Coli in exchange for a 10% growth in my 401k?

Consumers have a lot of power. They are the market after all. But investors, like those still willing to put their bucks into JBS's Swift machine, count on consumers not being able to organize well enough to put a stop to poor corporate practices. How many people in America today have the time to research the background of any company--unless they are paid to do so? Do we just shop on blind trust that the government will protect us? Well as a matter of fact that is mostly just what we do. And the people who make money on blind faith will continue to do so. Investors count on their stock brokers and investment bankers not to hold up a mirror of consequences to their faces when that monthly investment statement comes in the mail.

By the way, do you know whose pockets your 401k is lining? Or was lining? My guess is probably not. You just know how much it lost or gained last year.

In reality consumers, as well as investors, are also lazy. That plays into the hands of those manipulating for profit just like ignorance plays into political accomplishments. But the game isn't so transparent any more. The game has become very good at disguising the winning pot the gamers take home. It is getting harder and harder to keep a check and balance on companies with seemingly poor ethical human management. When layers of protectionism are nurtured in government watch-dog agencies and when local politicians can't do the real math and instead just jump up on that platform of "jobs-at any cost-for any wage" you just have to wonder if we haven't already slid over that slippery slope of having our systems and mechanisms manage us rather than us, the voters, managing the system.

In the meantime we have tea-baggers and blue-doggers running about screaming about how the government is evil and private enterprise is the victim. Give me a break. Take the sheep's wool off that delusion please and let's see how big the wolves teeth truly have become over the past two decades.

And you thought this article is all about JBS Swift.

Folks, in my opinion, putting the balance back in the hands of the consumer is what health care reform is really about, taking back the system from the inhuman processes that want control. Megolithic insurance companies, banks, snail-snot mega-internationals like JBS Swift, get a monetary bonus that comes with "herding" people for profit. The government hasn't changed or altered our lives nearly as much in the last two decades as corporations have through the unchecked market power and purchasing of protectionist legislation.

I'd rather be in the hands of government than a corporation--I can vote government out of office. I can't vote out insurance companies or snail-snot corporations like JBS Swift. These elements are more like ticks--they burrow in and hang on for the sweet taste of life until someone puts a little heat to their arses and makes them let go.

JBS Swift is just a symptom of a much bigger problem. And as long as we keep buying into these problems and as long as wealth is the status symbol of higher achievement in society the boil is going to continue to fester.

And now we have to worry about our chickens.

More on JBS Swift
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Redesigning Greeley Colorado--A Political Cow Town

Greeley Colorado is an interesting town to figure out. Especially when you are coming at it from a different point of view than most folks raised here. Currently I have been tracking articles about the District 6 mill levy, the Greeley City Council election, District 6 Teacher Union negotiations, and, one of my favorite snail-snot companies--JBS Swift. Just thinking about writing on these topics is beginning to make me cringe. A lot of good people involved and a lot of bad planning and outdated ideas used.

Combine this with the fact I've never quite got the hang of the East/West versus North/South orientation of the town and end up driving endlessly across the prairie even when I am just popping out for coffee--I get to spend a lot of time just looking at the beautiful mythic trees, architectural styles, and a lot of frothing-at-the-treasure-chest developments running amok to the south and west (I think) of Greeley. Then there are the empty store fronts. Ramshackle buildings leaning too far over the sidewalk. The unkempt and ungreen sections of town. All speckled in between beautiful manicured older developments, the nice college campuses, places where people rarely venture into their front yards to associate with their neighbors but spend hours politely maintaining their end of the bargain.

And never the twain shall meet. Is this libertarianism? Is it protectionism? Is it racism? Or is it just plain lack of a City Council having much idea how to pull it all together--before the treasure chest is emptied trying to encourage big business and special interests to spread Greeley around like melted butter on a counter top.

After a week of being under-enlightened and disillusioned over the lack of zoning and planning and with special interest editorials pouring out of the fingers of the staff at the Tribune I finally turned to my local "tour guides" and other acquaintances for answers. There are so many things to like about Greeley (especially the people) it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why they don't take more interest in their own town. Is it really easier to just move out and let the sprawl mafia take over?

We've spent more than a few hours over coffee educating Jane.

"Greeley is just a cow town that never really wanted to be a city but finds itself now a city..." I was told.

The light snapped on. Now I have been told a lot of other things as well but this item, above, just made all the pieces of the puzzle come flying together.

It makes sense why there has been little prudent economic development planning. My opinion of course. It makes sense why Greeley's overall strategic economic and development position is being more directed by regional economic planners and UNC's concept of business planning than it is by the City "Elders" shall we say. Greeley doesn't want to grow up to be something it doesn't want to be--a big city. Although it still isn't clear why the prairie palace developers are allowed to walk away with spreading out their wings and pooping all over Northern Colorado. I thought that is what zoning was all about and what the ranchers and farmers were all about--making sure that stuff didn't happen. But I digress.

The people in the castle on the hill (Greeley City Council and its Mayor) do not have enough incentive to be fully invested in the long term interests of the town. If you've ever been a public persona, well, let's just say it is a pretty thankless job unless you are paid a lot of money to focus your interest or at least given enough political clout to get a good seat in the top restaurant without waiting.

I once implied to a group of Greelians that someone ought to paid for putting 100% interest into the Greeley Good Ship Lollipop. This was upon finding out that the Mayor only receives a stipend as well as counsel members. Half the room, Republican fiscal conservatives, choked on their coffee while the other half politely explained to me that the Mayor really didn't do anything. Ed Clark might object but then again I heard he got elected on the basis of his pleasing personality and big night stick. Back to Jane's advisers, the main ladies in the room pointed out that mostly the council is white, retired, and special interest laden. (I already figured that part out but didn't think it would make me a very pleasurable coffee companion to bring it up). It was noted several are law enforcement types and public works service types without any serious background in economics and economic development. Makes sense if you take a look at the results of what they have been applying to Greeley over the years. Piecemeal cow town with a corral around any and every culture to keep them from "mixing" in with the herd. On a subconscious level no doubt.

After all I'm sure everyone would be thrilled to have a highly educated Somali with citizenship run for City Council. Right? Right? The point is to get the job done, right? Same with the local School Board. Right? It's who can do the best job not who can maintain the existing social status quo. We ended coffee chat at this point. Two many "rights" from someone labeled "left".

So I went home and took a look at the Greeley City Charter. Obviously not something to read over candlelight and a football game. Oh, that makes sense--the mayor gets the title of being executive officer but all the official powers and prerogatives of being executive officer have been gutted and handed over to the City Manager, Chief Administrative Official of the City. You have to read, sorry, a bit further to see the gutting of the fish. The actual authoritative decision making is given in detail over to the City Manager later on down the charter pages. An unelected official by the way. One that the electorate can't vote out of power if they should be unhappy. Not good on the direct representation or concept of democracy scale Greeley.

The proposed Charter provides that the Mayor shall be the Chief Executive Officer of the City, the City Council shall be the policy-making authority, and a City Manager to be appointed by the City Council for an indefinite term, the Chief Administrative Official of the City.

Who designed this burg, again? Oh yeah, it is a cow town. It doesn't want planning, design, regulation, zoning, and government. Just financial conservatism and corrals around all the "types" of people that are "different".

Well I hate to be the one that pops the balloon because I kind like the folksy cow town idea. I grew up around one of those. However it is hard not to point to the fact that while tending the cows the horse has now left the barn and ain't comin' back. Greeley is a small city. And it is a small city without any real obvious direction on how to create an effective government that will spend enough money to plan for the best future of the town at the least cost to the individual taxpayer. In other words fiscal constraint doesn't work without prudent investment and good long term social integration policies. It isn't just about today. It is about the infrastructure your children inherit tomorrow.

Yes, I'm sorry Virginia, there isn't any Santa Claus. Somebody is going to have to connect the cement sidewalks, water pipes, and city services to all those roaming red-nose developers in the middle of nowhere. That is you and me, babe. The guys back at the local Greeley government ranch are just gonna let the developers ride into town as tax free as possible and plop down where ever they point to the ground with the cry of "Jobs!" Tsssk. Tsssk. Then there is the whole issue of educating the public. All the public not just the kids in the charter schools on the right side of town. You want a real gang problem Greeley? Just refuse to invest and redevelop the "other" side of town. Disrespect breeds disrespect in any culture. Let education continue to fail the masses in District 6 and the lack of all day Kindergarten and textbooks for the kiddies won't be all that comes tumbling down.

Time to think of Greeley's value investment. Time to think of Greeley as an investment. Time to think of Greeley as a cow town that can kick ass if someone cares enough about it.

Diversity of business (Mom and Pops), economic development, revitalization of the downtown strip, redevelopment, education and gang management, and federal grant management hopefully is going to pop up on some one's view finder. Put the cow town politics to bed and start demanding someone manage the entire ranch and build good fences.

But then as the Greeley Tribune Cheerleader says today in its editorial, they are just happy so many citizens are interested in government. *Without really being paid to do the job (my addition). Yes, they are interested, I'll toast to that... but the real question is will the person they elect have to be the right color, the right sex, the right age group, local only, and do they have to represent a special interest or authority figure to get elected.

We, living in Greeley, already know the answer to this question... don't we?

Time for a change. Right turn Clyde.



Supreme Court Upholds Mill Levy Freeze

Health Care Cooperatives--Not Good Enough Mr. President

President Obama is from a big town. In a town like Chicago, big and cosmopolitan, the idea of health cooperatives meeting the public need for health care might look sane. President Obama is already on record as having said as much.

The Senate Finance Committee, where this health care plan for cooperatives is rooted, basically shows how completely out of touch with the needs of the average American the Senate has become. The Senate is made of millionaires. Even if one happened to land out of their mother's womb in a small town to begin with it is obvious they have no memory of it now. Perhaps, given this scheme, they may have landed on their heads. Why else would Congress promote a design which essentially leaves the insurance industry still in power over the public's health care needs. The idea of nonprofit health care cooperatives serving the public need is a shell game. It is a cloak over the public's eyes at the behest of the insurance company profiteers and the medical elite.

I say don't play the game and don't believe it. This "option" is not an alternative to the public option or the single payer system. It is a way for the insurance and private health company executives to retain control of the health care market and have it their way.

Here's why.

First and foremost any nonprofit, especially a membership based nonprofit, is like driving a bus. Whereas a private forprofit business is a zippy little red sports car. Well funded private business, like you find in the insurance and health industry, goes even further and resembles the famed Italian Maserati. They are sleek organizations, designed to hug the road, expensive, and represent loads of capital (cash).

President Obama has said he feels that the nonprofit cooperatives should have to compete for that capital. I like President Obama and empathize the heft of his burden but he is more the attorney and politician here and less the nonprofit business man.

In a nonprofit cooperative there is a board of directors. This board, although there are no definitive guidelines put out yet, most likely will be elected by the members of the cooperative. There are specific regulations which provide the directors with the structure for governance in a nonprofit. These have distinct differences compared to a forprofit organization.

The people who run for nonprofit board positions will be similar to the same people who run for local school boards and housing cooperatives. In private corporate business the board of directors are appointed more often than not. Directors receive nice annual stipends, pay, and perks for giving advice in their special areas of expertise or using their influence to get favorable legislation. It is a nice job in the forprofit world and someone wealthy with clout and experience lands the role and holds onto it--until death, or dementia, do us part. Meanwhile, back at the nonprofit, the assets of the nonprofit belong to the public and therefore the public representatives are assigned to watch over those assets on behalf of the membership of the cooperative. How many board directors, what regional representations might be assigned, how long their term of service, all has to be established in the nonprofit charter. Any remuneration will likely be limited and contained to expenses incurred while being a public community servant.

In this spirit, allow me to metaphorically introduce you, the person needing health insurance reform, to your new bus driver--your neighbor Joe the Plumber. Or perhaps Suzy the Secretary, Gary the Mechanic, Jenny the Accountant, and/or Carol the Hairdresser.

Basically the cooperative board of directors will be made up of people from your cooperative's community.

Now if you live in the community of Chicago the pool of potential nonprofit board candidates is bigger. The select educated elite and various professional backgrounds are naturally more diverse and better candidates can be drawn upon to serve. Your Chicago Cooperative might end up with Karen the Physician and Sam the Surgical Nurse for example. These options would, presumably, be better trained leadership for a health care cooperative. Lucky you--the Public Citizen.

At least for a while.

Then Karen and Sam's term of service will be up and new board members will come on. New board members who have never driven this particular bus before. New board members unfamiliar with the history of the bus, the patients riding the bus, and the mechanic's tinkering with the bus. Never having stuck their heads under the engine of the bus and never having kicked the tires of the bus these new board members will be seated. Not to mention these new board members, "drivers of the bus", will even have to become familiar with what road the bus is going down.

And there are a lot of bumps, cracks, and potholes in the road.

This, Public Citizen to whom I write, is who will be in charge of your health care in lieu of the government. A gamble at best. A tragedy in the making at worst. Because (play close attention to where the pea lands underneath the shell) while nonprofit cooperatives may be designed to be in lieu of the government being in charge of your health care they are not in lieu of the insurance company executives remaining in power. They, the insurance executives, are just scurrying under the new shell Congress has designed to maintain the status quo for the elites.

In the meantime, the insurance company executive will be driving on ahead of the bus, happy in the newly lightened and speedy Maserati. A few small tow lines attached to the Public Citizen bus at the initial camera-op, all for show, without any long lasting effects for the Maserati driver.

In fact, is that a smile I see on the Maserati driver's face?

Of course it is, since the Public Citizen bus will be full of riders that the insurance company executives don't want in their zippy little sport car. Public Citizens add weight and cost money in gas and repairs. Plus, the evil public riders tend to complain when they get dumped out on their heads in the middle of the road. It will take a little more conniving to get around President Obama's legislation on patient dumping--but with the Senate Blue Dogs on their side, no problem. So onto the bus with you!

A private forprofit organization can make quick stealth-like decisions. It can plan a long time in advance since it has a relatively stable market. It can control, to a great degree, how much supply it wants to give in order to meet demand. The forprofit insurance company is going to set, because it can and the industry is allowed to collude, how much profit it wants to put in the hands of its executives and investors. And the profiteering will always come first because that is what the company is designed to do, and it is what the executives get paid the big bucks for... doing what is best for the company.

Is there a great new technology on the market people are dying to pay for? Great let's adopt it and charge a 200% markup. Better yet let's buy up that company and roll it into our portfolio! Full speed ahead. The zippy little red Maserati doesn't even slow down for the turns or the bumps in the road--it generates enough money to negotiate successfully all the curves and bends in the road. And when it needs repairs it just charges anyone riding along more money.

Ah, the perfect life. Neck scarf blowing in the breeze and the Senate pumping gas into the tank.

Meanwhile, the Public Citizen bus is back here trying to figure out which way to turn next. The driver has stopped and is waiting to hear from all the passengers (members). The driver has to unfasten his seat belt and walk up and down the aisles of the bus to get every rider's ideas and thoughts on which way to go next. Then there is the time spent to show that process is being done and to take these thoughts into consideration. Next compare the new ideas with the old map, explain to everyone why that might be the wrong way to go, get the board to draw a new line on the map, and then finally he can get back in the driver's seat and go forward to make the turn in the road ahead.

Needless to say, if Public Citizen, wants to get anywhere soon he or she isn't going to get there quickly by riding that nonprofit cooperative health care bus.

Could you buy a better bus or a better trained driver or mechanic? Not likely. The nonprofit will never be able to, without the government's backing, outbid the private forprofit competition for the best doctor's, nurses, administrators, and technology. Even if the, ever-changing, board can get it together to understand the strategic need and are willing to work, being semi-paid, full time to raise capital. The forprofit insurance industry will have every reason to work around any regulations and to take shortcuts to ensure it stays ahead of the bus. Effectively undercutting any strategic advantage the nonprofit cooperatives may develop.

Just ask Fannie and Freddie--they essentially got into competition with the for-profit mortgage sector. It is a slippery slope leading to the eventual abyss.

Yet some buses might be better than others--true. Big polished city buses might have bigger gas tanks and better drivers than rural or small city ones--but they still will never be able to catch up to that tasty little red Maserati ahead. There are individual health care nonprofits that are bound to be rolled out as examples. An individual does not an industry make. Overall if the bus breaks down along the way and needs more gas, private gas stations are going to give their best supply to the Maserati owner because the Maserati owner obviously can always pay more. The Public Citizen will get the dregs of the tank and the mechanics straight from medical skid row. Running on dregs never makes for a good ride--for anyone.

Even more poetically or poignantly, however you want to look at it, the Maserati driver will get to dine at the White House with all the Senators long before the Public Citizen bus limps in. All the prime rib, shrimp, and organic greens will long be gone. Congress and the Maserati driver will be snuggled into the study smoking a few handrolled cigars and sipping cognac by the time the bus pulls in. In fact, the Maserati drivers may even, if they are clever enough, be able to arrange it so that the Public Citizen gets to the White House just in time to done a servant's outfit and wait upon the Blue Dog Senators and Maserati drivers in their cloistered study.

Guess who will get the bill.

Finally, after every one else has left, pockets stuffed full of goodies for the drive home, the Public Citizens can pick at the crumbs spilt on their uniforms before heading home to wait for that call from the Grim Reaper.

Yes, Virginia, this is a class war and Santa Claus doesn't really visit the little people in America any more. Not even for Show and Tell.

Let's just hope President Obama is playing chess with Congress rather than MouseTrap.