David Taylor, who has made a second career out of suing the Oyster River school district, was again appointed to serve on the District’s Advisory Budget Committee on May 16. School Board members Barth, Charle, Howland and Newkirk voted for his appointment; Butts, Lane, and Turnbull against.
Mr. Taylor posted a video of the discussion and vote on his YouTube channel. Curiously, comments critical of the Board’s decision were promptly deleted.
As a public service, we are posting a link to the video here: http://youtu.be/-OWfjY8Gfxg. We invite you to make any comments you might have here on our site, where we operate free of censorship.
The board members sued by Mr. Taylor have good reasons not to want him on the ABC. That his adult child works part time for the district isn't one of them. And I don't really see how posting the video of the meeting is disparaging. It's a public meeting, subject to public scrutiny. It's kind of the whole point of having a public meeting. It's already been repeatedly cablecast. The district should post high quality video of all meetings as a service to the community.
ReplyDelete- Dean Rubine, Lee
Dean, in terms of the public interest pehaps you might want to share why the video of my wife which you posted last year has not been taken down. Is this somehow an attempt to serve the community?
DeleteOnce again, Mr. Rubine has lavished us with his twisted wit and refective, double-headed coined logic. Taylor didn't "post the video of the meeting," like he is some innocent conduit serving the best interests of the public. He follows his standard M.O., and posted select PARTS of the meeting, to advance his psychotic agenda, and create his own parallel reality by painting a focused picture for everyone to view. He deletes any opposing viewpoints, to prevent someone from tarnishing the polish of his rambling narrative he mailed to the board about (what is clearly an obsession) with RTK. He's real lucid when he thinks comments about him in public are a violation of RTK. Doesn't he have a track record of suing the district if the board conducts business in non-public? He would have been the first one to bellow if they had gone to non-public to discuss his appointment. I'm convinced he has an axe to grind, and nothing is going to pacify him.
ReplyDeleteCalvin and Dean:
ReplyDeleteMy thanks to both of you for your comments.
Calvin: Your point is well-taken. I don't believe that the Board should have appointed Taylor to the ABC, and I've made that argument at some length over on the OR Community Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ORComunity), so I won't go into it here. However, I think maybe you're being a little harsh on Dean, who I beleive was trying to raise a broader (and perhaps more salient) point: the overall direction of the current Board is not what most of us thought we were getting when we voted for them (or didn't, as the case may be).
Dean: as often happens, I agree with a good deal of what you have to say. You are quite right to note, for example, that not all of the arguments made by those Board members opposed to Mr. Taylor are, shall we say, of equal validity. (Of course, in my own defense I should note that I never said I agreed with them, either…I have a number of reasons of my own why I think Mr. Taylor is unfit to serve. On the other hand, it is curious that Mr. Taylor seems to have access to an endless stream of high-quality videos to post on his own YouTube channel, while those of us who go through the normal channels can’t seem to get them at all.)
In fact, I think the broader point you raise is one worth highlighting: for a bunch who ran on promises of increased openness, “listening,” and the like, the four newest members seem to be moving our Board in the opposite direction. Right out of the gate, at their very first meeting, they violated the Right-To-Know law through an inappropriate use of non-public session. As you’ve noted on your own blog, they’ve eliminated the second round of public comments. And now, the whole Taylor debacle. It’s highly disappointing, to say the least.
The following have been posted on David Taylor's Youtube channel:
ReplyDelete"If ornhus cannot understand the difference between a volunteer for the very successful robotics club and and a paid employee of the district charged with recording these meetings then any arguments which might include common sense are wasted."
And this:
"With the control of ORCSD firmly in the hands of the educational consortium of the UNH faculty and Oyster River Guild Mr, Taylor's continued presence on the ABC is irrelevant. Fortunately, the ORCSD cleanslate, as exemlified by a new superintendent, new director of instruction, new SPED director, new HS principal and several other changes that have been long overdue, has come to pass."