No shows

What if they had a committe meeting and hardly anyone comes to it.

Members of a committee to oversee how the Palm Beach County School District spends $560 million in local sales tax money don't show up to meetings a third of the time, attendance records show.

The Independent Sales Surtax Oversight Committee has met quarterly since February 2005, three months after voters approved an additional half-cent sales tax to help pay for school construction.

But five of the committee's 15 current members have missed at least half of the meetings.

Classroom Teachers Association President Theo Harris, who represents the union on the committee, has missed nine of the last 12 meetings.

Harris and Lighthouse Elementary Principal Lori Bonino are nonvoting members of the board.

If Harris isn't interested in attending, he should let someone else be on the committee. Do these members get paid for the work? The Post article makes no mention of any compensation.

Martin Hodgkins, Wellington's community development director, has been a member since September 2005 but has yet to attend a meeting.

*****

The school board created the committee to oversee how the district spends the tax money. The district botched a 1986 referendum that yielded a state attorney's conclusion of mismanagement of millions of dollars and unethical activity.

The group is made up of community members and representatives from local organizations and other school advisory committees.

Little use this committee is if most people aren't attending. Quorum or not.

The 1986 referendum and subsequent bond issue was a major fiasco that alot of people don't remember. I do, and I didn't live in this area at the time of the vote but remember when the truth became known in the early 90's.

Gaines, president of the Business and Economic Development and Revitalization Corp., missed every meeting during a year-and-a-half stretch.

Johnson, who is the Glades-area president of the NAACP, has only attended one meeting since July 2005.

Johnson and Gaines could not be reached for comment.

I got a little investigating to do. If I discover Johnson, Gaines, Hodgkins and Harris get compensated for the work they're supposed to do, they'll all get my Knucklehead award. It may do wonders for their resumes.

Linked to- Bright & Early, High Desert Wanderer, Leaning Straight Up,