From Doug DeClue, Orlando

This elected school board chair issue has been forced upon us by a coalition of businesses and developers trying to pass itself off as a "grassroots" group called "Let Us Vote".

Anyone who reviews their $5,000 and $10,000 donations quickly will realize that this is big business special interest trying to hijack our school board away from the real grassroots and single member district voting. (Link to contributor list)

1) The first erroneous notion being spread by the proponents of an elected school board chair is the alleged claim of a "lack of accountability".

There ALREADY IS accountability for the school board.

It's called "election day".

You DO get to hold the school board members of those districts accountable on that day if you'd only go out and vote!


2) The next point I'd like to make to you about this "plan" is how it cynically attempts to put one county-wide person in charge.

Any decision that is merely 4-3 or 3-4 among the existing members can and will be reversed and decided in the favor of this one chairperson alone. In short it will require a 5-2 or 2-5 margin or better among the existing members in order to prevent the new chair from controlling the vote. That almost never happens on serious and controversial issues.

Why should we grant this much power to just ONE person?

We should NOT.

3) Why do the proponents of this measure want an at-large elected chair?

Because it is at least an order of magnitude more difficult and more expensive to win a countywide election than a single member district race.

At-large positions as a rule serve to dilute minority voting power and thereby serve to transfer power to the rich, to the white, and to the existing entrenched power structure.

Such an "at-large" position would become another county mayor's race requiring 300,000 to 500,000 dollars to be raised by the winning candidate as opposed to single member district school board races currently being run and won for 10 to 40 thousand dollars.

This "plan" is actually about neutralizing the power of the existing 7 board members that are elected by popular local grassroots efforts in favor of a countywide at-large "mayor" of schools with a vastly disproportionate power to act being elected by big money backers in the business community.

Such mega-money driven countywide races only serve to make local government LESS accountable to the actual voters and more accountable to wealthy special interests in the business community because they make the race all about who can raise the most money rather than being about grassroots campaigning, popular support, and good ideas.