Mount Virtus

The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News have put in their two cents worth about State Treasurer Mike Coffman’s decision to step down and serve a seven-month stint in Iraq.

The Post finds it easy to salute elected Republicans, when they decide to leave the country for awhile, even if it means participating in a military action that the Post editorial board is less than comfortable with. At least they left this stern admonition:

We don’t think it’s appropriate for Coffman’s party to use his decision to seek a partisan advantage. Coffman has our good wishes as he prepares for his second service in Iraq, and we look forward to welcoming him back to the treasurer’s office.

They couldn’t resist leaping into the political speculation instantly falling out from Coffman’s announcement, and of course their advice is always in the Republican Party’s best interest.

The Rocky‘s editors also weighed the question of whether Governor Owens should appoint a permanent or temporary replacement for the departing reserve Marine major:

This request puts Owens and other Republicans in an awkward spot. It would have been much simpler for all had Coffman decided to leave the job permanently.

True enough, and a more balanced assessment. After careful consideration, I think the governor should do all he can to accommodate the departing Treasurer’s request. The GOP won’t suffer for it, and sometimes there are other things to consider besides politics. Sometimes….

Meanwhile, some commenters over at The Dead Governors site question Coffman’s motives, others speculate about his political ambitions, and a few stand up to defend his noble decision. Look, you can take the man at his word. He has said he is considering a run for Secretary of State and that’s all, so any suggestion that he is planning a secret campaign to run in the 7th Congressional District is ridiculous and made by someone who doesn’t understand Coffman too well.

I must say that Treasurer – no, make that Major – Coffman is a rare breed: one of a handful of politicians I’ve met willing to put greater interests ahead of his own personal and political ambitions. I suggest to you that he should be looked at as a role model. We can worry about the 2006 election later – Coffman is getting ready to play a key role in a larger and more significant mission now.

To quote my friend Clay’s remarks on the topic:

Colorado will miss Mike. He is an honest and honorable gentleman. On this day especially our prayers are for his comfort with his decision, his safety while in training, a hedge of protection around him while in service to our nation, and for his safe return to our country and his family.

Godspeed Mike.

Amen to that.

Jim of Thinking Right, one of the RMA’s best, could use your prayers. His dad is reporting that Jim is in intensive care.

Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and get ready for a ride through the “Tunnel of Oppression,” the latest multi-sensory, feel-not-so-good liberal method to promote an agenda – and 100% free of reason, logic, or coherent argument. But what else did you expect?

Gina Garcia, one of the tunnel coordinators, said the shock value is part of the intent of the display. “If you just provide a lot of factual stuff, you’re only connecting with people cognitively. This is supposed to be very much of the effect, we’re supposed to be getting to people’s emotions,” she said.

A conservative could try to start a conversation about many of the topics graphically depicted in the Tunnel and automatically receive a negative label. But be so enlightened as to promote awareness of oppression by “the use of images such as realistic vomit in a toilet at the bulimia display and papier mache legs representing a black man being dragged behind a truck,” and you will be applauded as a compassionate soul and avant garde thinker in today’s university.

Of course, it’s perfectly within their rights to create and make available displays that “employ 3-dimensional graphics, including a woman under a glass ceiling, a Ku Klux Klan member, a toilet bowl full of condoms and a phallic symbol representing a sex change operation,” but it’s also my right and prerogative to decry the effort as myopic, naive, foolish, simplistic, and obnoxious.

Plus it makes great Thursday morning fodder for my blog…. What a hoot! I wonder how much of what I post here would be considered eligible for a future display in the “Tunnel of Oppression”?

Hat tip to Jim.

Any last outside chances that there would be a teachers strike in Denver this year all but evaporated yesterday as 1,767 members of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) voted to accept the bargained contract and only 617 voted against. Roughly 600 DCTA members did not vote. Of the district’s 4,200 teachers, about 3,000 belong to DCTA.

Teachers get back a lost step on the salary schedule, a pay increase, more planning time, and more say in areas of professional development and instruction. Meanwhile, the district and union have planned to phase out the salary schedule with the new ProComp performance-based pay plan, the funding of which has to be approved by voters in November.

The brewing tensions within the district during February, March, and April brought attention to a short paper I wrote last year for the Independence Institute – No Work, No Pay: The Lesson of the 1994 Denver Teachers’ Strike – and to radio appearances with John Andrews and Mike Rosen.

Personally, I’m glad the strike was averted. Yet we still have to roll up our sleeves and continue the work of education reform.

Wayne Rutt and Paul Marrick, the co-founders of Parents for Truth, have their first appearance before a judge today at 1 p.m. in Denver.

The hearing was originally scheduled for 9 a.m. today but was postponed in favor of hearing a series of procedural motions. Marrick and Rutt, who filed the original complaint against Poudre Education Association (PEA) – the local Fort Collins teachers’ union -, for violating a series of state election laws have filed a motion to expand the complaint to include both the statewide union (CEA) and the local Poudre School District. Their lawyer also filed for a continuance (a delay of hearing), citing that the school district dragged its feet in responding to their subpoenas and Open Records request for documents. Marrick and Rutt finally procured all 7,500 of the requested documents as of last Monday evening but still needed more time to review them and to make their case.

On the other hand, the attorney for PEA and CEA has filed a motion to dismiss the case. As reported in the Fort Collins Coloradoan:

Attorney Mark Grueskin, who represents both the PEA and CEA, said the allegations against both unions are unsupported and therefore should be thrown out.

“The lawyer for Mr. Rutt and Mr. Marrick said that PEA violated the law. He didn’t provide any fact that would suggest that a violation of law really did occur,” Grueskin said. “We believe there’s ample reason to dismiss any if not all of the claims that they’ve raised.”

And in case you still may think that there isn’t a lot of collaboration in larger school districts among school administration and teachers’ union leadership, then take note of what has transpired in Fort Collins in the wake of Marrick and Rutt’s original complaint:

The parents say the district dragged its feet in fulfilling a records request for thousands of district e-mails while simultaneously sending messages to staff members telling them how to delete the e-mails involved in the request.

“Upon receiving our request, they almost immediately began working with the union,” Rutt said. “Contacting each person named in our request, they instructed them on how to go about permanently deleting their e-mails and provided them with a list that identified the very e-mails we were searching for.”

And in case you think the school districts don’t mind advertising that collaboration:

PSD board President Ross Cunniff said an e-mail informing all staff of the open-records request that also included standard information about the district’s e-mail policy was sent out shortly after the request, but only after all e-mails in the system had been saved.

“We sequestered all e-mail, even ones that weren’t a hit on the request,” Cunniff said. “All the e-mails had been saved off (prior to the sending of a policy message) so that in the event of a request we still had the data.”

Cunniff said the policy e-mail included a section that explained e-mail is considered an open record. The policy message also explained that e-mails are not backed up by the district’s computer system, and therefore are destroyed if they are deleted in both a user’s “inbox” and emptied out of the user’s deleted items or “trash” bin, he said.

Noting that this is not something he plans to litigate, Gessler said he and his clients “think it’s more than coincidental” that the message was sent immediately after their request for files including 7,500 PSD e-mails.

I will be attending this afternoon’s hearing and will have a report later today on the result of all the motions, when the hearing is rescheduled, and where the case goes from here.

Update: The administrative law judge granted the motion from Marrick and Rutt to add CEA and the Poudre School District as defendants to the complaint and ruled against the defendants’ motion to dismiss the charges. A final hearing date has been set for Monday, May 16, in which all the evidence will be set forth and debated.