Tuesday, December 12, 2023, a night which will live in epiphany.
The Hampton School Board has 5 members.
It is still not clear whether that coveted box at the bottom of the ballot saying "Recommended by the School Board" will be attached to the ballot article. Someone has to "check" on it with someone.
School Board meetings have agendas and rules, and they open with a time for public comment and members of the public are allowed 3 minutes to speak their minds and then the chairperson cuts them off. Nobody gets to hog the microphone.
So, the public, all three of them, got their 3 minutes each.
The link below shows the whole meeting, but the parts of the meeting devoted to the Sacred Heart School (SHS) funding begins after the Pledge of Allegiance with public comment, and then there are about 2 hours of meanderings through committee reports and idle chatter, then the vote and then a bizarre post mortem comment session. You just have to scan through it.
None of the School Board members explained the reasons for his or her vote, except for Frank DeLuca, who said he had to abstain because he is a parishioner of Our Lady of The Miraculous Medal church, and one of the speakers had remarked that any parishioner of the church voting to funnel public funds for his own personal church would violate his public trust as a public official, and apparently Mr. DeLuca got that message.
While none of the School Board explained a vote, in the prior meeting the chairperson had said she was voting public funds to a church school because she care about "every Hampton child," including those attending SHS. That was addressed by one of the speakers who remarked that she had failed to mention that 75% of the SHS students are not even from Hampton, and that even if you focused on the 25% of students who live in Hampton, "caring about the children," as he did, did not mean he wanted to pay for their first communion dresses. He said that was the job of the parents, not the taxpayer.
He also went on to say that while some argue this issue is not about separation of church and state, but instead it's simply "all about the children" (even those attending SHS,) the truth is that while this may be about the kids, it is not only about the kids: It's also about the principle of separation of church and state.
To make that point, a famous speech by John F. Kennedy got read, and is there for all to see on Channel 22, in which he says, "Because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured...So it is apparently necessary for me to state again, not what kind of church I believe in, for that should matter only to me--but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no church or church school is granted any public funds...Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped."
Instances of the ripping of that fabric in Hampton, New Hampshire were recounted: men driving by, shouting profanities, while children played in their yards, online vilification of Hampton women as being "God hating," all because these mothers had signed a petition for separation of church and state.
(Apparently, John F. Kennedy would have been called a "God hater" by these people.)
And the vote came, amid some confusion.
The Vote:
To recommend: Virginia Bridle Russell
Les Shepard
Abstained: Wendy Rega
Andrea Shepard
Frank DeLuca
Although a majority of the School Board did not vote to recommend (a majority of 5 is 3), it is not clear what the white box with the recommendation will say. Do you need a majority (i.e. 3 Board members) or simply a plurality for that coveted "Yes, recommended by the Board"?
To Mad Dog's mind a "recommendation" should mean, we affirmatively recommend this. But when the majority say they can neither recommend nor oppose, that is not a recommendation. But that may not be what the powers that be think.
Mad Dog actually liked the post show show: Because, apparently, there is a rule that there should be 30 minutes in total of public comment, and the chairperson had limited the three public commenters to 3 minutes each, interrupting any speaker who went past 3 minutes, there were only 9 minutes of 30 spent in public comment.
So after the vote was taken and safely stowed away, they called for the other 21 minutes of comment from the crowd of 2 people who constituted "the public." Only one actually spoke and he was told he had better limit his remarks to 3 minutes. (Not clear what happened to the remaining unspoken 19 minutes.)
During this session Frank DeLuca asked the lone speaker why, after all these years, after voting through this warrant article every year since 1994, anyone would now find a reason to oppose it. The reply was simple enough: the man who rose to oppose said he was not living in town in 1994, but even if he had been, he said, simply doing something over and over because "we've always done it that way" is not always a good idea, especially if an important principle has been ignored by that custom. He cited the racial segregation of schools, which had always been done that way, but eventually we decided that custom was unprincipled.
This was a particularly rich moment because in the previous School Board meeting, when asked if he was disturbed at the article which gave public funds for religious purposes, Mr. DeLuca said he said he hadn't seen the warrant article yet, so he couldn't possibly comment on an article he had not yet seen. But tonight he said, well this same, identical article has been presented the same way every year for the past 29 years, so what are we arguing about?
When Ginny Bridle Russell said she supported the warrant article and she would never abstain, but would always take a stand--but she hoped voters would vote their own conscience. The member of the public replied, "Well, but then you are taking a stand to try to influence voters."
This exchange finally aroused Les Shepard, who raised his hand and object to the public addressing the chairperson in such a manner. The public man was told that School Board meetings do not allow for "back and forth," between the School Board members and the public, which, of course, was exactly what Ms. Russel had precipitated.
Watching this youtube now, it is apparent that the chairperson of the School Board has taken the idea of a "Bully pulpit" into a new realm of "The bully from the pulpit." The chairperson cut off criticism of herself, declared herself immune, declared herself righteous and outspoken and then withdrew to allow her fellow Board members to close ranks around her.
If ever there is a contest for "most controlling personality" we have our candidate for the honor right here in Hampton.
So, all and all, it was an exciting night. Two and one half hours of dreary boiler plate declamations, interrupted by 30 minutes of the fog of war.
The youtube video below shows the discussion of the warrant article beginning right after the Pledge of Allegiance at 1 minute, with three speakers from the public, each speaking 3 minutes and that ends around 12 minutes. Then there is a nearly 120 minute interlude during which the School board discusses a variety of things, including, literally the paint on school walls but the vote on the article occurs at 2:02, two hours after the meeting began. So if you can scan ahead, go for it. The vote is worth watching. (If anyone knows how to edit a youtube video so only the 15 minutes devoted to the Sacred Heart School warrant article shows, please let me know.) It was during this exchange, the Board said only they can ask questions but they do not answer questions from the public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Mo0VoF7oA
Sound and fury signifying something.
We don't yet know what.
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