Dennis Smith celebrates one year with the LBPost, as well as the recent resignation of TALB Executive Director Scott McVarish.
I was going to write about our One Year Anniversary and reflect on the past year of Posts I have had the opportunity to share with you through the Long Beach Post and My Front Porch. Hold hands around the birthday cake and blow out our Number 1 candle together. My intention was brief stroll down Cyber Lane where My Front Porch sits and I sat on my rocker and discussed subjects ranging from Pelosi, to my first post on Obama one year ago next week (yes one year ago the race was already on), to “hey, I’m one too…” emails from other Ballet Dads, to California’s irrelevance in Presidential contests, to risking eternal damnation by telling a Cardinal to “go to hell”, to poking fun at Al Gore and Globalwarmists, and to poking more fun at myself. These posts and others received a lot of emails that often started an e-conversation and the opportunity to engage in discourse with readers, exchanges I have enjoyed and appreciated representing all of our community.
Yes, I was reflecting on my previous sixty-one posts and all those emails and composing a sappy, hopefully somewhat humorous, anniversary Post expressing my gratitude to Shaun and Robert for inviting me to participate. Gratitude for letting this amateur writer provoke some discussion, provoke some thought and hopefully cause some enjoyment to those taking time to click and read My Front Porch. That was my plan for how to spend some time today. In the midst of blowing out the anniversary candle for lbpost.com turning one I was interrupted by another candle being extinguished. The candle on someone’s employment in
Instead of the ubiquitous “in-the-past-year-We’ve/I’ve…” Post you were going to get, I will instead let you know about the anniversary present I opened in my email this afternoon: Scott McVarish has resigned as Executive Director of the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB).
Yes, the Music Man has given up the position and is leaving town claiming his name is clear and he is finished with his good work here in
Ostensibly McVarish’s resignation comes after the audit ordered by California Teacher’s Association Trustee Barbara Kerr (who took over control of the union from McVarish several months ago) has concluded showing no malfeasance or other wrong doing. Since this audit was ordered by CTA, using CTA approved auditors, and there has been a significant length of time between when members were told the audit was concluded to being told the audit report was finished and showed nothing wrong….you can count me as skeptical as to the cleanliness of the findings. How is it that a man who defied his own board of directors that fired him last summer to retain his job has the opportunity to achieve his goal of taking control of the school board suddenly resigns when an audit supposedly finds no wrong doing? With all the money spent, all the debt incurred, all the vacation pay, all the credit card receipts, all the political mailings, nothing inappropriate? Sure, and I have 76 trombones for the town….
In the end, the teachers win. They have the opportunity to go through a search process to replace McVarish with someone clean, someone honorable and someone who will truly have the teachers’ interest at heart and not his or her own ambitions. Yes, they lost a lot of money because of McVarish’s decisions and management style, or lack there of, it becomes an expensive lesson. And yes, McVarish gets to tell one more story, that he did nothing wrong. But, he leaves town. Good, when you go McVarish please say “good bye” and not “see you later”.
After posting my first piece on TALB and Michael Ellis (Ignorance or Arrogance) in April, I wrote a dozen more Posts on TALB and its poor leadership. Each of those elicited response from many teachers upset, angry, clueless or just dumbstruck by what was going on. The posts all had information from teachers, TALB board members, Council Reps or others with intimate knowledge of what was going on at TALB; individuals who were afraid to confront McVarish or TALB leadership, but wanted their union back. To those who wrote following my posts, to those who provided me information and asked that I put it in the Long Beach Post, I say congratulations. Today the first step is taken so you can get your union back. Now take that next step. Take your union back from the CTA. Be involved in the decision making, the elections and the governance of your union. Insist on a transparent process to fill the now blessed vacant Executive Director position. Be active, be curious, be involved…if you are not you have already seen the result of your apathy.
Thanks for the Anniversary present Scott, now how about a belated Valentine’s Day gift? Take Ellis out of town with you—you two can go try and sell your marching band idea to some other Iowan town.
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