|  Author | Topic: Re: School District/ School Board (Read 11,268 times) |
alexsaitta
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|  | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #20 on Dec 16, 2007, 1:46pm » | |
I don't know what happened to your post.
I disagree with you, though. I don't think TV has gone from Father Knows Best, to The Book Of Daniel, because of greed or money. If it was about money, they would have just given the people what they wanted and made more money.
Instead, the cultural liberals who control media have tried to change the culture, and have been successful to a large degree.
Many shows/ movies that have pushed out the cultural envelope have not been monetary successes because they were not what the people wanted.
Do you think the people wanted all these shows with gay themes? Who was demanding them? No one. The producers had an agenda and they pushed it. It wasn't about trying to make money.
How are the politicians playing the children as pawns on this issue? I believe the politicians have been silent. That is what I blame them for.
Any one who believes a true conservative and a true liberal are not that far apart, I recommend they live in NYC a few years. Up there they have true liberals in huge numbers. In Pickens County I have not met one person who I would say is liberal through and through.
Down here there isn't much difference between the conservatives and the "liberals", because most people have a conservative streak running through them in some way, shape or form. For example, Beth, you may consider yourself a liberal, but on this social and cultural issue, you lean right.
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DReinert
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #21 on Dec 17, 2007, 10:09am » | |
I tend to agree with johnxdoe, when you're talking about this area. The ideologies here aren't as far apart as in many other regions and leans more conservative, especially when it comes to values, than to the liberal side. That's why people like Alex and I moved down here from the northeast. I associated this with liberals because it's only on liberal sites where I find any type of support for this show. The more far left they are (neo liberal and Progressives they like to call themselves) the more they believe shows like this are good for the youth, making this behavior more acceptable and mainstream as they put it. I find no such support on conservative sites. From talk on liberal sites this show moves so far into trash though that even they're surprised there hasn't been a parental backlash. Where are the parents? Here is a show promoting a gay and bisexual promiscuous lifestyle aimed squarely at the most impressionable age of youth. Would parents tolerate cigarettes and beer commercials on Nickelodeon? I don't think shows like this are about money, if it was we'd see this pushed out to mainstream TV. I don't think 12 year olds are sitting there thinking they'd like to be seeing this stuff on the TV either but it's being pushed exclusively to their media channels. I think there are powerful people with an agenda to program the upcoming generation to accept their version of society as being normal and right and anyone who doesn't is a bigot.
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upset
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #22 on Jan 3, 2008, 12:27pm » | |
 The Superintendent has a blog on the school district website, but she is the only one who can post.
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alexsaitta
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #23 on Jan 4, 2008, 1:15pm » | |
This came from the GV News:
According to David Stout, director of the office of adult education and GED administrator with the Department of Education, the Pickens County School District's Adult Ed center boasted the state’s highest score in that category with an 80.2 percent GED pass rate, compared to the state average of 62.1 percent.
http://www.greenvillenews.com/apps/pbcs.....1/80104004/1074
On of the problems we are facing is a falling graduation rate. Having an adult ed program that can give students who drop-out a second chance, via a GED, is key.
Good job.
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barbara
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #24 on Jan 11, 2008, 1:36am » | |
Two good letters in this week's PCC. One man from Easley says the school board over paid for the high schools land. No kidding. It is not their money.
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cbr
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #25 on Jan 11, 2008, 11:31am » | |
The school district didn't need to buy as much land as they did, but the price was fair, and it's difficult to find a tract of land that's big enough for a school and facilities. Land in Easley is not cheap. At one time, the land on Pearson Rd. was $45,000 an acre.
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Moderator
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #26 on Jan 11, 2008, 12:20pm » | |
This is the letter that you are talking about.
It was in the Pickens Sentinel.
School Board's land buys overkill
To the Editor
As a retired engineering contractor with 30 years experience in school construction, I was shocked to learn that the Pickens County School District purchased 163 acres for the site of the future -Easley High School and 139 acres for the future Pickens High School. The price of the Easley High property was $3,989,825 or $24,477 per acre and the Pickens High site was $2,381,315 or $17,131 per acre.
The most economical method for a government entity to purchase real estate is by the eminent domain or condemnation method where the property is taken by a court order for the appraised value. These sites were purchased by negotiation with the owner, which leaves the question unanswered whether these properties would have appraised at the values paid by the District.
I am opposed to the abuse of eminent domain power to unfairly take people's homes for the benefit of a condominium developer, but taking raw land for a school would not be eminent domain abuse. To allow government officials to negotiate with land owners without a court determining the correct appraisal opens the potential for abuse of the taxpayers who must pay for an unjust profit to a seller.
The largest high school site that my company ever performed work on for a high school construction project was 42 acres. The largest site for a Greenville County High School is 73 acres and the smallest is 38 acres. The largest site for an Anderson County High School is Palmetto at 60 acres and Wren is 50 acres. The Anderson district owns a site in Powdersville where they plan to build an elementary, middle and high school on 88 acres.
We, the citizens of Pickens County need an explanation from the School District the reason for purchasing sites that are more than twice the acreage of any known high school sites.
Bob Young Easley
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cbr
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #27 on Jan 11, 2008, 1:06pm » | |
I believe the school board is familiar with Bob Young. What do you think of this letter, Moderator?
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alexsaitta
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #28 on Jan 11, 2008, 1:48pm » | |
The second half I agree with. In Jan 07's Pickens Sentinel I pointed out it made no sense for the district office to be searching for 100 acre trac, when Greenville just built 12 new high schools, all which were on less than 75 acres.
So what do they do, buy 150 arces. That's one of the inefficiencies of government -- buying more than is needed. I'd support selling 75 of the acres.
It would be cheaper through eminent domain. Ask the people in Eastotee Valley. But I don't support government using the courts to take property from private individuals.
There are some cases where you have to do it, highways and such, but this wasn't a "have to" situation. Heck, they should be renovating the existing high schools, and saving the $80 million or spending some of that money on building a bigger prison or improving the roads.
In Pickens there was one property the district overpaid for, but we had to buy all 6 tracts, because we were told of some kind of connecting deed restrictions. Also, the Pickens property had 3 houses on it. It wasn't just a straight land purchase. When you announce to the world (a requirement of open government), you are looking for land, you'll end up paying more. Finally, the district left itself no alternative, because it didn't want to consider the other alternative of renovating the high schools. When you leave yourself no alternative in negotiation, you usually end up paying more.
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westside
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #29 on Jan 11, 2008, 7:56pm » | |
The Easley property was for sale a long time. Could it have been worth that much.
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upset
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #30 on Jan 15, 2008, 12:44pm » | |
 Daniel High is staying put?
Did the Clemson land fall through?
 Daniel is not on much land.
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don
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #31 on Jan 15, 2008, 11:24pm » | |
The Pickens School Board is a joke. All those guys ran saying we have to get rid of those terrible portables. Here we are a year after the Greenville Plan was slid through and we still have hundreds of students in those "terrible" portables. The school board does not know its head from its feet. Pitiful situation.
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DReinert
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #32 on Jan 16, 2008, 2:09pm » | |
At the rate they're going thru the money there won't be enough to achieve the original objectives. A few million here, a few million there, and before you know it we're talking about some real money. Anderson County can build 3 schools on an 88 acre site, but for some reason we need 150 acres for one? Why this carelessness in spending? Could it be true that they can keep going back to the dummy corporation for more as Greenville County has? When this question was brought to our house delegation at the Taxpayers meeting the responses were vague and unsure. We taxpayers need to know for certain, has the door been absolutely closed and locked? If not, we've only felt the first nudge of an iceberg with our current taxes, prepare the lifeboats for when we get hit by what's hidden underneath. This spending frenzy causes me much concern, reckless spending indicates that someone believes they have a bottomless pocket to pick. Remember, we're spending our money to build buildings for the dummy corporation, not property owned by us any more. So the more land "we" buy and building "we" build the richer the corporation becomes and the more money it can borrow that "we" must repay. Greenville started out with $750 million and is at what, $1.4 billion now? Just how many businesses must we drive out of Pickens County, how many homes not build or bought, before we stop the school board from pushing Pickens County into the category of having the highest taxes in the upstate?
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columbia
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #33 on Jan 16, 2008, 5:19pm » | |
I read pickenspolitics and their spending has risen close to 17%. I know my pay check did not go up that much. D_Reinert, I can not afford it either. And are the children any smarter? The good Doctor is running us and the school into the ground.
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DReinert
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| | Re: School District/ School Board
« Reply #34 on Jan 17, 2008, 4:51pm » | |
I doubt there are many in Pickens County who can say they've gotten 17% pay increases. I believe unemployment in Pickens is actually creeping up, and with the closing of another Alice plant, and Monday we were notified that our offices would be shut down by the middle of this year and all functions outsourced, there will be another 80 or more people out of work. Just between the 2 will just about offset any gain anticipated from Fluid Systems expansion. I live in a little subdivision, smaller homes, retired people or young people starting out, the type who fell in that category where instead of benefiting from the tax swap, with the school tax increase we actually saw increases in our property taxes. Remember at the school board meeting in November, the speeches about how this plan was so wonderful because we needed these new impressive schools to attract business and grow the county. Well, it seems they didn't think about the powerful negative effect the high taxes would have in driving out business and people. Land owners are being raped, owners of rental units are being raped, small business is being raped, our sales taxes in our cities are out of scope with our surroundings. If we have to give away our taxes to attract or keep a business it indicates maybe our taxes are too high, the burden is shifted to the citizens, and we all get raped. A certain group of elitists are driving us into becoming the most heavily taxed area in the upstate. Remember them.
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