What do you know. The FBI is now interested in how the Republican led Sarasota County School Board, former Superintendent Gary Norris, former district staff member Robert Hanson, and others spent your and my referendum dollars on the now infamous Promethean "white boards" purchase starting in 2006.

Given the history of the Republican led School Board and their questionable spending of our referendum dollars why should this come as any surprise?

However, the letter from the School Board's attorney is very interesting (click here to read it).

In the letter it states that the FBI subpoenas are actually "dated February 17, 2010" The letter to the Assistant U.S. Attorney's office says the School Board got the subpoenas on March 16, 2010, the day the School Tax Referendum was being voted on.The letter also acknowledges that District staff talked with FBI Agent Leo Martinez but does not say when that conversation took place.

These comments by the Board attorney beg the question: Who knew what and when did they know it? I have contacted the U.S. Attorney's office to determine why the delay and I have asked district staff for any contact with the FBI or U.S. Attorney's office prior to March 16, 2010 about these subpoenas. More on this in another column.

Now for the real issue at hand - the potential misappropriation of $14 million of referendum dollars.

According to WCFCourier.com:

When Norris was superintendent of Sarasota County Schools before coming to Waterloo in 2008, Robert Hanson was chief information officer in that district and county government. Norris said Hanson was involved in the process that led to Sarasota County Schools purchasing $14 million in interactive white boards for all district classrooms.

So, the Republican led School Board approved the purchase of the "white boards" and other sole source purchases when Superintendent Norris and Robert Hanson worked for the District. Mr. Hanson said that during his tenure the information technology department under his direction had awarded more than $8.5 million in sole-source contracts since 2007. The Republican led School board may have approved contracts that allegedly violated county procurement code requirements. The Sarasota County's auditor questioned these purchases suggesting records from Hanson's information technology expenses provided insufficient detail.

Where was the Financial Advisory Committee when this was all taking place? Who audited the School District during this period and failed to recognize the issues of potential violations of county procurement codes and sole-source contracts? Clearly, Mr. Hanson and district staff knew about the sole-sourcing. The Financial Advisory Committee and local businesses were touted as the "watch dogs" of referendum dollars by Frank Kovach, then Chair of the School Board, in the 2006 report, "Promises Made, Promises Kept". Was everyone asleep at the switch or make that the white board?

Gee, the Republican led School Board really has done a bang up job getting us to vote for the referendum three times. Only now do we learn that they not only spent non-recurring dollars on recurring expenses (the district salary schedule), spent federal stimulus dollars on district salaries, indebted our children and grandchildren for school construction using Certificates of Participation but they may have even violated federal law.

Surprise, surprise! This may be forever known as the Great White Board Scandal of 2010.

Readings: 

Presidential Tracking Poll At Negative 20 - Rasmussen Reports

Bret Baier: 1; President Obama: 0 - American Thinker

Doctors Could Hang It Up - Investor's Business Daily

Taxation Without Representation - Canada Free Press

What's Good For House Leaders Is Bad For Members - Michael Barone, The Washington Examiner

"America Is Back In Asia!" ... Uh, About That... - The Heritage Foundation

Idaho First To Sign Law Against Health Care Reform - John Miller, AZ Daily Sun

Video of the Day:

Cartoon of the Day:

In a notice to his supporters Florida Representative Alan Grayson (D), 8th District, seeks backing for his “Public Option Act”, H.B. 4789, in an effort to pass the Health Care Reform bill this bill establishes Medicare as a pay-as-you-go Public Option plan.

To garner support for his proposed bill Grayson falsely accuses Insurance CEO’s of receiving billion dollar bonuses. However, in a May 2009 HealthCareforAmericaNow.org report these alleged billion dollar bonuses are actually identified as the total compensation paid to 10 Major Private Health Insurance CEO’s in 2007. This total compensation includes salaries, bonuses, benefits, etc. equating to $118.6 million, a mere .005% of the total U.S. health care expenditure of $2.2 Trillion. Yet Grayson still believes Medicare is the answer.

However, Medicare itself is hardly without payment control issues; in June 2009, Lori Robertson and Justin Bank of FactCheck.org pointed out, “The Government Accountability Office reported that in 2008 half of improper payments made by the federal government came from Medicare and Medicaid. The Medicare fee-for-service program had an estimated $10.4 billion in improper payments, plus Medicare Advantage doled out $6.8 billion that it shouldn’t have. Medicaid’s improper payments totaled $18.6 billion for the year. Those figures surpass the profits reaped by insurance companies and the pay their CEOs took home.”

Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, stated that the Obama administration’s cost-control proposals do not “reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.” Combining the improper Medicare payments with opening Medicare enrollment to all Americans will result in exponentially compounding our country’s deficit and deepening our current economic peril, extending the recession, limiting job creation and growth, and bankrupting the Social Security system within the next ten years according to the CBO.

Federal spending is out of control. Members of Congress who continue to “spend the country into prosperity” are quickly spending us into adversity; they must be removed, and replaced with fiscally responsible legislators. This issue inspired Patricia Sullivan to organize a local TEA Party in March of 2009 and now to run for Congress in the eighth Congressional District of Florida.

They must be stopped in Florida's District 8 and across America. Time for a change of carreer for Mr. Grayson.

I just read a column in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune titled, "GOP happily on the sidelines of tax fight". The title of the article struck me because I thought the GOP was against higher taxes. In the column the Chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota (RPOS) states, "I’m glad we stayed out of it.”

Well not only did the local GOP stay out of it, the four Republican members of the School Board were either openly for this tax or silent in opposing it. At least
Shirley Brown, the lone Democrat on the School Board, was true to her convictions and more than happy to raise taxes on Sarasota County residents and said so.

The Republican Party of Sarasota is not the party of less government, lower taxes and more liberty. This referendum proves it.

As pointed out in the SH-T column, "It almost didn’t work out. In January a group of anti-tax Republicans made a motion for the county Republican Executive Committee to formally oppose the tax. The measure passed with over 66 percent of the vote, but because there were not enough Republicans in the room that night, the motion failed on a technicality."

Does this sound familiar? You know the healthcare bill being voted on in Congress this Sunday. Over 66% of Americans are against the healthcare bill but the party in power is pushing it through anyway by any means. Does this not reflect why Americans are fed up with both parties? The local GOP is no different than those pushing for more government, higher taxes and less liberty at the national level. Again, this referendum proves it.

At the local level you had the opposition consisting of a few people with less than $1,000 against the Republican controlled School Board, School District administration, Sarasota Classified Teachers Association (the union), and most of the local business organizations, even the supposedly conservative Argus Foundation. They had tens of thousands of dollars, used the Districts children, e-mail system and Connect-ED robo call system to pass out pro-referendum flyers and make GOTV robo calls.

Why would anyone be amazed at the margin? With 5,200 union members and their families voting yes, with 41,000 students parents voting "yes" that easily adds up to 45,000 votes. Consider this was a special election with only 18% of those registered in Sarasota County voting, what other result could be expected?

With the Republican Party of Sarasota sitting on the sidelines it was bound to pass.

This was not a just vote for more taxes it was a deliberate, well organized and planned campaign by members of both parties to set up a win. The Democrats by commission and the Republicans by omission.

Never did the RPOS address some of the questionable election tactics used by the Republican controlled School Board. Never did the RPOS ask why the Republican Supervisor of Elections did not audit this election as required by a referendum passed by the people. Never did the RPOS question the size of this government entity, the largest employer in Sarasota County with a salary schedule that exceeds the private sector's by up to 50%.

Silence means affirmation.

Clearly this is the more government, higher taxes, and less liberty Republican Party of Sarasota. If the party leaders are happy they stayed out of this vote then they are in the wrong party.

This tax was a referendum on the Republican Party of Sarasota. When it passed they failed as a party.

Readings: 

The Masscare Massacre - The American Spectator

Health Care Debate Or Proxy Fight Over Government's Rightful Role? - Investors Business Daily

Fed Forced Felon Voting: Another Leftist Assault On The Constitution - The Heritage Foundation

Obama Team Takes Heat Over Unemployment - The Washington Times

Allies Everywhere Feeling Snubbed By President Obama - The Washington Post

Rectal - Cranial Inversion - Neal Boortz, Nealz Nuze

What Ailes Raines - Investor's Business Daily

Videos of the Day:

Video #1:

Video #2:

Cartoon of the Day:

FAU PROFESSOR AND BOCA MOSQUE DIRECTOR, BASSEM ALHALABI, SUBJECT TO ARREST

(Tallahassee, FL) A warrant has been filed for Bassem Abdo Alhalabi, the individual who attacked Americans Against Hate (AAH) Chairman Joe Kaufman and another individual earlier this month, during Muslim Capitol Day in Tallahassee, Florida.

Alhalabi, an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and a director of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR), was charged with one count of battery.

According to an official from the Leon County State Attorney’s office, Alhalabi needs to turn himself in or he is subject to arrest.

On March 11, 2010, Alhalabi grabbed Kaufman’s arm in the Rotunda (lobby) of the Florida State Capitol Building. The incident was caught on camera.

Alhalabi was in Tallahassee as a member of United Voices for America (UVA), a political front for the Hamas-related Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). UVA’s event was titled ‘Muslim Capitol Day.’

The other attack perpetrated by Alhalabi, which happened about an hour after the assault on Kaufman, is still pending. During that attack, Alhalabi violently grabbed the video camera of cameraman Mark Campbell.

Prior to these incidents, Alhalabi, in June 2003, was found guilty of illegally exporting a $13,000 military-grade thermal imaging device to Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism.

Additionally, when Alhalabi applied for a position at FAU, he used convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian as a reference.

Joe Kaufman is available for interview. E-mail: info@americansagainsthate.org.