Dracut Forum

You know, Sheehan is doing his best, but I think everyone is getting tired of this guy’s hiding from talking to anyone. Radio, press, parents.. the only way you get information from the schools is by forcing it via freedom of information act requests.

From this morning’s Lowell Sun:

Dracut School Department lays off 16 teachers

DRACUT- The School Department issued 16 layoff notices to teachers, according to School Committee Chairman Matthew Sheehan. The positions will not be reinstated, while some teachers were planning on retiring at the end of the past school year, Sheehan said. The Sun filed a Freedom of Information Act request yesterday for documentation about teacher layoffs and the School Department’s budget. The School Department recently received about $400,000 less in Chapter 70 state education aid than what was anticipated, said Town Manager Dennis Piendak. Superintendent of Schools Spencer Mullin did not return calls for comment. – Bridget Scrimenti

I get the feeling there will be no support (at least from the public and parents) to renew his contract when it comes up.. and I would bet he probably isn’t interested in doing so anyways.

Tags: Mullin

The latest talk around the campfires this weekend was that the figures from the state that came to the town after the conference committee completed its job and the budget was sent on to the Governor to be signed showed another cut of $600,000 to Chapter 70 school aid.

Town Manager Dennis Piendak notified the school committee once he heard, but it was after they had already authorized Superintendent Spencer Mullin to send out recall notices to many of the teachers who received layoff notices.

The town, they were informed, would absorb $200,000 of the cuts. The schools, however will have to make up the remaining $400,000.

From what I hear, the option is there for the schools to come back to town meeting in the fall to ask for an additional appropriation to make up the difference. On the other hand, others are saying “where would money that come from?” and they should prepare for the additional cuts now so that they are not overwhelming during the second half of the next school year.

Tags: Budget, Schools

We hear that studies in opposition to the global warming crowd are now being suppressed by the EPA.

Emails released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute show that a recent study not only suppressed, but other groups looking to comment on it were instructed not to as well:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a non-profit, free-market public

policy organization, hereby submits these comments on EPA’s Proposed Endangerment

and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the

Clean Air Act.1

A report from C-Net summarizes the situation that clearly shows that the only purpose of the EPA here seem to be to support the Obama and Pelosi policy of massive new taxes to try to manipulate the energy industry while costing the “main street” additional billions of dollars.

Within the EPA this all has to do with giving the EPA control over carbon emissions across the country. For the rest of us, it has to do with more excessive taxation during a recession.

Alan Carlin, the primary author of the 98-page EPA report, said in a telephone interview on Friday that his boss, McGartland, was being pressured himself. “It was his view that he either lost his job or he got me working on something else,” Carlin said. “That was obviously coming from higher levels.”

E-mail messages released this week show that Carlin was ordered not to “have any direct communication” with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed that his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic.

…

Carlin has an undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT. His Web sitelists papers about the environment and public policy dating back to 1964, spanning topics from pollution control to environmentally-responsible energy pricing.

After reviewing the scientific literature that the EPA is relying on, Carlin said, he concluded that it was at least three years out of date and did not reflect the latest research. “My personal view is that there is not currently any reason to regulate (carbon dioxide),” he said. “There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They’re not going up, and if anything they’re going down.”

Tags: EPA, Global Warming, Taxes

From yesterday’s Antique and Classic car show, I took a bunch of pictures.

The event was packed, with people having to park across the street and down by Broadway Convenience to get in. The weather was perfect as well. Great event.

Tags: Classic Cars, Veteran's Park