Sorry for the delay, it's the Christmas season and solar power plants and school boards are low on my priority list. Anyway, some interesting info to report. December 5th's meeting of the Northampton Area School Board was another exercise in really bad government. Talk about a freak show experience, this is like a side-show carnival. One wonders how most of the board members were ever elected to a position of trust and authority. A couple striking things were evident during this meeting. First, school board member Jane Erdo exudes a contempt for the public I have never seen in a politician before. Not only is she disrespectful and rude, she is a downright confrontational and attacks the public. All during the meeting, as in previous meetings, she threatens the entire audience with shutting down their right to speak. When they do speak, she is combative, nasty and childish. I have rarely seen such an ugly personality, but having one administering what they think is best, to our students, is down right scary.
During the meeting, Erdo complained about people mentioning the solar power plant project. She stated it's a done deal and a closed issue. At the public comment period, at the end of the meeting, she decided to hide in the bathroom like a spoiled child holding their ears. When she finally emerged, it was just in time to rudely belittle a 13 year old student who had just lost her mother. To think that someone like this, holds your children's education in their hands, is disturbing. Further, to see an elected official who doesn't want to hear from the people, who she is representing, begs the question, what is her agenda?
Secondly, the other school board members seem terrified of her and she appears to run the whole meeting, pulling the puppet string of the board president Dave Gogel, who appears to be a ventriloquist dummy sitting on her lap. I would have to say, she exercises more power than he does, oft times admonishing him as to what to do.
One small bright spot in the meeting was school board member Darin Arthofer, who dared to question the intent of the contract for the solar power plant. He was immediately jumped upon by Erdo who turned her full hormone raged fury against him. To his credit, he did not back down under her onslaught and has asked for documents pertaining to this issue, which Gogel and the superintendent said he will receive. Erdo suggested the discussion of this go on in "executive session", which means -behind closed doors, like everything else the board does. I guess she doesn't want the rabble to see them squabbling, but perhaps the hold she has over them is breaking.
Another gem that was gleaned from the meeting was the fact that the school board solicitor and the board members stated they did not know who Eric Abeshaus was. No wonder he never had a background check. If only they had read the contract they signed, they would see, on page 29, it was signed between school board president David Gogel and Eric Abeshaus, CEO of the shell company "Energy Alliance Group (Northampton) LLC" on June 17th. Funny they never looked into the company that was started less than a month earlier and has the same address and phone number of the electrical company reaping the rewards of this project- MetroTek. So, are they just really incompetent and are they not telling the truth? Abeshaus was seen exiting a board room with the school board members, the superintendent and Reiner Jaeckle a few minutes before the start of the Nov 8th School board meeting, but vanished before the meeting started, most likely not wanting to be seen by the media.
At the conclusion we learned Metrotek is redesigning the plans for the solar power plant and the board has promised to review them first and then open them up to the public for comment before they go any further. I wonder if they will stick to their word..........to be continued.
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