The economy today is a mess.Individuals as well as businesses from all corners of the country are feeling the pain of the weak market.Cooperate giants and small business owners are suffering but so are government-run agencies.And that includes schools.
Florida school boards are scheduled to submit balanced budgets in July that will reflect the $2.3 billion in legislative cuts to education. Before the 2008/2009 school year even began the Hillsborough County School Board shot themselves in the foot when they re-vamped the transportation system.They took away the courtesy bus for students who live within the 2 mile radius of the school, and they decreased the amount of bus stops.All of this, just to save money.But it caused more problems than was worth.
Also with less money and less staff, School programs are cut. “Summer school programs, extracurricular activities like art and music, and seven period school days will be gone, said Senate Democratic Leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach.Kids are going to be taught less which once again is bad for all.But Hillsborough County is one area in Florida that is trying to cut other costs instead of teachers.Hillsborough County Public Schools just hired 200 new teachers, according to spokeswoman Linda Cobbe. “We are not cutting any teachers. We will make sure that we don’t affect children and the classroom.There may be positions we don’t fill and we are looking at other cost-cutting measures.”
I have been following Hillsborough county schools since August to see how well the local government can respond to problems and what they do to prevent them from happening.
It all started on Monday August 18, 2008.That was the day they Hillsborough County schools began for the 2008/2009 school year.Actually, the problem started before then…About 2000 calls came in even before the school year started from parents that had a problem with the boards new plan for transportation.They thought they would save time and money by cutting bus stops.There are a few problems with that, one safety of course, and two, many parents and school kids did not know about the route changes.A St. Petersburg Time’s article headlined the morning after this plan was put to the real test “School Starts Smoothly,” but I could not help but wonder how that was even printed.So there were no real problems, if you consider thousands of kids not being able to get to school acceptable.The article quotes “Hillsborough schools had a hectic but mostly trouble-free start of the school year Monday, despite widespread confusion over bus route changes.”I think widespread confusion is actually a problem.
But problems are typical when many people are involved, and it is the local government’s job to attack each road bump as they come along.So how did the Hillsborough County School Board do?
Well a week after the “hectic” start and some bad weather (schools were closed for a day because if Hurricane Fay) the school district said that calls about the bus problems were beginning to “taper off.”But what they mean by that is in just three days they received 1200 calls about the transportation issues.While it is less, it is still unacceptable.
Ironically, days later in August 28th, Jack Davis, the administrator in charge if Hillsborough County School’s transportation department, decided to retire.The school board said it was because of his health and had nothing to do with the transportation mess.Vice Chairwoman Carol Kurdell said “Physically he just couldn’t keep going.” Another board member, Susan Valdes seemed to counter that argument when in response she said “I’ve noticed a trend when they retire all of a sudden.”She called the problem “a fiasco” and she thought it was because of poor planning.
Parents have major concerns when it comes to the safety of their kids.June Leland and Kathy Walsh do not understand why their 16-year-old daughters have to walk more than 2 miles to get to their bus stop.They voiced their concerns to Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia at a meeting at Coleman Middle School.The moms say it is not safe and the only choice they have is to drive their girls to the bus stop.Elia’s response was that parents actually voted 2 years prior on the current location.Mudra Kumar told her that the focus should be on the kids and that she does not recall a single meeting.The problem, lack of communications once again.But at this time, September 10th, the calls are down to 600.So they are making some progress, but how long until the number is a single digit?
Days later Elia was grilled at a Town Hall meeting for an array of things, but the hot topic was again the school bus stops.More than a dozen parents stood up to the microphone to voice their dismay in front of the 200 parents and school administrators in attendance.Elia publicly apologized for the lack of communications, but also referred most of the complaints to the transportation manager.She also informed the concerned parents that the board has investigated about 200 bus stops that were cause for complaint and 80 of them have already been changed.This is the first good step I have seen from the Hillsborough School Board in regards to this issue.Elia finally took some responsibility for the problem, let the people speak, actually listened and informed them of what she is doing and what she will continue to do to fix it.Parents in attendance noticed this as well, Luis Padilla spoke about how his 11-year-old autistic son was put on a bus that was late and he was dropped off without a parent waiting.Padilla was unable to contact anyone at the district.After this meeting he did say “I like the fact that I was able to talk to somebody, hopefully everything will work out.”
So with the government moving in the right direction, they can start to work out the problems.On October 27, 2008 the school board had a workshop on transportation.The changes that are planned for next year are;
1.A website that would allow parents to view their bus stops before the 2009-2010 school year begins.
2.A new system to handle parent phone calls that would emphasize returned phone calls rather than placing callers on hold
3.Having drivers practice proposed routes before the first day of school
4.An incentive plan to encourage bus driver attendance
5.Adjusting bell times at some schools by adding or subtracting minutes to give buses more time to get to school.
In all when it came to problems, the School Board of Hillsborough County encountered a giant, but Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia and her staff met the problem face on after taking fault and moving forward.
Mark Sharpe has been the district seven Hillsborough County Commissioner since 2004.Prior to that, in the 1990’s Republican candidate Sharpe ran three races for Congress but lost them all.Also before obtaining a seat in the Hillsborough County Commission he served eight years as an active duty officer in the United States Navy as well as twelve years in the U.S. Naval Reserve.He was also a development officer for a private school as a government relations consultant.
Mr. Sharpe is a native of the Tampa Bay area, although he did make a shot trip to the states capitol in Tallahassee to attend Florida State University where he got his bachelor’s degree in multinational business; but he did return.He continued his educational endeavor to get a masters degree in strategic studies at the University of South Florida.He was born on January 26, 1960.Sharpe is married to Stephanie Ann (formerly known as Stephanie Ann Jennings) Sharpe and they have three children.Mark and Stephanie were both previously married and divorced.They got married to each other on June 23, 1998 by Reverand Charles W. DeArmon.Stephanie was born on April 4, 1969.
Mark Sharpe currently resides in a single family house in Grey Gables at 113 South Glen Avenue in Tampa.The assessed value of his home is $226,543, the exempt amount is $50,000 and the taxable value is $176,543.Sharpe pays $3,958.63 in property taxes annually, but has not yet paid for this year.In 2001 the assessed value of the same house was only $86,371 and he only paid $1,549.23 in property taxes.He and his wife took out a mortgage for this property in June of 2002.They borrowed $210,000. Then on November 17, 2006 they modified their Washington Mutual Home Equity line of credit by increasing it by $75,000. In January of 2007 Sharpe used Dreby Construction Inc to add a pool house onto his home.their Washington Mutual Home Equity line of credit by increasing it by $75,000.
Sharpe is only one of seven County Commissioners for Hillsborough County.Four of them were selected from single member districts and three, including Sharpe were elected county wide, or at large.So what exactly does a county commissioner do?Well, the Board approves the county’s operating and capital budgets and the county’s capital improvement program.According to the Hillsborough County website, “Under a Charter Ordinance that went into effect May 1985, County Commissioners are directed to perform legislative functions of government by developing policy for the management of Hillsborough County.”But the Board also has other responsibilities; they also serve as the Environmental Protection Commission and individual members also serve on other boards.Sharpe is also a Board member of The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, is the Vice Chairman of Tampa Bay Water, sits on the Children’s Board, and is a Board member for the Metropolitan Planning Organization.Sharpe has two Commissioner Aides, Sandy Chan and Eric Larson. They work in the County Building at 601 East Kennedy Boulevard on the second floor and his office phone number is (813)272-5740.
Sharpe is an upstanding citizen as one would expect with this Naval background.He has never been arrested in Hillsborough County and his driving record is squeaky clean, not even a traffic citation.
According to a October Tampa Tribune article, when he was up for re-election in 2006, Sharpe said his top issues during a second term include transportation, economic development, and building a new emergency operations center shared by the city, county and other agencies.In the same article former commissioner Joe Chillura criticized Sharpe for behaving more like an administrator than a board member because he focused more on issues that were not as attention grabbing like other commissioners did.Others focused on issues like banning gay pride recognition or building sports parks while Sharpe overhauled the county’s health care plan while serving as chairman of a 2005 taskforce.Chillura also said “He needs to get involved in more issues that are exciting to the hearts and minds of the public.”But he also said that Sharpe has “the will and determination to slay giants, I’d like to see him get a little more passionate about the things he believes.”
In 2006, Sharpe began making regular visits to Hillsborough schools to meet with student and teachers, he even made an appearance at his Alma Mata, USF.He was quoted as saying he loves to teach and thinks he will “return to the classroom when he is done with politics.”
Sharpe can also be linked with the Rail chatter.He used to be a skeptic of mass transit but later realized the importance of mass transit’s role in sustaining a thriving economy. Sharpe partook in an interview with WMNF 88.5 FM Radio host Mitch Perry in April 2008 about his thought transformation when it came to light rails.Before he supported Rails he thought the solution was actually more toll roads.Perry said “Mark Sharpe’s conservative pro-rail message is a local breath of prominence that outdoes, dare I suggest it, the early work of Ed Turanchik [“he laid out ambitious plans for a city neighborhood; he famously failed with the Civitas project, which was intended to transform downtown's public housing projects through the "new urbanism.” –Creative Loafing]Just a few weeks ago, on November 16, 2008 Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio spoke about bringing better mass transit including rail to Tampa.While mass transit sounds like a lovely idea to many citizens of the Bay Area, it f course means more taxes, but Iorio is still hoping to see this measure on the ballot in 2010.This fight has been fought before but was shot down by the County Commission which need to approve putting any tax referendum on the ballot.This year, two years after Iorio’s first request, the Commission does have the votes to add the mass transit tax on the next ballot.Sharpe was among those supporting the idea and he even has a countdown to the referendum on his wall at his office.He was quoted in a St. Petersburg Times article as saying he came to believe a better mass transit system that includes rail would not only help people tired of paying high prices for gas, but also would boost efforts to transform the region from a low-wage service economy to a high-wage information economy.
Mark Sharpe is also a big supporter of Senator John McCain.In fact, when McCain held his National Security roundtable in Tampa in January 2008, Mark Sharpe was one of the participants.I guess we know who he voted for in the 2008 Presidential election! (http://www.viddler.com/explore/realvideo/videos/67/)
In all, republican Mark Sharpe seems to be a pretty good politician.He follows his own ideas of trying to do what is best for the people that he represents instead of just following party lines.He has kept his nose pretty clean for the only criticism I found of him was from Mr. Joe Chillura, the former county commissioner who thought Sharpe’s issues were not flamboyant enough.But the citizens of Hillsborough County approve of their District 7 County Commissioner as he has been re-elected twice.
