Since I created NewsOverCoffee a lot of people have visited and a normal day has about 150 unique visitors on the site. When I was planning the site I had some goals for monthly unique visitors based on how many people live in the Nazareth area and how many of those would constitute a potential audience. I've hit those goals and am very happy about it.
I'm also pleased with the way people have taken to the site and protected it from devolving into a name-calling, flaming environment. That has probably been the best part of this. It demonstrates that there are a lot of people who care about what is happening and are genuinely interested in improving this community. It also shows that you can allow anonymous comments and be constructive, something corporate backed sites struggle with.
So all these good things, and yet officials don't want to acknowledge they read this site by name.
It is okay to say NewsOverCoffee.
Now I can't confirm that School Board President Don Keller was referring to this site, but I'm willing to bet a cup of coffee he was, when he said in the Express-Times article by JD Malone today (read it here), "And from what I have been reading on blogs and in chat rooms, the public is about fed up with it."
Go ahead, say NewsOverCoffee, it won't get you in trouble, and it is not a dirty word;-)
Thanks to everyone for making this site possible. Happy Holidays and best wishes to everyone for a wonderful holiday season and an even better (and please less controversial) 2007!
23 comments:
I too, have been reading the lack of contract etc on various sites. I find Mr. Keller's remark that was quoted in the ExpressTimes as referring to the public being fed up more in line as a personnal gain for him in this sad state of affairs for all. However, if you have read all the blogs,comments, editorials, etc that is not so the case. Some of the writers are fed up with the board president, nasd board, and nasd admin along with union.
I find comments like such when you are in the position such as school board president, only encourage and created more reasons for the community to feel that they too should side with either a teachers union or nasd school board. This just adds negativity and takes away any from any positive outcome that could be reached. So lets not shoot from the hip here. Our children are educated in Nazareth Area School District by the decisions of the school board and with teachers and staff providing the education. So in all fairness, do not purposely add extra weight to any one group while trying to balance the scale.
Anon 11:50
It seems that all the negative comments, editorials, blogs, etc., aimed at the school board are chiefly by teachers and mothers. I do not recall reading anything by Joe/Jane Taxpayer (without children in the school district) regarding their unhappiness with the school board in regards to the contract talks. By far and away, it seems the taxpaying general public is fed up with the union demands.
Remember, the school board is elected by the taxpayers to make the best decisions for the students while maintaining fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers. The union is paid to merely represent the best interest of the teachers with no regard to the financial impact to the community.
Sorry, didn't mean to support his statement as being accurate, there have been comments with people fed up from different positions, but only to say it's okay to use the name NewsOverCoffee instead of blog or chat room;-)
An open letter to Captain Keller
(or whatever your ridiculous license plate says) ...
I think you are right when you say that the public thinks that the base offer in salary and health care to the teachers is fair. However to say that the public is 100% behinf the board is misleading and self serving.
I think the message the teachers are sending, however, is that is not fair to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on building facades, colonial architecture, and creating unnecessary administrative positions that are never posted. I think they are also saying that they are sick of being force fed DDs drivel 4x a month at her snooze fest meetings.
You should have let JS go to BASD a few years back instead of making backroom deals to get her to stay. The district would have been much better off with a B&G person with a contractor background than overpaying an administrator who is redundant and unqualified.
Now I don;t think it is equitable that just because the board and administrators are being pigs that the teachers should be pigs as well. Two wrongs don't make a right. However, you can;t have fiscal irresponsibility on one side and not expect the teachers to want theirs, too.
Now I am pretty sure you are on hiatus from your civil war reenactments because I don't believe they take place in the winter. Perhaps you can use this time to get back to the negotiating table unless you are too busy shining your belt buckles and cowboy boots.
This is the buffoon who is leading the school board? Don "I love the West and I love John Wayne" Keller? God help us.
There's no time to mend a broken vertebrae when you're the leader of 10 men making a three-week journey on horseback in the Midwest.
Gen. George Custer likely would have ignored the pain 130 years ago when he led his troops to the Battle of Little Bighorn.
And that's exactly what Upper Nazareth Township resident Don Keller did.
Keller spent 23 days in June riding the 440 miles from Fort Abraham Lincoln near Mandan, N.D., to the battlefield in Hardin, Mont., where Custer fought for the last time. Keller rode the whole trip with a broken vertebrae and didn't even know it.
'I figured it was a bruise,' Keller, 52, said with a laugh. He injured himself while showing the men how not to ride a horse before they set off on their journey to commemorate the 130th anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Planning for the trip started two years ago. Keller and the others decided where they would camp and feed and water the horses. As they rode through North Dakota and Montana, people stopped to clap, gave the men drinks and food and some even sang and danced for them.
'People were absolutely hospitable,' Keller said. He took time off from his Nazareth engineering firm and the Nazareth Area School Board to make the trip.
Taking one look at his John Wayne-influenced basement, it's clear Keller made the right vacation decision.
'I started doing this with my son,' Keller said of visiting the West and the battlefield. 'We like going to Montana. I love the West and I love John Wayne.'
His son didn't make the trip with him this year. Instead, Keller went with men with whom he's done re-enactments before.
'I never belonged to a fraternity,' Keller said. 'This is like a fraternity. These guys are my brothers.'
Keller was the youngest on the trip and he said the men started to get bored riding for three weeks. He said they tried to imagine what it was like to be a soldier at that time, but when that didn't work, they thought of other things to pass the time.
'One day we sang show tunes,' Keller said.
But when they got to the battlefield it was worth the trip, he said. The men were allowed to ride their horses onto the battlefield, which is very rare, Keller said.
'It's like going into the White House and being told it's OK to go into the Oval Office,' he said.
Ken Woody, chief of interpretation for the National Park Service of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, said men come every year to be a part of re-enactments near the battlefield, but it's rare for them to ride 440 miles on horseback to do it.
'They all shook my hand as they went by,' Woody said. 'It was pretty neat.'
Woody said visiting the battlefield is a significant experience for many people.
'It just touches people's emotions. It's hard to explain why,' he said.
For Keller, it was about being in the place where a great military leader died.
Custer was a 'brilliant strategist (who) just screwed up one time,' Keller said.
Close to 5,000 people participated in the re-enactment or visited the park this year, said Dorothy Stenerson of the Hardin Area Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture. She said the re-enactments don't take place on the battlefield.
'Every one of us felt lucky we could do something like this,' Keller said. 'It was a fantastic experience to relive this.'
Anon 5:35
WHAT IS YOUR POINT IN THE LAST POST?
Are you calling someone a buffoon because of their choice of vacation? Are you saying that someone who participates in historical re-enactments is not qualified for the school board? Or are you using this site make fun of an individual you personally do not like?
As said in previous posts throughout this site-- let's be adults, stick to the issues and use the site to share ideas and better our community, not shoot each other down unecessarily.
To Anon 5:33 and 5:35
You both display the open minded-ness that some Nazareth residents are so well known for.
I prefer to avoid personal attacks because that is not what this site is about. Here, I will make an exception though.
The comments coming from both of you (if you are not the same person) are ignorant and cast a poor reflection on yourselves and the community. These are nothing more than personal attacks. Where are your suggestions? Where are you making a point?
The only point you made was that you think that people that do historical re-enactments are buffoons. I personally know quite a few individuals (both in the North and South) that take extreme pride in doing these. I would love to introduce you to them so you can tell THEM what buffoons they are.
These people are keeping our nations history alive for the current and future generations.
So, even though you cannot be stopped from posting, put a little thought into it, offer some contructive criticism or advice, but leave the personal attacks at the door.
It always amazes me what grabs people's attention.
This was intended to be light-hearted and fun - call it newsovercoffee not a blog, I didn't mean to validate his comment, but yes people are frustrated.
They are not all frustrated in the same way.
As the other individual noted (and as I commended people for in the original) this is not a place to name call or attack an individual. If you don't like their actions in public, that is fine and worth discussion.
Name calling has no place and does your argument no good.
Get on the board for the budget, get on them for the negotiations, get on them for forcibly taking land from residents at low prices, get on them for any number of issues, but don't flame and name call.
And don't forget - the holidays are here, get in the spirit!
Best wishes and happy holidays, Ross
Side note, I did email Mr. Keller directly and invoked the NOC site as a good place to gauge public sentiment, the microcosm of our society that it is.
I am not afraid to use the "N" word, when it refers to NOC.
Cheers and have a great holidy.
As far as fiduiciary, one must please question all the district spending, wasted and not wasted., justified and not justified. As far as school board members, we do vote members in but who exactly votes for the president of the school board out of those selected. I do not recall when voting anything was adding on as title of president of school board.
How do we vote them out?
Dictionary: ne-go-ti-ate 1. to treat or bargain with others
D. Keller, school board president: reaching an agreement is "entirely up to the teachers."
Maybe our school board needs a dictionary (surely it is in the budget)
Could someone ask Mr. Keller to sing some show tunes at the next school board meeting. Sounds like his little Montana adventure was straight outta Brokeback Mountain.
Ha! It even said he had a broken vertebrae. I guess it was a "broke back" mountain adventure.
Too funny!
To Anon 10:10
It takes two to tango. The District made and offer, and even accepted increased amounts based on the fact finders report. In other words, they changed and accepted some items that were more than they originally offered.
The NAEA has not budged from the original demands.
I get the feeling that the NAEA dictionary has the definition of negotiate as give us what we want and we won't punish your children by going on strike.
I love how people are now jumping on Keller's personal life. I have to ask those of you jumping on the band wagon, have any of you ever been outside of the Nazareth area? Have you ever voted in the elections?
My guess is no on both counts.
Offer something real. Offer some suggestions. Otherwise, all you are succeeding at is making yourself look like a petty fool.
In reading the article in the paper, my first thought about our School Board President was, "gee, how unprofessional." In regards to gauging public sentiment by blogs and chat rooms, I think one has to be a bit careful here. Generally, your bloggers and posters tend to be people who are unhappy with a situation. Just look on this site-How many of Ross' feel good posts have any comments?
Anon 10:04 - the Board votes for their own officers, it was done at the last meeting as I recall for 2007.
Anon 10:10 - Not certain, but it does seem that the teachers have not budged and made this a case of give us everything we want or we're going on strike. I think this is what he was referring to.
Finally, as I mentioned before it is always interesting which posts draw the comments. Some I think will get nothing and then ones like this that I expect nothing get bunches.
This forum is a place to discuss, because you can't do it in the public meetings at this level of discourse. No you can't say everyone feels a certain way based on what is here, but you can see the variety of opinions and that is important.
not only unprofessional as the last post stated but loaded--why would a school board president further antagonize a situation with such public statements as he did in the express article?-- especially on the heels of a negotiation-which is today-lets hope he can step back and let some of the other more diplomatic board members (and there are some) take the helm-oh but he is the chief negotiator-yikes more of the same I suspect-but maybe our christmas miracle will come early and our kids education be uninterrupted---as for the personal attacks a few bloggers need to grow up and quiet down
To Anon 7:23
Yes, there are not a lot of replies to the "feel good" posts.
Yes, there tend to be a lot of posts on those items that have a direct effect on the local population.
However, IF you actually read through ALL the comments posted, you will find very little in the way of personal attacks, and more important, you will usually find both sides of the argument being presented, and usually with an clear rationale behind their positions.
In that sense, yes, this site does provide at least some reflection of our area as a whole.
Personal attacks only work to weaken your argument and really only make you look foolish and petty. Look at the "high esteem" in which Mr. Blunt (the NAEA spokesperson) is held by both the public and (based on comments on this site) the teachers themselves.
Stick with the facts, present them in a logical fashion, and your argument will be heard. Attack for not other reason than to attack, and most of us will just laugh (at you in this case).
I agree this is a great site to find out what is going on in the community. I hope that for the sake of our children the teachers accept the contract that is presented to them . I believe they don't want to strike but at the same time I think they would like to prove a point . I really don't want to take sides but the teachers of this community should realize they have a secure position and should not jeapordize it in anyway.
Happy Holiday to all.
"DD" "JS" WHO are we talking about here??? And "Captain Keller"? This website is sinking fast. If you can't be more to the point and factual and respectful -----KEEP QUIET.
Anon 10:51PM-
I disagree that 'this website is sinking fast'. Several of us here engage in well thought, rationale dialogue which is quite an achievement given the magnitude of issues in and around Nazareth currently.
There is enough information in those posts to derive who DD and JS are. I have been scolded for personal attacks so I used initials and reference. If you can't figure it out then you are not paying attention.
Oh and Captain Keller (or something like that) is what our illustrious school board president refers to HIMSELF on his license plate. I am not calling him a name other than one he has given himself.
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