At 9:55 Tuesday evening in Council Chambers, I was closely watching School Board President Scott Zeidman and his putative successor Karlo Silbiger.
Their heavy-beating minds were racing in opposite directions.
The Board’s one-night-a-month rental of City Hall calls for them to douse the lights by 10 or pay a penalty. Passionate people practically had lined up around the corner to forcefully speak for and against approval of the leadfooted four capital improvements projects that have been lying around for years.
“Hurry up, 10 o’clock,” Mr. Silbiger was coaxing.
“Whoa,” Mr. Zeidman was telegraphing to the clock hands. Old friends the Chabolas still had to speak, and both are comfortable shmoozers.
One Side’s Motivation
Mr. Zeidman, unexpectedly leaving the Board in a few days, was grimly, grittily determined to squeeze the capital improvements vote in, no matter the hour, because his watch, momentarily be over. After all of the perspiration he has ploughed into this timebomb, he wanted his edition of the Board to be credited with shoving it over the finish line, displaying more vision and courage than all previous Boards.
Mr. Silbiger’s notions of leadership, philosophy and outlook are as drastically different from Mr. Zeidman’s as the two-decade difference in their ages.
Metaphorically at least, Mr. Silbiger was yawning, rubbing his eyes, tugging on his ear, summoning the longest, strongest well-worn arguments he could mount for stalling and warding off a vote.
He Wins, Too
Like his father before him, Mr. Silbiger often is prepared to pose a storehouse full of questions when it is his turn to speak on the dais.
He complained several that there was too much inspecificity in the financial estimates for each of the four projects, but especially with the proposed solar panels.
We who believe discussions of global climate warnings change belongs under a Ringling Bros. & Sis. tent rather than in a sober forum, winced at the mere utterance of solar panels. This makes the apostles of The World Is Bound to End Tomorrow angry instead of determined to mount a serious argument. The Left loves to get mad and hates to debate reasonable people because their purse is hollow. This crowd’s favorite actor must be Kevin Spacey.
Resorting, typically, to hyperbole, they quit calling us skeptics a few years ago because that was too civilized. They prefer “deniers,” hoping to lump us in with the rabble who are Holocaust deniers.
I read somewhere in the literature leading up to Tuesday night’s meeting that the District is going to save $7 million to $9 million by installing solar panels. Why not claim $160 million? They love pitching fat numbers that only impress themselves and rubes. There is, of course, no verifiable data. No one ever has used solar panels long enough to save this fairy tale total. Mother Goose authors are writing the screenplays for these dreamers. I don’t want claims. Please, just a tad of evidence.
When Michael Moore and Al Gore, two thirds of the Left’s Three Stooges, are your drum majors, what would you expect?
The athletic complex commitment, the Robert Frost Auditorium and the elevators are tangible and demonstrable. Solar panels? The hardest evidence is made of cloud dust. Otherwise, so much of the normal world would not be comprised of skeptics or deniers.
Happily, Tuesday night ended well for both Mr. Zeidman, who passed the capital improvements package, with price tags attached to each of the four plans.
Mr. Silbiger also won, a battle if not the war, by gaining a commitment (that looks soft and arcane) to add $1.5 million (from unknown sources) to add to the $2.3 million that the School District has promised to put up for solar panels.
Frankly, I am relieved the nebulous $1.5 million is going for solar panels rather than my next car payment. I probably would lose my car.
