Broward School Board Members Campaign Together And Other Pix From Early Voting
BY BUDDY NEVINS
If there is any government that needs change, it is the Broward County School Board.
Superintendent Robert Runcie has bungled the $800 million bond program that voters approved two years ago.
Promises to the voters were broken.
Not one of the more than 200 projects has started yet.
Many parents who campaigned for passage of the bonds in 2014 will see their children graduate before benefitting from the program.
“The plan has been plagued by so many blunders, planning errors and employee shakeups that no construction has begun at the more than 200 schools needing repairs,” the Sun-Sentinel’s Scott Travis wrote in a stinging critique of the bond program. The link to the Sun-Sentinel story is here.
Yet voters are being asked to re-elect perhaps Runcie’s stronger supporter. They are being asked to re-elect a Board member who has excused every postponement and every mistake made by Runcie — Rosalind Osgood.
This weekend, Osgood campaigned during early voting with Runcie’s other chief Board mouthpiece Abby Freedman of Parkland. Freeman is a long-time enabler of Runcie’s poor performance.
Osgood and Freedman not only support Runcie blindly. They also wage a battle both at meeting and behind-the-scenes to silence any Runcie critic on the Board. Here is another link from the Coralspringstalk.com.
Abby Freedman campaigns for Rosalind Osgood at West Regional Library, Plantation
There is a candidate running against Osgood who is skeptical of Runcie: Nathalie Lynch-Walsh. Her website is here.
Osgood may very well get re-elected. But will be because of apathy among parents waiting for repairs to their schools, not because Osgood is doing a good job.
Here is an earlier post about Osgood’s distain for parents.
Judicial Candidate Laid Up
Illness couldn’t come at a worst time for Dale Miller, who is running for Broward County Court Group 3. He was laid on in Memorial Regional Medical Center in Hollywood during the final days of the campaign.
Miller posted the following picture on Instagram on Saturday. He did not say when he would return to campaigning or what landed him in the hospital.
Miller is optimistic. He used the hashtag: #stillgoingstrong.
Other candidates in County Court Group 3 are Florence Barner, Adam Geller and Rhoda Sokoloff.
UPDATE: Miller texted Browardbeat.com after the above was posted that he was hospitalized for a strangulated hernia. He said, “I had to have surgery. I’m out, feeling much, much better. Thank you. I’ll be on the campaign trail either tonight or tomorrow (at) the latest.”
Dale Miller (from Instagram)
GOP Activist Campaigning For Wife
David Di Pietro was campaigning this weekend for his wife, County Judge Nina Di Pietro.
Di Pietro is a Republican activist and fund raiser. His wife was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott, who Di Pietro actively supported.
Di Pietro has since broken with Gov. Rick Scott, who removed him from the governing board of Broward Health. Scott accused Di Pietro and another Broward Health board member of interfering with an investigation of wrongdoing at the public hospital system.
On Saturday, David Di Pietro was campaigning at an early voting site with fellow attorney Brian Silber, who helped him sue Scott to block his removal. Di Pietro won his suit at the trial level and then quit Broward Health before an appeal by the state could be heard.
The other candidates in this race are Brenda Di Ioia and Ian Richards.
David Di Pietro (left holding sign) and Brian Silber
August 21st, 2016 at 2:06 pm
Me Nevins,
I have no problem with school board members campaigning for their fellow board members if they live in their district. If any of the board members choose to support the countywide board members it should not be frowned upon because they are infact constituents of that board member. Likewise if a countywide member campaigns for someone in their individual district it should be accepted. However, for a school board member from Parkland who has proved to be nothing but an elitist snob to campaign for the buddy on the board across token in her primarily minority district is laughable. At worst it is collusion. I thought better of Dr Osgood. Glad to learn of this before I cast my vote.
August 22nd, 2016 at 8:18 am
Freedman is totally insensitive to her constituents in Parkland. Totally.
August 22nd, 2016 at 8:22 am
Osgood is constantly proclaiming her religious love for Jesus in public. She wants principals and administrators appointed who “love Jesus.” That should disqualify her from election.
August 22nd, 2016 at 1:30 pm
Someone needs to school Osgood on this great thing called the EEOC and filing against discrimination.
August 22nd, 2016 at 6:34 pm
Was the pic of Dipietro and Silber taken before or after they put DiIoias sign in front of Nina’s and took a pic so they could trash Di Ioia’s integrity on Silber’s FB page? It’s weak and Bush League and standard operating procedure for those 2 losers.
August 22nd, 2016 at 8:25 pm
You cant defeat Dr Rosalind Osgood because she is active in one of the largest Black Churches, she is the contact person for their HUD n housing programs and is allied to Fort Lauderdale Vice Mayor Dean Trantalis who is the defacto leader of the LGBT Community in Ft Lauderdale…
August 23rd, 2016 at 4:13 am
Perhaps if Osgood had to complete a background check, LIKE ALL SCHOOL BOARD EMPLOYEES (except Board Members) ARE MANDATED TO DO, she wouldn’t be a board member in the first place! Board Members should be required to pass a background check, they are overseeing millions of dollars, the students, programs and employees of BCSB, BIG JOB!
August 23rd, 2016 at 9:31 am
I was not surprised by Freedman out helping her pal. I usually see them talking to each other during School Board meetings while public speakers and staff are talking. I feel #1 Observant summed it up perfectly. Maybe they are both worried that Lynch-Walsh will win. That would break up their love for each other and their love for Runcie.
August 23rd, 2016 at 2:20 pm
Why Amazing Karnack is absent from here? Hey Amazing there is rumors in the air that Runcie’s old driver/guard is silently coming back to the School Board building again. Can you verify?
August 23rd, 2016 at 6:12 pm
Everyone, please vote from Robin Bartleman, School Board Member At Large.
One of the very few Board members that is honest, cares for the students and teachers!
August 24th, 2016 at 5:40 pm
Osgood, like Williams before barely lift a finger to help the schools in their district. They spend more time at photo ops and campaigning then actually visiting their schools. I propose that we force School Board members to have their IDs swiped when they visit schools so we can actually keep track of them.
August 26th, 2016 at 4:59 pm
#11 Roger Moore raises a valid point.
candidate Robin Bartleman is campaigning on the fact that she has visited EVERY school in Broward County.
Hard to solve problems and issues if one does not know what they are!
Please vote for Robin Bartleman.
She has earned your vote!
August 28th, 2016 at 9:43 am
Early voting is breaking all records. No kidding Dr. Snipes…The reason is because she is now paying the postage(wait)… She states because of this, the ballots are coming in like she has never seen before. Hold on, she is so full of herself. Number 1, it was former county comm. Stacey Ritter that made the suggestion. Dr.Snipes fought….
August 31st, 2016 at 1:14 pm
Buddy, are you suggesting that Board members shouldn’t support each other’s reelection campaigns? Or, are you suggesting that just Dr. Osgood shouldn’t? You’ve been around long enough to know that it is not unusual for elected colleagues to support each other during campaign season. If you don’t know how common this is (which I don’t believe for a second), then check the Facebook pages for Patti Good and Robin Bartleman and you’ll see they did the same for each other and with hero from other School Board members nor on the ballot. Are you seeking fair and impartial reporting or is this really an anti-Osgood vendetta?
August 31st, 2016 at 4:18 pm
The pathetic low figures in Broward are because intelligent people see a hopeless government that hires term limited public officials for highly paid jobs they have no qualifications for but a spouse with lobbying in a related business… The Public Officials except for the Fort Lauderdale City Commission in Broward County are worthless brainless corrupt clowns
August 31st, 2016 at 8:33 pm
I got my job! That’s all I know…
August 31st, 2016 at 8:34 pm
Me too!
September 1st, 2016 at 11:36 am
For anyone who has viewed the clip of the treatment that Advocate Rhonda Ward and parents received at a school board meeting, it is clear that BCPS has no regard for the disabled.
I still can’t get past the image of the Chair snapping her gum, and presenting herself to the public with that stupid green sorority hat. The fact that the rest of the board sat there passively made us sick. Parents who are able to supplement the McKay are taking their ESE kids elsewhere; particularly in district 4.
For many years, the idea of going private and losing the IEP was scary. It has become increasingly evident that the IEP is a meaningless and subjective document. If you want to cough up for an advocate, you can get just about anything written into the IEP. However, this does not mean that your child is receiving the services. Due process is an internally rigged sham which will not rule in favor of a child unless it is something very extreme that the compliance unit has been unable to” clean up.” The only reason that the ESE Depts. fear due process is because it requires them to do extra work for the preparation and it is a poor reflection on their skills in “managing” parents. Other than that, they are 100% confident that they will not lose.
The only thing that will have any effect on BCPS is to hit them in the wallet. If you can go private, do it. Many of us in District 4 have done so without any regrets.
September 5th, 2016 at 1:25 am
#11 Williams was not at schools. Although I have not figured out how church and LGBT come together for Osgood, she is present at schools in District 5 quite often. Some principals get tired of her, especially at Westpines. She to spend slot of time in pompano which is not her district
#10 Bartleman is the only board member that had been apart of 2 grand jury reports. She is a fake. She cries on and one to everyone. You will see who she really is in a few months. Weakyleaks