Scott Stringer: Suspend Parent Elections

The undermining of the democratic process by the Walcott NYCDOE hasn't gone unnoticed in political circles:

The city's local parent elections are so botched that the Department of Education should suspend them, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said.

Stringer wrote a letter to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott saying he's heard numerous complaints from parents who tried to run, or vote, for the community education councils.

"How do you drop candidates from the ballot?" he asked. "How do tell people they are not eligible to run when in fact they are? How do you put out a voter guide and the candidates are missing from the guide?"
There are 32 community education councils for the local districts and four that represent citywide parents of children in high school, special needs and English Language Learners.
Jaye Bea Smalley, co-chair of the citywide council on special education, is running for re-election and logged-in to vote online Sunday but saw she wasn't even on the ballot. When she called the Department of Education, she said she was (incorrectly) told she wasn't eligible to vote because she has a daughter in pre-K. Smalley also has two older children with special needs, which is how she was originally elected to the council on special education a year ago.

"If I was running for Congress, a major public office, this would just absolutely be such a scandal and it would be halted," she said. "This is a statutory office governed by law. ... It is really no different."

Ah, but it IS different.

You see, this is Mayor Bloomberg's New York.

It is NOT a democracy.

It is an oligarchy.

If Mayor Bloomberg decides this is the way these elections will run and that certain parents are NOT eligible to either run or vote (you know, the ones who don't support his school policies), well, then that is just how it is.

The nice thing about the botching of these community education councils is that Bloomberg and the DOE never listen to anything anybody ever says on them anyway.

So it doesn't matter if some people weren't able to vote and others got to vote twice.

At the end of the day, the only vote that REALLY matter is the VOTE OF ONE - and that would be owned by the Mayor of Money himself, Michael Bloomberg.