Local: Debbie Wolfmeyer is useless (UPDATED)

If you thought Linda Butler’s hemming and hawing was infuriating, get a load of this letter that board member Debbie Wolfmeyer sent to Diane Vespa (by way of C.J. Summers):

Mrs. Vespa - I must respectfully decline your invitation to meet with you. It is not my role as a Board member to meet with individuals or groups. None of us as an individual Board member has any authority. Our authority comes as we work as a body. Also, I am not an educator. Therefore, it is important that any ideas, solutions, etc that are presented go through the administration so that they can assess them and report to us. Now I will say that I ask a lot of questions about anything that is presented to us; more questions probably than the administration would like to answer. And I don’t stop asking questions until I am satisfied that I have all the information I need to make a decision. That is what I have done on the current issue. I have asked every question that has been presented to me. That information helped form my decision. If you have any new information you would like presented to the administration, I would be happy to forward it. I respect everyone’s right to their opinion and their right to voice that opinion. Thank you for the obvious time and passion you have for our District.

Debbie Wolfmeyer
District #150 School Board

Wolfmeyer is an elected official. She’s on the school board to represent the interests of the voters to the administration. She’s supposed to provide oversight and set policy. In other words, she supposed to be one of the people in charge. And she thinks she can do her job hearing ONLY what the administration has to say.

If she isn’t going to listen to parents and voters, then her presence on the school board is of absolutely no use to anyone who voted for her.
She needs to resign. But she won’t, of course. So we have to wait until 2011 to vote her off the board. And if THAT isn’t reason enough to change how the board gets elected, nothing is.

And I continue to be amazed that a city that places such a premium on the democratic process in city government just shrugs its collective shoulders at the autocratic antics of Peoria School District 150.

Go comment over at C.J.’s site because he broke the story.

UPDATED: I stand correction. The adminsitration is beign run by people with doctorates, so they can’t be wrong; bloggers are just haters; and teachers love the new primary school schedule. Thus speaketh the Peoria Anti-Pundit, who apparently lives on Bizarro World.

And C.J.’s post collected 20 comments in a matter of an hour or two.