Well the last post weighs in at over 4,000 words. This blog is taking on all the baggage of a diary, confessional, tell all, political treatise, memoir and record of a gallant fight by a small devoted band of idealists.
Gallant they may be but they don’t like looking like idiots. As this nightmare proceeded they did not want me to write about it. Now that we’ve succeeded I want the world to know that the keystone cops in this mess are the powerful forces arrayed against us including, sometimes, our own friends. I’d have to include the court bond companies in this. The Montevideo bond brokers were often mystified by what we were doing and had to deal with the much larger forces on both coasts who made them toe the line as well. I gave our broker a big hug just before I left her office yesterday.
I joked with her that our guy in Chicago wanted the extra $30 we were being charged by them for delivering the damned bond to the Court House. Two of the times I talked with him on the phone while he was “vacationing” I interrupted meals. My chuckling over the thirty bucks didn’t exactly put him in a better humor.
Late last night I got a call from Lew Latto, a local radio talking head and luminary. He left a message asking me to call his show after it got into gear at 7AM. I called back and left a message saying I’d be happy to. I then crashed into bed at 8:59. I was out like a light and got the first seven hour stretch of sleep I can remember for the past six or seven weeks.
I woke up and immediately began pounding out the last 4,000 words and when I was about 500 shy from finishing got a call from his show. I’d forgotten to call in. It was now a little after 8AM and I agreed to take the call after the news.
I went down and made myself some coffee. The timer beeped after it was through brewing a minute into my ten minute interview. I crowed a little. I tossed off some one liners and explained that the injunction might or might not come about. Lew asked how much JCI stood to gain and I went through the history when 4.5 % became 13% and that became 18% and that turned out not to include the tens of millions they would make on selling their own equipment to the District including air conditioners for each of our schools in which we didn’t have summer school programs and that didn’t include the millions they would make for their incredibly generous contracts to service this equipment for years and years to come. Lew asked how much the project cost and I said $293 million. He then did a little math and said. “Well, if they got 10% that would equal $30 million. so if they got 18% that would be…..” I jumped in and mentioned the air conditioners and the long term contracts. “So how much would that be total,” Lew asked, “$50 million?”
“Heck, we’ve got estimates of $60 or even $90 million.” I told Lew.
Then when we talked about our prospects I gave Lew some serious grief. I said, “Lew, half our problem has been defeatism. It sure didn’t help two years ago after I lost the school board election to have you repeat over and over that that was it. The Red Plan couldn’t be stopped.”
Lew protested that even my supporters were discouraged. I agreed and went on to say that this is what made America Great – defeatism. But now we had our bond, our day in court, and a chance to elect a new school board. Hope was around the corner.
That was about enough for Lew. Being reminded that he was a defeatist probably didn’t sit well with him. He bid me a hasty goodbye.
And I’m about to do the same. My Tan Man has just come over and he’s sitting on my lap. We’re going to the Aquarium together now. One more boondoggle that the School Board is about to eclipse in spades.
I’ll proof read this later. I’m keeping my priorities straight.
