Uy commits a serious breach of ethics.

Sep 24 22:21 UTC 1993

   At Wednesday's school board meeting, Trustee Mei Mei Uy and some of her
Citizens for "Better" Education collegues spent 35 minutes debating
whether to approve the week's new hires.  While this is normally a rubber
stamp process, this week, Trustee Uy demanded to see the resumes of all
the new employees, and attempted to table the hiring until next week's
meeting.  Why did she do this?  Could it have had anything to do with the
fact that one of their political opponents was on the list?

response 2 of 30:

Sep 24 22:37 UTC 1993

Prior to that blatant bit of political manipulation I had thought she
was narrow-minded but somewhat savy as to how the system works.  Now
she simply looks narrow-minded and overzealous, sans savy.  It's 
just a matter of time and she'll kill her own career for lack of 
knowing when to stop.

response 4 of 30:

Sep 25 19:10 UTC 1993

  If it's true that her children are perfect, then maybe they should
be sitting on the school board, and Ms Uy, should go back to school.

response 6 of 30:

Sep 26 00:08 UTC 1993

I think you can verbally assault someone to such a degree that
no matter how much they deserve it they still come out looking
better than those hurling accusations.  I keep hoping someone
from the School Board will log in and maybe say a few words.
I don't think it's gonna happen though.

response 8 of 30:

Sep 26 19:58 UTC 1993

   I don't think a recall vote would work.  First of all, it is very hard to
get enough signatures to get it on the ballot, and then we would need to 
convince the voters that they should end her term early.  Besides, even if we
did manage to get her recalled, that doesn't mean that we would get somebody
good on the Board.  If the people the voters put there are bad, just wait
till you see the people that CBE would probably install to replace Uy (if a
Board seat is vacant, the replacement is chosen by the remaining Board members,
rather than by the voters.
Rather than a recall, the thing to do is to make sure that it is very hard
for Uy, Westfall, and Campbell, to be reelected this June.

response 10 of 30:

Sep 27 21:54 UTC 1993

A vowed signature is not a signature of a registered voter.

response 12 of 30:

Sep 28 03:52 UTC 1993

                      *NO LITMUS TEST*
              SCHOOL TRUSTEE DESERVES DEMERITS
                (AA News editorial, 9/27/93)
     Ann Arbor school trustee Mei Mei Uy wrongly used her
position last week to strike out against a political
opponent.
     Uy denies her intent was political, but her actions
indicate otherwise.  The attempted power play occurred when
a list of newly hired teachers was presented to the Board of
Education.  Among the new teachers was Pat Bantle, a
prominent organizer of the Quality Education Drive, a school
political group.  Uy, who is tied to the rival Citizens for
Better Education, asked an assistant superintendent to
provide her with resumes of the six and records of how the
teachers were hired.  She then made a motion to table the
hiring of the teachers -- a motion that failed, we are
pleased to say.
     Uy deserves demerits on her lack of understanding of
the board's function and on the right of teachers to hold
political beliefs different and separate from members of the
board.
     The role of trustees is to set policy, not to
administer the schools.  School administrators should be
trusted to find employees best suited for available
positions.
     More important, school employees should never have to
pass a political litmus test.  who they opposed or who they
supported in an election contest should be irrelevant in the
hiring process.
     This is a case of a school trustee in need of a civics
lesson.  The same is true for those trustees willing to go
along with Uy's motion: James Cameron, Vicky Rigney and
Willie Campbell.

response 14 of 30:

Sep 28 04:22 UTC 1993

Ah.  Very interesting.  That leaves, let's see, Argersinger and Westfall
as the CBE dissenters?  I guess that moves those two up a notch or so in
my estimation, while the other four drop.

I should watch these school board meetings more often.

response 16 of 30:

Sep 28 22:13 UTC 1993

Westfall abstained. 

response 18 of 30:

Sep 28 22:51 UTC 1993

Uy, Cameron, Rigney, and Campbell voted for.  Barker, Kloss, 
Argersinger, and Garnett voted against.  Westfall abstained.
The motion failed for lack of support.

response 20 of 30:

Sep 29 02:31 UTC 1993

re #13:  Whoever writes the Ann Arbor News editorials.  I think it is actually
a group of people, but the "Editorial Board" might just formulate the
positions and turn the writing over to an individual person.  I'll ask Pat
Windsor about that at the School Board meeting tomorrow.

Argersinger didn't really participate in the argument, although I think the
things she did say were against the micromanagement.  Westfall was very
much a part of the action.  She was arguing more vigorously for the motion
to table than some of the people who actually voted yes were.  Westfall,
however, is a little bit smarter than Uy (that's not saying much, and the
difference is very slight), and probably knew how much bigger the flap
would have been if the motion had actually passed.  CBE was about to do an
other very unpopular thing, and Westfall probably knew that the Press was
not going to be nice to them no matter what they did.  I would assume that
she probably abstained to save face, and it obviously worked.

response 22 of 30:

Sep 29 23:47 UTC 1993

<vidar enters from the hole in the ceiling crying "Long live Kalak!  Long live
Kalak!"  Then he regains his sanity as he touches the obsidian golems left
pec.>

response 24 of 30:

Oct 1 18:11 UTC 1993

True.  I couldn't think of a coherent response.  I'd O.Ded on sugar, and
was typically hyper.