The Three J's: Jane, James, and Joe

No, they're not a rap trio! We hit it big at our May 24 meeting with three guest speakers. Jane Kuckel, who is running for re-election to the Lee County School Board in District 3 , is the only Democrat currently on the Board. Jane gave some eye opening statistics about the school system in the County, which contains 12 high schools. There are currently eighty thousand students and the budget for running the schools is over $1.7 billion, which makes the system the largest employer in the County. We are ranked 46th nationally in budget, not in achievement, as is widely believed. There is a 40% mobility of student population meaning that out of 10 who begin school here only 6 will remain to graduate. Sadly the other 4 are more than likely to end up in the prison system or on the welfare rolls. She prefers that voting for the School Board be based on a mix of single district votes and at-large votes.

James Middlebrooks (yes, people, it ends with an "s") who has a long history of involvement in education, is seeking to become the second Democrat to be seated on the School Board. Our biggest problem now are the low teacher salaries in the County, he says. $36,800 is the beginning salary for a teacher and even after receiving a masters degree and ten years of experience the salary rises to only $45,000. Is there any wonder that we have a 50% turnover among our teacher population? As an at-large member of the School Board he promises to investigate problems that exist throughout the system, not just in his District 2.

Joe Rinella, Attorney, was our third speaker. He is running as an uncontested Democrat for House District 74 in the Florida House in Tallahassee. He claims that there are thousands of RINOS (Republicans in name only) who have chosen to register and vote as Republicans because there are rarely qualified Democrats running for office. But now even they are so disgusted with the Republican leadership in Tallahassee that they are more than ready to vote Democratic. He said also that our state policies favor only two classes of people: developers and tourism operators. He will be running against a Republican who is a builder and also a state representative. Enough said?

Though she is not a guest speaker, Sallie Soule, is head of our Club's Charter Revision Committee. She reported on their attendance at a recent hearing in Cape Coral at which the Committee advocated single member district voting as the only way to get Democrats elected to the County Commission and the County School Board. It was a nice tie-in to the remarks of our earlier speakers and ended our meeting as we take a two-month hiatus, certainly not from pursuing our Democratic agenda individually but from our monthly meetings together.