Colbert Superintendent/E-Mail Addy

Several years ago a Lauderdale County man faced trial on an extremely serious charge. Due to the somewhat odd circumstances of the legal proceedings, it made many national blogs and news sites. Invariably, the defendant in the case would comment in his favor using the name of his cousin or even his former sister-in-law who testified against him. We don’t think such posts, which we’ll call fraudulent for lack of a better word, are that unusual in a world of anonymous cyberspace.

Cornelius

Four years ago, we endorsed Robert “Tuc” Montgomery for the position of superintendent of Colbert County schools. We looked at the credentials of both Mr. Montgomery and Anthony Olivis and felt we had made a wise choice. Immediately, we were bombarded with e-mails and FB communications in support of Olivis. In looking back, we now believe many of these communications were from Olivis himself, or perhaps Olivis’ family, but couched in names that were untraceable.

At that time, we reconsidered our position. The race now seemed a tossup on qualifications, so we withdrew our endorsement and asked that voters thoroughly research the candidates themselves. This is the only time we have ever withdrawn an endorsement, and we have certainly regretted doing so during the years of Olivis’ tenure as superintendent.

Satchell

Whenever Olivis has made a decision that invariably cost the tax payers money or was otherwise highly dubious, he always commented that he would speak on the matter one on one to parents only. Really? Only parents…other tax payers had no right to question his decisions costing money the system couldn’t afford, but more importantly costing the children of Colbert County education wise. Just how many parents do you think would be able to take off from work to make this private appointment with Olivis, where we’re sure they knew they would only be fed a line and still given no real answers?

We’re told…and we believe…that Olivis is a tightly strung man who couldn’t stand the heat of the educational kitchen and decided to call it quits after one term. No matter the reason, he’s doing the children of the county a huge favor.

Who will succeed Olivis? Two seek this office, and we will be spotlighting them in the weeks to come. We urge voters to begin their own appraisals of Dr. Gale Satchell and Dr. Jeff Cornelius. We welcome comments from all voters and otherwise concerned citizens.

*****

Private meetings? Like Anthony Olivis, a gentleman of whom we asked a question refused to answer us in an e-mail. He “very gracisously” informed us he would answer our one or two questions in a private meeting.

Now this hired official could honestly say he had tried to answer us, but we refused to listen. Sounds good on the surface, doesn’t it? Now think about it some more.

A written answer can be edited until it contains just the language to convey a person’s opinion. There’s no accidental misspeaking. A verbal communication would be preferred only if the person questioned wanted to deny his answers later. It also deters anyone from asking questions if they have to take time away from their schedule to fit in a meeting on non-neutral ground and at the time designated by the person being interviewed.

*****

Since our FB page is that of a personage and not a friend page, any comments we receive not in answer to a post are displayed in the left sidebar. We attempt to check these regularly, but sometimes miss a comment for a few days.

In other words, readers who do check our sidebar for comments might just see something that we would feel obligated to remove once we saw it. Happy reading!

*****

Our e-mail address is listed at the bottom of our site. For those who may have had a hard time finding it:

Shoalanda.Speaks@gmail.com

Shoalanda