Friday, February 10, 2006
What’s it all about?
Good Morning Commerce City! Can you believe this it is almost 8 AM and I am still on my first cup of coffee, and
I must admit my head is still a bit foggy. I may have mentioned that my grand kids were visiting last weekend and
as it turned out two were under the weather. It happened to be the same two I had in the doctors office in
January, one with streep throat and the other had a virus of some kind. Monday I thought something was coming
on so I started on the tea and honey, Tuesday I had that nagging tickle in my throat, Wednesday while at the
capitol I was really starting to feel the bug and by Yesterday it hit me like a ton of bricks. As I noted yesterday I
was up by 4 AM because of the various aches and pains associated with the flu.
Well I a feeling a little better today after pumping my self with every home remedy I could come up with to kill this
thing. Lots of orange juice, coffee, tea and honey, Alka Seltzer, cough medicine and pizza, lots of pizza. I slept
off and on from about 6 PM last evening and woke up feel better this morning. The miracle of modern medicine.
I posted a couple of pictures that were taken at our day lobbing at the capitol. I am quite proud of this group as it
has grown bit by bit and we now had over 70 individuals attend this one of three other visits with our legislators.
We also attempt on an individual basis to keep in touch with our legislatures on the state level on a year around
basis. House District 32, the district that includes Commerce City, will have a vacancy, as Rep. Val Vigil is now
term limited. Names for candidates to replace are already being bantered around and I strongly advice
Commerce City residence to be vigilant because if the rumor mill hold true a familiar name may attempt to enter
the picture. I will say now so as to dispel the other rumor bantered around I will not be trying to get into politics,
my personal opinion at this point is that we need new and younger blood in some of those offices.
Despite my condition yesterday several items came up which required leaving the sanctity of my home and the
need to go out and research several items. I found myself sitting in a couple of must libraries trying to dig up data
on a situation that is allege to have started with Superintendent. Earlier I was informed Lange had questioned the
validity of a statement I made in one of my articles. A week or so ago I had extended an olive branch to Mr. Lange
by way of standing with the School District on a piece of legislation that had been introduced by a member of the
Senate. This particular if it becomes has the potential of costing school districts vast sums of money. The
legislation evolves around the children of undocumented families; Lange indicated to me that if only 10 percent of
these families would fail to enter their children into the school system our district for instance would lose
thousands of dollars.
Keep in mind the sum of $10,126.00 per child the district receives. And again I make mention of my manta of
sorts, “Taxpayers just follow the money”. However back to the issue I am presently addressing. As I noted Mr.
Lange is allege to have question a statement I wrote in one of my articles. Mr. Lange as I have heard over and
over will not address a situation head on with an individual but it is rumored he goes behind the back of the
individual and tries to undermine their credibility. I will admit I do not know this for fact, but I personally have been
informed by several creditable individuals he has bantered my name about in meeting and not always in a positive
fashion. I will be the first to admit that I also do this, however I also afford the individual the opportunity to state
their case when I want to confirm a rumor, I do not go behind their back.
It was for this reason I had a conversation with the Rev. Stan Perea on a statement I indicated he made in a
recent presentation. The Rev. Perea is a paid consultant by the District Administration with a mission as I have
been told to address the divisions that exist in the community in respect to the school system. In this
presentation I took to the Rev. Perea to task on several statements he made during this presentation. Frankly I
do not know Rev. Perea very well but from what I have heard he appears to be an individual who stands by his
principles and beliefs. Rev. Perea support of the Illiff School of Theology first Latino president who was force into
retirement that centered around race problems at the seminary, stand as a testament of his convictions.
The statement I made and attributed to the Rev. Perea was that in the model presented at our gathering, “the
School District Administration is so far on the fringe of the model, Dr. Lange and his cronies will not budge an
inch to meet the community half way”. In my conversation with the Rev. Perea, he passed on three different
explanations on the comment I attributed to him. First he indicated he did not make the statement. Next he
indicated that I took the statement (that he did make) out of context and finally that Dr. Lange knows him well
enough to know he would not have made such a statement. I do believe the Rev. Perea believes in the last
explanation, as he has stated in his writing that, “We tend to hire people who think like us”.
My conversation ended with the following statement by the Rev. Stan Perea, “His entire presentation went over
my head”. Let me ask this question does not this attitude on the people that Dr. Lange surround himself with
sound familiar? When anyone disagrees with the administration or questions administration policy, we are
brushed off as being too ignorant to understand thing in their complicated world.
I know what I heard and quoted what I heard. I have for a number of years, more then I care to mention,
represented individuals in labor/management situations. My goal in every situation I was involved with was to
resolve the situation before formal charges were made as this was less time consuming and created no paper
work to speak of. This also allowed me to develop a win/win situation for both parties and although everyone did
not get what they wanted, they did receive something. However, many times I was not able to resolve the
situation at this level and one side or the other made a formal charge. This required hours of investigation that
consisted of massive research, interviews of all parties’ concerned and potential witnesses. The foremost tool I
had in this process was the ability to take detailed and complete notes; many have seen me in at various busy
listening and writing.
Every once and a while the disputes I and my associates investigated ended up in litigation and there is noting an
attorney despises then to be blindsided by information that proves to be incomplete or untrue. My note taking
skills are in my estimation next to none and I prefer them to using tape recording of meetings. I developed this
skill working as a claims adjustor for a major corporation on situations that involved massive sums of money. I
stated what I wrote down and what I wrote down is what you saw printed in my article, let me review those facts
as best as I can.
In the Rev. Stan Perea presentation he drew up a model that I will describe. On one side of his model, for the
sake of clarity I will call it the right side, he listed the following items. Group or community, with the definition of
this being based on that the group or community is more important then the individual. Success in this side of
the model is measured by Relations, togetherness. Individuals on this side of the model tend to be against
competion and are perhaps liberal in their mind set. Listed on this side of the side of the model are family,
educators, workers and community.
On the other side of the model, for sake of clarity the left side, the Rev. Stan Perea, jotted down a definition where
the individual is more important then the community. This is the John Wayne side of the picture; pull yourself up
by the bootstraps. Education is important and having a degree or degrees. Success is determined by power and
wealth, the guy with the most toys when you die is the winner. Individuals on this side tend to think on a
conservative line of thinking. Middle and upper management tend to fall on this side of the model.
The point of the model is to get individuals on both sides of the model to move toward the center. It is in the
middle were you find the well-balanced individual. An individual where you are at home with in harmony with both
sides of the model. Not to take anything away from the Rev. Perea but this concept is not a new revelation on his
part. The terminology may be unique to Rev. Perea and his life’s experiences but this is an age-old concept we
could have learned in Sociology 101. Social psychology is the study of individual perception, social behavior, and
the relationships between various and differing behaviors and mindsets. Yes this is an over simplified definition of
social models but what can you expect from an individual (myself) who does not have the intelligence to
understand the complicated mind set of consultant who are able to get paid very good money to give these types
of presentation. As a pastor and counselor I did this for free on a daily basis, I guess I am a little slow in the head,
At this point of the presentation the lights starting flashing in my mind as by the model’s concept my way of
thinking is slightly to the right of the side where the individual is more important then the community. So the first
thought that comes to mind is, I am on the same side as John Lange and his administration. If this is the case
then why cannot we reach a meeting of the minds? This question prompted me to ask the Rev. Stan Perea the
question, “Where in this model does Dr. Lange and the administration exist?”
Rev. Perea in all honesty answered from what I believe was his heart and perhaps not his mind and drew a circle
to the left of the side that noted the individual was more important then the community and further noted the
administration would not move one inch toward the center. What I ask is so hard to understand about this
comment? Let me take this explanation a bit further if I may, and as usual I am being rather wordy. Rev. Perea
defines, “Both the individual and community extremes as dysfunctional and pathological”. Do I have to interpret
this comment; is this not what the perception that so many in the administration have of members of this
community? Let it be known if we are defined as dysfunctional and pathological, then where does this place the
administration who is completely out of the model presented by Rev. Perea?
Now I can take you back to where this all started with two simple questions. Why did Superintendent Lange blow
me off when I requested a copy of the demographic breakdown on how the people voted after we lost the last
bond election? Why was the same request ignored when I asked a board member and was promised a copy of
the information? It took me a while but I eventually received that information by one going to the County Clerks
office and getting a part of the information and then going into the community and speaking one on one with
parents, worker, teachers and community members. It was their answers that prompted me to request a copy of
the School Board Policy because the conception of many who I spoke to was that Superintendent Lange was
running the school board and not as it should have been where he works for them. Once again I meet a brick
wall in the administration where I was informed it would cost me $1.25 a page for the policy or something in the
neighborhood of 600 plus dollars.
In my own simple way I believe I have the answer to bring about healing to a situation that has existed long before
I came into the picture. Part of the solution will require the administration or Superintendent Lange to choose
between keeping his half of the baby or giving it up to its rightful mother, it is his choice. My solution in my
estimation would have already save the taxpayers of this community thousands of dollars and hardship on the
community. If we continue to travel down this same venue the harm it will cause the community and school
district will set us back in the endeavor to place our school system in the same playing field as the neighboring
school districts.