TK> -> Incidently, the superintendant of our local school district called me
 TK> -> yesterday over the local levies.  He is actually trying to reach 
people
 TK> to
 TK> -> find out why they are not voting for them.  We discussed some of the
 TK> Bravo Jane, seems that you have gotten your point across.  If I may
 TK> though ask, how did the Superintendant know to contact you? I know
 TK> it couldn't have been just the voting no. Did you also attend
 TK> meetings?  Did you stand up, and tell them your feelings? If that
 TK> is the case, I would say that the voting no, only worked to get
 TK> their attention, it also took you being strong enough in your
 TK> conviction that you were not affraid to let others know your
 TK> feelings. Unfortunately, all this could have been avoided if the
 TK> School Board had asked for public opinion, and if the public had been
 TK> more forthcomming with their feelings on the issue. Once again the
 TK> only ones who were hurt by the whole ordeal were the children.
He was referred to me as a local activist.  He is searching out every 
organization around here who has meetings of any kind and asking for 
permission to speak at them (or send someone from the school system.)
I knew two women who were on a citizen's board working on school buildings. 
Both reported that the input at times was negated by some preconceived ideas 
from one person hired by the school district.
However, another young woman objected to a school bus barn in her 
neighborhood.  We fought that together, she on her ideas, me on the fact that 
the planned site was too wet to support what they wanted to put there.  And
asked the school board to take a look uphill from the site where ground water 
had destroyed the edge of the road down the hill adjacent to the site.
In that case, sanity prevailed and they moved the proposed bus barn to 
another site.
I agree that the children are being harmed.  I also don't think that it is 
sane to keep destroying agricultural land when meat coming in from another 
nation causes outbreaks of E-Coli.  So far, we haven't had a huge epidemic, 
but we will.  This mad cow disease has now managed to get to the US and is
here, regardless of what the ranchers in Texas said.  It is termed something 
else, according to what I read in the email news briefs I get from a couple 
of sources, but the net result is the same.
We have grazing land that is green all year round due to the moisture in the 
soil.  And it is not good for housing developments.  The greedy developers 
won't admit that, are doing everything they can to put as many houses on 
every blank space on a map regardless of whether or not they should be there.
---
---------------