TRACKING DOWN THE OUTLAWS

Via Daily Mail:

State school board ignores law in Kenna

IDEAS TOWARD A COMBINED EASTON/WOODBURN SCHOOL ON THE WOODBURN SCHOOLGROUNDS

See newest designs in his Woodburn Presentation:

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OR WHAT ARE THE GOOD LAWS FOR?

The impending Eastwood Elementary Mileground site sets up children for a variety of potential disasters, given the always present vehicle exhaust air pollution and arterial highways and intersection crash hazards and entrapment by congestion.

If Eastwood is built on the Mileground, and if there is a calamity at or near the Eastwood Mileground site involving school children – 3 year-olds to 11 year-olds – and it takes only one calamity – then the top county and state school officials should go to prison. Or what are the good laws for?:

By the Legislative Rule that is State Board Policy 6200, new school sites are explicitly, specifically mandated (not recommended) mandated to be “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as“:

“[a] arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion…[b] noise, toxic gas escapes from…odoriferous plants or industries…[e] bulk storage plants for flammable liquid…. [f] Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment.”

The insoluble conditions of all the provisions in “a” and “f” currently exist at the Mileground site and will always exist. The “noise” provision of “b” currently and insolubly exists at the Mileground site. Provision “e” and the latter half of provision “b” are impending at the Mileground site, or at the least seriously threatened, in the form of a Sheetz gas station that has been schematically designed. Sheetz is eager to open and operate this gas station at the immediate border of the Eastwood Mileground site, close to the building itself. These are insoluble, plain English, new school, student safety violations of this Legislative Rule that has the force and effect of law, and to which the Defendants are bound by state Code. This is a highly unusual site in being so extremely unstable and therefore negligently unknowable, even as it is projected to degrade in its immediate environmental quality year-by-year. This is an extremely hazardous site, potentially lethal, and projected to intensify in hazards, year by year, decade by decade, to an ultimately unknowable yet increasingly more menacing degree. The alternative site (or sites) is an extremely safe, stable residential location that is lawful and suitable in every way.

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ANOTHER NEGLIGENT MON SCHOOLS ELEMENTARY SITE

Remember what we wrote about the asinine location of Skyview Elementary last year?:

Opened in 2006, Skyview (consolidated) Elementary sits far from residential areas and uphill from Morgantown Industrial Park. Think about that for a moment. What a brilliant location for the lungs of young children! Now, with an impending new road and upgraded water and sewer lines, the Industrial Park is set to expand.

First, such school siting is flat wrong in more ways than one as we have documented in detail at this site. Schools and schoolchildren benefit from being located in neighborhoods. And vice versa.

Second, in 2009, Skyview Elementary had to be closed in the midst of the school day (along with next-door Westwood Middle) due to Industrial Park “smoke [that] got into the schools’ ventilation systems and filled the buildings with smoke.”

During such an incident the previous year apparently, the students were not evacuated and “had to deal with it.” One wonders (and the School District should test for) what difficult-to-detect toxins on a more regular basis pass into the school ventilation systems there above the soon to expand Industrial Park.

Well now it only gets worse with the gas wells in place in the industrial park. Bring on the additional air pollution, which is extremely hazardous for young children – Daily Mail:

Duane Nichols, spokesman for the Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition, said the two well sites are too close to the Skyview Elementary and Westwood Middle schools, just off River Road, as well as to the area’s water supply and the other facilities in the Morgantown Industrial Park.

“And this is just the first of more wells to come,” he said. “We’re all going to be in a state of emotional distress.”

Bartolo said he understands there’s concern for the public welfare and what sort of impact Marcellus shale drilling could have on water and air.

“It makes sense to me with that kind of impact looming over us that somebody puts the brakes on this and further investigates it,” he said.

And now “a fixed frac water recycling facility in the Morgantown Industrial Park” is moving in on Skyview Elementary. What’s next, a nuclear waste dump? That’s what happens when Mon Schools sites schools with great negligence: the unknowable and the uncontrollable.

The impending Eastwood Elementary Mileground site faces the same kind of potential disasters, only worse, given the always present vehicle exhaust air pollution and arterial highways and intersection crash hazards and entrapment by congestion.

If Eastwood is built on the Mileground, and if there is a calamity at or near the Eastwood Mileground site involving school children – 3 year-olds to 11 year-olds – and it takes only one calamity – then the top county and state school officials should go to prison. Or what are the good laws for?:

By the Legislative Rule that is State Board Policy 6200, new school sites are explicitly, specifically mandated (not recommended) mandated to be “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as“:

“[a] arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion…[b] noise, toxic gas escapes from…odoriferous plants or industries…[e] bulk storage plants for flammable liquid…. [f] Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment.”

The insoluble conditions of all the provisions in “a” and “f” currently exist at the site and will always exist. The “noise” provision of “b” currently and insolubly exists at the site. Provision “e” and the latter half of provision “b” are impending at the site, or at the least seriously threatened, in the form of a Sheetz gas station that has been schematically designed. Sheetz is eager to open and operate this gas station at the immediate border of the Eastwood Mileground site, close to the building itself. These are insoluble, plain English, new school, student safety violations of this Legislative Rule that has the force and effect of law, and to which the Defendants are bound by state Code. This is a highly unusual site in being so extremely unstable and therefore negligently unknowable, even as it is projected to degrade in its immediate environmental quality year-by-year. This is an extremely hazardous site, potentially lethal, and projected to intensify in hazards, year by year, decade by decade, to an ultimately unknowable yet increasingly more menacing degree. The alternative site is an extremely safe, stable residential location that is lawful and suitable in every way.

And look out, Skyview:

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DUMPED ON BY SBA AND BOE, LIKE WOODBURN…

SEE KENNA ELEMENTARY POWERPOINT AND WEBPAGE. Read the rest of this entry »

SCHOOL BUILDING AUTHORITY OF WEST VIRGINIA STRIKES AGAIN

This guy

is the state official who directs the agency

(SBA)

that awarded the $8.6 million grant to build the $21+ million school facility on the Mileground.

The agency that

this guy

directs

approved the Mileground site:

This guy

personally inspected the site.

And remarked how wonderful.

Thanks, buddy.

Why don’t you go crap on the health and safety mandates protecting children in your own community? if you really feel that is something you have to do.

This guy

is Mark Manchin

Director of the SBA. Read the rest of this entry »

THE MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD HAS BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

Why are the most stupid and asinine officials in charge of your children?

Judge James C. Stucky in Kanawha County Circuit Court today dismissed the case to block Eastwood Elementary from the Mileground.

We will appeal.

• WV state Rule 6200 forbids it. This state policy bans new school sites that are not “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as: a. … arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion b. Noise, toxic gas escapes from … odoriferous plants or industries … e. … bulk storage plants for flammable liquid, and property zoned as industrial f. Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment…”

• Each “county board” of education is “subject to…the rules of the State Board” of Education according to WV state Code: §18-5-13. Authority of boards generally. These rules include “rule number 6200 of the West Virginia Board (Handbook On Planning School Facilities).” 

The Mileground site violates the mandatory provisions of the Legislative Rule §126-172 and State Board Policy or Rule 6200, which the SBA administers. The safety of new school sites are specifically regulated by this doctrine “126CSR172 – 0 – Title 126 – Legislative Rule – Board of Education – Series 172 – Handbook On Planning School Facilities (6200)” 202.06 “School Site Planning…[and] Location”:

“For the safety of students, [any and every] new school site shall be located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as: a. … arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion b. Noise, toxic gas escapes from … odoriferous plants or industries … e. … bulk storage plants for flammable liquid, and property zoned as industrial f. Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment…”

The intended Eastwood Mileground site is an egregious mass violation of multiple site prohibiting provisions above. The site is a dangerous, potentially lethal, even predictably lethal mass of insoluble violations.

Similarly breached is another Legislative Rule:

“§126-42-7. County Board of Education Responsibilities. 7.6. Facilities. 7.6.1. County boards shall ensure that facilities meet the standards set forth in W. Va. 126CSR172, WVBE Policy 6200, Handbook on Planning School Facilities.”

West Virginia Code §29A-1-2(d): ” ‘Legislative Rule’ means every rule, as defined in subsection (i) of this section, proposed or promulgated by an agency pursuant to this chapter. Legislative Rule includes every rule which, when promulgated after or pursuant to authorization of the Legislature, has (1) the force of law, or (2) supplies a basis for the imposition of civil or criminal liability, or (3) grants or denies a specific benefit.”

If the Eastwood Mileground school siting proceeds, and if a severe or deadly calamity to a student occurs in the prohibited features at and around the new school site, then punitive and civil liability damages should be imposed against the top Monongalia County School Officials and the top WV School Building Authority officials, along with multi-million dollar civil liability damages against the various educational agencies.

The unusual dangerous features at and around the Eastwood Mileground school site are prohibited by state Rule for a reason. One does not have to be a prophet to predict potential disaster or likely disaster on and around those deadly highways.

The officials and agencies involved do not have the right, moral or legal, to roll loaded dice with children’s lives. It’s potentially lethal. It’s wrong. And given an essentially predictable calamity, it’s criminal. In West Virginia:

“Involuntary Manslaughter involves the accidental causing of death of another person, although unintended, which death is the proximate result of negligence so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life.”

How green can it be to site children at an accident prone and polluted intersection prohibited by state mandate? Why is Mon Schools so mean?

Oh, that’s right, Mon Schools Superintendent Frank Devono is on record as a strong advocate of corporal punishment in schools. Hitting kids with heavy paddles, blocks of wood. That is “spanking” in schools. In 1987 the Charleston Daily Mail (Jack Deutsch, February 18) reported that Frank Devono

the president of the state Association of Elementary School Principals…complained that opponents of corporal punishment always emphasize that paddling is a negative experience.

“Where is the positive? Why is it always the negative?” asked Frank Devono, president of the principals association.

We don’t make up this idiocy, folks. We just report it. Yes, adults hitting children with blocks of wood is such a “positive” experience for everyone involved. Of course. Who could imagine otherwise? Not Devono.

Devono spoke in favor of the bill, which would remove the 12-hour “cooling off” period. Under current state law, principals must wait 12 hours after warning students of a paddling before carrying out the punishment.

The bill was defeated, fortunately. And seven years later, sanity prevailed even moreso when the state of West Virginia banned corporal punishment – hitting kids with paddles – from schools altogether.

But the intended mean green school on the 705/Mileground intersection goes thumping forth under the iron hand of Superintendent Devono, courtesy of a WV School Building Authority grant. The state Supreme Court needs to step up and enforce the state Rules and state Codes that ban such hazardous and potentially lethal sites.

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NEW WVU NURSERY SCHOOL LOCATED WITHIN A FEW YARDS OF A MAJOR INTERSECTION AND ARTERIAL HIGHWAYS

No wonder the West Virginia University administration refused to oppose selling their horrible intersection land for Eastwood Elementary, the new Mon Schools preK-5th grade school intended for the WV 705 / US 119 intersection site.

In fall of 2009 when WVU administrators were largely and stealthily steering Eastwood Elementary to its intended intersection site, some of these same administrators were congratulated or doing the congratulating at the September 2009 opening of the WVU “Nursery” School at the intersection of WV 705 / US 19 / US 7:

Evidently, WVU administrators are happy to place children in harm’s way on a daily basis: elevated levels of vehicle exhaust, which damage hearts and lungs, especially those of “sensitive receptors” young children. The science on this is not pretty. The health and education professionals at WVU should be ashamed, at the least.

See: Asthma Elementary and No Health and Safety and What Not to Do and Damaging Children for Life.

How appropriate that the children in the photo appear to be wearing hard hats. Or is it? Rather they should be wearing gas masks.

Any number of available locations on or near the WVU Evansdale campus are far more healthy for siting a nursery school. Who was the main administrator involved in siting the Nursery school and its two playgrounds within scant feet of arterial highways and their intersection? Was it the same WVU administrator or administrators centrally involved in directing the siting of Eastwood Elementary?

Let the administrator or administrators come forth proudly and self identify.

In the meantime, it seems that the School Building Authority of West Virginia (SBA) has recently created a new position, maybe been forced to by the West Virginia state Board of Education. It’s possible that our (and other) school movements have forced it into existence: an SBA job “vacancy” – or is it actually a new position? – “Technical Assistant, Senior“: note the job description; look at the first listed “knowledge” requirements:

SUMMARY ARTICLE IN THE PAPERS

AP FEATURED NEWS / Tuesday May 10, 2011 / Green school back in court

ON WITH THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE

Below is some of the information from the “Notice of Hearing” from Judge James Stucky’s office.

The Plaintiff has requested a Temporary Restraining Order against Monongaila County Schools’ development of the Eastwood Elementary Mileground site:

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF KANAWHA COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA

CIVIL ACTION NO. 11-C-581
JUDGE JAMES C. STUCKY

TONY CHRISTINI,

Plaintiff,

v.

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF WEST VIRGINIA,
WEST VIRGINIA SCHOOL BUILDING AUTHORITY,
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MONONGALIA COUNTY,
AND FRANK DEVONO, Superintendent of Monongalia County Board,

Defendants.

 NOTICE OF HEARING

Notice is hereby given that a hearing on a Motion For Temporary Restraining Order in the above-styled action is scheduled for [Friday] May 20, 2011 at 3:00 p.m. before the Honorable James C. Stucky, Judge of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, West Virginia, Kanawha County Judicial Annex, 111 Court Street, 6th Floor, Courtroom 6-E, Charleston, West Virginia.

MAP to the court building, parking garage attached, and next to Charleston Town Centre Mall

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