Reform Majority's Season Finale of Failure -- Thar's Gold in them Thar City Halls

Not A Post About John King But It Could Be

I hate to be the I told ya so guy but as predicted the last failed act of the so called Reform Majority has fizzled like a damp firecracker on the Fifth of July. The wealthy white men's lobby with the help of their bar tender and barmaid thought they could reach inside a legally binding labor contract and pluck the cosmetic rider out as if they were playing a game of "Operation" and the rider were some Funnybone or Wrenched Ankle. State Supreme Court Justice Tracey A. Bannister issued a temporary restraining order on this ill advised last attempt to claim an accomplishment after all the time they pissed away huffing and puffing, cussing out camera men, force feeding us Superintendents and hiring lawyers. 

Speaking of ill advised, shouldn't Larry Quinn's young pal and campaign manager Eddie Betz have known with all of the legal acumen he's acquired in his vast law career that this dog wasn't gonna hunt? Maybe he should have advised Sir Lars, Carl and Sampson to just concentrate on throwing an ass kicking party when their term ended? After all Barrister Betz was annointed  errr I mean appointed after the majority was able to rally their 5 votes and shitcan General Counsel Rashondra M. Martin declaring her to be incompetent. Never mind that Betz had squat for experience in school board law and no experience as district counsel either. When compromised political hack Steve Pigeon bullied disgraced and recently unrobed Judge Michalek into hiring Betz as a "receiver" Betz, who only graduated from Law School in 2012  didn't meet any of the criteria for the gig but Michalek  said F it and gave him the job saying “We pushed it through anyway … have to give them a spec reason etc. will figure it out …" While this may seem silly to us lay folks the "receivership" gig can be pretty sweet: “Depending on the length and complexity of the litigation, a receivership can earn an attorney anywhere from a few thousand dollars to six figures,” one knowledgeable Buffalo attorney told The Buffalo News." 
A few thousand to SIX figures... nice work if you can get it handed to you...

Add to that the fact that Betz served as Lars Quinn's campaign manager in his run for the school board and that he also represented fellow "Reform Majority" mate McCarthy in another case and you have what some malingerers like to call a clear cut case of the Old Boy Network firing on all cylinders. As if all that wasn't enough of a bag over the head kick in the crotch already, consider the fact that B-Lo Superintendent Kriner Cash his own damned self weighed in and handed this connected white lawyer an extra $30K more than what the black woman whose job he took had been paid as district counsel. This coming from a guy who lived and died -- o.k. lets be honest, he lived high on the hog-- through merit pay bonuses as Superintendent of Schools in Martha's Vineyard. Maybe the fact that he evaluated himself for most of that time and go figure he never met a pay bonus he didn't earn if you asked him -- but that's another post. It's right here actually. 

So young Goodman Betz gets handed one sweet gig through the strings attached largesse of political cloak and daggerman Steve Pigeon and a judge whose robes are dragging in Pigeon shit and is handed yet another sweeter gig through the benevolence of the great Sabres dismantler Larry Quinn and his accomplices of the so called Reform Majority. 

Stop right there, take a little snapshot of all this corruption, connivance and fuckery and ask yourself if Larry Quinn should ever, repeat EVER let the word "Reform" escape his hyper Altoided piehole again.  

And forgive me cause I guess I am on a roll but who the hell appointed Kriner Cash the banker in this municipal game of Fuckopoly? He pushes for the hiring of young Betz who by all accounts is  still suffering bar exam night sweats then flips the dude an extra $30K as a baksheesh for simply not being Rashondra Martin? What other merits did Cash divine in Sir Lars's campaign manager that added up to $30K? And am I the only idiot who noticed that the pay went up by $30K after it was taken away from an African American woman and handed to a connected white dude with jack for experience but a long list of cronies? 

I hate to be that item in the punchbowl but it appears that Kriner Cash isn't the only one looking to fling bags of money at people who've proven underwhelming and unamazing in their performance. KC his own self was just awarded an extended contract and given some thousands to add to the famous FU money he told us he already had socked away when he got here. While The News tells us Nevergold and Belton Cottman said thumbs up publicly but blew Cash raspberries in private it didn't stop the Board from awarding Cash close to a Dean's list GPA and a 2.5% COLA on top of his quarter million plus $25K salary. Remember too my friends, when Kriner Cash was hired he too was handed an inexplicable $60K raise from what Pamela Brown was paid to do the same job. Do testicles somehow lead to pay raises in the administrative ranks of BPS? Is there something inherently low paying about having a uterus in this school district? In both cases Cash and Betz were handed an increase close to the salary of a 20 year teacher for no apparent reason other than an obvious Y chromosome, some facial hair and maybe a bow tie or two. Maybe Cash is treating people the way he likes to be treated. And hot damn if it isn't working. They call it the Golden Rule. And I can't think of too many people who dig gold better than Superintendent Kriner Cash.