Judging by the paperwork he for some reason felt compelled to personally deliver to my home unannounced yesterday, it appears as if Alderman at Large Joe Kelly Levasseur is going to court to prevent the city of Manchester from releasing any more of his emails and to prevent me, your Humble Host, from releasing what’s already been obtained. In the paperwork received, Levasseur wrongly claimed that Girard at Large had initiated the quote unquote egregious Right to Know request he said was quote unquote over excessive because it asked for every email that had his name on it. In point of fact, what Girard at Large requested was a copy of the materials assembled by a Right to Know right to know request made by the Union Leader sometime last year, the contents of which were never collected by the initiating reporter. Our understanding of that request is that it was for any email between Levasseur and city department personnel. Our preliminary review of the documents would seem to 
substantiate that belief. Levasseur’s filing also demands the court order us to pay for the staff time involved in producing the material, which is interesting since we didn’t make the initiating request and only came to know of it’s existence several months after it was completed. Our sources confirm, by the way, that Levasseur was aware of the original request the Union Leader made for this material as the aldermen are notified of any Right to Know requests involving them which makes you wonder why he’s acting now to prevent them from being released and stick us with the bill rather than taking that action back when it first came to his attention. Was the privacy of the constituents he is now allegedly so concerned about protecting not worth it over the summer, or was it something else? You can bet we’ll have more on this this morning.
Publisher’s NOTE: Since publishing this story, Girard at Large has learned that Union Leader reporter Nancy West did in fact obtain the material from the city’s Information Systems Department and, as we did, went there with a thumb drive to obtain the material without any charge. We’ll have more on this tomorrow. The request was originally made at the end of August. Our request was made in January.
The Bedford Police Department is now accepting applications for its two thousand fourteen Citizen’s Police Academy. The academy is designed to provide Bedford citizens with a comprehensive perspective of the department’s services . This program also provides an in depth understanding of policing and the challenges facing law enforcement officers. Classes begin on March eighteenth and continue each Tuesday evening for ten weeks at the Bedford Police Department. Applicants are required to attend a minimum of eight of the ten scheduled classes as space is limited. Applications must be submitted on or before March seventh and are available online at www.bedfordnh.org/pages/BedfordNH_Police/Index or at the Safety Complex and can be submitted via regular mail, E-mail to dispatch@bedfordnh.org or dropped off at the station. For additional information, please contact Detective Lieutenant Michael Griswold at 472-5113 Ext 338. Don’t worry, we’ve posted all the links and detailed information for your convenience with this news read at Girard at Large dot com.
News from our own backyard continues after this.
Things are getting ugly in the race for school board in Bedford. Candidate Aaron Day posted an unpleasant exchange he had with Copper Door owner and former Town Councilor Bill Greiner. Day wrote quote: Having my last meal ever at the Cooper Door. Then went on to quote the following he said was from Greiner, quote “Aaron, frankly I don’t care whether you come to the Copper Door or not, and having spoken with my partners, we all feel the same. Frankly there is nothing to talk about; you have an outside agenda and are attempting to use Bedford as your laboratory, and I want nothing to do with it or with you and your sidekick.” End quote. Day went on to urge his Facebook friends and followers to boycott the Copper Door and tell Bill Greiner to pound sand.
In a stunning reversal, the country’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, is calling for a course correction on the Common Core national standards. Noting its early and unqualified support for the national standards, N E A President Dennis Van Roekel said educators had high hopes that the standards adopted by forty five states before they were actually finished would be correctly implemented by providing students, educators, and schools with the time, supports, and resources that are absolutely crucial in order to make changes of this magnitude to our education system. He said implementation had been completely botched in several states, faulting administrators for not taking teacher feedback during implementation, writing teachers didn’t have the quote “opportunity to share their expertise and advice about how to make C C S S implementation work for all students, educators, and parents.” End quote. Van Roekel also called the linking of teacher evaluations to student performance on standardized testing malpractice, criticizing the use of old tests for news standards as incapable of providing useful information. Kinda sounds like our own crackpot anti-Core activists on this stuff, huh? Anyway, the union boss had some suggestions. He said Governors and chief state school officers should set up a process to work with the NEA and its state affiliates to review the appropriateness of the standards and recommend any improvements that might be needed. He also said that implementation plans at the state and local levels must be collaboratively developed, adequately resourced, and overseen by community advisory committees that includes students, parents, and educators. How about that! Would’ve been nice if he said any of this this before it got jammed down everybody’s throat, huh? In other words, he’s calling for a “do over.” How kooky are the local opponents, whose sentiments he’s just echoed, now?
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ starts right now.
