Tax-rate Lawsuit Goes Out With Whimper, Not a Bang

"Call the Tune" by Mike Anthony

July 27, 2011 - A lawsuit filed against the Mehlville Fire Protection District by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster went out with a whimper and not a bang last week as a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge ruled the district's 2009 tax rate did not violate state law.

Koster's office filed suit against the district in February 2010 that asked the circuit court to determine the fire district's 2009 tax rate. As we first reported in November 2009, then-Missouri Auditor Susan Monte's office deemed the fire district's 2009 tax rate to be higher than permitted under state law and referred the issue to Koster for further action.

The tax-rate issue stemmed from voter approval in April 2009 of two propositions reducing the fire district's tax-rate ceiling by a total of 40 cents and how Montee's office elected to apply that tax-rate-ceiling reduction to the district's 2009 tax rate.

Interestingly enough, when Koster's office filed suit against Mehlville it attracted the attention of other area publications, which printed some woefully inaccurate articles. Yet these same publications never corrected the inaccuracies nor published any follow-up stories when the fire district's 2010 tax rate was certified by Montee's office.

MFPD Board of Directors Chairman Aaron Hilmer said he's pleased with Associate Circuit Judge Patrick Clifford's ruling, but also noted the judgment brings to a close a nearly five-year "odyssey'' to allow MFPD residents to reduce the district's tax-rate ceiling. Hilmer and board Treasurer Bonnie Stegman first had voted in December 2006 to place a tax-rate-ceiling decrease measure on the April 2007 ballot. But that measure was removed after a legal challenge from Concord resident Dennis Skelton, who ran unsuccessfully as a write-in candidate for the board in April 2007.

In fact, state law had to be changed to allow the fire board to place the tax-rate-ceiling decrease measures on the April 2009 ballot. Not surprisingly, both measures were overwhelmingly approved by voters — but only after withstanding another legal challenge from Skelton that sought to remove the propositions from the ballot.

And now the "odyssey'' comes to a close after nearly five years and the decrease in the district's tax-rate ceiling is forever, Hilmer said.

Quite frankly, we never understood all the furor over the board's efforts to allow residents to reduce the district's tax-rate ceiling because in the end, it was much ado about nothing.

MFPD's '09 Tax Rate Proper, Judge Rules

Fire board chairman pleased with ruling issued by Clifford.

MIKE ANTHONY

Executive Editor

July 27, 2011 - The Mehlville Fire Protection District's 2009 tax rate did not violate state law, a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge ruled last week.

Attorney General Chris Koster filed the lawsuit against the fire district in February 2010 that asked the circuit court to determine the fire district's 2009 tax rate.

Associate Circuit Judge Patrick Clifford ruled July 20 the fire district's 2009 tax rate did not violate state law.

Clifford's judgment came after the attorney general's office and the fire district's attorney in March signed a stipulation of facts stating they would submit a proposed order to the judge "finding that tax bills issued by Mehlville in 2009 did not exceed what would have been its properly calculated tax ceiling.''

The stipulation of facts agreement was signed by Ronald Holliger, general counsel for Koster's office, and Mathew Hoffman, legal counsel for the fire district, and states, "Mehlville is the first political subdivision in the state of Missouri to pass legislation to reduce its tax-rate ceiling.''

Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors Chairman Aaron Hilmer told the Call he was pleased with Clifford's ruling.

"We're just really glad it's over and it's behind us,'' he said.

As first reported by the Call in November 2009, then-Missouri Auditor Susan Montee's office deemed the fire district's 2009 tax rate to be higher than permitted under state law and referred the issue to Koster for further action.

In mid-November 2009, MFPD officials met with representatives of Koster's office and said they were informed the attorney general had no plans to pursue any legal action against the district.

The county collector of revenue levied the tax rate approved by the fire district Board of Directors.

But in late January 2010, Montee released a report citing 12 taxing entities, including the Mehlville Fire Protection District, that levied tax rates in excess of what was permitted by law.

Montee's report stated the fire district had levied nearly $10 million more than the amount legally allowed with its tax rate. In February 2010, Koster filed the lawsuit against the fire district.

At issue was the board's decision in August 2009 to set the district's tax rate at 59.3 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, an amount it contended was the legal maximum it could levy as a result of the passage in April 2009 of two propositions reducing Mehlville's tax-rate ceiling by 40 cents.

The 2009 tax rate was 3 cents more than the previous year's tax rate of 56.3 cents, and board members voted to roll up the tax rate to collect the same amount of revenue as the previous year under the provisions of the Hancock Amendment.

However, Montee contended that because the board voted in August 2008 to levy a tax rate less than the district's tax-rate ceiling of $1.052, Mehlville's ceiling was reduced to 56.3 cents under Section 137.073.5 of Senate Bill 711. Under SB 711, a tax rate set in a nonreassessment year becomes the tax-rate ceiling in a reassessment year.

As a result, the tax-rate-ceiling reduction of 40 cents approved by voters as Proposition 1 and Proposition 2 in April 2009 set the district's tax-rate ceiling at 16.3 cents, according to Montee.

Proposition 1 asked whether the district's general-fund tax-rate ceiling should be permanently reduced by 36 cents per $100 of assessed of valuation while Proposition 2 asked whether the district's pension-fund tax-rate ceiling should be permanently reduced by 4 cents per $100.

The ballot language for both propositions included the phrase: "This proposition is based upon the 2008 assessed valuation for the district. The foregoing shall not be subject to any tax-rate-reduction rollback.''

The judgment states, "On April 7, 2009, district voters approved two ballot measures which purported to avoid the effect of tax-rate reductions required by Section 137.073.5 in reassessment years and voluntarily reduced its levies based on no re-assessment rollback.

"Political subdivisions are required to apply state law as expressed in Section 137.073,'' the judgment states. "In attempting to calculate the proper rate, the auditor utilized the voluntary rollback reductions but disregarded the ballot's italicized language which would not subject the calculation to any rollback based on the 2008 reassessment.

"Political subdivisions do not have the legal authority to apply rollbacks in a year when reassessment is done,'' according to the judgment.

"If the district's general and pension levy is calculated without the voluntary levy rollbacks and applying the rollback provisions of 137.037.5, the district's proposed tax levy for general and pension purposes did not exceed its tax-rate ceiling. Therefore, judgment is entered declaring that the district's proposed levy for 2009 did not violate state law. Each party is to bear their own costs,'' the judgment states.

In September, Montee's office certified the fire district's 2010 tax rates. The district's board voted Sept. 24 to approve a resolution setting the district's 2010 blended tax rate at 67.1 cents per $100 of assessed valuation — 7.8 cents more than the previous rate of 59.3 cents per $100.

The 2010 tax rate is the maximum that can be levied by the district.

Montee was defeated in her re-election bid last November by current Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich.

Hilmer praised the professionalism of the attorney general's office, particularly Holliger.

"Those guys were very professional the entire time,'' he said. "I still think this whole problem came out of Susan Montee's office ...''

The ruling also brings to a close a nearly five-year effort to allow MFPD residents to reduce the district's tax-rate ceiling, Hilmer said, noting he and board Treasurer Bonnie Stegman first had voted in December 2006 to place a tax-rate-ceiling decrease measure on the April 2007 ballot.

But that measure was removed after a legal challenge.

"I think what's interesting, though, is to look back in a context of how long this whole process took,'' he said. "I mean, letting voters vote on a tax reduction was an idea Bonnie and I originally had back in 2006. In December of '06, we voted to put it on the April of '07 ballot. It's been well documented in this publication about the travails we had to go through to finally get it to the public and what we still had to go through after that.

"... To me as being someone really so personally involved as the architect of drawing this up and bringing it through, this has been an almost five-year odyssey,'' Hilmer said."... Think about this in the context of the political mood of the day, what people are reading in the papers now.

"Five years ago, Bonnie and I were throwing tea bags overboard long before everyone else decided to have a party about it. And I think that's pretty interesting that we were so far ahead of the curve,'' the board chairman said.

The decrease in the district's tax-rate ceiling through Prop 1 and Prop 2 is forever, Hilmer said.

"That's what's tremendous,'' he said. "The only way the tax rate will ever increase in the fire district is No. 1, they'd have to have a Board of Directors who'd vote to put one on the ballot, and two, the voters would have to approve it.''

St. Louis County Hires Four More Tied to Dems

BY PAUL HAMPEL • phampel@post-dispatch.com > 314-727-6234 | Posted: Monday, July 25, 2011 12:30 am

CLAYTON • Despite a hiring freeze on most of St. Louis County government, four more people with backgrounds in Democratic politics have recently gotten jobs there.

Three were hired by the new county assessor, Jake Zimmerman, a Democrat. The fourth, hired by the St. Louis County Economic Council, had been a field director in Zimmerman's campaign last spring.

The latest payroll additions come within months of the county's hiring of several other people with strong Democratic connections, including the previously reported hiring of County Executive Charlie Dooley's former campaign spokeswoman as well as the son of Dooley's campaign treasurer and manager.

The assessor's office and the Economic Council are exempt from the hiring freeze, enacted three years ago by Dooley.

However, Zimmerman and an Economic Council official say they believe in the freeze and abide by it, except in cases where hires are essential.

On July 11, Zimmerman hired Sara Howard as deputy assessor and spokeswoman at an annual salary of $88,999. Howard, 36, had been a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis.

Last week, Zimmerman, a former state representative, hired Anna Gourdin, 28, a former member of his legislative staff, and Chalana Oliver, 30, who had been political director of his campaign.

Oliver, a lawyer, will be the assessment department's "director of policy review and community engagement." Gourdin will be its "constituent services manager."

Oliver's annual salary will be $46,760; Gourdin's will be $36,000.

Zimmerman, who in April became the county's first elected assessor in more than 50 years, promised during his campaign that he would not staff his office with political cronies.

Zimmerman asserted in an interview last week that the new hires do not violate that vow.

"As I said when I was running, I did not get into public service in order to give jobs to my buddies," he said. "I do not have enough of a budget that I can waste money on do-nothing jobs and political make-work."

He said he followed the county's requirement for hiring merit employees by posting the jobs in several newspapers and interviewing numerous candidates.

"Like any other employer, if you give me qualified candidates and one of them has worked for me before and I have knowledge of their ethics and what they are capable of doing, that will be someone that I'm biased in favor of," he said.

As assessor, Zimmerman's job is to determine the value of each taxable property in the county. The county's many taxing entities use that information to determine tax rates.

None of the new hires has any experience in assessments. But Zimmerman said skills in customer service were what he was seeking.

"We have 170 people on this staff who are pretty good at looking at houses and determining their values, but there has never been in anyone's recent memory an organized, systematic way to figure out how we serve the external customers," he said.

Zimmerman, who has denied speculation by others that he aspires to higher elected office, said the new hires will not be involved in politics.

"There's a pretty strict policy in terms of what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior outside the office," he said. "And I'm a big fan of following the rules."

ECONOMIC COUNCIL JOB

The county's fourth recent hire, Jonathan Boesch, joined the Economic Council six weeks ago as its new "assistant project manager" in the south St. Louis County area. His annual salary is $50,200.

The council is the economic development arm of the county.

Boesch, 35, had been field director for the Zimmerman campaign. Before that, he had worked as a field director for Dooley's re-election campaign.

Boesch has a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His most recent job outside the political sphere was as a bartender at Cicero's in University City from 2001 to 2009.

Boesch was hired by Andrew Ruben, head of the Economic Council's real estate division.

Ruben said Boesch would work with another council employee in the Lemay area.

"He'll be helping to process large amounts of grant money from River City Casino revenue that is committed to that area," Ruben said.

Ruben, like Zimmerman, said he abides by the freeze except in the case of an essential hire.

Ruben said the job had been posted and Boesch was chosen from several candidates partly based on a résumé that showed strong computer skills.

The new hires are among various others with Democratic connections to land county government jobs recently despite the hiring freeze.

In January, a Dooley campaign volunteer, Mike Temporiti, was hired to be the county's abatement compliance officer in the Revenue Department. The position was created just for Temporiti. He is the son of John Temporiti, Dooley's longtime campaign treasurer and manager and former chief of staff.

In February, Dooley's campaign spokeswoman, Katy Jamboretz, was hired as the Economic Council's vice president of marketing and communications.

Two other volunteers from Dooley's campaign also have recently been hired by the county.

Bill Ray got a patronage job in January as a "citizen advocate" in the health department. And former state Sen. Rita Heard Days got another patronage job, as an administrative assistant to Dooley. Days has since been hired as the new Democratic director of the county Election Board.

'POLITICAL OPERATIVES'

County Councilman Greg Quinn, R-Chesterfield, said he doubted assertions that politics did not factor into the latest hirings.

"With regard to the hiring by the assessor, these new people are essentially Democratic Party political operatives," Quinn said. "I was hoping that an elected assessor would help people receive fair assessments. But it just seems like this is politics as usual."

As to Boesch's hiring, Quinn said, "I think the Economic Council should stop being used as a source for jobs by campaign workers and should be used to create jobs in St. Louis County."

Dooley instituted the hiring freeze three years ago. But because the assessor's division is led by an elected official, just like county Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch's department, it is not subject to Dooley's rules.

The Economic Council is an independent, 501(c)4 'social welfare" organization that falls outside Dooley's purview, though he does appoint its board members.

Zimmerman said that while the county's hiring freeze did not apply to his department, he had acted as if it did.

"In light of the current economic conditions, I felt it was the right thing to do to go through the standard process that any department director would go through, and I typed out a justification for why these positions were essential," he said.

Ruben said that Boesch was an essential hire that fell within the spirit of the freeze.

"I think that, practically, we have essentially followed the pay freeze," he said. "Did we have to? No, but the hiring freeze is good practice and justified by the economy and the budget."

New: Fire District's 2009 Tax Rate Did Not Violate State Law, Court Rules

MIKE ANTHONY

Executive Editor - Call Newspapers

July 20, 2011 - The Mehlville Fire Protection District's 2009 tax rate did not violate state law, a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge ruled this week.

Attorney General Chris Koster filed the lawsuit against the fire district in February 2010 that asked the circuit court to determine the fire district's 2009 tax rate.

Associate Circuit Judge Patrick Clifford ruled Tuesday the fire district's 2009 tax rate did not violate state law. Clifford's judgment came after the attorney general's office and the fire district's attorney in March signed a stipulation of facts stating they would submit a proposed order to the judge "finding that tax bills issued by Mehlville in 2009 did not exceed what would have been its properly calculated tax ceiling.''

The stipulation of facts agreement was signed by Ronald Holliger, general counsel for Koster's office, and Mathew Hoffman, legal counsel for the fire district.

As first reported by the Call in November 2009, then-Missouri Auditor Susan Montee's office deemed the fire district's 2009 tax rate to be higher than permitted under state law and referred the issue to Koster for further action.

In mid-November 2009, MFPD officials met with representatives of Koster's office and said they were informed the attorney general had no plans to pursue any legal action against the district.

The county collector of revenue levied the tax rate approved by the fire district Board of Directors.

But in late January 2010, Montee released a report citing 12 taxing entities, including the Mehlville Fire Protection District, that levied tax rates in excess of what was permitted by law.

Montee's report stated the fire district had levied nearly $10 million more than the amount legally allowed with its tax rate. In February 2010, Koster filed the lawsuit against the fire district.

At issue was the board's decision in August 2009 to set the district's tax rate at 59.3 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, an amount it contended was the legal maximum it could levy as a result of the passage in April 2009 of two propositions reducing Mehlville's tax-rate ceiling by 40 cents.

The 2009 tax rate was 3 cents more than the previous year's tax rate of 56.3 cents, and board members voted to roll up the tax rate to collect the same amount of revenue as the previous year under the provisions of the Hancock Amendment.

However, Montee contended that because the board voted in August 2008 to levy a tax rate less than the district's tax-rate ceiling of $1.052, Mehlville's ceiling was reduced to 56.3 cents under Section 137.073.5 of Senate Bill 711. Under SB 711, a tax rate set in a nonreassessment year becomes the tax-rate ceiling in a reassessment year.

As a result, the tax-rate-ceiling reduction of 40 cents approved by voters as Proposition 1 and Proposition 2 in April 2009 set the district's tax-rate ceiling at 16.3 cents, according to Montee.

Proposition 1 asked whether the district's general-fund tax-rate ceiling should be permanently reduced by 36 cents per $100 of assessed of valuation while Proposition 2 asked whether the district's pension-fund tax-rate ceiling should be permanently reduced by 4 cents per $100.

The ballot language for both propositions included the phrase: "This proposition is based upon the 2008 assessed valuation for the district. The foregoing shall not be subject to any tax-rate-reduction rollback.''

The judgment states, "On April 7, 2009, district voters approved two ballot measures which purported to avoid the effect of tax rate reductions required by Section 137.073.5 in reassessment years and voluntarily reduced its levies based on no reassessment rollback.

"Political subdivisions are required to apply state law as expressed in Section 137.073,'' the judgment states. "In attempting to calculate the proper rate, the auditor utilized the voluntary rollback reductions but disregarded the ballot's italicized language which would not subject the calculation to any rollback based on the 2008 reassessment.

"Political subdivisions do not have the legal authority to apply rollbacks in a year when reassessment is done,'' according to the judgment.

"If the district's general and pension levy is calculated without the voluntary levy rollbacks and applying the rollback provisions of 137.037.5, the district's proposed tax levy for general and pension purposes did not exceed its tax rate ceiling. Therefore, judgment is entered declaring that the district's propose levy for 2009 did not violate state law. Each party is to bear their own costs,'' the judgment states.

In September, Montee's office certified the fire district's 2010 tax rates.

The district's Board of Directors voted Sept. 24 to approve a resolution setting the district's 2010 blended tax rate at 67.1 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. The blended tax rate is not assessed, but is a combination of four tax rates — residential property, commercial property, agricultural property and personal property.

The blended tax rate of 67.1 cents per $100 is 7.8 cents more than the previous tax rate of 59.3 cents per $100. The 2010 tax rate is the maximum that can be levied by the district.

Certification letters dated Sept. 30 for the fire district's four tax levies — general, ambulance, alarm and pension — were sent by Montee's office to the county collector of revenue. By fund, the blended rates are: general, 39.5 cents; ambulance, 19.5 cents; alarm, 4.3 cents; and pension, 3.8 cents.

Montee was defeated in her re-election bid last November by current Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich.

Harry Reid Won’t ‘Waste the Senate’s Time’ on ‘Worst Legislation’ in U.S. History

Friday, July 22, 2011 

By Susan Jones

(CNSNews.com) – Without a hint of bipartisanship, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday proclaimed the Republican deficit-reduction plan – the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” – as a waste of the Senate’s time.

“I think this piece of legislation is about as weak and senseless as anything that has ever come on this Senate floor. And I’m not going to waste the Senate’s time day after day on this piece of legislation, which I think is an anathema to what our country is all about,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

“So everyone, understand. We’re going to have a vote tomorrow (Friday)…I’m not going to wait until Saturday. We’re going to have a vote tomorrow, and I feel confident this legislation will be disposed of one way or the other.

“The American people should understand that this is a bad piece of legislation – perhaps, some of the worst legislation in the history of this country.”

The Republican proposal would cut government spending, cap the growth of future spending, and allow a vote on a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.

Reid invited Republicans to go ahead and debate the bill “to their heart’s content.”

He also complained that “the loudest voices from the Republican Party are not reasonable leaders, but Tea Party extremists.”

In his comments on the Senate floor, Reid urged “reasonable Republicans” to join Democrats in reaching a compromise “that is good for the country.” Such a compromise, he said, must avert default and cut the deficit “in a balanced way” – balance in this case meaning tax increases.

The House of Representatives passed the Cut, Cap and Balance bill on Tuesday. As House Speaker John Boehner noted, Senate Democrats still haven't passed legislation of their own to prevent a government default. "It's time for the Senate to act," he said.

So far, all legislation attempting to put the country back on a sound fiscal footing has come from House Republicans.

Brentwood Residents Decry Unjustified Pay to Firefighters

BY PAUL HAMPEL • phampel@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8242 | Posted: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 12:05 am

BRENTWOOD • An agitated crowd of Brentwood residents grilled city officials Monday night about hundreds of thousands of dollars the city's firefighters collected for overtime they did not work.

About 40 people attended the regular meeting of the city's Board of Aldermen at City Hall, among them John Geppert, the chairman of the city's Planning and Zoning Commission.

"I had always spoken with great pride about being from Brentwood," Geppert told the board. "But now, I'm embarrassed."

The Post-Dispatch disclosed Sunday that estimates of the unjustified overtime ran as high as $28,000 a year over more than two decades. The overtime involved routine maintenance on the department's firetrucks and ambulances.

Firefighters got paid for full, 10-hour shifts of overtime at an average of $50 an hour, but only worked some of the shift.

The payments came to light in March when police were investigating allegations that city administrator Chris Seemayer had been stealing from the city. Seemayer pleaded guilty to embezzling about $30,000.

After the meeting, Mayor Pat Kelly confirmed that federal authorities assisted Brentwood police in the investigation.

Brentwood negotiated a settlement with the firefighters to recoup some of the money, but officials have declined to disclose terms of the agreement.

Sources have said that the settlement entails withholding raises from the firefighters for two years.

City officials also forced the department's three highest-ranking officers — Chief Bob Niemeyer, Assistant Chief Bob Kurtz and Deputy Chief Dave Berkel — to accept retirement over the payments. Two firefighters, Capt. Brian Hagedorn and Lt./Medical Officer Matt Stoverink, were demoted.

Another resident, Karen Smith, made reference to the firefighters' salaries, the highest of the 18 municipal fire departments in the county.

Salaries last year ranged from $77,476 to $87,954 for rank-and-file firefighters. On top of that, overtime pay for each firefighter ranged from about $1,600 to $6,800.

Niemeyer's salary last year was $130,000, Kurtz's was $108,000 and Berkel's was $90,500. On top of that, Berkel got paid $8,000 in overtime.

Each retiree will get 80 percent of their salary as pension upon retirement.

Said Smith, "Brentwood's firefighters should have been gratified without expecting extra pay through fraudulent activity."

After residents had their say, Alderman Andrew Leahy apologized to the crowd for the scandal. "I have a reputation for asking questions and looking into things, but I missed it."

McClellan: Putting Out Fires Can be Complicated

 BY BILL McCLELLAN • bmcclellan@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8143 | Posted: Monday, July 18, 2011 12:00 am

Several years ago, when Sherman George was fire chief in St. Louis, the city's public safety director announced plans to review the Fire Department's safety training because of a series of injuries.

As is almost always the case with anything involving the city's fire department, the issue had little to do with fires and much to do with race and politics.

"We welcome the investigation," said the president of Local 73 of the International Association of Firefighters. At the time, Local 73 was feuding with George about promotions. Most of the white firefighters belonged to 73.

Meanwhile, the president of the Fire Institute for Racial Equality, which represented most of the black firefighters, said the review was unnecessary and politically motivated.

I called a firefighter whose judgment I respected. I asked about the injuries. The fault lies with smoke detectors, he said.

He explained that in the old days, there were lots of big fires. By the time a firefighter had been in the department for a couple of years, he had a lot of experience. Buildings were always burning.

But no more. Smoke detectors alert people before a fire can really get started. Most of the time, people can put it out themselves. If they do call the Fire Department, the firefighters arrive before the fire has time to grow.

So even guys who have been on a while are relatively inexperienced, the firefighter told me. That inexperience explained most of the injuries, he said.

I thought about that conversation when I read Paul Hampel's story in Sunday's paper about the Brentwood Fire Department. The story detailed the fact that for many years, Brentwood firefighters were paid for overtime they did not work.

The practice came to light when police were investigating an entirely different matter — the allegations that the city administrator had been stealing from the city. He has since pleaded guilty.

Because of the revelations about the overtime that was not worked, longtime Fire Chief Bob Niemeyer is being forced to resign. He will receive a $104,000 pension.

It was a great story, well-documented and containing unexpected twists. While Niemeyer tried to defend the practice, the union official who represents the firefighters did not. "At the end of the day, they were compensated for work they did not do, and that's not OK," said Kurt Becker of Firefighters Local 2665. Good for him.

The story also mentioned that the new fire station in Brentwood has an exercise center, flat screen televisions and reclining chairs. That's when I found myself thinking about that conversation about smoke detectors.

Our public safety system was designed in the days before smoke detectors and sprinkler systems. We needed lots of firefighters. They were as essential as cops.

In fact, the greatest calamity in the Chicago of my youth was not a crime, but a fire. Ninety-two kids and three nuns died in a fire at Our Lady of the Angels School, a Catholic grade school on the city's west side in 1958.

If you were to ask my kids about the worst fire they can recall, you would probably get blank looks in response. They could name some crimes, but fires? I doubt it.

When I got to St. Louis, one of my first jobs was as the night police reporter. We did not have a night fire reporter. What would he or she have done?

For the great majority of us, contact with the Fire Department more often has to do with medical emergencies than fires. I suspect we would be better served with twice as many ambulances and half as many pumpers.

But for a variety of reasons, we go on as if this were 1958. Part of it has to do with politics. Firefighters can be a strong political force. Certainly, they are in the city. Part is inertia. Why change things?

Osama bin Laden gets some of the blame, too. The 343 firefighters and paramedics who died in the 9/11 attacks have become part of the national lore. First responders who died heroically. They went into the burning towers to rescue people. Who could run down people willing to do that?

Of course, I am not running them down. I am just pointing out that smoke detectors stop fires, not crime. Cops are still busy. I doubt that the Brentwood police station has many reclining chairs.

Commentary: It’s Always a Surprise to Obama

Monday, July 18, 2011 

By Rich Galen - CNS News

Barack Obama may be the most surprising President in the history of the Republic. In his two-and-a-half years in office, no matter what has happened, it seems to have come as a surprise to him.

Shovel-ready projects? Unexpectedly, they didn't exist. The only shoveling that went on was shoveling about $700 billion of our tax dollars into projects that didn't help jump-start the economy way back in 2009.

Health Care? Obama was shocked when it took a whole year and passed the House by just seven votes -- at a time when Obama had a majority of 75.

Mid-term elections? He was startled when his Close-Your-Eyes-and-Swing-at-the-Piñata style of government cost his party six seats in the U.S. Senate and an astonishing 63 seats in the U.S. House.

Increase taxes? In December 2010, during the lame duck session when Democrats still had their wide pre-election majorities, Obama seemed bewildered by Republicans insistence on keeping current tax rates and refusing to allow him to roll back what he and his pals in the popular press called the "Bush Tax Cuts."

Recovery Summer? That was supposed to have happened LAST summer. The President appears to be completely befuddled by an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent a year later.

Now President Obama has appeared to have been stunned at being forced to cut spending before Republicans will allow an increase in the debt limit.

Unless his daughters told him, I'm pretty sure the President was clueless about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II breaking the old record for a film on its opening weekend by $10 million when it took in $168 million domestically and $476 million - just under a half billion - worldwide.

And all those are just the domestic surprises.

The highly touted "Arab Spring" (which actually began in December 2010 in Tunisia) was supposed to lead to a region swinging over to popular democracies as country after country threw off the yoke of dictators and monarchs in favor of popularly elected governments.

The big one was Egypt where the demonstrations started right after New Years Day and led to the military tossing Hosni Mubarak over the side of the boat and into the Nile River promising to bring democracy to the most populous country in the region.

That led President Obama -- who, like everyone else on the planet, was totally unprepared for the velocity of Mubarak's demise --  to say, "Egypt will never be the same."

He was right. In yesterday's Washington Post there was a front page article in which reporter Leila Fadel wrote that the generals who are still in charge, are suggesting strongly "that the military be granted special status under a new Egyptian constitution in which the armed forces would not be subordinate to the president."

Largely unnoticed, protesters have returned to Cairo's Tahir Square. A mass sit-in this past weekend provided a platform for, according to the New York Times "42 different groups" each of which has a different set of demands of the military government.

How long until we routinely refer to the generals running Egypt as a "¿junta?"

Immediately to the west of Egypt a gentle nudge was going to topple Moammar Gaddhafi's rule. "Days, not weeks" we were told back in mid-January. Didn't happen. But we were told again last week that Gaddhafi is packing a valise and will be leaving any day now.

To Obama's great wonder, the effort in Libya has done more to show the weakness of the NATO Alliance than any weakness in Gaddafhi's hold on power.

Next door to the east, in Jordan Aljazeera is reporting that "In the third consecutive Friday of protests, about 3,500 opposition activists from Jordan's main Islamist opposition group, trade unions and leftist organisations gathered in the capital."

And, of course, in Syria President Bashar al-Assad has killed more than a thousand protesters but the Obama Administration is unwilling to "Do a Libya" in Syria because it would almost certainly mean going to war with Iran.

The 5½ wars (that we know about) to which Obama has committed the United States (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and a half war in Pakistan) are more than enough for the immediate past holder of the Nobel Peace Prize -- which, by the way, was also a surprise to the President.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Wash Post and Aljazeera pieces as well as the definition of junta. Also the cutest Mullfoto of all time (and I didn't take it) and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

The Internet Will Reduce Teachers Union Power

Online learning means fewer teachers (and union members) per student.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - JULY 18, 2011

By TERRY MOE

This has been a horrible year for teachers unions. The latest stunner came in Michigan, where Republicans enacted sweeping reforms last month that require performance-based evaluations of teachers, make it easier to dismiss those who are ineffective, and dramatically limit the scope of collective bargaining. Similar reforms have been adopted in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee, Idaho and Florida.

But the unions' hegemony is not going to end soon. All of their big political losses have come at the hands of oversized Republican majorities. Eventually Democrats will regain control, and many of the recent reforms may be undone. The financial crisis will pass, too, taking pressure off states and giving Republicans less political cover.

The unions, meantime, are launching recall campaigns to remove offending Republicans, initiative campaigns to reverse legislation, court cases to have the bills annulled, and other efforts to reinstall the status quo ante—some of which are likely to succeed. As of today, they remain the pre-eminent power in American education.

Over the long haul, however, the unions are in grave trouble—for reasons that have little to do with the tribulations of this year.

The first is that they are losing their grip on the Democratic base. With many urban schools abysmally bad and staying that way, advocates for the disadvantaged are demanding real reform and aren't afraid to criticize unions for obstructing it. Moderates and liberals in the media and even in Hollywood regularly excoriate unions for putting job interests ahead of children. Then there's Race to the Top—initiated over union protests by a Democratic president who wants real reform. This ferment within the party will only grow in the future.

Then there's a crucial dynamic outside of politics: the revolution in information technology. This tsunami is only now beginning to swell, and it will hit the American education system with full force over the next few decades. The teachers unions are trying to stop it, but it is much bigger than they are.

Online learning now allows schools to customize coursework to each child, with all kids working at their own pace, receiving instant remedial help, exploring a vast array of courses, and much more. The advantages are huge. Already some 39 states have set up virtual schools or learning initiatives that enroll students statewide, often providing advanced placement courses, remedial courses, and other offerings that students can't get in their local schools.

The national model is the Florida Virtual School, which offers a full academic curriculum, has more than 220,000 course enrollments per year, and is a beacon of innovation. Outside of government, tech entrepreneurs like K12 and Connections Academy are swarming all over the education sector. They are the innovative force behind the rise of virtual charters, which now operate in 27 states, enroll some 200,000 full-time students (who typically do their studying at home), and stand at the cutting edge of technology's advance.

This is just the opening salvo. Most American parents want their kids to actually go to school—to a physical place. So the favored virtual schools of the future will be hybrids of traditional and online learning. There are already impressive examples.

At the high-performing Rocketship schools in San Jose, Calif., for example, students take a portion of their academics online—generating $500,000 in savings per school annually. Schools use that money for higher teacher salaries and one-on-one tutoring.

As the cyber revolution comes to American education, it will bring about a massive and cost-saving substitution of technology for labor. That means far fewer teachers (and union members) per student. It also means teachers will be far less concentrated in geographic districts, as those who work online can be anywhere. It'll thus be far more difficult for unions to organize. There will also be much more diversity in educational offerings, and money and jobs will flow out of the (unionized) regular schools into new (nonunion) providers of online options.

The confluence of these forces—plus the shifting political tides among Democrats—will inexorably weaken the unions, sapping them of members, money and power. It will render them less and less able to block reform. The political doors will increasingly swing open to reforms that simply make good sense for children and for society.

So the unions can weather the Republican attacks of 2011. But the real threats to their power are more subtle, slowly developing—and potent.

Mr. Moe is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of political science at Stanford University. His latest book is "Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America's Public Schools" (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).

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