The Ojai Post

What a wonderful event this was. It gave kids as well as adults a chance to be involved in the design process of our new skatepark. Being an example like the skate team,all the kids, parents, committee members, the Mayor, shows a true dedication to the cause. Site Design put on a great show and it was so cool for the kids to be able to skate with Kanten Russell,pro skater and part of Site Design. A great effort and thanx to all.

The Baird Duplicity (reference: the Bourne Supremacy: Robert Ludlum)
Guest Editorial reprinted here by permission
Leland P. Hammerschmitt

“Tin ear” term: A political disease, usually fatal to public bureaucrats.

Gad! You’d think a skate park in an otherwise “enlightened” community would be a no-brainer. "Fit Kids…" and all that. Perhaps if "organic” could be applied, would it speed the process in Ojai? Tragically, it’s our school board and their lackey supervisor that fights kid’s fitness and the will of the community. Alert to Ojai School Superintendent's office: the skate park must get built immediately or the tar kettle heats up as we search for free-range feathers. Tim Baird denies his opposition but his current words and actions belie his claim. If ever there were liberal bureaucrats who won't cut at their base, but conspire to frighten you, the parent, with their cynical first cuts at 'arts' and school programs instead of administrative overhead (their political base) it's these people. No one is running against them but the time is ripe for an ambitious write-in. No need to endorse these twits! Simple: boycott the "parcel tax" if the skate park doesn't go in where it currently is!

Here’s the deal, the kids get their permanent world-class skate park where it is. Think Cher from her film, "Moonstruck" where she slaps the smitten Nicolas Cage as hard as possible, yelling, "Snap out of it!" Now substitute Tim Baird, as the recipient of the metaphoric blow delivered by Skate Ojai! What in the world is he thinking? Easy. He (school board) never thought Skate Ojai would/could raise the $350,000+. In record time! All praise to Wendy, the kids and their families. The school board should compare that whirlwind success with the languishing thermometer signaling money raised for the very worthy Help of Ojai, if they wish to get their political tin ears re-jiggered.

The skate park, if we let it, is about to be purposefully sabotaged by a school board and its' minion who, one would think, cares for kids. How naive! Like the "Empire Strikes Back", alarmed by the strength of the (skate) rebels, i.e. their hugely successful fundraiser, the evil empire, AKA: the school district, embraced the dark side. Oh, he'll deny it, but Darth Baird, a misbegotten Anakin Skywalker, the evil empire's lead Sith, in the service of the empire's acolytes, Steve the Sith Fields and Linda the Darth Taylor, you'd think that we're idiots, because Darth Baird cloaks himself in perpetrating historical amnesia by re-raising the Sarasotti Park location for the skate-park, promoting it as a subject to be revisited, all the while professing ignorance of the earlier battle that was settled by painful compromise for its current location. The head of Park and Recreation, Dale Sumersille, a pale shadow of the wonderful (Princess Leia) Carol Belsar, demonstrating the worst political instincts, hooked on to Darth Baird’s anti-youth, eager to build her own fiefdom under a convenient sponsor. Baird has gone over to the dark side; Sumersille should resign. The board is the evil empire. Unfortunately, no one is running against the Sith board.

The skate park must go in. Where it is! Now! It's been way too many years. The school district wants "Fit Kids"? Build a fit facility! Kudos to Skate Ojai for raising the money, something I'm sure the Darth supervisor was horrified. His notable silence for praise for this bountiful largesse reveals the Darth for the treachery he propagates.

We struggle to get kids fit, but Darth Baird actively works to strike down one of the most important facilities for kids today. Now he has revealed his duplicity by "moving the bar", raising long ago settled arguments about location and creating every obstacle he can, i.e. suggestions that the design/construction bid system be rigged his way and last minute maneuvers.

I’ve learned to despise school district administrators. It's as if their bureaucratic career paths have torn common sense from their being. If they had any sense, they'd follow the history of the construction of Rockefeller Center in New York. Massive opposition countered by an ice rink (read skate park) built to assuage. The area gets developed as the Rockefeller's wish, the populace mollified and both end up with a complex historic and treasured. Don't look at the school Sith or their quisling, Baird, for a sophisticated resolution. They spend money, they don't make money. To re-develop a major piece of property when Ojai has a surplus of business space makes no sense. While Chaparral is a white elephant there is a time and a place but bureaucrats have no conception of the business cycle.

While the term “putz”(“Putz:” n. a stupid or worthless person. Vulgar slang: a penis.) comes to mind regarding someone who goes back on his word, such as a Darth and Sith residing in public offices, it would still be impolite to write/say. Yet it's a fun technique to insult people in Yiddish or Latin. Lends a certain patina of erudition, admittedly bordering on pretension in the usage, but with enough street “cred” to be pointedly effective; quite like “Prime Minister Questions” on C-SPAN, where the ”right honorable gentleman” is addressed then quickly shredded. My Catholic guilt though rises and I have some minimal measure of regret. Yet I pace, back and forth, in the privacy of my hovel, chanting this wonderfully sounding word over and over again, while steam vents from my ears. It helps, but I won’t get over it. Darth Baird won’t be long for his job if Ojai’s skate park doesn’t get in the ground where it is. Steam drives engines, and this boiler will happily energize the effort to re-pave the Darth’s cocoon with a Jedi who actually keeps his/her word! Otherwise we should accurately refer to him as simply, Darth Weasel!
"My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father… prepare to die!"
-Princess Bride (1987)
To the Sith board and Darth Baird (with mixed references, sic): My name is Leland Hammerschmitt, you kill the skate park… prepare your resumes!