DENTAL DILEMMA

You know, I've been thinking again. At the risk of putting my foot into my mouth that NO dentist can extract, I am about to give you a filling (some may say I'm full of it).

Let's look at things here. Let's see , LPS has been dealing with FORSYTHE for 9 years. I think they had something about renewing this contract on the agenda two weeks ago Thursday but for whatever reason they did not get to do it so it was put on the agenda that the contract would be signed this past Thursday but lo and behold in comes POLISHED DENTAL with a sudden proposal and the program is stopped dead in its tracks.

Mind you a majority of the same committee voted to EXTEND DR. "TOM BRADY" LATHAM'S contract for another 3 years without even considering anybody else. Let's put them side by side for comparison here. We have FORSYTHE with a record of 9 years, Dr. "TOM" LATHAM 3 yrs. And for FORSYTHE to have comparative record to LATHAM'S failing record, teeth would have to be falling out at such a rate to litter the classrooms. THEY CLEARLY ARE NOT.

I know, I know, I first came out to say they were wise to wait. I thought it would be HYPOCRITICAL of me to say anything else, I mean I did start that PETITION THING to force them to have a PUBLIC HEARING on opening up the SUPERINTENDENTS position (that nobody wants to talk about scheduling anyway. Hey TICK, TOCK)

Then I got to asking myself, "Self, is that what's going on here? Is it really a chose the best person thing". Well the answer to that is I don't believe so. Look who presented these programs, with FORSYTHE we heard from a dentist, from POLISHED DENTAL, we heard from a lady who cleans teeth looking to clean up.

You see, while POLISHED DENTAL is not based in LYNN, it seems like lots of family members have deep LYNN roots. Wonder if who knew who had anything to do with this 11th hour proposal that put so many LYNN kids regularly scheduled dental care in danger? THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME.

I have to give JOHN FORD credit here, he was at least thinking about what would havethe best interest of most of the kids. He wanted to sign the contract for the elementary kids and maybe let POLISHED DENTAL prove themselves on the MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Being the lawyer that he is ATTORNEY MIHOS said, "YOU CAN'T DO THAT, WE HAVE NO CONTRACT FOR THE MIDDLE SCHOOL" so the whole process came to a screeching halt. This put everybody in jeopardy. While I've not seen the actual contract that we have presently. I think it expires REAL SOON.

Even if POLISHED DENTAL came up with a winning proposal at this late date, the back and forth haggling working out the language could take the rest of the year until anything is signed. That means a lot of kids won't get dental care this spring. Now if what POLISHED DENTAL says is TRUE that their mission is to prevent tooth decay why would they have positioned themselves in such a way to gum up the works of providing FREE dental care to thousands of young mouths thereby CREATING MORE CAVITIES?

If MIHOS hadn't been so quick to dismiss JOHN FORD and offer all of the options available possibly a number of potential cavities could have been prevented. The ONLY contract that could have been signed Thursday night was with FORSYTHE for ELEMENTARY kids. The LSC could have signed it insuring a continuity of care for that population.

Even though they talked expansion to MIDDLE SCHOOL and a pilot-program at CLASSICAL, FORSYTHE had no contract proposal. They weren't ready to "do the deal". On this matter they were on equal footing with POLISHED DENTAL. Here would be the perfect place to set the proposals side-by-side, call for contracts, and you have the rest of the school year to work something out with somebody without endangering ongoing care of our youngest kids.

The threat of losing what we already have was good enough to convince 4 LSC members to create an eighty thousan dollar WRAP-AROUND administrative person but apparently wasn;t enough to keep some of our kids from potentially losing their teeth.