HIS CUSTODIAN WAS A LAWYER

Lynn to clean up school custodial policies

The ITEM's coverage was nice if a little incomplete. Whether anyone wants to hear it or not here's my take. Although the building use policy was on the agenda, most of the conversation centered around the cost of that use and mostly came from DONNA COPPOLA with JOHN FORD alternating between peacemaker and sheep herder.

The actual usage fee will not change and will be based on a detailed schedule the LSC adopted years ago. I was at that series of meetings and even wrote about it. Nothing has changed on that, Mostly everybody can still use the buildings without fee.

Notice I didn't say without cost. Since the REDUCTION IN FORCE of the janitor's staff that was done without layoffs by letting go long-term TEMPORARY employees so it appeared there were no ACTUAL layoffs I do wonder how the MAYOR can make her claims of "No layoffs" and still sleep at night.

Now if any non-LPS group wants to use the building they are supposed to be paying for janitorial staff for a minimum of 4 hours even if they only need a room for an hour. That number was set by the LSC back when they originally made the policy. There was some discussion about the possibility of lowering that minimum but were reminded it was set contractually.

MR. DONOVAN wanted the building use policy changed immediately citing his research  has led him to discover that the way things are currently being run is costing the city HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars. He was pretty adamant in his stance and despite JOHN FORD'S attempts to play peace maker did not seem willing to play along as if to say, "You go ahead and make your committee, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do. You have NO POWER here!".

The cit solicitor, MR. LAMANNA came along for support telling the committee that there is a move afoot with the DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE to prohibit the use of public money to pay for anything used by private, non school entities. This would involve things like water and lights. Nothing official has come down yet but that spectre is out there.

To me MR.DONOVAN seemed rather hostile and confrontational in his position. Although when you take into consideration the pressures he's under I guess his temperament is sort of understandable. His budget has been cut while the school's has not. Or has it, at least it hasn't actually been raised as much as has been boasted. Since LPS outsourced it's janitors to ISD then cuts to their budget then are proportionally cuts to the school budget. Funny how that works!