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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    Kentwood Public School Board - Entering The Arena


    By Kevin Rex Heine, Section News
    Posted on Wed Mar 09, 2011 at 04:20:08 PM EST
    Tags: Kentwood Public Schools, school board elections, Bill Joseph (all tags)

    Around 430 BC, Pericles - a prominent Athenian statesman and general - said, "We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.  Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."  I've said before that though I would probably have disagreed with him on many of his policy positions, I will readily concede that the man had a point.


    Many people might be surprised to learn that between 55% and 60% of their property taxes go to directly support the local K-12 school district, and might likewise be unaware that the government authority levying those taxes is the local school board.  But the fact is that both of those things are true, and ought to be true if we want a high-quality public K-12 education system over which the local citizens have the maximum possible control.

    The taxpayers who fund that school system, and the parents who entrust their children to it, have every expectation that the resources of the school district will be dedicated to a single-focus mission: to prepare our children to be self-sufficient adults in a globally competitive society.  In the case of the Kentwood Public Schools, these resources include at least 18 separate facilities, a teaching faculty and support staff of about 1,385, and a current budget of $87,145,000.00.  All of this is supporting a current enrollment of 8,780 students.

    The school board's first and foremost responsibility is the management and oversight of those resources.  Anything that doesn't directly and efficiently support the school district's focus doesn't deserve so much as one penny of tax money.  Management and oversight is something that I know a bit about, because all but the first seven years of my professional career were spent in one management position or another.

    Anyone who's been following the budget debates in Lansing and Washington is probably aware that local government units (including this school board) may be facing some tough fiscal choices in the coming months.  It's my belief that we best serve our community and our children by staying as far "ahead of the curve" as possible on potential budget issues, and adjusting our own fiscal planning accordingly.

    I've long held to the axiom that if you want to make a difference, then you have to get involved.  The man whose shoes I seek to fill, Bill Joseph, lived that principle in this school district for the past 16 years.  It will be a challenge indeed to live up to his legacy.

    I'm comfortable with that challenge.  I won't always do the same things that he did, nor always do things the same way that he did them.  What I will always do is to look out for the best interests of the children that we are responsible for educating, and insist on providing the best possible value for the taxpayers that fund our school district.

    I will identify what is working, so that we can reinforce it, replicate it, and encourage its continued use.  I will identify what isn't working, so that we can defund it and eliminate it (unless it can be economically made workable).

    My name is Kevin Rex Heine, and I'm running for the Kentwood Public School Board.  If you live in the district, then I'm asking for your vote on May 3rd.  If you know of others who live in the KPS district, then please remind them of the election day and encourage them to vote for me.  (And campaign contributions are always appreciated.)

    "What Say You" (Travis Tritt & John Mellencamp):
    < Michigan Should Honor Legitimate Contracts | Teachers Unions Explained >


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    Display: Sort:
    The voting precincts . . . (none / 0) (#1)
    by Kevin Rex Heine on Wed Mar 09, 2011 at 04:21:29 PM EST
    . . . in Kent County that make up the Kentwood Public School District are as follows:

    • Byron Township:  Precincts 2 & 3

    • Gaines Township:  Precincts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 8

    • City of Grand Rapids, Ward 3:  Precincts 7, 8, 39, 51, 54, & 56

    • City of Kentwood, Ward 1:  Precincts 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, & 10

    • City of Kentwood, Ward 2:  Precincts 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, & 18

    • City of Wyoming, Ward 1:  Precinct 8

    Any campaign contributions can be sent to P. O. Box 88302, Kentwood, MI - 49518.  (And yes, the Committee to Elect Kevin Rex Heine has a FaceBook page.)


    Good For You Kevin (none / 0) (#2)
    by grannynanny on Wed Mar 09, 2011 at 06:07:53 PM EST
    Best of Luck and keeping them on their toes by pointing out that taxpayers deserve better than what they are getting.  Open their eyes with the truth, keep hammering it home to the taxpayers and it will get you elected.

    Good luck Kevin. (none / 0) (#3)
    by JGillman on Wed Mar 09, 2011 at 09:08:36 PM EST
    They could do far worse.

    You'll get this.

    I wish you well KRH (none / 0) (#4)
    by Corinthian Scales on Wed Mar 09, 2011 at 09:34:34 PM EST
    And, thanks for the district info.  Always fun to go through.  Especially when one looks at the number of 15.9% college ready in comparison to the 17 top paid bloated egos that raid taxpayers pocketbooks for 3.14% of that districts total operating expense.

    Then again, I'm sure every district needs a Superintendent pulling down $242,482.13 a year with 6 weeks vacation.

    Just out of curiosity... Asst. Super Barbra from here and here wouldn't happen to be Brians' wife now would she?

    My guess is yes.  Dearbornistan schools has the same crap of Board Members and their spouses being either teachers or admins.  Always was interesting to watch at contract negotiation time... not to mention when forcing two of them to recuse themselves from voting on those tainted union teacher contracts.  mwuhuhahahahahahaha

    Mr. Heine (none / 0) (#34)
    by concernedparent on Tue Mar 29, 2011 at 11:25:48 PM EST
    Are these people representative of your ideals, values and thoughts regarding public schools?

    Nah, concernedparent (none / 0) (#36)
    by Corinthian Scales on Tue Mar 29, 2011 at 11:35:58 PM EST
    We're all independent thinkers around here.

    You should really try it sometime.

    TTFN  :X

    A long overdue follow-up: (none / 0) (#41)
    by Kevin Rex Heine on Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 04:44:44 PM EST
    I probably should have clued y'all in much earlier, but I've been pretty busy the past 12 weeks prepping my house for the arrival of a brand new baby daughter (who's due in about three weeks).  Let me take advantage of this opportunity to correct that shortfall.

    I've been politically active since October of 2005, and let me tell you:  It's a whole different ball game when your name is the one on the ballot.

    I knew things were going to get interesting when I discovered, via a neighbor, that I'd attracted at least two trolls.  One of them was commenting on this article as a "concerned parent" . . . and I really don't need to go too much further down that road.  The other was cherry-picking my commentary history here on RightMichigan, then stringing the selective quoting together to say something that I plainly did not say (of course sensationalizing it to make me look like a dangerously corrupt career politician who should be stopped before he ever sees public office), and spreading his conclusions around to any voters in the district who would listen to him.

    With regard to trolls, I tend to treat them much like any other critic.  I usually have far better things to do with my time than read, let alone respond to, critics who are more interested in starting an argument or using flawed logic than they are in getting honest answers to their questions.  And, quite frankly, the more time I waste dealing with either critics or trolls, the less time I have to get anything productive accomplished.

    In setting up my campaign, I talked with several friends who have some experience running campaigns for advice as to how best to proceed.  I pulled the voter list from the County Clerk (total of 41,766 registered voters in the district), sorted it by precinct, filtered it a bit (no sense in going after voters who have, at best, a 50-50 record of showing up for elections), and tightened up 27 separate precinct walk-lists (which would also double as mailing lists).  Those same friends steered me toward some people who might be willing to back me financially . . . and many did.

    I also managed to recruit several volunteers (18, to be exact) and coordinated a beautiful canvass effort so that every single targeted door (all 4,650 of them) was reached an average of twice during the 28 days between the voter registration deadline (April 4th) and the election day (May 3rd).  On the morning of the election, I was fairly confident that I had at least an even chance at meeting my primary objective . . . that of finishing not third.

    I had identified early on an issue that I successfully managed to make into the key campaign issue:  In the budget for the 2010 - 2011 academic year, KPS tapped into a $12.2 million budget surplus for $2.5 million . . . in order to fund continuing operations for the year (as opposed to paying off any debts, funding any particular special project, or covering an emergency need); yet at the board meeting of March 14th, during a discussion of how the proposed state budget might impact the district's finances, a "worst-case" scenario of a $10 million deficit was mentioned.  I viewed that as a problem, and I thought that it needed to be addressed right away from a proactive, preventive, and preemptive mindset.  Nearly every voter that I spoke with felt the same way.

    On election night, the Kent County Families For Fiscal Responsibility (KCFFR), who were opposing The Rapid's 31% millage increase request, were hosting a party at the downtown Peppino's.  As my campaign had also encouraged voters to oppose this millage, and since it was a better idea than hanging out at home, Christie and I opted to attend the party.  The Richard Stewart for GRCC, Frank Murin for GRCC, Chris Jurrians for GRPS, and David Clark for GRPS campaigns were also in attendance.  All of us were diligently monitoring the returns for our individual races.

    Unfortunately, this wasn't my turn to win.  In the Kentwood Public School Board race first place (Mimi Madden) was settled fairly early in the evening.  However, second place (Angie Forton) didn't get decided until midnight, which was when the four Grand Rapids precinct boards reported in.  In the final analysis, my margin of defeat was a mere 192 votes (just over 3 % of the total votes cast).  I think what annoyed me more was that only 6,342 total votes were cast, which - given that "vote for not more than two" was the ballot instruction - amounts to participation by about 7.6 % of the total registered voter population of the district.

    It's really tempting to woulda, coulda, shoulda this thing to death; but Monday-morning quarterbacking isn't going to change the results any.  On May 24th, the day after the campaign finance books closed, I debriefed the campaign with my staff.  We put together about a page and a half worth of lessons learned that I can apply to any campaign that I might choose to get involved in further down the road.

    There is a rumor running loose within the Kentwood Education Association that I'm going to try this again next year, and right now I have no reason to quell it.  However, since it isn't Thanksgiving Weekend yet, I also don't have to make a decision either.  (And some campaign contributions are already coming in, with a 2012 run specifically in mind.)

    I'll keep you posted.




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