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It Was My House Too, But I Was Forced Out In 2000 After 17 Years Of Marriage Brenda Battle Jordan
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It Was My House Too, But I Was Forced Out In 2000 After 17 Years Of Marriage Brenda Battle Jordan
by Brenda Battle Jordan (Notes) on Tuesday, July 2, 2013 at 5:46pmPublicFriendsFriends except AcquaintancesOnly MeCustomClose FriendsFlint, Michigan AreaSee all lists…WelcomeSchool of Life and Hard KnocksCameron Iron Works ApprenticeshipObama BucksTriple AAA TempsCleveland Plan DealerFord Motor CompanyTo Many to List LolUS PoliticsElected OfficialCity of Rochester HillsThe BridgeMichigan Republican PartyWestwood Heights School Board PresidentFamilyAcquaintancesGo Back
Several school officials know financial troubles personally{But incoming Westwood Heights board member Brenda Battle-Jordan said taxpayers “absolutely” should be concerned that people who make decisions on how to spend tax dollars on their children have had problems paying their own taxes.
Despite her temporary house forfeiture that she blamed on another individual — who is not being named by The Journal because the person is not a public official — Battle-Jordan said she’s conscientious about keeping track of her bills and tax records to make sure she pays them on time.
By Jeff Johnston | Flint Journal
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on June 30, 2007 at 6:30 PM, updated June 30, 2007 at 6:41 PMThey decide how to spend millions of taxpayer dollars, but many area school board members — plus Flint’s interim school chief — have experienced serious personal finance problems or have failed to pay their own taxes on time.
Bankruptcies, foreclosures, temporary property forfeitures or tax liens have touched at least 13 current or incoming Board of Education members in Genesee County, including six of nine current or incoming school board members in the Flint School District.
School board members in Beecher, Grand Blanc and Westwood Heights also have similar financial problems.
The Flint Journal found the problems in a check of public records for school superintendents, current board members, and those taking office this month in a sampling of nine of the county’s 21 public school districts.In almost all of the tax cases, the school officials ultimately paid their taxes, plus interest and penalties.
The percentage of elected Flint School District officials found to have such financial problems is “very high,” said Bernard McAra, a longtime Flint tax attorney who now practices in Grand Blanc.
“That would be much, much higher than the average percentage for the general tax population,” said McAra, who wasn’t told the names of any of the officials or given specifics of their cases.
“That would really make you wonder who we’re putting on the school board and what kind of either business savvy or business sense of responsibility they have,” he said. “If they can’t manage their own affairs, how are they going to manage the affairs of the Flint School District?”
In recent years, school board members across the state have had to figure out how to eliminate multimillion-dollar deficits because state revenues haven’t kept pace with added costs.
Interim Flint Superintendent Linda Thompson, who is expected to be a candidate for the permanent position, had liens filed on her property three times for unpaid state income taxes, records show.
Records in the Genesee County Register of Deeds Office showed state income tax liens filed against Thompson for $772 in 1993, $1,070 in 1996 and $945 in 1999.
The 1996 lien wasn’t released until 2004, but the other two were released in a matter of months.
Thompson and some school board members in Flint and elsewhere said their personal finances aren’t important.
“What happens to me, happens to me,” said Thompson, who was appointed interim superintendent in May. “But when it’s dealing with somebody else and their issues … I am more careful, because this is other people’s (money) and I respect it.”
Taxpayers should look at her record of managing finances as a school administrator, rather than her personal finances, Thompson said.
She declined to detail any reasons for the liens, saying, “I was having some personal issues.
“I still live in my house,” she said. “The past is the past. I caught them up.”
School officials gave a variety of reasons for their financial or tax problems.
Grand Blanc Board of Education member Larry Polzin said he paid his property taxes late in several recent years because he mistakenly believed he could profit by making interest on the money that would have gone toward his tax bills.
Beecher Board of Education member Mary Rankins explained her late 1990s bankruptcy filing by saying that all single parents face financial difficulties. Her husband died in 1967.
Others offered no explanation.
“As a therapist and an educator, I encounter people every day who face difficulties, especially in Michigan and Genesee County,” said Flint Board of Education President Stephanie Robb Martin in an e-mail to The Flint Journal in response to her filing for bankruptcy in 1990.
“I hope that I can encourage others to move forward and to volunteer for service despite their personal struggles. Life is not about how often you fall down, but that you continue to get back up,” she said.
Some school officials questioned the relevance of The Journal looking at their personal finances.
“What you’re doing, I don’t understand how it serves the public,” said Flint Board of Education member Raymond Hatter, who had a lien placed on his property in 1993 for $539 in late state income taxes and has had property he owns on Jennings Road temporarily forfeited for unpaid property taxes four times since 2003. “If you were to investigate every individual in the city of Flint, you would find at least some speck on their record. None of us are perfect.”
Flint parent Derrick Keyes agreed that many people have financial troubles, but said it’s “startling” that so many Flint school officials had those types of problems.
“If you can’t take care of your home, how are you going to take care of a district of this size?” asked Keyes, who has two stepsons at Southwestern Academy and a daughter at Wilkins Elementary School.
While boards of education approve district budgets, some school board members downplayed their role.
Hatter said he doesn’t handle tax dollars.
“If I was the (chief financial officer) or something like that, I could understand,” he said of questions about his finances.
Rankins said the district’s business office decides how to spend tax dollars, not her.
But incoming Westwood Heights board member Brenda Battle-Jordan said taxpayers “absolutely” should be concerned that people who make decisions on how to spend tax dollars on their children have had problems paying their own taxes.
Despite her temporary house forfeiture that she blamed on another individual — who is not being named by The Journal because the person is not a public official — Battle-Jordan said she’s conscientious about keeping track of her bills and tax records to make sure she pays them on time.
Although records show he has had no serious financial or tax problems, Flint Board of Education member Paul Jordan defended his colleagues and the interim school chief.
When asked if he would consider Thompson’s past financial problems when deciding whether to hire her for the permanent superintendent’s position, Jordan said, “I don’t know anything about the circumstances. You’re telling me that she might be imperfect. I know nothing about her finances. I know that, certainly, she’s done an excellent job for the Flint schools.”
Genesee County Treasurer Daniel T. Kildee said it’s to be expected that the Flint School District would have more school board members with tax problems than other districts.
“I think Flint is the most depressed of the communities, so it wouldn’t surprise me — whether someone’s a school board member or just a typical citizen — that they’re more likely to have delinquent taxes,” he said.
2Like · · Unfollow Post · Promote · ShareBRENDA BATTLE JORDAN,EDUCATION SPEAKER AT THE TROY AREA TEA PARTY JAN.22 2013″http://www.youtube.com/embed/nak1umthp48“**We Can Bring American Conservative Values Back to SchoolsRonald Reagan had this to say about education’s basic purpose: “We’re beginning to realize, once again, that educat…See More
We Can Bring American Conservative Values Back to Schools, Brenda
We Can Bring American Conservative Values Back to SchoolsRonald Reagan had this to say about education’s basic purpose: “We’re beginning to realize, once again, that education at its core is more than just teaching our young the skills that are needed for a job, however important that is. It’s also about passing on to each new generation the values that serve as the foundation and cornerstone of our free democratic society–patriotism, loyalty, faithfulness, courage, the ability to make the crucial moral distinctions between right and wrong, the maturity to understand that all that we have and achieve in this world comes first from a beneficent and loving God.”
Was Ronald Reagan right when he said that?? Well, was he? Of course he was!!
Why is moral education important for both individuals and society?
The Founding Fathers said that democracy cannot survive unless the citizens are educated, virtuous and ethical.
James Madison said, “To suppose that any form of government will secures liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people are a chimerical idea.” (“chimerical” means wildly fanciful and foolish)
Benjamin Franklin believed the same: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. . . . Nothing is of more importance…. than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue.”
So, for almost 200 years, that’s exactly what the public schools did. Moral instruction, grounded moral lessons derived from Biblical sources, was as much a part of the curriculum as reading, writing, and arithmetic. In fact, this type of study was common in our country’s schools until the 1940′s.
So what happened?
Why has formal character education been almost eliminated from the public schools?
It’s somewhat more complicated, but the true basic answer is that Liberal Elites in the Liberal Universities and Liberal Media have tricked School Boards, Administrators, Teachers and Parents to think it is illegal.
It is true that our Supreme Court ruled that teachers may not lead students in prayer in the public schools. That’s unfortunate.
However, the courts have also ruled that it is very legal to teach the traditional moral values that nearly all Americans believe in.
Every great philosopher of education has said that virtue must be joined to learning, and have even put ethical instruction before practical instruction. This includes not only the ability to tell right from wrong, but also instruction in those values necessary to a happy and successful life, such as self-discipline, the ability to work hard, thrift, respect for the law, confidence, citizenship, responsibility, respect for the rights of others, courage of one’s convictions, obedience to proper authority, anticipating the consequences of one’s actions, honesty, tolerance, diligence, fairness, love of democracy and freedom, and many others.
Many public school across the country are teaching these traditional conservative moral values but the vast majority are not.
This is just like the right to keep and bear arms.
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