Thomas: We’re going to do whatever we’re going to do here tonight, but we’re not looking at the impact that it has on the total program. I’ve visited Live Oak High School and the way that SASI and Pinnacle have been operating, they don’t talk. The impact that has on clerical staff trying to get report cards out which are late, which don’t allow parents to know where their child is in the class, it’s very disturbing. I mean, this is the group we come to again and again. It’s the better part of valor. We can hit you first, and I’ll have to say that the elegance of it is, that you have been willing, we’ve sat down mutually and said we want to work with you, we want to make this as palatable as possible. I don’t know, in some ways I guess I’m saying get a backbone, be stronger. But you know what you’re doing, you’re doing what you think is best for the district, and I admire you for that, but at the same time, you’re not protecting yourselves enough, and I worry about that at the same time. And at the same time, you’re not protecting yourselves, you’re hurting, I believe, what our overall educational mission is at the school, with our secretaries, with our bus drivers making sure they are delivered on time, so I’m concerned.
(Inaudible comments are made from the audience…)
(Addressing the audience, Thomas continues) I didn’t mean to insult you. I don’t know what I said, because I’m trying to support you. But I really want to understand what I’m saying. I think you’ve misinterpreted what I’m trying to say. Can someone please explain, because I’d like to understand what I’ve said.
Barbara Williams, SEIU worksite organizer (approaches the speakers’ podium): What you’ve said is that it’s our fault.
Thomas: No, What I’m saying…
Williams: You’ve said it is our fault because we don’t have a backbone.
Thomas: No. What I’m saying is you’ve negotiated, you’ve worked hand in hand trying to reach a solution, and maybe you did need to be more hard-nosed, and maybe it wouldn’t fall like this. That’s what I’m saying. If that’s insulting, I’m sorry it’s insulting.
Williams: But what you’re doing is that you’re turning it back on us and saying it’s our fault and not your fault because you can’t make a decision and because nobody else will take any cuts. Yes you insulted us.
Thomas: I truly apologize for insulting any of you. My number one position has been to maintain and to try to support SEIU. What I’ve been trying to convey is that in working together, in being as gracious as you’ve been, as eloquent as you’ve been in working through these cuts, that ultimately you’re going to be the ones that are going to suffer the most.
Williams: It’s more complicated than that. It’s far more complicated than what you’re saying, but the bottom line is as Bev tried to explain and as Denise tried to explain, all we can do because it’s clear it’s easy for you to cut these positions, all we can do is make it most feasible for our members and protect their interests as best we can. If that makes us spineless in your perception…
(Board President George Panos stopped the discussion at this point)
Thomas: I feel very badly that by my saying that you’re not standing up for yourself that I’m conveying that you’re spineless and that you’re not moving forward. That is not what I meant. What I’m saying is, it puts you in a position of having to be the first to go, and we’ve seen a history of that. We’ve got pages and pages of where you’ve been the first to go. And I don’t want to see that. What I’m wondering is if we trade off programs. I mean what I’m looking for, if this motion goes through tonight, how do we bring it back? What guarantee do I have that I can bring this back? I made this statement last year to bring it back, and I couldn’t bring it back.
