Where oh where is all the information?

Being an information person I am driven to seek out the correct information so that I can make informed decisions. I then share that with everyone I come in contact with. If I find out some of the information is actually I wrong, I make sure to share that too. Otherwise, how is anyone supposed to make informed decisions? They aren't, and they can't. Even I have been wrong, and will change my opinion if the facts bear them out. After all I am only human.

I am more a skeptic by nature, so I question everything and everyone. And I am writing this because I started this all because I went searching for information for the School Committee Meeting Minutes- where else? On there site where you would think that it should all be accessible given this day and age of technology.

I found what looked like the meeting minutes for most of 2007, which thankfully gave me some of the information on the Pappas gymnasium issue, but certainly not all. When I asked for more information I was told to go to the Town Clerk at the Town Hall and that all of the School Committee's Meeting Minutes have to be on file there. OK. So, I went up there to inquire about getting - yes paper copies - of the meeting minutes for my reading material and was saddened to find further missing information...

It was brought to mine and Town Clerk Office's attention that the School Committee's Meeting Minutes from September 07 to now April 08 are not currently on file there in the Town Clerk's Office as they should be. Now, the correct individual that I need to be speaking with was out at that precise moment I went up there 8:45am -ish, but that being what it is, the bigger issue to me was the missing minutes.

Bottom line- is the appropriate Town Clerk's Office contact will notify the School Committee that they now have 10 days to produce the missing Meeting Minutes from Sept 07 through Present meetings. The Town Clerk's Office will then contact me when they have them. That was what went on yesterday. So, 9 business days and counting....

Why did I go and inquire? To get more details and be able to hold accountable certain things that don't seem like they are getting done. I read through the minutes on the web from 2007 and I have a sheet full of questions that I will need to have answered to to see if they were acted upon, followed through on, or need to be put into an action plan. This is whether or not I am elected.

Information NEEDS to be made available in a format that is accessible to the residents, community groups, students, and teachers so that we are all on the same page in order to move the education of the students into the 21st century. The only way to do that is to do it TOGETHER.