On Wednesday, Sara Toth wrote a piece in Explore Howard about school board member Allen Dyer and his litigious ways. Sara interviewed me for her story.
It’s certainly no secret that I am not a big fan of the guy. I’ve been writing about him on this blog since 2006. I’d like to see him off my school board and, the sooner that happens, the better as far I am concerned.
I’m not the only who feels that way of course. Tom Coale summed it up nicely in this post on his blog: “Mr. Dyer is attempting to turn his deliberative position into an executive position. While we have approached his antics as a nuisance up until now, our electorate must realize that these lawsuits have created, and will continue to create, long term problems for our Board's ability to get things done.”
But getting rid of him is much easier said than done. A very small portion of the HoCo electorate pays attention to school board races. That reality just gives incumbents another big advantage.
To defeat Allen Dyer we need more people to pay attention. We need to enrage the uninformed as much as the informed are enraged. In other words, we need a You Tube video.
There is plenty of good material to work with too. All of the Board of Education meetings are streamed live on the web. Past meetings are also available for download. The full Allen is out there for all to see and judge for themselves. If he wasn’t on my school board I might even find it all so entertaining.
And that is, of course, is what needs to be done here. We need to entertain in order to educate. It is perhaps the ultimate irony that his behavior in the open meetings he so vigorously champions could actually be his undoing.
So here it is, a call for action to the HoCo creative community for a three minute video of the best of Allen Dyer. I’ll plan to post each video here, depending on how many answer the call (if any), and let Tales of Two Cities readers be the judges for the winner.
The winner gets a round of drinks at the HoCo watering hole of their choice, a bottle of Black Ankle Rolling Hills and, perhaps, the satisfaction of contributing to ending Mr. Dyers reign on our school board.
If for nothing else, do it for our kids.
Email your submissions to wordbones@verizon.net.
