The James Logan Courier

By Rick LaPlante, New Haven Schools Direct of Parent and Community Relations

For the second time in just over a year, a substantial majority of New Haven Unified voters supported a parcel tax that would have helped mitigate cuts forced on the school district because of the ongoing state budget crisis, but the measure once again fell short of the two-thirds majority necessary for passage.

Measure H, which would have raised approximately $3 million to help the District minimize cuts to the school year and increases in class sizes, received 62.3 percent of the vote, falling 939 votes short of passing. A similar effort, Measure B on the May 2011 ballot, lost by 82 votes.

"Once again, a large majority of voters voiced their support for our schools and our students," Superintendent Kari McVeigh said, "but the bar for a local parcel tax is set very high. We needed everyone who supported us to get out and vote, and that obviously didn’t happen."

Courier Staff Report

Measure H, the bond issue that would have increased local parcel taxes by $180 per year for four years, went down to defeat Tuesday.

According to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, the measure got 62.29 percent of the vote, or 4453 "yes" votes. It needed 66 percent to pass. "No" votes totaled 2696, or 37.71 percent. All of the votes have been counted, according to the registrar's website.

It's the second failed attempt in as many years to raise parcel taxes to benefit the New Haven Unified School District. This year's measure. like last year's, would have raised $3 million per year for the school district.

By Rick LaPlante, New Haven Schools Director of Parent and Community Relations

Dr. Arlando Smith, a statewide leader in school district leadership who has worked with New Haven Unified teachers and principals for the past three years and was instrumental in the creation of the Union City Kids’ Zone, has accepted an offer to become the District’s Chief Academic Officer.

The appointment was approved Tuesday night by the Board of Education, which also approved the appointment of Nancy George, principal of the New Haven Adult School for the past eight years, as Executive Director of the Kids’ Zone. The appointments are effective July 1.

By Ken Dilanian
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

When the United States contemplated how to respond to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, its leaders turned to the Central Intelligence Agency.

With remarkable suddenness, an intelligence service that had been tightly leashed after a series of scandals was asked to do things that, just weeks before, would have been unthinkable. CIA officers went into Afghanistan with trunkloads of cash, directed a massive American bombing campaign in support of rebel fighters and routed al-Qaida and the Taliban. The agency began capturing al-Qaida figures, holding them in secret prisons, and questioning them with coercive techniques that some critics call torture. Those who could not be captured, the CIA killed, often with a new aerial weapon, an unmanned drone armed with aptly named Hellfire missiles.
A decade later, polls show most Americans have grown comfortable with the bombing and the drones, which President Obama has continued. The harsh interrogation — which Obama ended — is an enduring source of bitter controversy.

Against that backdrop come two memoirs by veteran CIA covert operatives who were key players in the agency's war on al-Qaida. And it's the one defending brutal interrogations that makes for a more compelling read.

From Wikipedia:
John Trumbull (June 6, 1756 – November 10, 1843) was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War and was notable for his historical paintings. His Declaration of Independence was used on the reverse of the two-dollar bill.

Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756, to Jonathan Trumbull, who was Governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784, and his wife Faith {Robinson} Trumbull. He entered the 1771 junior class at Harvard University at age fifteen and graduated in 1773. Due to a childhood accident, Trumbull lost use of one eye, which may have influenced his detailed painting style.

As a soldier in the American Revolutionary War, Trumbull rendered a particular service at Boston by sketching plans of the British works, and witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was appointed second personal aide to General George Washington, and in June 1776, deputy adjutant-general to General Horatio Gates. He resigned from the army in 1777.

Read more about John Trumbull, free from Fordham University.