If it's taxpayers' money, it's coming out of your pocket. You want to know where it's going to go. It used to be extremely frustrating, to place something simple, a simple FOIL, and wait two to three months. I had one out for a whole year.

These EEOC cases are very compelling and extremely disturbing to those of us in the community.

I am pleased it's over, pleased they reached an amicable agreement and the district can move forward. If this had played out in the courts, it would have been a very long time, nothing would have been accomplished and it would have been far more costly.

Everyone should have enough money to get plastic surgery.

Three hundred million is a tiny drop in the bucket. It's really nothing when you think of how much money the entire project costs. That's what makes us nervous. These projects are so expensive. Are they ever really going to get funded? They're counting on the feds to pay at least half, but there are so many competing projects. We're very worried about whether these projects will really be built.

This year the focus is on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana to donate money and resources to the schools that lost books. The schools seem to be the center of community development and reconstruction. At the heart of a quality community is quality schools.