I have to agree with Ann Marie – the evening meeting of the Epping School Board did NOT go as I had expected: boisterous, yelling, fingerpointing, partisanship, and the like. Neither did the other media outlets that were there. Why?
I give credit to Rose MacKenzie, Ciretta’s mom. She was the Guest of the School Board and spoke first before any other business was transacted for the evening. She set the tone and the style of conversation for the rest of the Public Comment section that followed.
It was done, I think, that anyone that wanted to bring any kind of accusational speech to the meeting ended up with their tails between their legs and the air out of their lungs. It really was the case of “who wants to follow her and go sideways”? Even though we get rather snarky while writing here on the ‘Grok, Mrs. MacKenzie (an admitted Conservative) was calm, cool, and collected.
She realized what all of the talking points were going to be – and deflated pretty much most of them before anyone else could puff them up – she took away their arguments (on both sides, truth be told).
While Ann Marie did post up the speech with FaceBook Live, I couldn’t get a strong enough signal to get out so here is the recording:
Note: it seems that whenever I use the word “tone” it is in the context of someone lecturing either me or someone that believes like I do (e.g., some Progressives believing I don’t “need” something and talks in “that” condescending “tone” that many of us are familiar with – e.g., Nurse Ratchet from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest or any of the Second Amendment haters telling us we don’t ‘need’ what they don’t believe we should have). Instead, this was a tone simply laying out the topics, stating what is and isn’t going on, and then proceeding. Not a condescending attitude but one of “I’m here to do a job, I’m doing it, and now I’m finished – thank you for listening”.
I was impressed.
