Northport Public School Superintendent Search 2008

[Letter from Denise Branch, School Board Chair]

Dear Parents & Community Members:

As you may know, Dr. Ty Wessel, who served our district as superintendent for the past few years, has resigned to accept a leadership role with the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District. As a board, we are in the process of searching for a new permanent superintendent and are sending this communication to request your assistance. We have contracted with the Michigan Leadership Institute to assist us with the search and with the recruitment of candidates.

A key to those recruitment efforts is development of a profile of our ideal next superintendent. We are requesting your thoughts on what qualities, characteristics and skills we should be seeking in a new superintendent. It is our objective to have a draft of this profile by August 22, based upon the feedback we receive from as many members of the Northport staff, parents and community as possible. To that end we are requesting that you share your thoughts with us at your earliest convenience. You can do so by responding via email at denise@leelanauproperty.com or by faxing your thoughts to (231)386-7094, or by mailing your thoughts to Denise Branch, Northport Public School, P.O. Box 188, Northport, MI 49670.

The calendar for our search is included below. Please make note of the November dates for interviews. All interviews are open to the public, and we encourage you to attend and submit your questions for the candidates. Our objective is to continue the excellent education that our children receive here in the Northport school system, and we look forward to your assistance and support in pursuit of that end. Thanks for your help and continuing support of the Northport Public Schools.
Sincerely,

Denise Branch
President, Board of Education

August 25 Candidate recruitment begins
October 17 Deadline for applications
October 17 – 27 Candidate screening and reference checks
October 27 Board determines finalists for interview
*November 3 – 5 Initial candidate interviews
November 5 Board determines finalists
*November 10 – 11 Second interviews
November 17 Board visit to final candidate’s district of employment
November 24 Appointment of new superintendent
No later than July 1, 2009 Start date (negotiable)

Fruit

Cherries in the orchard, apricots at the farm market. It's raspberry season, too....

Poetry Tomorrow Evening

Come to the Leelanau Township Library tonight at 7:30 p.m., with a poem or poems of your own to read to the gathered multitude (don’t I wish!), or simply come to listen to, laugh with pleasure over, and applaud the poems of others. Poetry Night is pure enjoyment. You’ll be among friends, even if you haven’t met any of them before, and there is no pressure at all to perform—or, if you do, to come off like Shakespeare. There are no lower or upper age limits. If you’re a little afraid of poetry, dare yourself to do something different: come and listen and let the words wash over you like a fresh summer rain. As my grandmother used to tell me when the clouds opened and we didn’t have an umbrella with us, “You’re not sugar—you won’t melt!” Or maybe you are and will, but it will feel good.

Late yesterday afternoon we trekked around Grand Traverse Bay (stopping at Altonen’s farmstand to buy a peach praline pie) all the way to Eastport, where our friend Micki gave her annual piano recital for, and served home-cooked Greek dinner to, friends from as far away as South Haven. Strains of Bach, Hayden and Chopin drifted through the house and out the windows across the lawn on the soft summer air, the last rays of the setting sun streaming across the Bay from the west.

Traffic was light on our way home, and we took a detour through the town of Elk Rapids, lively with bicycles at dusk. Little Paradise Pines looked like tourist cabins from the 1940’s. “You could make a film there,” David commented. Another of my favorite motels to spot is the Crestwood in Acme. In my eyes, these modest places have so much character that I treasure each surviving example. Passing the state park campground in Traverse City, we remarked the odor of campfire smoke, evocative of so many memories.

The evening shimmered, evanescent.

Never Enough Time

No matter how long Sarah and her friends play together, they could always play longer. For me, there’s never enough time, either. Not enough time for gardening, for visiting with friends, for lying on my back in the grass looking at the sky—never enough time simply to look and look and look at the world around me. So it probably goes without saying that there’s never enough time for reading, either. As the name of my friend Gloria’s bookstore in Traverse City has it, “So Many Books, So Little Time”!

I suffer no shortage of “reading material” around me. (That phrase reminds me of another that David detests: “forest products.”) Does that make the shortage of reading time easier or more tormenting? While thinking yesterday about writing this post, I made notes of four books recently begun, none of them yet finished, and then last night I fell into a fifth. What can I say? Occupational hazard?

THE BOOK THIEF (Knopf pb, 2007), by Markus Zusak, is a novel I mentioned not long ago wanting to read. It starts off kind of stop-and-go, with Death, if you please, as the narrator, but don’t let that put you off. In a matter of pages, I was drawn into the story, and this may turn out to be the first book of the five that I finish, as I am devouring it at high speed. Promissory note: more on this book in the week to come.

BRANDEIS AND THE MODERN STATE (1933), by Alpheus Thomas Mason, is a totally different kettle of fish. I’m interested in history and the court system, however, and this book is just the size I like to hold, which sounds like a trivial consideration but which always counts with me.

L’AIGUILLE CREUSE (1909), by Maurice LeBlanc, is the third in a French pulp series about a master burglar. Noises in the middle of the night! Men seen running from the chateau, carrying large objects! A brave young woman with a gun! A high school student wearing a false beard and posing as a journalist! I’m told that the burglar turns detective later in the series. Pulp fiction is good for conversation-building in another language, and this series is old enough that I won’t worry about saying something indecent if I pick up a few new phrases.

THE LAST HOURS OF ANCIENT SUNLIGHT: WAKING UP TO PERSONAL AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION (rev. ed., 1999), by Thom Hartmann, sounds like a self-help book but turns out to be an engaging treatise on technology, economics and the environment. I’m dipping here and there in the book, not reading the chapters in order.

Finally, Bruce gave me a copy of THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET (1973), by Helene Hanff, a sequel to her popular story (so beloved by book people), 84 CHARING CROSS, and this is the book I read last night before falling asleep, having been glued to THE BOOK THIEF for as many fractions of an hour as I could steal for it throughout the day. London was Hanff’s magic city, as Paris is mine. Here is how she describes her delight in finally being there:

“I walked slowly along the street, staring across it at the houses. I came to the corner, to a dark little park called Bedford Square. On three sides of it, more rows of neat, narrow brick houses…. I sat on a park bench and stared at the houses. I was shaking. And I’d never in my life been so happy.

“All my life I’ve wanted to see London. I used to go to English movies just to look at streets with houses like those. Staring at the screen in a dark theatre, I wanted to walk down those streets so badly it gnawed at me like hunger. Sometimes, at home in the evening, reading a casual description of London by Hazlitt or Leigh Hunt, I’d put the book down suddenly, engulfed by a wave of longing that was like homesickness.”

The success of 84 CHARING CROSS, she writes, changed her life. While the book didn’t make her rich or famous, it did make friends for her, boosted her self-esteem and took her to England. In other words, it made come true her dream of a lifetime. What more could any author ask?

Guest Columnist: Al Bona Speaks Out

[The daisies in the meadow are here to help us--me, certainly--remember all that's good in the world, even while critiquing crimes and blunders. Our friend Al has very strong and well-informed opinions on financial practice. As his opinions are at least as strong as mine and certainly better-informed, I asked him if he would be willing to let me post his views on the current financial crisis, and this is the letter he gave me in response. The Traverse City Record-Eagle said it was too long to publish. Al insists there is nothing he could eliminate and still tell the whole story. --pjgrath]

For nearly thirty years I was the president of a savings and loan (S&L) association. During that time I was also a director of two unrelated commercial banks and for a time chairman of the board at one of them. That experience gives me a unique binocular view of the present worldwide financial disaster, which we erroneously refer to as the subprime mortgage meltdown.

I say “erroneously” because this appellation, “subprime,” emphasizes secondary causes that economists and Wall Street gurus identify as “careless lending” and “careless borrowing.” To be sure, these are contributing factors, but they are a long way downstream from the polluted well which is the source of the present epidemic.

There are two root causes. One is the market practice of packaging mortgages and then “securitizing” those packages in the form of bonds. This process widely distributes ownership and relieves the original lenders of responsibility and financial consequences. The second cause is the adjustable rate mortgage (ARM).

Prior to 1983, S&L’s were prohibited from making ARM’s and balloon loans. They were required to make only fixed-rate, long-term loans. These conditions were expressly written into the Federal Home Loan Act of 1933 (a year in which we enjoyed an uncommonly wise Congress).

The ARM is an unsafe and unsound instrument for underwriting mortgage loans because interest rates are unpredictable, and the underwriter (bank or S&L) has no way of knowing whether or not the borrower will be able to make payments in the future. In the present market system, the risk to the lender under the terms of an ARM is mitigated or passed on to others by the process of “securitizing” in the form of bonds secured by large packages of ARM’s. In this way, the risk is passed on from the original lender to the bondholder. A very slick trick!

Another effect of this process of turning mortgages into bonds is that responsibility is so widely scattered that it loses identification. Your mortgage may be owned, simultaneously, in part by a bond trader on Wall Street and in part by a bank in Zurich or Hong Kong or a private investor in Chicago. As the borrower, when the interest rate rises so high that you can no longer make the payments on your loan, you have no one to turn to, no avenue of appeal. Even the banker who originated the loan is powerless: he is left with no authority to re-negotiate the terms of the loan. All he can do is to initiate foreclosure on behalf of the bondholders (unknown to him) when you fail to make your payments.

Fifty years after the Federal Home Loan Act of 1933, Ronald Reagan “deregulated” financial institutions. I will mention a few results of the 1983 deregulation:

(1) The prime rate rose to 21.5%.
(2) Bankruptcies and foreclosures went through the roof.
(3) Jumbo (insured) certificates of deposit earned 15% interest.
(4) The majority of S&L associations were destroyed.
(5) ARM’s and balloon notes became common banking practice.

Now, about twenty-five years after deregulation, we are visited by another wave of consequences following from Reagan’s disastrous folly. He promised to get government off our backs. He succeeded—only to hang the uncontrolled, morally unconscious, “free” financial market around our necks. The people who are paying the most for this cavalier exercise in ignorance are, as before, the least advantaged among us.

What is the long-term cure? It’s simple. We should once again outlaw the inherently unsafe and unsound adjustable rate mortgage.

-- Al Bona, Northport

[Bookseller/editor’s note: putting acronyms into plural form is my bête noire. Though the HARBRACE COLLEGE HANDBOOK tells me I can go with or without the apostrophe, I don’t like either way: the plural looks like a possessive with an apostrophe but clumsy without. This time around my flipped coin came up apostrophe. I am not, however, soliciting comments on the use of apostrophes! Al is hoping for substantive reaction to his ideas.]

Northern Happenings

Elizabeth Buzzelli did a stellar job speaking at the library on Tuesday. I’m sorry not to have posted the news of her appearance sooner, but to make up for that lapse I’m announcing here and now that she will be teaching a one-day intensive writing seminar, through NMC, on August 9. I wish I could go! It is, however, a Saturday in August, not to mention Northport Dog Parade Day, but those of you nearer to Traverse City and more dedicated to the pen than the pooch will want to check out this opportunity before the class fills up. You’ll get your tuition’s worth. By the by, she’d been hoping for a “dark and stormy night,” when planning her evening presentation on how we scare ourselves with stories involving gruesome gore, but we had beautiful skies in place of thunder, and that worked out fine.

Downed by migraine a week ago Tuesday, I was forced to take a break from the nonstop pace of summer, and it felt so good (despite the cause) that I haven't wanted to go at a breakneck speed again since then. David feels the same way. Wednesday brought us a small taste of summer vacation. Bruce was at the bookstore, it was my house-and-garden day, and as I was coming in from weeding to get another load of laundry out of the washer to hang on the line the phone rang. It was my sister, calling from Mackinac. Her husband had raced in the Mac from Chicago, she’d driven up to meet him, and they were now starting back south and had just enough leeway to stop and visit briefly on their way. No time for me to go to town to shop, but there was beer and ginger ale (Vernor’s, of course), and inspiration pushed me out to the car and up the road to buy some fresh local cherries. The temperature was perfect. The sunshine was perfect. My gardens glistened from their morning watering.

We sat at the umbrella table under the black walnut tree, as if there were no such thing as work. This put the cap on Sarah’s wonderful morning. Being out in the yard for hours, with me and her friend, Kona, and then having company besides--!!! Both dogs enjoyed the social hour as much as the human beings did.

This morning I finished Richard Hill’s LAKE EFFECT and enjoyed it very much. In fact, one peripheral thought it put in my mind was the whole subject of self-publishing: what kinds of books succeed when self-published, what it takes for success, and when aspiring writers would be better off simply printing a few copies for their relatives. LAKE EFFECT is worth its cover price, and I’ll have no trouble recommending it. Another time I’ll go down my list and say why, citing other well-done, self-published books.

NORTHPORT CALENDAR:

Saturday, July 26, is the pig roast and family festival benefiting the Leelanau Children’s Center. The meal is free for kids under 5 years of age, with meals for kids 5-12, $5, and adults $15. The pig roast will be at the marina park in Northport, 3-6 p.m. (at the school in case of rain).

Tuesday, July 29, is the final evening of the Leelanau Township Library summer series, and it’s Poetry Night! Bring a poem you’ve written (more than one, if you’d like), or just come to enjoy and applaud. My personal theme this year is “You don’t have to be afraid of poetry!” Some of our local poets are very serious, others produce humorous verse, but there is a lot of variety, and Poetry Night last year was a huge success, moving right along, with lots of laughter and appreciation.
Thursday, July 31, is Gallery Walk again. All the galleries in Northport will be open from 6-9 p.m. We will hope for a pleasant strolling evening, as all but two of the galleries are right in the village.

Saturday, August 9, is the always eagerly awaited Northport Dog Parade. This year’s theme is “Indiana Bones and the Raiders of the Lost Bark,” so plan your costumes and floats accordingly. Registration for the 2008 parade can be done early in the day, to save time, at Dog Ears Books or at the Northport Bay Dog and Cat Company.

Saturday, August 16, is another wonderful annual event, the fly-in at Woolsey Airport, with pancake breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon ($4 children; $8 adults). The band will play, and there will be vintage cars on display, as well as all manner of small planes. My advice: Plan to arrive early to see the planes coming in and to get your breakfast before the line is too long.

I don’t have a poster yet for the food and wine festival in Haserot Park, but that should be August 9, and if scheduling this year is the same as most years, the pow-wow at Peshawbestown should be August 15, 16 and 17. I’ll give definite word on that when it comes my way.

Come to Northport Tonight!

Tonight author Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli will speak at the Leelanau Township Library at 7:30 p.m. Elizabeth’s new book, DEAD DANCING WOMEN, will be out this fall, with another book featuring the crime-solving Emily Kincaid available in 2009. Buzzelli writes a gardening column, book reviews and features for the Traverse City Record-Eagle and frequently teaches writing classes through NMC. She led a writing workshop at Dog Ears Books in March of 2007 for a dozen eager learners and kept us all on our toes every minute. Elizabeth is one of those people born to write, someone who is never not writing or thinking about it. She's an inspiration and a delight.

What a Day May Bring

Naturally, there are as many visual images to choose from as moments in the day, but my camera does not capture them all. Here are a few unconnected ones from yesterday.

First, someone apparently spilled quite a bit of food from a bag of dry dog kibble out onto Waukazoo Street, and a couple of gulls were not long in finding the banquet. This was the bolder of the two, the one not scared off when cars passed close by. Please note also the beautiful new paving of the street in front of Dog Ears Books. Our downtown is beautiful this summer--and this street cleaner was working for free!

We had a visit later in the day from good friend and Hemingway aficionado Ron Bauer of Grand Haven and Cherry Home, seen here wearing his vintage Dog Ears Books t-shirt, circa 2004 (?). He and David regaled one another and me with many wonderful stories, but in this picture Ron is reading aloud to us a couple of paragraphs from Hemingway’s short story, “The Big Blow,” because within those paragraphs is a phrase that he (Bauer, not Hemingway) thought David should use sometime for a painting title. (No, I’m not telling.) At closing time we adjourned to the marina to continue story-telling over a pizza from the Eat Spot.

Home at last, it doesn’t take a fortune-teller to guess that Sarah and I hit the fields and woods so she could stretch her dog legs after a long day of good behavior in the bookstore. The first of the summer’s Queen Anne’s Lace are beginning to bloom in the heavy, humid air of July.

Not captured on camera was a visit early in the day from Richard and Judy Hill of Sault Ste. Marie, bringing with them Rich’s new book, LAKE EFFECT: A DECKHAND’S JOURNEY ON THE GREAT LAKES FREIGHTERS. Nice people, an engaging, exciting book, which I’m happy to have (signed copies!) in the store, and I don’t think Rich will mind if I quote a bit here from the opening of the first chapter to show you how it reeled me in:

“The early morning mist hovered over the quiet waters of the St. Mary’s River, slightly obscuring the passing freighters. The rocks along the bank where I sat felt damp and mossy. Further down the river, in the narrow channel, the ferry sounded a muffled horn blast as it departed for Sugar Island. Along the Canadian side of the river, the sugar maples blushed as they awoke in the chill fall air.”

Well, I’m there! The Soo is nowhere else on earth, and I’ve never been on a Great Lakes freighter before. There’s some raw language, lots of technical and mechanical information, and I predict this is a book men will be nuts about, but I’m loving it, too. There’s even a connection for me to my growing up in Joliet, Illinois, where the railroad that employed my father was bought out by U.S. Steel (the company operating the freighters Rich writes about) to bring taconite from the Mesabi Range down to Gary, Indiana.

What a surprise. I thought I’d be starting a novel today, and here I am, out on open water, out of sight of land, heading back to Two Harbors, Minnesota. You never know.

Too Shy to Make Public Comment

“Read your blog today and had to comment on milkweed! I have fond memories of childhood in East Leland when we found Monarch Butterfly cocoons in milkweed pods. Put them into a bottle and watched them grow! The Steffens cows never seemed to bother the milkweed. Milkweed is an excellent example of biodiversity. Everything in nature counts but some stand out - milkweed stands out!” That comment came in an e-mail message from Australia.

Another e-mail, from Cedar (just down the road, by comparison), was this: “I discovered your blog last spring and enjoy reading your insights about books and life.” This friend is an artist with some of the same yearnings I have toward farming, and she goes on, “My project right now is raising baby chicks (meat & eggs) it has been one of the most interesting things I've done in years.”

Sometimes comment comes face-to-face in the bookstore, as the other day when one woman told me, “My husband reads your blog every day in South Carolina.”

So to the shy and the bold and everyone in between, thanks for reading! It’s hard to find time to write and post in July, but I’ll keep making the effort.

A soft, quiet fog this morning envelops the hills around our little old farmhouse, giving the illusion of time standing still. If only it would, just for a while! The question, however, of what to read next looms almost as large as when to find reading time: should it be THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE, as I’ve been promising myself, or should it be THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zusak? Maybe the latter first, as the former is so long? Today or tomorrow should see me to the end of INCOMPLETENESS, by Rebecca Goldstein, who by the way is a joy of a writer. My friends and I in graduate school devoured her novel THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM, hooting with recognition. Big Steve, you’d like that one, I’m sure!

Show Time

The show opens today at 4 p.m. Due to heavy rain and exhaustion, I did not come back to Northport, after all, yesterday evening but instead came in early today. Last night and this morning, along with David and Sarah, Kurt Gödel and company (Einstein et al.) were my soothing companions, but logic and math must wait for another today, because today is all about art. These images are from yesterday. I’m not putting up pictures of the show as it is today because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Featured artists for this show are, in alphabetical order: Mary Fuscaldo, David Grath, Woodruff Palmer and Gene Rantz.