Poquoson City Schools

Q&A with Jim Haas

I became very interested in York County government years ago, and studied it and decided that we needed a very common-sense business approach. We are a $125 million a year company that does not seem to act that way. I’ve talked to the finance director for hours. I spent hours with the Parks & Rec people about why we did this, why we do that, and did anybody ask them this question. The answer surprisingly was, “No.” I would ask, “No, no like the supervisors?” “No.” I’ve gone to see Tom Sawyer who is the purchasing agent picked a random date to see 100 requisitions in a row to get a sample of what’s going on. It’s amazing, and I shared the concerns. We’re spending 50% more money than we ever did. My campaign manager is Dick Hixson, former assistant superintendent of York Schools. My volunteer coordinator is Marsha Brown, who’s been a principal for 30 years. They’ve given me a real good education on the schools. With all this additional money, our teachers and our public employees haven’t had a raise in three years. Why? Because that’s the only variable you can cut. You can’t heat half a building. Sure. They are funded roughly half by the county and half by the state, yet the Board of Supervisors and the School Board really don’t speak with each other very much, almost not at all. I can’t imagine in any logical business that you would give someone half their funding and never really have much of a dialogue except on an annual basis. I agree it’s not for the supervisors to micro-manage. I keep getting asked about where I would cut. It’s not the supervisors’ job to go in and cut stuff. It’s to have a very clear vision, fund the vision, tell the CEO “This is what we want to have happen,” and then hold them accountable and supervise. As for the schools, I think there certainly could be some efficiencies, and I think there could be some as well with the county and the schools working together. It’s very light. They say things like, “Well, we’ve looked at consolidation and we got the same machine making the badges for ID for the county and for the schools, but after that we don’t see the advantage.” There are also tremendous efficiencies that we could use for technology.

The Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg Virginia > News > Q&A with Ben ...

I think I’m the most qualified person to take over the helm. I have been in the prosecutor’s office 14 years. My opponent has been there 17, so I’m not coming in with rose-colored glasses as people often do when they are looking from the outside at a government job. I’ve been in the trenches and I think I can do a better job. It needs to be now because there have been two ethics complaints in two years. The Kwaume Edwards case in 2006-07, and the prosecutorial misconduct weighed heavily on me. I came to the office in May of 1997. I don’t understand how all this went on, but Kathy Crinick went in August of 1997 to the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail where the whole episode took place with the reenactment and turning off the tape. I started working on the case in October or November. I knew they had gone, and there was a transcript, but the transcript said “tape turned off, flip to the other side.” When the affidavit came later, you could have knocked me over with a feather. It was the first I had ever been told about that. I can provide more services for the same money. One of my planks is to prosecute misdemeanor cases whenever there is a defense attorney on the other side, which is going to be any Class 1 misdemeanor. At present an officer or a citizen victim is left alone to prosecute assaults, shopliftings, bad checks and so on. Civilians can’t prosecute because they don’t have a law degree. They are witnesses, basically, who are up against a professional defense attorney who knows the rules of evidence and knows the foundations of law.  At present, the York/Poquoson Commonwealth's Office does not get involved in any reckless driving case at all. The officer is left to prosecute the case on his or her own. It is my understanding from [Commonwealth Attorney] Nate Green that Williamsburg-James City gets involved in reckless driving cases when the defendant is charged with going 30 mph or over the speed limit. I don’t think so. I don’t think that has affected our charging or prosecution. What comes through, comes through. I think we are a victim of our own success. First of all, criminal cases got precedence. The resident judges, Judge Hoover, Judge Long, Judge Powell, the sitting judges, took it upon themselves to make sure the criminal dockets took precedence, because if they don’t, speedy trial concerns make prosecution impossible.

Insiders' Guide to Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach, Norfolk & Newport News

PoQuosoN CItY PuBLIC sCHooLs 500 City Hall Ave., Room 219 Poquoson (757) 868- 3055 www.poquoson.k12.va .us This tiny city serves about 2500 students at four ...

MDR's school directory, Virginia

804/868-7123 912/EGX 844 AGFO/25+ 1024 Poquoson Middle Sch Roger Tomlinson 985 Poquoson ... 804723-6358 PK-8 332 Al'10-24 14 HAMPTON CITY PRIVATE SCHOOLS . ...

The language educator

New FLAP Grants for FY 2007 AZ— CAVE CREEK, Cave Creek Unified School District, ... $50000 VA— POQUOSON, Poquoson City Schools, $88074 TOTAL — $8.7 million ...

Proceedings, the Southern Association newsletter

D. Edward Raper Dan River Middle School, Ringgold, Patsy C. Nuckols Gretna Middle School, Cretna, York O. Pinckney Poquoson City School System, Poquoson, ...

Language and cultural diversity in U.S. schools, democratic principles in action

... Area Name Total VA Franklin city 35 15 (D) 0 (D) VA Fredericksburg city 280 ... city 3o5 H5 no (D) P) VA Poquoson city 105 25 40 40 o VA Portsmouth city ...