I spoke to Maureen Friday night and she alerted me to a discussion that the board is currently having. They are starting to debate a policy that will allow lmsd emails to be deleted, forever, with no chance of discovery. Here is her note from OpenLMN.net

[The community really needs to watch the Records policy (#800). The board is setting policy of how emails are retained and deleted. They want a 24-48 hour period in which the user can delete an email and it never goes into the archive. I cannot believe that this board, at this time, feels they are trusted to allow emails (on schools servers !) to get deleted. Remember that these are lawyers driving the process, and they want to keep as little as possible around to get them into trouble later. I see NO reason why every single email should not be kept, with a strict policy on who can retrieve them and why. The discussion is ongoing , we may be able to affect this. ]

Yes, hate to be redundant, but AMTRAK's idea of stormwater management blows. Their idea of management is all the crap, with whatever toxins are contained in the runoff and stormwater runs into our streets, streams, basements, storm drains, etc.

In the interests of completeness, I waited for both Plaintiffs Pretrial Memorandum (filed March 5) and Defendant's (filed March 12) to post. They are both below.

Students Doe:

www.lmvue.org. Shortly after the video was shot the room was PACKED! Full of the happy sounds of neighbors and children having a great time on a rainy night! Sorry the photos aren't better, only had a teeny camera with me...

NBC10: Montco Man's Throat Slashed Inside His Home

A man is dead after his throat was slashed inside his Montgomery County home.

Richard Porter was discovered inside his home along the 400 block of Woodhill Road Friday morning in Upper Merion, Pa., police said.

Porter, 68, was found lying on his back in the living room of the home, Montogomery County D.A. Risa Vetri-Ferman said. He had injuries to his face and neck and a large amount of blood was splattered on the walls and floor.

This is horrible, simply horrible. This man's dogs are safe at a shelter - the police saved them. The murder scene is described as horrific with blood everywhere.

Cheryl Allison's editorial posted below courtesy of Main Line Times is magnificant. And I thought her article earlier was also spot on.

Main Line Times > Opinion
Opinion: Batten down the hatches and prepare for long night in LM
Published: Friday, March 12, 2010
By Cheryl Allison

When does something magically decide to become off limits? When Lower Merion decides it is so? Or when the solicitor who can't talk to residents decides something is privileged?

So, I thought after I sat through the travesty of this past Wednesday's meetings, that we would not only see the C.V.'s of those being pitted against one and other for Planning Commission so politics can go on as usual in Lower Merion, that we would also be seeing the solicitor's legal opinion on how this year's process was coming to pass? But it's not up there. And someone told me today that the public might not ever see this document?

WTF Loser Merion Township? WTF Lawyer Merion Township?

Thirty six weeks ago I wrote this post:

Spending Like Drunken Sailors, or David v. Goliath with an Open Checkbook

I didn't realize just how right I would turn out to be. Rich Ilgenfritz spent some time going through the legal bills Morgan Lewis has racked up defending the District in Students Doe vs. Lower Merion School District. My prediction? Scott Shafer and company are going to get really nice gift baskets from Morgan this Christmas.

How high will they go? Legal fees spiral in LMSD

Some highlights:

At its current pace Lower Merion could end up spending more than $1 million a year in legal fees defending the Ardmore redistricting lawsuit if the case were to continue until June.

According to a review by Main Line Media News, between last June and November the Lower Merion School District rang up bills of nearly $550,000 in the first six months that Morgan Lewis has been representing the school district in the Ardmore redistricting case. Other figures provided by the district this week suggest the total has likely already surpassed $600,000 as of the end of January. That doesn’t include bills for February. So if the district hasn’t gotten them yet, February’s bills are probably already in the mail.

and

The largest bill for the district came last July when the district was billed a total of $207,525.94. The costs in the bills were broken down into two primary parts. One part lists the hourly wages earned by the attorneys who are working on the case. The other part includes expenditures such as duplication fees, the costs of a legal research service and taxi rides to hearings.

Of that $207,525.94 for July, $200,838 was for the hourly labor wages of the attorneys who worked the case that month. The expenses came in at $6,687.

What does LMSD have to say about this?

Actually, quite a few words from Ross Haber, the Architect of all the 'scenarios' developed that became plans. Ross' deposition was quite revealing. Warning: This is an incredibly long (207 page) document with frequent use of the words "okay", "sorry" and "sure". Having actually read all 207 pages (took me 3 days with lots of breaks) I would recommend the highlights being pages 29 - 31, 49 - 54, 70, 79 - 82, 87 - 90, 93, 113 - 115, 128 - 138, 177 - 183, and 198 - 202. Feel free to read the whole document though:

Main Line Times > News
LM planning commission meeting gets wild during vote on appointments
Published: Thursday, March 11, 2010
By Cheryl Allison

So basically, it is like being Alice in Wonderland and falling down the freaking warped rabbit hole into Lower Merion Township.