Who Is Valerie Harris?
POTTSTOWN, PA – Valerie Harris is a new school director for the Pottstown School District, having secured her seat on the coattails of Tom Hylton this past November. Congratulations Ms. Harris!
We sincerely wish her well in her new endeavor. We really do. We’re sure by this point, she’s well aware that she’s in for the ride of her life.
Ms. Harris’ employer is George Wausnock’s State Farm Insurance agency office on High Street in Pottstown. Oh – you say that name is familiar? Well, it should be. George Wausnock and Tom Hylton have ties that go way way back. Back to the early 1980s when the two of them (and former school board director and Pottstown mayor Barry Robertson) developed Preservation Pottstown (that’s a whole other chapter…we’ll talk about that stellar group in another post).
So, here’s the deal. Ms. Harris is employed by George Wausnock. Wausnock threw a ton of money behind the covert effort to torpedo the centers campus concept for PSD (which keeps all five elementary schools in tact). See our blog post on “Friends of Montgomery County”. So what exactly will happen when Ms. Harris becomes aware of the full scope of the financial dilemmas faced by the Pottstown School District and starts to vote against Hylton’s wishes? What will she do when she finds out that Pottstown cannot afford to maintain five elementary schools (the newest of which was built in 1969)? This isn’t a new scenario. Hylton has introduced to the Pottstown voters several school board and borough council candidates/office holders who, when elected to office, actually became wise to Hylton’s half-truths and cherry picked, outdated facts. And what happened to those individuals? Hylton totally disowned them (if they voted against his wishes). If they voted for his pet projects and 1950s throw-back theories, they remained his “friend” and “ally”.
Does anyone else see a BIG problem with this behavior? We certainly do. So, Hylton manages a candidate’s campaign and this is the thanks he gets? What’s this world coming to? Can’t a person buy a candidate anymore? Bah humbug!
We also have a major issue with Hylton screaming and belittling Ms. Harris after a recent board meeting…in a school classroom no less. We really don’t understand why women (or anyone) would allow another human to scream at them. Excuse my French, but Hylton is an ass and deserves all the ridicule and scorn coming his way….after all…he is a public official. No holds barred…right Hylton? It comes with the territory.
We’re hoping that the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP (and abused women shelters?) keeps a close eye on Ms. Harris and how she gets treated by Hylton and Wausnock.
Once again, it should be an interesting saga.
While Ms. Harris is indeed employed by George Wausnock, it may be a little too soon to say that she is a lost cause on the School Board, like Dennis Wausnock and and Nate White who have no minds of their own and simply blindly follow Tom Hylton.
No one owns another human being. That means that there is hope that Ms. Harris will come to the realization that she is not owned by Hylton or George Wausnock, and dedicate her service on the Board to what is actually best for the schools, the children, and the tax payers. We’ll see. But the fact that Hylton screamed in her face for half an hour after her very first meeting, because she voted her own heart and not his, may allow Ms. Harris to come to her senses more quickly.
If she doesn’t reject Hylton’s intimidation and vote her own mind, after carefully studying, and learning about the issues, then she is not serving the people of Pottstown who elected her to office.
Time will tell…so, 2 months later and here we are, Ms. Harris you have not managed to find your own voice – despite your recent denial of the fact that you make your own decisions. I can’t say that I’m surprised by you and your recent voting history; I’m not a person that voted for you and, so, you have not let me down – I EXPECTED as much.
It will be difficult, at best, for you to convince people that you have the best interest of anyone at heart. I see you and through you and I am outraged by your ‘choices’ to date. IF only you could see the situation currently unfolding through the eyes of a taxpayer?!? You seem to be voting with NO REGARD to OPM and their budgets and it makes you look UNinformed and UNkind, not to mention DISRESPECTFUL.
I hope you sleep well at night with visions of foreclosures in your head of the VERY people that had faith in you – the rest of us, well, our expectations were low and you have managed to exceed them, nonetheless. Enjoy your ‘reign of terror’ and those among you that make it possible OR take those blinders off and do some REAL investigation AND stand up for ALL the children and residents and ‘fight the power’. Do you have that COURAGE and that CONVICTION or do you enjoy being belittled and bossed around too much to take a stand; some people were counting on you…
Power and privilege ALWAYS come at a price…keep that in mind!!!
There is still an opportunity to make this right BEFORE we are committed too much to turn back…speak now for forever be led by others!!!