Lake County (FL) School District Superintendent Anna Cowin has exploded into another fit again.
She started complaining about emails from one of the elected Board Members, and started a ruckus. See the articles below.
Meanwhile, I thought why not do a Google on Anna Cowin to find what else was published on the net. Boom, I found plenty...
This blog posted several articles about Cowin and you can find them by entering the following line in Google:
"anna cowin" site:schlerplotti.typepad.com
Then there are the pictures and info at the Lake County Democrats website about a 2005 rally against Cowin's removal of a locally respected school Principal - do one of the people in the pictures look like a new member of the School Board?
http://www.lakedemocrats.com/Photo%20Pages/Sch_Bd_6-13-05.html
The above two sources also had several references to a www.removecowin.com website initiated by Lake County Assessor Ed Havill, and said there were many articles about Cowin. But, the website has been totally removed now.
Then there is this article in the St. Petersburg Times in 2005 about Anna Cowin hiring a Manager who had blundered at two other school districts...
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/15/Hernando/Lake_County_controver.shtml
Anna Cowin was previously a Florida State Senator, and apparently had a reputation. In early 2007, the blog below reported that a new Senator, Ronda Storms, fired a staff director without any publicly stated reason, and there were many comments about the action at TampaBay.com :
http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2007/01/staffer_fired_r.html
Far down the list of comments, is this one:
Is Storms the return of Anna Cowin or what?
Posted by: | January 15, 2007 at 06:02 PM
I assume they refer to Anna's penchant for firing people.
Another comment was:Cowin was very Italian and occasionally said strange things like "gobbledygook", but otherwise - probably.
Posted by: | January 16, 2007 at 02:06 PM
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Here is a link about the Cowin spat over Board Member Barrow's emails - it is even showing up in a Construction data news database:
http://www.reedconstructiondata.com/index.asp?layout=articleXml&xmlId=580743147
And, here is the article from the Orlando Sentinel:
Nin-Hai Tseng, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.
Mar. 6--TAVARES -- Lake County School Superintendent Anna Cowin and School Board member Cindy Barrow are tangled up in what is becoming a very public debate over the fees developers and builders pay to help with school construction.
The squabble is so intense that Cowin wants to review Barrow's e-mails, including those related to school business sent from her personal e-mail account. Barrow said she will follow the state's public-records laws, but she sees Cowin's request as petty and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
"This is an intent to intimidate," Barrow said Monday, adding that it will take her considerable time to sift through all her e-mails.
Cowin's request was prompted by an e-mail Barrow sent to Lake County commissioners and more than 100 people. The message essentially conveyed Barrow's support of raising school impact fees by almost 150 percent. Builders pay the fees, which typically are passed on to new homeowners.
If approved, the fees could jump from $7,055 to $17,513 for each single-family home built.
School Board members recently backed the increase. The fee issue is expected to go before county commissioners for a final say.
Cowin, however, said the increases are too dramatic and could strain the affordable housing stock.
The superintendent said she made a request to see Barrow's e-mails on Friday -- not because she disagreed with Barrow about raising the fees but because she felt left out of important discussions.
"I've asked her [Barrow] numerous times to please copy me with those e-mails, and she has not," said Cowin.
She added that the messages could contain inaccuracies and she would not have a chance to clarify things.
Cowin pointed to the e-mail Barrow sent supporting the school-impact-fee increase. She took issue with one sentence in which Barrow mentioned the district shifting $15 million originally budgeted for a high-school project to a middle school in Clermont that is under construction. Barrow referred to such budget changes for construction projects as "robbing Peter to pay Paul."
Cowin said the sentence referring to the $15 million shift "gives the illusion that we're manipulating dollars."
The money was moved to the middle-school project because the high-school site did not have the proper zoning to begin construction, she said. The district could lose the funding if it wasn't spent, Cowin added.
Barrow said Cowin never asked her to be included in her e-mail updates, which are copied to her public School Board address for public viewing.
"Again, I apologize for upsetting you," Barrow said in an e-mail she sent Cowin on Monday. "If you would have simply called me, we could have cleared up this matter."
Barrow had received a short e-mail from Cowin's assistant Friday asking for "a copy of all e-mail correspondence between you, LCSB [the Lake County School Board] employees and the public."
Nin-Hai Tseng can be reached at or 352-742-5919.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email , call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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And here is the article from the Daily Commercial:
TAVARES - An e-mail from School Board member Cindy Barrow to Lake County commissioners about impact fees has spawned a public records request by the superintendent for Barrow's e-mails.
In fact, the two exchanged an e-mail flurry Monday.
While complying with the public records request, Barrow said Superintendent Anna Cowin did not deal professionally with whatever issues she has with the accuracy of Barrow's e-mail to commissioners.
Barrow also said she, board attorney Steve Johnson and district staff are spending much unnecessary time gathering the e-mails.
After each school board meeting, Barrow sends an e-mail to "citizens" about her opinions and reflections on what happened the previous night at school board meetings. Sometimes, she sends them more frequently. Barrow makes it clear the opinions in her e-mails are not those of the school board.
"Unfortunately, I did not receive any correspondence directly from you in this regard (the impact fees) and only randomly through other people," Cowin wrote. "I am compelled to respond to their concerns."
Cowin was out of town Tuesday and did not return a phone message.
Barrow responded, saying Cowin never asked to be added to her e-mail addressee list, but that all her e-mail goes to her e-mail address at the school board. That means it's available to anyone via the school district's main computer server.
In an e-mail late Monday to Barrow, Cowin said he repeatedly asked her to send her copies of her "news" items. Cowin said she's "always available" by phone if board members have questions.
"It would be appropriate to ask (questions) of me prior to a board meeting and not 'surprise' me at the meeting," Cowin wrote to Barrow. "To date, I did not hear from you but did hear from recipients of your news item. I, nor anyone on my staff for that matter, do not look at any e-mails unless they are directly sent to the addressee."
Barrow said she did ask district Finance Director Carol MacLeod for information about a $15 million budget amendment before last week's school board workshop. She said MacLeod gave her and other board members the information three minutes before the workshop.
If Barrow's "news" e-mail from last week, had been written to her, Cowin said, she would have called her written back with correct information.
Cowin said she thinks Barrow is perpetuating misinformation about impact fees and a budget amendment to county commissioners and her constituents.
"She didn't call about any concerns about my letter to the commissioners," Barrow said. "I have nothing to hide."
Cowin sent a public letter Monday refuting what she called inaccurate information from board members that she and her staff moved $15 million around in the budget without board approval.
"I know that the impact fee increase request came as a shock to you as it did to me when I first heard the numbers," Barrow wrote. "I had no idea how much our overruns on construction were costing before this study ... What I have understood is that the (school board) is constantly 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' on construction projects."
In an e-mail, MacLeod wrote that Barrow is wrong.
The proposed budget changes show $15 million taken from a proposed high school near Minneola that is not being built yet to a middle school under construction in the Clermont area., Barrow wrote. If money is not spent on a project within 36 months, it goes back to the state, MacLeod said.
"To characterize this administrative process as 'robbing Peter to pay Paul,' (implies) that something in this process is inappropriate when in fact, it allows the district to expend allowable and available funds in the most fiscally responsible manner," MacLeod wrote.
In her e-mail to commissioners last week about the proposed 150-percent impact fee increase, Barrow said she knows the recommendation comes as a shock.
Commissioners have the final say-so over impact fees.
But she said school construction costs are skyrocketing and the schools system' s cost to borrow money is going way up. But she also thinks there are still pre-existing homes in Lake County that are affordable most anyone.
"I was in no way intending to insinuate that the finance department was doing anything improper," she said. "That was ancillary to the argument about the impact fees."
Barrow said if she has said anything incorrectly, she'll correct it.
The superintendent said she will share the information about the budget amendment at Monday's school board meeting, when the issue comes back up for consideration.
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Barrows also submitted a Commentary article to the Daily Commercial that was published on Saturday, March 10th in the Opinion section that contained good details over the issue, but I could not find an online copy.
vj