Principal appalled by mess at caucus site

Campaign signs, litter left everywhere including painful place for him

Sam Morris

D’Vorre and Hal Ober Elementary Principal Scott Ober sits near a portrait of his parents on Tuesday. According to Ober, Clinton campaign volunteers or workers covered up the image of his mother with a campaign poster and plastered the campus with more posters.

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The rules for using school campuses for Saturday’s caucuses were fairly simple. Easy enough, in fact, for any elementary school student to follow.

Do not bring food or drink inside the school. Do not post campaign signs on walls or display them outside.

So imagine Scott Ober’s dismay when he pulled up to D’Vorre and Hal Ober Elementary School in Summerlin on Saturday morning. Campaign signs were stuck all over the school grounds. And that was only the half of it.

Inside, he found campaign signs blanketing the walls -- even hanging over the painted portrait of the school’s namesakes. They are his parents; his father died in November.

“I asked them to take the signs down and they said it was at the discretion of the principal,” Ober said.

“And I said, ‘I am the principal.’”

Inside the three classrooms and the library that hosted precinct caucuses, even more signs plastered the walls. Most were for Sen. Hillary Clinton, Ober said. When he told Clinton supporters to take them down, they argued, he said.

Hilarie Grey, Clinton’s Nevada communications director, said Tuesday she was reluctant to respond to Ober’s allegations without being able to verify the affiliations of the misbehavers.

“I will say we were very organized in the way we trained our precinct captains, and a big part of that training was to be respectful of sites and other campaigns,” Grey said. “We certainly hope that wasn’t anyone actually affiliated with our campaign.”

Among the 258 Clark County schools used as caucus sites Saturday, Ober Elementary may have been the worst for wear, district officials say. Even with reinforcements from the district, it took Ober’s two custodians about three hours to clean up the mess from 300 caucusgoers. They returned tables and chairs to where they belonged, swept up cookies and gathered the abandoned carafes of Starbucks coffee.

“It was a fiasco from beginning to end,” Ober said.

The other schools were relatively unscathed by the caucuses, said Paul Gerner, associate superintendent of facilities.

Holli Kalaleh, whose job includes handling special events such as the caucuses for the School District, said she’s still tallying the cost of overtime for about 600 custodians but expects it to top $100,000. (The 250 administrators who staffed campuses will get comp time.)

The bulk of the bill will go to the state’s Democratic Party, which used significantly more sites (258) than the Republicans (31), Kalaleh said.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By gopher

1/23/08 at 7:02 a.m.

Suggest removal

Administrators get comp time? Are they not salaried employees? Is this taxpayer financed gravy train ever going to stop?
By BringtheRain

1/23/08 at 12:24 p.m.

Suggest removal

Gopher - Even salaried employees are entitled to comp time for work performed that isn't in their job description. Babysitting for Hillary's twits is not in any principal's contract.
By DonD

1/23/08 at 2:56 p.m.

Suggest removal

This whole thing is indicative of the major problem facing this Country today and it has nothing to do with politcs. The problem is the widespread lack of personal responsibility.

To wit:

1) The caucus attendees should never have posted the signs. "They are our signs and we will post them where ever we want because we have our rights."

2) The Precinct Captain should have ordered the signs taken down and the mess cleaned up before any one left the school. "It's not my job, Man. Those other guys left the mess and I ain't gonna clean up their shift. When I told them they flipped me off and left."

3) The Principal should have filed Criminal charges and kept his mouth shut. "But I wanted to get my name in the paper and I didn't want to get them mad at me."

4) The Clinton people should not have argued but simply have sent someone to clean up the mess, apologized to the Principal, and bought a pizza lunch for all the students. "I didn't do it, Man. Those darn Republicans snuck in after we left the palce clean and made the mess."

5) The darn Republicans should have admitted to sneaking in after the Democrats left and simply have sent someone to clean up the mess, apologized to the Principal, and bought a pizza lunch for all the students. "Hey, nobody saw us do it, bedsides those darned Democrats deserve everything they get 'cause they use dirty politics then lie about it and we don't lie as much as they do."

6) The Las Vegas Sun should have told them all to grow up or go pound sand.
By nurseratchet

1/23/08 at 3:24 p.m.

Suggest removal

SOUR GRAPES ANYONE??? PUBLIC SCHOOLS "RENT" THEIR SITES FOR DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES. AS STATED IN THE ARTICLE, "THE BULK OF THE BILL WILL GO TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY". SOOOOO, IF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS FOOTING THE BILL FOR THE RENT AND SERVICES, WHAT'S THE GRIPE?? THESE CAUCUSES ARE STAFFED MOSTLY BY VOLUNTEERS NOT PAID STAFFERS. IT IS SOMETIMES DIFFICULT TO CONTROL ALL BEHAVIORS THAT COME WITH VOLUNTEERS.
By DonD

1/23/08 at 3:34 p.m.

Suggest removal

nurseratchet,

You have just made my point! The fact that the premises were rented has nothing to do with the situation. The rental contract contained language precluding the posting of signs and requiring the clean-up after the meeting. The contract was breeched by some guilty party. The fact that someone volunteers for something does not releive him/her from the responsibility of their actions. I wish it were so because I would be the first to volunteer to shoot all the irresponsible fools that left the mess.