Selander Leaving

Filed in National by on November 30, 2012
Thank you, Gov. Jack Markell for giving me the chance to serve. I’m sad to leave, but excited to help launch The Whistle with friends and create a compelling sports media destination for the next generation of fans.

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Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (27)

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  1. Mitch Crane says:

    I wish Brian nothing but the best in his new endeavors. He was a loyal and able advisor to Governor Markell and an ally to many progressives. He was instrumental in behind the scenes work to enact Civil Unions in Delaware

  2. jason330 says:

    I agree. Even in the weird interregnum after the election when Markell picked that old wingnut doofus and Selander looked to be shut out- he was stalwart.

  3. anon says:

    Selander will be missed, he was a regular guy in government, something that you don’t see very often.

  4. pandora says:

    Good luck, Brian!

  5. cassandra_m says:

    Brian, you will be missed. Thank you for all of your help over the years and best of luck to you in your new venture!

  6. John Young says:

    He’ll be missed by Governor Markell as he was his political henchman.

    Brian Selander, a spokesman for Gov. Jack Markell, said the board, on behalf of the district, was shirking its responsibility to abide by the memorandum of understanding and signaling that it was not serious about helping students in low-performing schools.
    “When things got a little bit hard, the board voted to break its own commitment to try and improve these schools,” Selander said. “… They certainly have the option to show they’re serious about change.”
    But Young refused to back down.
    “We’re definitely not serious about school reform in the manner it’s coming at us, in attempts to coerce us, bully us,” he said. “… If this money is so important, how dare they hold it back from us…. Their actions are filled with hypocrisy, brimming with hypocrisy.”
    Selander denied that the spat has tarnished Delaware’s image as a leader in the education reform effort, which has been a hallmark of Markell’s tenure.

    To me, he’s just an uninformed liar and the Governor’s bully enforcer.

  7. JPConnor says:

    And Mr. Young you are an ignorant POS, enjoy your evening:)

  8. Steve Newton says:

    @JPConnor–better get your facts straight before you go accusing John Young of ignorance.

    Governor Markell and Mr. Selander DID slander the Christina School Board; members of his administration DID accuse them of engaging in racist behavior, did accuse of them of not caring about their students, and did accuse them of breaking an agreement that the record makes abundantly clear was broken by DOE, not CSB.

    It may be that on balance Mr. Selander’s impact was positive (and he’s a nice guy), but in that controversy he was a tool of an overreaching government, and either allowed himself to mouth words he knew were not true, or didn’t care to find out the truth before he said them.

  9. Joe Cass says:

    That’s right, JPConnor! The fact is John Young is NOT ignorant but just another asshole with an opinion. What is the problem, fellas? Not enough Democrats in the state for ya? As for a libertarian commanding someone had better do ANYTHING; is that a new party platform? Mr. Selander and I may have had a falling out but I’ll still defend him from you sour grapes who should have had enough crow to eat two weeks ago.

  10. Jason330 says:

    My experience with Selander is different than John Youngs, but JPC is a strange dude. Let go of that hate. it will eat you up inside.

  11. Mike Matthews says:

    I will come to John Young’s defense and back him on this. I’m guessing you’re the uninformed one on this one, Joe Connor. 🙂 I agree with John’s assessment. I like Brian Selander and he’s generally done good work for the governor. But in this instance, what he said about the Christina Board was wholly offensive and unrepresentative (and outright wrong) of what the Board was doing. Would have been better to have kept his mouth shut on the topic than to have spewed such ridiculousness.

    That being said, I’ll miss him indeed, and best of luck!

  12. reality check says:

    Dictionary definition and synonym — Selander = Flack/Hack

    To all who say they’ll miss him and his behind the scenes abuse of authority I’d advise that you “swallow that load and move on”.

  13. Man, ’tis the season to be hatin’.

    Selander is, there’s that word again, competent. I have, and will continue, to disagree with our Governor over certain of his policies.

    But Markell, Tom McGonigle, and Selander, among many others, have brought the kind of competence to the Governor’s office that I, for one, wish was the norm rather than the exception.

    I wish Brian the best, and I am intrigued by his new endeavor. It’s not like he’s going to work for some plutocratic venture capitalist. He’s doing something he believes in. Good for him. I hope he succeeds.

  14. John Young says:

    Thx Mike. Tough call, but bottom line he was doing his job. doesn’t make him right, just a liar.

    People who want to know the truth should listen to the audio: http://christinak12.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=180377&type=d&pREC_ID=video&showMore=1&titleREC_ID=28739

    I know, it’s DE so using the word liar is frowned upon. unfortunately, it’s the only word that applies.

  15. John Young says:

    JPConnor: call me, I’d love to discuss your opinion.

    302.709.1795

  16. John Young says:

    Also, I have spoke to at least 3 Democrat members of the house. Thrilled he is gone is overwhelming sense. This may be an endorsement of his effectiveness actually, but truth nonetheless.

  17. John Young says:

    Steve, thank you.

    I can fully admit to holding the grudge, but I appreciate your analysis.

    Also, we need to catch up on my query re: DCAS scores…

  18. Steve Newton says:

    John yes been thinking about that–we’ll talk

  19. Steve Newton says:

    @EL Som

    Exactly how is it “hatin'” for John Young–whom Brian and the whole Markell administration characterized as a racist liar who does not care about the education of poor children–to call out that part of his record?

    The administration’s words–including Brian’s–are part of the public record. And that same public record does not support the things they said about John and the rest of the CSB. Nor has the Governor or Brian Selander ever acknowledged that they publicly crucified him.

    Sing him off into the sunset all you’d like, but I notice that he has not revisited this post to offer either a counterpoint or a long-delayed apology to John Young.

  20. SussexWatcher says:

    Competence is right. Selander and Rossi brought a level of professionalism to that shop that would have been impossible to find under Minner. He may have pissed people off – but geez, if John Young can’t handle getting beat up on, maybe he should stop whining and get out of politics, hmm?

    It’s actually praise for Selander’s skills that the public still thinks your school board did something incredibly fucking stupid. Maybe your district needs to hire someone like him. You don’t seem to understand that Selander speaks for the Governor, so the guy you really need to be outraged at is Markell. Selander was doing his job, and doing it very effectively.

    I realize now that I’m going to get beat up on by John Young, who will refer me to a bunch of inside-baseball meeting minutes and source documents and audio files and shittily written incomprehensible blog posts to reveal the depth of Selander’s evil. Which is exactly why you folks lost the conmunications battle on that issue. It’s time to admit he spanked you and move on.

  21. A friend told me yesterday that she interprets the sudden departure of McGonigle and Selander as a likely indicator of a Markell move to the White House administration. Just sayin’. 🙂

    “It’s actually praise for Selander’s skills that the public still thinks your school board did something incredibly fucking stupid. Maybe your district needs to hire someone like him.”

    yes, in the most perverted of praise, yes. I tell my friends in politics that they all have the NJ’s Delaware Voice to use as their conduit to the public to address any issue that may not have gotten through the press in a favorable or correct fashion. John Young did write in his and his Board’s defense but then he was up against more than just Brian Selander speaking for Markell. It went from editorials Mayor Baker on up to Arne Duncan.

  22. cassandra m says:

    And John Young, et al, were spanked for good reason. There was more than one thread at DL where serious and detailed questions were asked of Young and the CSD defenders and not one of them got addressed. We were told to go look at other info and even after looking and asking questions all anyone every got was shaking fists at RTTT. This was very poorly managed by the CSD Board, and it still looks to me as though the CSD Board got pretty far out of their lane on this thing.

    Which means that this:
    Governor Markell and Mr. Selander DID slander the Christina School Board; members of his administration DID accuse them of engaging in racist behavior, did accuse of them of not caring about their students, and did accuse them of breaking an agreement that the record makes abundantly clear was broken by DOE, not CSB.

    is just Bullshit. Even the statement that John Young re-published here doesn’t support this new bit of hyperbole.

  23. Jason330 says:

    Nancy, There will be a lot of gearing up for the next campaign, no doubt. The Dem primaries are the election now.

  24. Steve Newton says:

    @cassandra

    Wonderful tautology: There was more than one thread at DL where serious and detailed questions were asked of Young and the CSD defenders and not one of them got addressed.

    Last I checked, this blog was not the final arbiter of truth. There are all sorts of documents out there, they were referenced here and at kilroy’s and even on Delaware Online. That you drew a different conclusion about the fault of the matter does not make other opinions bullshit.

    Fact: Lillian Lowry wrote an open editorial in the WNJ that attacked not just the actions but the motives of the CSD School Board, and that editorial drew inferences that such behavior was racist in origin, as did statements made by Mayor Baker. (In multiple conversations, by the way, senior DOE officials have told me and others that the Sec Ed was directed to write a strong condemnation of the CSD board by the governor’s office.

    Fact: The CSD School Board made a compelling prima facie case in its meeting that DEDOE had violated the memorandum of understanding, to which DEDOE responded not with serious discussion, but with an almost immediate threat to cut off millions of dollars in funding to the district.

    Fact: Virtually every time a local school board has exercised the options granted to it under their original contracts and MOUs, DEDOE has responded by accusing them of not caring about children and has threatened to remove resources. See the fracas in the Cape Henlopen School District for another example.

    Fact: Brian Selander also characterized not the boards actions but its motives.

    The documentary trail has been laid out in excruciating detail in a number of places, so I’m not going play your usual game of demanding links to things that have already been sufficiently linked here, there, and almost everywhere.

    Again, it is OK that you reach a different conclusion about whether DEDOE or the CSD Board was incorrect about the interpretation of the MOU, and whether the CSD Board should have simply knuckled under.

    What is not OK is for you to attempt to deny that the Markell administration (including Mr. Selander) engaged in some pretty despicable tactics against those board members without a shred of evidence that could be used to impugn their motives.

    I’m done. You can now do your usual little dance of sneering that you do when you get called out.

  25. cassandra_m says:

    This:

    Last I checked, this blog was not the final arbiter of truth. There are all sorts of documents out there, they were referenced here and at kilroy’s and even on Delaware Online. That you drew a different conclusion about the fault of the matter does not make other opinions bullshit.

    is the usual way you work yourself into a position of dismissing the plain request in front of you. Pretend that it is something else all together.

    The plain facts of at least the thread I linked to was that there were a number of questions by me, Pandora and Venus (I think) that to this day were not answered. I know that Pandora and I read the documents and all of the other stuff pointed to us. And still the bottom line was no one could answer any of those questions and just wanted us to join them with their hair on fire.

    No one made any claims as to this blog being the final claimant on truth — but I guess that is the only way you can get to your high horse here. But if you can’t answer a handful of fairly simple questions of people who clearly went to look at all of the so-called sources pointed to, then none of the bluster is serious. And it still isn’t.

    And where is the link to the so-called racist Op-Ed? Oh right. Demanding proof of the deed is now against the rules. 🙄

  26. geezer says:

    “Thrilled he is gone is overwhelming sense.”

    Good. So now they’ll get the chance to learn that the spokesman is usually not the problem.

  27. kavips says:

    My “hair is on fire”; can someone point me to the water?