Hamtramck (pronounced ham-tram-mick) is a Polish factory community entirely encircled by Detroit and submerged by politics. Hamtramck’s manners are Old World; but its morals have produced more political scandals than any city in Michigan. Mayors have become convicts; ex-convicts have become Congressmen. Once Hamtramck boasted a model school system which some optimists thought might save the place.
Instead, the school system became as bad as the town. Schoolkids between classes began joking about the latest graft scandals, and enrollments dropped from 14,000 twelve years ago to 4,200. Two years ago, the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools dropped Hamtramck from its accredited list.
Charges. One of the present seven school board members, ex-Councilman Vincent Sadlowski, who runs a tavern, was once indicted for accepting a bribe from a parking meter company (the case was dismissed). Two years ago, Board Member Eddie Kopek, who owns a laundry to which the board illegally gave $1,467.13 worth of business, was indicted for trying to sell the principalship of the Pulaski Elementary School (the indictment is still pending; Kopek resigned from the board last month).
Six months ago, the board set out to find a new superintendent of schools. They hired one, fired him; hired him again, fired him again. In the midst of the hiring & firing, Michigan’s Governor Kim Sigler, fed up with Hamtramck’s scandals, told Hamtramck to “clean up the school mess” or the state would take over the school system. Just to make sure, he sent Clair Taylor, an able assistant in the Department of Public Instruction, to see that the board picked a superintendent who could be trusted. “We’re on the spot,” President Frank L. Piasecki told his board.
Changes. To get off the spot, one member proposed at the next meeting that Watchdog Clair Taylor be made superintendent. The audience burst into cheers. The board unanimously voted him a five-year contract. But after thinking it over a week, Taylor declined the job. Instead he recommended that Governor Sigler ask for special powers to fire any board member he saw fit. Even some members of the school board were beginning to feel sheepish about their own conduct. Said Board Member Sadlowski: “I like to play politics, but clean politics. What we’ve been doing here is a little bit too dirty.”
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