Jamie Somerville is a member of the Palisade Board of Trustees and an English teacher at Mt. Garfield Middle School. He joins the pod to discuss how summer break seems to be shrinking, why East Middle School closed down and the D51 drama, why more Grand Valley schools could close, phones in classrooms, teaching critical race theory and slavery, the Milgram experiment, whether Hemingway was gay, life as a trustee, complaints on Facebook and how they can be redirected, understanding what the Board of Trustees can actually do, how the town enforces code violations, the process the board goes through when evaluating projects, whether Subway could pave the way for other corporate chains in Palisade, why what happens isn’t always what the board wants, the Palisade Game Plan and its impact on the future of town, how people try to trick the board with false data, Jamie's most stressful town issues, whether board members vote on their own opinions or the opinion of residents, why development of the bank property got shot down, how the land trust is protecting the greater Palisade area, tourism being down 15%, flying during the pandemic, how local schools handled COVID-19, masking in schools, and more.
