"You Are Insulting My Integrity," and other declarations made at the most recent school rezoning meeting

THINGS GETTING HEATED / Photo via Michael Nagle for The New York Times

Oh, good gravy.

If you haven't yet read the New York Times article about the Park Slope School Rezoning Meeting held a couple of weeks ago, you should toss a bag of popcorn into the microwave right now and click on over there. We've written about the controversial rezoning plan time and time again, but in short: P.S. 321 and P.S 107 might be subject to rezoning, and some Brooklyn residents are pissed because of things like diversity, real estate values and some dude named Jim Devore, who sounds like he just might be one Snackable shy of a full lunch-box.

The NYT article reads like a great You-Can't-Handle-the-Truth!-esque drama, replete with loud outbursts and the appearance of officers to calm the sitch. Here are a few highlights that I found particularly noteworthy:

"At that, the council president, Jim Devor, began yelling. “You are insulting my integrity!” he shouted. The audience stopped, silent. A police officer appeared in the aisle."

What the what?!?  This shit is going DOWN!

And then there's this: 

"On playgrounds, in grocery stores, and on the streets in the neighborhood, the rezoning plan has been a prime topic, as has Mr. Devor’s role. It is hard to spend time anywhere in Park Slope where families meet and not hear the same question repeated: “Who does this guy Jim Devor think he is?”"

I think that this might be a slight exaggeration.  I was having dinner at Belleville last night, and there were families with kids all over the place (parents in Park Slope just looooove to feed their kids cassoulet, dontcha know?), and I didn't hear anyone talking about Jim Devor.  But maybe they should be.

And then, after the article gives us a lengthy accounting of Devor's vitriolic outbursts, ill temper, and dismissive attitude toward the parents of children in the district, we get this little paragraph:

"Re-election doesn’t matter to him, he said: his daughter is out of middle school, so when his term ends in June he is not eligible to serve again. Mr. Devor added that he had no political ambitions, and no fear of alienating either parents in the neighborhood or the powers in the Education Department."

Oh, that's great.  So, not only does he not give a flying fuck about whatever anyone else thinks, he's also operating without any incentive to be accountable!  Yay!

So, what I wanna know is -- has anyone actually met this Jim Devor?  If you met him, did he scream in your face while his little spit drops peppered your visage?  Did he punch you in the dick when you asked him a question?  Did he clothesline you as you were pushing your grocery cart down the aisle at Key Foods, just because he thought you were shopping too fast?  I wanna know.  What's the deal, here, people?

p.s. If you're itching for some more, here's a link to some actual video (you must be logged into Facebook to view).