Re “Environment Inside Board Meeting Turns Decidedly Unpleasant”
I was evidently at a different School Board meeting than the one Ari Noonan covered on Tuesday night.
I do not begrudge the athletes, coaches and athletic boosters their position. They would like the nicest facilities possible for their student athletes. They represented their constituency well, but they do not represent ALL students equally well.
Others of us were there to remind the School Board that the other projects deserve equal consideration. A fair balance of the limited funds available is crucial.
As one of the “teed off” community members, it is not an issue of “slowing down” or “us vs. them.”
The Board has had ample time to do the job correctly and instruct the staff to proceed in all of these projects where possible. They have simply failed to get the job done. What I expect from the Board is to agendize these issues properly for discussion and community input, then to apply the same scrutiny to each of the projects that they have applied to the solar initiative. (It is the only project with a near-guarantee to provide a return on investment and, it appears, sadly, the project most likely to fall through the cracks.)
I can't speak for Board member Karlo Silbiger. But I didn’t hear him criticizing the community, nor did I hear him say “residents themselves were traveling the wrong way.”
I did hear him say something that no one else on the Board had the courage to admit — that the board has handled the whole process in a convoluted and backward manner.
During these times of fiscal austerity, with staff and teachers being asked to take furlough days, this outlay of millions of dollars should be done in the most thoughtful, fairest and cost-effective manner possible. Anything short of this is the worst kind of mismanagment.
Mr. Province may be contacted at jprovince@yahoo.com
Ari Noonan comments: I appreciate your well reasoned views. We may have been at separate meetings, Mr. Province, but I agree with many of your assertions. Most of the 20 speakers criticized the Board for moving too fast and stealthily on the four capital projects.
Mr. Silbiger said: “The biggest problem of all is that we have made almost no progress in the past year” on the four projects. That constitutes a significant difference between the two parties. I strongly disagree with your contention that “a fair balance” of money should be apportioned to the four projects. There are more and less important priorities, and the Board has not yet assigned a priority list.
