[Vision2020] Board is Responsible to Residents

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (July 14, 2007) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with special thanks
to Paul Weingartner -

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Board is responsible to residents

In regard to Don Harter's allegation (Opinion, July 7 & 8) that the Moscow
School Board has not acted responsibly in the matter of the challenge to the
supplemental levy, I ask to whom should the board be responsible?

The board is responsible to the district and the community, the entire
community, but Harter and a small group want the board to be responsible to
them and their view of how to resolve this issue. What he (and they) don't
understand is that none of them is Gerald Weitz, and it is Weitz who has
sued the district.

It would be irresponsible for the board to negotiate with Harter or any
other group concerning this issue for several other reasons. The board is
responsible to the Moscow residents who, through the democratic process,
approved the levy. The board can't simply ignore this group just because one
individual, Weitz, claims the levy hurts him.

Those who want a negotiated solution claim that the law matters to them,
specifically, the legality of the levy and levies past. However, they seem
to be all too ready to allow the past levies to stand if the board
decertifies and re-runs the most recent levy. This suggests a duplicitous
concern, one to which the board should not lend credence.

Being responsible to the community is not the same thing as doing whatever
any individual or group within the community wants. That is a dangerous
precedent. What would the board do if Harter or another sues because their
child has been expelled or didn't get into the gifted and talented program?

Harter and his group should encourage Weitz to withdraw his lawsuit. After
all, Weitz only has to be responsible to himself.

Paul Weingartner
Moscow

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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"Are the "alternative" schools really all that accelerated? Aren't they just
normal? I think it would be more accurate to describe the conventional
schools as RETARDED. (Not necessarily in all caps, of course.)"

- CD Witmer (May 18, 2006)

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