Public Notice Or

Campaign Ad?

To the Editor:

All of the school children came home on Tuesday, April 22, 2003, with a paper distributed to them by a teacher to give their parents, telling the parents to vote. This paper did not have a source printed on it as to who prepared it, as to who paid for the printing and distribution. The questions is who supplied the money for the paper, the printing, the toner, etc, the salary of the persons in charge of getting this notice out and distributed to the about 5,000 school children. And also, whose idea was it to have this notice made up and distributed to the schoolchildren to give to their parents?

When a child brings home a notice from the school, parents know it is advising them. It seems that this notice was a campaign ad to intimidate parents and separate the school board from the rest of the taxpaying public. If not, wouldn’t it have been the honorable thing to send by mail a notice advising all of the taxpaying public of the budget voting day. There seems to be something intellectually dishonest in this action.

When I questioned a very reliable source about what appeared to be an intellectually dishonest act, I was told it was legal for the Board of Education to take money out of their general fund for this action. When I questioned why all of the taxpaying public were not sent notice of the budget voting day, I was told that the public on the voting day had plenty of notice because on the Friday before the Tuesday voting The Newtown Bee published the date and that there were signs up around advising to vote. Well if that kind of notice was good enough for the general taxpaying public at large, then why wasn’t it good enough for the about 5,000 schoolchildren’s parents. Was this notice of voting a campaign action, paid for by the taxpaying public but only delivered to the voting people that would vote their way? This appears to be an intellectually dishonest and dishonorable act.

With Respect

Lillian Strickler

6 Tamarack Road, Newtown                                        April 29, 2003