Rockville Centre Letters - Dec. 24

We should all be ashamed

To the Editor:

I worked the school bond vote the other day and I saw so much anger. I also saw pleasure and accomplishment from many people who had voted no and had “sent a message.” I actually saw a couple of grown men fist-pump and high-five each other as though they had just sunk a putt or scored a goal.

I get it: Times are really tough for so many people. Even those of us who haven’t been hurt by unemployment have had our incomes reduced, our investments decimated, even our home values are down. It’s scary out there, for sure. I get that taxes are definitely too high and keep going up from every taxing authority. I get wanting to send a message — to Washington, to Albany, to Nassau County, to Rockville Centre and, yes, to the school district, to cut waste and keep costs as low as possible.

We are very fortunate to live in an affluent community like Rockville Centre, and while I know there are some people here who are really hurting, most, thankfully, are not. We are fortunate enough here that when our homes need new roofs, we put them on, and when our kids need clothes that fit, we buy them.

Despite the rhetoric of the past few weeks and months, this bond issue was not for cosmetics, it was to keep the school from disrepair, to keep our academic programs in line with state mandates, to get our athletic facilities nearly as good as our neighboring districts. It was to provide our high school kids with the room and the opportunity to have lunch in school, and the ability to go to their classes, and to the bathroom, without having to walk out in the cold and rain from a distant classroom.

Yes, this community has sent a message that was heard loud and clear — not by Obama or Paterson, but by our teenagers, our kids, present and future. Remember as you drive in your Benz to the links and the beach club, fly to your skiing and Caribbean vacations, that you have sent a strong message to all these budding scientists, athletes, musicians, actors, Down syndrome kids and every kid who just wants to eat lunch in school rather than rushing down Long Beach road with six kids piled in a new driver’s car or who wants to walk between classes without being knocked down in the hallway. The message is that they aren’t worth an additional $100 a year to the adults in this community to be safe and comfortable to learn in the school that we provide for them and send them to. We should all be ashamed. I know I am.

Janet Cisario

Rockville Centre

Wants equal time on school channel

To the Editor:

Was I the only village resident offended by the shameful use of students as pawns by Superintendent William Johnson while promoting passage of the recent school bond referendum?

His manipulative use and leading questioning of these children on the school's own television station was truly inappropriate. It seems that the only time Dr. Johnson makes a TV appearance is when he’s trying pitch the passage of another bloated school budget or, most recently, the defeated bond issue.

On behalf of all village taxpayers, I think the time has come to demand equal time on our resident-funded but biased school channel to share other viewpoints prior to our next school budget vote.

Bryan Korman

Rockville Centre Tea Party Patriots