[From the Keene Sentinel Letters Page, Saturday, March 8, 2008]
To The Sentinel:
The Monadnock Taxpayers Association is fond of saying that it “controls the taxpayers.”
But who controls the association?
The organization, which claims to represent all taxpayers — and which has been instrumental, with its mass-mailed negative “yellow sheet,” in getting voters to reject five of the last six school budgets — has stated in the past that its members prefer to remain anonymous.
The group’s core collaborators appear to be Dick Bauries, of Swanzey (voted off the Monadnock budget committee last year, but running again); budget committee Chairman Neil Moriarity of Richmond; Daniel F. Connell of Richmond; and Monadnock school board representative James Carnie of Richmond.
Who are these men? All are older, with no children in the public schools.
Interestingly, a Daniel F. Connell of Richmond is listed in the registry of signatories on a proclamation at the Web site of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State (http://www.schoolandstate.org/home.htm). The proclamation states: “I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in education.”
One clue to the group’s core constituency may lie in the petition articles the organization’s members seem to file every year.
This year, one was submitted by Mr. Connell; last year the group’s members submitted three.
All have Mr. Connell’s name at or near the top and were signed by other members.
Of the 77 signatures on the 2007 petition articles, 51 were Richmond residents. Since 2005 there have been 163 signatories to petition articles. Of those, 75 were Richmond residents. Ten of the 11 petition articles submitted during that period were signed by the four primary Monadnock Taxpayers Association members and more than half of all petition signatures were from Richmond.
It would appear that in petition articles, Richmond is disproportionately represented.
It seems clear that the association consists of a core group with no children in public schools, and a constituency that consists of a select group of people from Richmond, many of whom home-school or send their children to private school. In other words, it is an organization that consists primarily of people with no direct stake in providing a quality public education — and perhaps some that don’t believe in it.
Three of the four individuals behind the association are running for the school board or budget committee positions this year.
I certainly hope voters from Richmond and Swanzey are paying attention.
The future of the Monadnock Middle/High school’s accreditation may depend on it.
ROBERT L. MITCHELL
24 Main St.
Gilsum
Everyone who pays taxes has a right to voice what they feel should be done with those taxes.
The government education system has become a system of abuses of those taxpayer monies, whether it be because of spending despite declining enrollments, fad programs, or the content of what is being taught in the schools.
Let’s not object to the democratic process — everyone has their say. It just happens that more people agreed with them this time than you.
Re Out of District Comments / Supporters
Mike:
Kenny Dassau, Cheryl Kahn, and Brian Pickering, are all out of district commentors/ supporters of this contract. They won’t pay a nickel of this - are you saying they can’t or sould not comment?
Neil Moriarty
Dr. Dassau, Cheryl Kahn, and Brian Pickering are the professionals we employ lead our school system. I would think most rational and prudent folks would be interested in what they have to say.