Letters to the Editor

Doesn’t want distorted information

To the Editor:

I served on the school board in East Rockaway for 15 years, retiring in 2010. Several of those years I served with Richard Meagher, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, Richard was the most fiscally conservative member I have served with — bar none.

  In reading the letters and fliers from the Lenahan campaign, I noticed that they accuse Meagher of raising school taxes 83 percent while on the board. This is a disingenuous description at best, and ignorant at worst. The school board has no control over the increase in your taxes. The board only prepares a budget for community approval. I notice the Pride Party failed to use the budget-to-budget increases in those years. I wonder why?

  A lot of things produce a tax increase that’s much higher than the budget-to-budget increase, such as cuts in state aid. From 1991 to 1993, the promised and budgeted state aid was decreased by half. This required a much higher tax levy without a corresponding increase in the budget. In addition there were several bond issues at the time — funds to be used to make improvements at the schools — which would be reflected in the tax increases but are not budget increases.

  School board service is highly honorable. It requires skills like consensus-building, intelligence, trust and trustworthiness — but above all, it requires incredible passion and commitment from its volunteers day after day, week after week and year after year, through good times and bad.

  How many children received their diplomas while Richard Meagher was on the Board of Education? Perhaps that number is a better measure of his time served. Let’s honor those who serve our community with dignity and respect and not slander and slam them with distorted misinformation. If you disagree with decisions, have the decency to at least be honest in your dialogue.

Vicki Alspector, Lynbrook

A cost-effective government

To the Editor:

The Freedom Party and their supporters have engaged in a sad and deceitful whisper campaign to undermine Fran Lenahan and the Village Pride Party ticket.