Leadership, reason needed in schools flap

How quickly things deteriorate when it becomes possible for elected people to make political hay over an issue. The recent veto of a special election for new school bonds by Borough Mayor Tim Anderson provides a case in point.

When it comes to schools and related concerns that affect children, emotions are automatically likely to be in overdrive. Everyone, it seems, is in favor of providing the absolute best for our children. And no one is ever on record as being opposed to education. It has become a cliché of any campaign for public office.

Yet controversy persists, usually generated over differing opinions of what, exactly, the details are of &#8220providing the best for children.”

In the October election, bonds for new borough schools were on the ballot. Despite a rapidly growing population of students in already overcrowded schools, and the promise of 70 percent reimbursement from the state, voters - by a very narrow margin - rejected the bonds.

A mere four months later, the bonds were up for discussion again and were set to be put to another vote in April. Along with possibly testing the patience of voters, the special election would have cost borough taxpayers $86,000.

In this light, Anderson's veto could be seen as a fiscally responsible defense of the voters' will. Nonetheless, critics, some politically motivated, have seized on the opportunity to paint the mayor as being opposed to schools.

Short-sighted and counterproductive as this may be, the fact remains that the state's reimbursement offer does not expire until Oct. 31. That's after the next general election, when the bond question can be put to voters again without the expense of a special election.

Supporters of the special election point out that last fall's effort at bond approval was doomed by voter bewilderment at the number of propositions on the ballot as well as at how individual questions were worded. In a Spectrum piece on the facing page, Mat-Su Sens. Lyda Green and Charlie Huggins wonder, &#8220When the voters in the Mat-Su Borough failed to pass the school bond initiative this past October, they were trying to send us a message. But exactly what that message is remains unclear.”

Is it possible the message is not unclear? Is it possible that, feeling the pinch of dwindling state aid to communities, overburdened property-tax payers quite simply just said &#8220no”? Those elected to lead would do well to ponder this possibility as easily as they ponder voter ignorance and claim that the sky is falling.

There is another message that needs to get out, after all. And it cannot be that the people of the borough do not care about schools.

Perhaps taking some more time to productively encourage this message will pay off better than risking failure at a hastily mounted election inspired by a misinterpretation of the last vote.