Summer is a slow time, and writing letters to newspapers, especially about anything other than the national election, is rarely at the top of anyone’s priority list.
But the Londonderry School Board’s recommendation to build an auditorium as a high priority on the Town’s Capital Improvements Program (CIP) list brought several residents out of the summer doldrums, both as letter writers or as commentators on the ever-popular Facebook.
The preliminary architecture and engineering for a proposed auditorium at Londonderry High School went down to defeat. But that didn’t stop the School Board from unanimously voting it in as a priority 2 on the CIP, later changed to priority 3 by the CIP committee. And that’s tax money, folks.
Of course, if no one from the public shows up at CIP or School Board meetings, the board can keep voting forward its money-spending proposals, even now, when the district has the potential to be hit with an increase in enrollment as new homes and apartments come on line.
One of the hardest things to stomach is the argument that people didn’t realize what they were voting on when they defeated the spending proposal. Coincidentally, that’s the same argument made by the Hampstead School Board when its grand plans to build an addition to Hampstead Central School have gone down to defeat, year after year. Perhaps school board members have their own way of interpreting “no” votes on spending measures – at least they don’t seem to think it means the voters don’t want to spend the money.
Is an auditorium a “need” rather than a “want?” Is an addition at Hampstead Central a “need” as well? Both would be nice enhancements to their respective school districts, but does that constitute a “need?”
And if the voters answer no to that question, does that mean they are ill informed and don’t know what they’re doing in the voting booth? Even when they vote in favor of school budgets and other school-related money articles? Should we take for granted that voters made a mistake when it came to the auditorium and the Hampstead school addition, but knew what they were doing on everything else?
Meanwhile, we’d like to hear more about what the entertainment venue proposed for Woodmont Commons is planned to be.
Voters don’t appreciate a slap in the face, or an attempt to wear them down by putting the same proposal on the ballot year after year. Rather than criticizing those who voted down the big-ticket school items, how about listening to the will of the people, who voted no.