On June 7th, a Three Village Herald editorial suggested that voters should make known their feelings about administrative and budgetary foibles BEFORE VOTING, implying that the "silence" experienced by the school district is detrimental to effectiveness governance.

Well, the reasons for the "silence" are two-fold and the impact of the policy more devastatingly effective than imagined.

As for the reasons: the first is fear. Fear for a job or social standing among friends or working associates. Fear of union threats or influence: loss of business through boycott, denial of a promotional opportunity for speaking out against union, administration or teacher practices. Fear of a parent that their child would be singled out for abuse in some way by a teacher. Or, fear of direct admonition or worse by either a teacher or PTA member for speaking their mind. The fear is both pervasive, crossing all demographic categories, and damaging to a democratic society.

Second, TVCSD response to public input is much like the joke told in answer to the marketing of an old TV police program of the 1950's that labeled New York City as a place of "8,000,000 stories." The problem is "There aren't two ears willing to listen."

Five years ago, this community was embroiled in a heated debate over school spending. Hundreds appeared at board meetings and took the district to task about the same matters confronting us today: salaries, ever-expanding programs and the apparent disregard for the economic welfare of those on fixed incomes.

However, the board of education let the loud-mouthed riff-raff harass speakers asking for change. The board, including its present president William Connors, never attempted to chastise the unruly. For three weeks a well orchestrated procession of teachers, jocks, irate mothers and the handicapped showed up to demand more spending for themselves, their departments, their teams and their children. Entire half-hour periods were dedicated to each group's fantasies. Each group, that is, except the fiscal constrainers. They were asked to wait until the second speaking period, at the close of each night's board meeting! They were ignored. So, they gave up "talking." They stopped going to meetings. And, instead, they got even.

In the spring of '95, there was an astounding voter turnout of 6600 and a budget defeat almost unimaginable. Showing an impressive plurality over those in favor of the budget, people took heart in the district's defeat and believed the district "had gotten the message, loud and clear." That mistake sealed the doom for any hoped for change to date.

By September of that same year, the less than fire and brimstone approach of the Three Village Taxpayers Association in the spring flickered to a pinpoint flame. With no one stoking the fire of interest, voter enthusiasm waned. The administration submitted virtually the same budget earlier offered and it paid off, for them.

Between June and September the forces for approval garnered only 85 additional votes, while voter turnout went down by 12% and naysayer numbers dropped by 23%. The budget passed by only 16 votes!!!

Which brings us to the problem in Y2K.

The TVCSD Superintendent's suggestion that the clarion call for frugality has been heard falls upon deaf ears. We've "been there, done that" and seen school taxes increase every year since their last hearing of the message. Nothing done by administrators or school boards since 1995 has fostered trust among those disenfranchised and bearing the burden of onerous taxation without appropriate representation.

A defeat of the revised school budget proposal, on June 20th, will leave no doubt in the minds of district administrators that the time for fiscal constraint, thusfar ignored, is upon them. And, that two or three years of "austerity" will strip the fat from the budget's myriad of line items to something as lean as it should always have been.

TVCSD must come to recognize that it is responsible to more than the district's children, but three "entire villages" of voters. It seems unable to grasp that concept. Thus, the "silence" the Herald spoke of has in fact become a very strong message, both deafening and effective at the polling booths. If it weren't, the editors of neither the Herald nor the Waking Bear would be writing about it. Would they?

(This article has been modified from that first seen in the Three Village Herald on June14 and is published here with the expressed permission of the author.)