The Voice of New Rochelle: Schools Boards Don’t Get Paid, but They Can Break the Bank

Do you like going to the dentist? Brush your teeth and floss everyday and you won’t have to. Perhaps an IRS audit will add excitement to your life? But you can avoid the drama by simply telling the truth. 

Or, maybe, you’re in the mood for a colonoscopy? No way to avoid that if you’re over 50, that is, unless you want to risk wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of your life. Some things we don’t do have consequences, and failure to do them, ignoring them, mitigates none of the responsibility for what follows.

Next week, New Rochelle will hold its school board elections. The people you elect will have more impact on your property taxes than the mayor, governor, county executive or the president himself. 

You will pick them from a pool of people whose most meaningful qualification is that they want to run. Fortunately, most who step up are selfless, well-educated people who want to do the right thing. 

Now listen to me good—the only vetting they will get is now and over the next week. Theoretically, if you fail to give a hoot, we could elect Joe the Plumber, or worse.

This year’s elections are getting a little extra attention due to the candidacy of a well-known local blogger who makes no apologies for his criticisms of the school district and its governing board. 

Like him, or not, this extra hype is good for the city. Maybe you are paying a little more heed to the proceedings. I will mention no names here in the body of my missive, leaving an unbiased list at the end. I do not have a horse in this race as my new address will soon be White Plains, but I do hold a position through which the angst of taxpayers and parents flows. 

Good Morning Westchester, along with several other shows on WVOX, take the calls from disgruntled residents. We know you care. We know you are informed.  But we also know many—indeed most—of you don’t vote.

I am begging you: Look over the list, research their qualifications and go to the polls on May 17.  Vote like your wallet and your kids’ futures depend on it, because they do. 

It’s not a union official or the governor who make pay decisions about superintendent salaries. But it may well be Joe the Plumber if you don’t give a spit.  

Tell me truly, do you like your property taxes? Do you think you are getting your money’s worth? In the immortal words of a former president “is our children learning?”

Do you care? Go ahead then; don’t vote.

By not voting you will allow the most potent spenders in our city to go forward with no accountability. But it will be OK.

You will have abdicated your responsibility and, thus, a measure of your rights, but my colleagues and I will make hay with your hollow complaints when the calls come in.

New Rochelle School Board Candidates: Naomi Brickel, Robert Cox, Salvador A. Fernandez, Peter O’Keeffe, Rachel Relkin and Colin J. Thomas.