Bee Editorial Was Misdirected

To the Editor:

The Bee owners and editors have a right to their opinions, but sometimes their opinions are so blatantly misdirected that they do a disservice to our town.

Your April 1st front page editorial [“The Freeze That Wasn’t”]is a case in point. Your opinion is clear, but the same facts can be used to show that you are attacking the wrong target.

In an editorial that discusses actual funding setbacks incurred by the town, for which they had no plan and needed help, you completely ignored that issue, and focused your angst on whether or not the school district had a serious plan to cover potential funding setbacks. The town took too much risk in last year’s budget, and got burned. Did we learn anything here? Who is accountable?

We are in the middle of deciding next year’s budget. Based on your editorial, the lesson should be to take less risk, and ensure we have a detailed and doable plan. The lesson should be that leaders who accept risk and fail should be held accountable. Right?

And yet, when the Board of Finance went through the Board of Education’s very detailed budget proposal, they were admittedly unable to find any fat. None. Zip. The only savings found was presented and then committed by the Board of Education — about $1.2 million in real, detailed infrastructure savings. What did our Board of Finance suggest? Cut the budget by $2.5 million, and do it by taking on more risk!

Have we learned nothing? Where is the accountability? And why does our hometown newspaper continue to give the Board of Finance a “get out of jail free” card?

Or was this an April Fools’ Day joke?

Thomas Bittman

17 Rose Lane, Sandy Hook                                                April 6, 2010

(Editor’s note: The publication date of last week’s edition of The Bee was April 2.)