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To the editor:
On Tuesday, May 17, Bedford Central has an election for three school board seats.
I support candidates Michelle Brooks, Pam Harney and Michael Solomon.
They are smart, effective and natural leaders — people of high character who have stepped up at a time of crisis to lead our district on a path to recovery.
Bedford Central can and will recover from our fiscal troubles, but this is no time to reward and repeat the failing strategies and decisions that have been made by their opponents since 2010.
It is alarming to hear their opponents — longest serving board members Jennifer Gerken and Suzanne Grant — defend their record that produced a massive $8.8 million budget deficit, a $20 million siphoning of our savings account, two debt rating agency downgrades and warnings, and a community that is divided like no other time in recent history.
They have demonstrated a woeful inability to forecast budgets, which has lead to hasty, irresponsible and destructive decision making each year.
Make no mistake: Gerken and Grant own this crisis and we have all paid for it, dearly.
This past budget season we witnessed students and parents publicly pleading for programs that have existed here for decades.
Our students have earned the right to participate in sports and the arts without a yearly campaign to convince board members to fund them.
Does the community that pays the highest property taxes in the nation deserve a mismanaged budget that has brought stress and anxiety to their families? Of course not.
None of us would tolerate our household budgets to be managed in this haphazard manner.
Yet Gerken and Grant are asking voters to extend their terms to a total of nine years on the board with a legacy that no objective person would deem successful.
Bedford Central is in desperate need for leadership change and it is needed now.
Please support candidates Michelle Brooks, Pam Harney and Micheal Solomon on May 17.
Sal Di Carlo
Bedford Hills
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