Letter to the Editor: Port Chester School Board Race, Budget Vote

To the Editor:

Please don’t take your advice from out-of-state and out-of-touch, retired Port Chester teachers enjoying their retirement and benefits.  Listen to your neighbors and fellow community members who are involved.  Look around you.  Look at the other letters to the editor. Who is writing them?  How are they involved?  Are they informed?  What is their motivation? To burn down the community or build it up? I’ll be blunt about my motivation: I am here to build.  I am a parent of an elementary aged child and have been an involved member of this community my entire life.  I am also a homeowner and taxpayer.  I know the value of a dollar and how our elected officials, whether they serve us nationally or locally, consider every financial decision with the utmost care and mindfulness of their fiduciary duty to us.  I don’t always agree with decisions made with respect to what cuts must take place, but I’m sure they are not easy decisions whether we are talking about the Village Board or the School Board.  Public office is a public trust.  Carolee Brakewood is deserving of our trust.  She has served the entire community well through her motivation, hard work, and especially her thoughtful decision-making as parent and taxpayer.

We have asked our School Board to deliver us fiscally prudent budgets and Carolee has delivered.  Now it is time for us to make an informed choice, to not get lost in the sound-bites of the naysayers, and support our school budget.  We are lucky inPort Chester to have a Board that works hard with Dr. Kliszus and Central Administration to craft and review budgets that maximize the impact of every dollar spent and identify and eliminate wasteful spending.  Carolee and this Board have worked within the fiscal constraints imposed by the state’s property-tax cap to achieve responsible budgets both last year and this year.  Don’t be so shorted sighted as to not recognize the hard work involved and be dismissive of their efforts by casting a vote against this budget. 

Please don’t be pennywise and pound foolish.  Voting down school budgets will only cost us more in the end.  If you can’t do it for the kids, then do it for yourselves.  Money spent on our schools is money spent on our public.  It serves not just our children, but our future.  If you need some greater motivation to support our budget than that, then consider the more immediate impact it may have of your individual wealth.  Home values in school districts that are underfunded lag far behind school districts that are well supported.  Why?  Because a primary concern for most home buyers is the schools.  Don’t do your community that disservice.  Don’t take your advice from the out-of-touch and uninvolved, and don’t vote with them.  You have a choice for your future and the future of this community, and it is tied to our children.  Vote wisely.  Vote for Carolee and vote for our budget.

Elizabeth Rotfeld
Port Chester

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Related letters:

http://portchester.patch.com/articles/letter-to-the-editor-port-chester-school-board-race

http://portchester.patch.com/articles/port-chester-school-superintendent-new-budget-calls-for-added-staff

http://portchester.patch.com/articles/james-carriere-why-i-want-to-be-elected-to-the-port-chester-school-board

http://portchester.patch.com/articles/carolee-brakewood-seeks-second-term-on-port-chester-school-board