Vote intelligently on your own

In response to the Conejo Valley Unified School District Board of Education article on page 1 of the Oct.13 Thousand Oaks Acorn (“School board recommends vote ‘no’ on Proposition 76”), I wish to express my disappointment. These elected officials have two responsibilities as I see it.

One is, of course, to maintain and improve the education standards for children in the district. The other is to properly administrate the school budget so that it balances and doesn’t grow any faster than the cost of living.

So in short, they have a responsibility to our children and us, the taxpayers.

Their use of city taxpayer dollars to spend time officially discussing and endorsing state propositions is in my opinion a waste and a demonstration of mismanagement.

If the individual board members want to go on record and express their personal political views on their own time, that is their right and business.

But to do so at citizen expense is wrong.

To use their collective power and public trust on our dime to sway elections represents a conflict of interest.

In keeping with the law, Arnold promotes these issues on his own time and on his own website, using money from private contributions, not from taxpayers. Union members opposed to Arnold may have forgotten Prop. 49, which Arnold championed in 2002, before he was governor, adding $550 million for after-school programs, yet doing it in a way which didn’t add to the state’s budget problems.

It seems like over the years, the voters have overwhelmingly approved several school bond measures. The administrators cry for money, and we throw more money at the problem because it’s “for the children.”

However, the ratio of school administrators to teachers has also increased dramatically, along with their salaries and benefits. As the school system becomes less efficient and more bloated, it is expected that board members and administrators will try to grab as much as possible and “use it or lose it.”

It’s easy to ask for more money and contribute to the problem. It shows real character and conviction to present real solutions and live within our means.

Regardless of how people vote in November, and regardless of where folks stand on the various issues, I hope that most importantly, people remember how efficiently and objectively our elected officials used our taxpayer dollars when it’s time to either keep them or replace them.

I encourage voters to objectively study the issues closely and, without being blindly biased by school board members, unions or our governor, vote intelligently.

Thank you. Chris Coleman Moorpark

School boards, city councils and boards of supervisors routinely make ballot recommendations if the outcome of the election will directly affect them.