Our apologies… and hopes
We have to admit, right off the bat, that we were taken by surprise by the vehemence with which our last editorial asking for thoughtfulness regarding the recent Onteora board elections and budget vote was received. And so we apologize, whole-heartedly, for having underestimated the amount of hurt our community is feeling in regards to this year’s tax hikes. Our opinions about the candidates, and the school budget, were not designed as affronts to that hurt, but simply as a response to the electoral matters at hand, minus the use of the election as a protest tool.
But we were also saddened by the vehemence we confronted, especially by those who suggested, or told us straight out, that our editorials should better reflect the majority sentiments of the community and that anything less was an affront to our readers. As well as the belief, held by many it seems, that because some of us don’t live within town lines, we shouldn’t be commenting about the issues at hand.
Those are dangerous sentiments, in our mind. Understandable, given the economic straights so many in the community are facing. But nonetheless a threat to the very democratic ideals now being appealed to for help out of the current financial situation.
One of the methods by which people try to change actions they see as unjust is to use the means by which we’ve been hurt against those we feel have hurt us. Thus occur revolutions, in all their forms. But thus, also, comes war, as well as the uncontrolled destruction all such battles entail.
It is one thing to organize a community around an ideal, especially when change can be made at the voting booth. But it’s another to start striking out at those who disagree with one’s opinions, claiming they need censure for not going along with the majority line, or that they’ve acted dishonorably by reading facts to different conclusions.
The Onteora board candidates who lost, both incumbents and newcomers, should not be demonized for their volunteer service, or the beliefs they ran on. Just as those who won should be. Our democracy is designed around conflict, and the belief that good can arise from the compromises communities make between differing opinions. That such ideals sometimes touch people’s pocket books is unfortunate, but an undeniable reality.
We applaud and welcome the Onteora School Board’s new members, Rita Vanacore, Cindy O’Connor and Mary Jane Bernholz, and look forward to covering and working with them over the coming years. It will be good to get the Large Parcel issue beyond us, and to see these long-involved members of the community move on to the many other educational issues facing our district.
But we reiterate our point from before the election: that we should also remember the lessons of compassion and empathy in our victory. Those that don’t share opinions are not evil, just different. And being a school district, county, state, nation and world in addition to a town, we can’t let our sense of boundaries limit what we are willing to read or listen to for the sake of argument.
All of this will come into play as the Onteora administration brings its rigorous budget up for a second vote in June, along with its proposition to purchase new school buses to augment an aging transportation fleet for the widespread district. Most of the new board members, along with many of the louder voices who managed the recent election upsets, have already said that the community should support both measures as a way of showing that everyone is willing to move ahead beyond this single issue, showing the recent vote was not about greed, but about justice.
We think this a good idea and, as with our last editorial, urge this community to vote for what’s best for the school district and its students… our future.
And again, we apologize if our opinions about these matters have hurt anyone out there. We never meant such an effect.
We continue to work as hard as we can to bring you news that matters to Olive, and reflect the community’s ever-changing character. But we also reserve the right to state our opinions in our editorials, whether it jibes with yours or not.
Because that’s the American way…