Published: May 12, 2008 06:07 pm            

GUEST VIEW: Time for a change in Lew-Port

We need to change the Lewiston-Porter School Board. The May 20 election would be a great time to start. Voting for Ed Waller and Bob Weller would be great change for Lewiston-Porter.

It only took attending the last Lew-Port School Board meeting to remind me why I am running for the school board. I am fed up with being misled by successive boards and seeing my money being wasted.

At the April board meeting, Laub and Mehzir presented a $1.6 million spending increase in the budget. They also produced a document explaining the increase as being $1 million in reimbursable “capital improvements” and $667,000 in “transportation, fuel cost, workers compensation, etc.” Not one mention in the document of the increase in wages and benefits for teaching staff.

If you read the actual budget, the increase in capital spending nets to about a $625,000 increase. Then, if you add up all the wage and benefit increases on teaching salaries, you find they went up by $920,000. Wages and benefits for teachers up almost $1 million and neither Bob Laub nor Jim Mehzir bothered to mention that in the presentation or in the document handed out to the general public.

This is just the latest round of incomplete information from board members. Last May, it was the prior board majority that vociferously declared the Greenway funding will pay for building remodeling. As of now, we have not received any Greenway funding. The Capital Improvement Project will tax us out of our houses if the Greenway money falls through.

Two current members, Mehzir and Laub, were also part of the board majority that disenfranchised many of us Lewiston-Porter voters when the majority voted Ed Lilly and Scott Stepien off the board. Good thing the commissioner had the common sense to not allow a violation of our rights.

Lastly, who was part of the current teachers union contract that put Lewiston-Porter at the top of the list for highest teacher salaries in Niagara County? Mehzir and Laub. The most important item in the upcoming school board election is the teachers contract up for renewal this year. It will determine spending in the district for the next three years. This year the choice is between bureaucrats and businessmen. People need to think clearly about who they want to represent them on the board.

Spending keeps going up and, under the guise of everyone getting along, our taxes will keep going up, too. Ed Waller and Bob Weller will insist on fair compensation for good results and improving our school without taxing you out of your home. On May 20, vote Bob Weller and me and bring a friend to vote, too.

Ed Waller is a candidate for the Lewiston-Porter Board of Education.

        

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