Letter -Says track not visited

Dear Editor,

This week I found out that only one school board member visited the dog track prior to voting to purchase it for $8.25 million. This was discovered when the newest board member requested a tour of the property. Now I have some questions for the school board.

Did the visiting board member go there on behalf of the other board members? If so, when was a report presented to the full board containing the findings? I don't see anything on board agendas reflecting any kind of report. Did the school board ask for a written report? Why wasn't the public informed that the board members were voting on such a large expenditure without having seen the property? How could they make an informed decision to purchase it? Did they know what they were buying?

With all due respect, I believe there is a reasonable expectation that we, the voting public, should be able to depend on our elected officials to perform one small act of looking out for us. A visit to a site before voting to spend millions of our dollars to purchase it should have been the first thing they did, all of them.

Whether you voted yes or no on the referendum question regarding purchasing the track, this lack of due diligence by the school board should alarm you. How many of us would have visited the site before obligating the public to purchase it? I believe we have a right to better representation than this.

Tags: opinion, letters, education