Dear Editor,
I have been waiting patiently for The Chronicle to share with its readers the results of the Ethics Commission’s investigation into the complaint you filed. Your comments were in the Jan. 17 edition. I read them carefully as I was searching for multiple subjects.
I wanted to know:
■ If the School Board members had made an intentional error in refusing access to the press
■ If the Ethics Commission found them guilty of an Ethics violation.
■ If the answers to 1 and 2 were “no”, what would you say about it.
■ Would The Chronicle apologize for making our schools and school board members spend resources over an issue that you chose to take as a personal insult.
Your article did not exactly show the same excitement over the Ethics Committees findings as the one you wrote on March 22, 2018 when you were denied access to the exec session. Nor did you summarize that Mike Anderson failed to quote the precise state statute but the reason for the closed session was found to be valid. This article was on the opinion page, but you chose to quote legal language without summarizing in layman’s terms that our Board could have said it better but was not guilty of an ethics breach.
School Boards are made up of unpaid volunteers doing a thankless job because they care about our kids. You attacked them, accused them of intentional misconduct and put them through plenty of anxiety with your charge. You gave the public a very emotional picture of your side of the event. I am convinced that you see the Board and administration as bad or hopelessly incompetent, but you did not win and now you should give them credit for not being what you said in your March 22, 2018 issue. You wrote, “We believe the Creswell School Board needs to take responsibility for their misconduct, for their deviation from the law, for misusing the community’s trust in governmental transparency.” Please take responsibility for your unfair charges!
It is my opinion that we have many kids in this town that need extra care at home and in the schools. We need our school personnel to have those challenges as their most critical focus. It is an extremely difficult task that we ask our schools to perform and every time someone makes a small issue into a headline we lose.
On the other hand, I call for our school administration to be open and willing to meet to resolve differences. This whole press access issue should have been resolved with minor conflict. Both sides have a responsibility to work together to build trust and focus on helping our kids grow to be self- supporting, well adjusted, community minded citizens. How the Chronicle chooses to wrap up this whole saga may very well initiate the beginning of a trust relationship that is desperately needed!
Bill Spencer
Creswell
