Opinion: Thank you, John

In this week's Pike County Dispatch, and also on Nick Troiano's blog, is this response to board member John Kupillas' letter in last week's Dispatch.

To the Dispatch:

I thank school board director John Kupillas for his unfounded personal attack in last week’s Dispatch. Better than I could in any letter, John vividly demonstrated the win-at-all-costs strategy of the Taxpayers United political machine. Instead of responding to any of the questions or issues raised, John, like his fellow TU members, finds it most expedient to go after those who dare challenge TU’s actions and decisions.

When you have a record to run from and no platform to stand on, those become the tactics of the desperate. In this, the greater harm is not done to the handful of people trampled by TU’s shallow politics of deception and division, but to the thousands of students in our school district who have them to look up to as supposed leaders in our community.

George Washington offered the following thoughts in his Farewell Address:

”[Factions] may now and then answer popular ends, but they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government…”

Taxpayers United is such a potent engine. John Kupillas and Boss Goldsack are among those cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men. The power they subvert is yours. And the reins of government they seek to usurp are those of the school board. We must not stand for that.

James Madison suggested two ways to cure this problem of an unjust faction: by removing its causes or by controlling its effects. Luckily, on May 19, voters can do both. Vote for, and only for, those with the integrity to put the interests of our schools and community before petty politics.

Sincerely,

Nick Troiano
Delaware Valley '07
Milford, PA