Countdown to April 29 to PERMANENTLY close M. R. Reiter. Ask the board to see the 6 point plan.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Now It's Time For YOUR Three Minutes

Last evening, I received this as a comment to the Morrisville Schizophrenia entry from February 20. I posted it there, but thought it was worthy of a posting of its own.

Do you agree or disagree with the writer?


Posted by over40yrsinmville to Save The Morrisville School at April 7, 2008 8:00 PM
over40yrsinmville has left a new comment on your post "Morrisville Schizophrenia":

I have lived in this town for 46 yrs so far. I was born and raised here. Though I didn't attend MHS, all my good friends were from MHS. I went to Egan by my choice, not because I thought MHS wasn't a fine school. I went through Holy Trinity and thought I would finnish at Egan. I married a MHS Grad. We have three wonderful Boys. All of who Graduated from MHS. One is still working his way through college. One graduated Cum Laude from a very fine Private College. This fine college presented him with a VERY generous Financial package, (almost tuition free), He did this because of his hard work in MHS and the help of the best teachers at MHS. My last boy is a freshman at another fine private college. Again all because of hard work and the great teachers of MHS. All three boys finnished in the top of their respective class at MHS. I used to think very highly of this town and was proud to call this town my home. Unfortunately, I can't say that now. I'm so amazed at the disinterest our elected officials have in this community. They claim that is not true. I don't see any proof of their work in beautifying this town. We have become the laughing stock of communities. Our schoolboard doesn't care of the future of this town either. The only thing in their eyes are dollar signs. Well people, you have to spend money in order to make money. No person in their right mind would want to move into this town, as it stands right now, and I don't blame them. I only wish the "residents" who have only been here a few years would wake up and see the light, just maybe we could move ahead. Until then, I'm so afraid to imagine how much worse this town might become.

6 comments:

Ken said...

I agree with this writer. What saddens me is the number of people who feel the same way (or say they do) and then don't show up to vote, don't show public support for the finer elected officials (Frankenfield, Kemp...), don't offer vocal support at meetings or written support in the paper, and don't step forward to volunteer themselves.

While there are many fine people in Morrisville that do show support and volunteer, I suspect that the majority of good intentioned, open minded, intelligent thinking people remain silent.

Maybe I am badly self deluded, but I simply CANNOT conceive that people who feel this strongly about Morrisville and the school district are in the minority in this town. I know the poll numbers say otherwise, or else these incompetent, myopic politicos would not be in office.

But why hasn't this silent majority found its voice and driven back all of the retrograde actions that are steering Morrisville into the pool of despair that this writer laments of?

I constantly shake my head in frustration and disbelief. I applaud those who write here for being the kind of activists that it will take to turn the tide, but is it too little and too late?

Jon said...

Good comments. I feel much the same way. Even more amazing is that some of the most vocal well-poisoners are in fact responsible for the mess we're in, yet it never seems to stick to them, mostly because "the best defense is a good offense", and they are very efffective at blaming others for their mistakes.

To wit:

1. Steve Worob hopping up on his furniture to proclaim himself the "King of Morrisville" after having backed the election of school board members Sandy Gibson, Peter Mulcahy, Corinne Martin, Al Radosti, and Gloria Heater;

2. Marlys Mihok actively campaigning for the 5 members above and, correct me if I'm wrong anybody, baking a celebratory cake for them after their election.

I happen to agree with the way Gibson's, Mulcahy's, and Martin's thinking evolved on school issues, but if you think a monster was created, guess who helped? And now, of course, we're living with the pundulum-swing backlash of the new board majority, strongly backed by, guess who?

Does anybody have more examples to share?

Kevin L said...

I put the schools on the back burner. My wife and I each have a full time job and the full time job raising our two. We figured as long as the teachers were good there were no real problems. We went to the parent teacher meetings faithfully and did homework at the kitchen table and board politics were not a consideration. We were definitely part of the silent people that Sandy Gibson's spoke about and we spoke up too late. I'm apparently just as deluded as Borows because I never thought the current board would win election.

My grandparents are long gone now. They lived in south Jersey in a retirement community where the seniors in the new communities helped support three large Toms River regional schools. There was plenty of bickering over the cost of schooling children that were not theirs.

The wholesale rejection of a community's children that I've seen here is astonishing. We only have three years before our two are done with the Morrisville school system, so we are somewhat immune from the more radical farming out and school closing options that the board has proposed. Their actions are going to dry up the supply of new families looking to buy in Morrisville. Taxes will rise and home values will drop even more.

Stephanopolis said...

Maybe the name of the blog should be changed to Save Morrisville Boro?
Sadly it seems in our little town, we couldn't even agree on what needs to be saved.

Peter said...

I am really ambivalent on this topic and my mood changes almost daily.

I generally love this little town. As Jon stated in another thread, opening day for Little League this past Saturday really showed the best of our community.

Then there are days when I can't stand to see what's happening in our schools and our community. Challenging the superintendent's [fair and reasonable] contract. Talks of farming out the kids. Ignoring the poor condition of our schools. The Gateway Center. Anti-progress.

Almost two years ago my wife and I were looking to move to a larger house, as our little place on Stockham Ave was becoming too small for our growing family. The decision we faced was to move out of Morrisville and forget about the politics, or else we stay and get involved. Well, you know how THAT went. So we are sometimes left wondering if we made the right decision.

Then again, you read articles like the one about the students doing a sneaker drive, the progress made with the students, etc, and you are encouraged about the future.

So, is my glass half full or half empty? I'm an engineer, so I'd say the glass is twice as large as it needs to be. Question is, will my glass have a picture of a bulldog on it? Magic 8-ball says, Ask Again Later.

shadman said...

Thanks for all your wonderful and intelligent comments. Keep them comming. Over40yrs....(now shadman)