A VIRTUAL "ism"

Folks:

WHAT was she thinking..............NOT!

Bond issue debated
1.42-mill proposal would fund school improvements
Of The Daily Oakland Press

Addressing a group of Pontiac clergy on Tuesday, Pontiac school district Superintendent Mildred Mason attacked opponents of a $99.9 million bond issue proposal to be decided by district voters on May 3.

She argued that the same opponents support pending state legislation that would allow them to transfer their properties out of Pontiac and into neighboring school districts.

As a result, Mason said, voters outside the city of Pontiac but within school district boundaries are promoting division rather than supporting children who deserve better than attending classes in deteriorating, decades-old school buildings.

"We are fighting some battles in this community that you have fought before," Mason said, referring to local civil rights clashes of the 1960s.

She suggested that district residents who live in expensive homes and who are of a different color than Pontiac's largely minority population appear not to prefer to associate with their district neighbors.

"What they've said is that they are going to keep defeating this bond proposal until we let them out (of the district)," Mason said.

"I'm offended by that. To me, that's some kind of 'ism.' I won't say what kind it is, but you can."

Dan Aldrich, an active member of Citizens Acting for Responsive Education, rebuffed the notion that the group's bond proposal opposition has racial and socioeconomic overtones.

"They think we're living out here in the ivory towers, and we're not," he said.

"I'm so tired of this talk about a racial issue. It's not about race. It's about a failing district. That's the big key - the failing schools."

But Mason told ministers Tuesday that Pontiac is held by federal and state law to the same academic rigors as all other districts in the state and district educators are helping students move closer to achieving learning benchmarks.

Arguing that school facilities will stand in the way of the district's academic goals, the superintendent passionately beckoned local pastors not only to help fight House Bill 4085 - sponsored by Rep. Shelley Taub, R-Bloomfield Hills - but to help drum up support in their congregations for approval of the bond issue.

If passed, the proposal would allow for repair of leaking roofs, replacement of failing heating and cooling systems and a number of other projects Mason described as basic necessities.

Assistant Superintendent Terry Pruitt noted that for the owner of a home with a $100,000 market value, the 1.42-mill proposal would cost $71 per year, or about $6 a month.

Eighteen months ago, the influential ministers group opposed a $455.4 million bond issue proposal that would have renovated or reconstructed every school building in the district. The proposal failed by a nearly 2-1 margin.

The Rev. Sylvester Thompson of Messiah Missionary Baptist Church said that, while he opposed the 2003 request, the lower cost and desperately needed repairs outlined in the current proposal have helped change his position.

"I am making an appeal to all the pastors that we have a moral responsibility to invest in our children," he said.

The Rev. Lenworth Minar of New Springfield Missionary Baptist Church agreed.

"I think this time, people just have to act," he said. "We have to move beyond this room and beyond this meeting to help make a difference."

None of the roughly dozen ministers present at Tuesday's meeting voiced objections to the millage proposal. School officials - speaking on Tuesday as concerned community members off the district time clock - encouraged the pastors to take part in a door-to-door bond issue information campaign planned for April 16.

Mason told the gathering that if all district residents living outside the city voted against the proposal and just half of those living in the city voted in favor of it, the plan would win approval.

"We have the numbers," she said. "You have to help me wake up this community and get them to vote in favor of this proposal."

Bob Wachol, also active with Citizens Acting for Responsive Education, objected to the campaign strategy.

"In my mind, she's doing just what they did before, which is taking an 'us versus them' attitude," he said. "How can anybody call someone racist when you don't even know them? And they don't know us."

Wachol further argued that support for property transfers and opposition to new property taxes as result of a bond issue has more to do with long-established senses of community.

"It's not that we're moving away from Pontiac," he said. "Things change over time and the fact is that the way these communities have grown up, we've been separate for a long time."
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