Tuesday, March 11, 2014

It's Election Day, Tuesday March 11, 2014

Today is Tuesday, March 11, 2014. It's Election Day in the Oyster River Cooperative School District.

I'm a busy voter; tell me what you think I should do. Vote today at your regular polling place for Denise Day and Sarah Farwell for school board. Vote YES on all the YES/NO school district questions, approving the new teacher's contract (question 3), approving a Moharimet Cafeteria (questions 4 and 5), approving the 10 year tuition agreement with Barrington (question 6) and approving the $39.3M school board budget (question 7).

Well, I have a little time to read. Familiarize yourself with the ballot by reading ORCSDcleanslate's Voting Guide for the 2014 Oyster River Cooperative School District Election.  It has explanations and links about the candidates and ballot questions.  Here's my endorsement of Denise Day and Sarah Farwell.

Why should I believe you when you tell me who to vote for?   I'm really just telling you who I'm voting for and why.  In my mind, this is not a good versus evil school board race like two years ago.  It's been an incredibly uneventful election cycle. It's pretty tough to find a substantive difference between the candidates' positions on issues. I went with the candidates that had by far the longest history and experience with the district. I think this year showed how such district experience could be of value.  So often this year we ended up with solutions based on our history, like redrawing the bus line and exempting families or tuitioning in more Barrington students.

The third candidate, Michael Williams, is an engineer and parent who first got involved with the board last summer during the elementary reconfiguration decision.  I welcome him.  He seems to have good intentions. I'll comment obliquely on his run by saying I too am an engineer who got passionately invested one summer and involved with the election the next March.   I was fortunate to get to know many of the current board members as candidates.  I have a good basis for comparison when I say Sarah and Denise will certainly be better board members than I could have been at that time.

What about the YES/NO Warrant Articles?  I'm voting YES on all of them.  I'm worried the Moharimet Cafeteria might not pass, as there doesn't seem to be an active campaign to drum up votes.  I think the Barrington tuition agreement is about as gradual an evolution from the status quo as you could hope for, but there are people out there who think there are bad consequences once the 125 student mark is reached and ORHS becomes Barrington's school of record.

What's next? The results of the election should be announced around 9pm tonight.  I'll post them here as soon as I can.  Check FORE -- they're diligent and they'll post immediately.

Are there any other websites for information?

 As much as I'd like to service all your Oyster River School Board needs, don't forget about FORE and Oyster River Community.blogspot.com (and their associated Facebook page). There's not too much excitement about the election at the district's site orcsd.org.  The last week of Foster's opinion has a few Oyster River letters, and lots of agonizing over building a new school over in Newmarket.

Anything else?  Happy Election Day. Go vote. Bring some friends.

Dean Rubine, Lee

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