To the Editor:

Since when is it the Ithaca School Board’s “job” to hire “local talent” as Mr. MacDonald contends in his opinion in the June 30 edition of the Herald?

Last I checked the board’s responsibility is to provide the district’s children with the best education possible – and that includes school-of-choice students whose parents don’t pay property taxes here. The board’s job is fiduciary oversight and policy, not hiring staff. The board doesn’t work with staff, staff works with staff; they are best qualified to make the decisions that directly impact the classroom. Congress doesn’t hire the IRS auditor, the Michigan legislature doesn’t hire state troopers and school boards don’t hire teachers and principals. This is the model of a democratic system. This is how it’s done.

And if a teacher on an interview committee with no “experience in the field” of the candidate isn’t qualified to interview as he states in his opinion, then what makes a school board member with even less expertise more qualified to be a part of that process as you suggest?

Sounds like a double standard to me.

Perhaps Mr. MacDonald should run for school board again so he can spend his time hiring bus drivers, teachers, friends and neighbors rather than focusing on the education of this community’s children and the district’s fiscal soundness.

Or, maybe it would just be easier to hang out a sign that says, “Outsiders not welcome.”

Gary Melow
Ithaca

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To the Editor:

Safe Driving?

How safe do you feel driving anywhere these days? Is driving enjoyable? I say no to both questions. With gas still around $3.50 a gallon, I think most drivers enjoy paying high gas prices, paying more for vehicle insurance, or they suffer from obsessive-compulsive speed disorder. What is the hurry?

I cannot drive 5 to 10 mph under the speed limit, trying to save gas, without being tailgated in town or city, on a two-lane tarred road, or on any interstate. My jugular veins swell when the driver behind drives inches from my back bumper, and tries to push me to drive faster especially when I am trying to pass another vehicle on the interstate. I would like to stop them and ask for gas and insurance money since they want to drive my car at a faster speed or will crash into my hind end if I have to suddenly push on the brake.

Do they know how dangerous it is to ride the car’s bumper ahead of them? If I need to brake, they will surely smash in my back bumper and trunk causing both of us injury. Is there some mental issue with insecurity that vehicles on the interstate need to follow each other at close distances like a school of fish in water?

How about slowing down, spacing your vehicle from the one in front and behind, and showing concern for the other driver’s safety. When I hear of a chain-vehicle crash, I know these vehicles could not stop because they were too close to each other!

What is the solution? I say a prayer before I take long trips. Lower the speed limits. I also try not to over react to being cut off, tailgated, or not allowed to enter or exit a lane with my turn signal on. I would love to have fresh skunk spray in the trunk, and when someone gets too close, just like with a skunk, a spray shoots out of hole in the trunk on the rude, dangerous, driver’s hood! Beware of the trunk skunk!

Dennis Casnovsky
Alma

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To the Editor:

Well the gas prices went up for the 4th like I thought they would but not that much. 33 cents a gallon more. Obama’s great idea of releasing 30 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Reserves and the other countries releasing another 30 million barrels to lower prices just got shot all to H--L. Wonder which country that helped because it did not help the U.S.

I never did buy into the oil companies claiming gasoline prices are controlled by the stock market especially after what happened Mother’s Day weekend when a barrel of oil fell from $107 a barrel to $92 a barrel, a $15 drop and gas only came down 3 to 5 cents a gallon.

Now along comes the 4th of July and they do it again to us. Stock market price on a barrel of oil closed at 94.09 on Thursday with a drop of $1.33 per barrel.

According to a report on the internet news last week when the news services were talking about prices being lowered by Obama’s bright idea releasing reserve oil, a barrel of oil dropping by a dollar would only reduce a gallon of gas by 2 cents. I do not know what math formula the oil companies were using for Mother’s Day weekend and the 4th of July weekend unless it was the one that is called screw the customer at the pump so we can make bigger profits.

If my math is right, gas should have fell in price about 30 cents a gallon on Mother’s Day weekend and stayed around $3.42 on the 4th of July weekend. My first thought on seeing how much gas went up on the 1st of July was I hope they are giving out jars of vasoline when you buy your gas but then the oil companies and suppliers would probably claim that vasoline is a by product of oil and charge you for that too.

Richard Shattuck
Ashley