School Committee Flunks Election Integrity Test
Dracut School Plan Faces Voter Reality Check PT II
By: Brian Genest – 7-26
In Dracut, democracy apparently comes with a 120-day return policy.
Voters rejected the $177 million Campbell School debt exclusion in the special election last month. Not postponed it. Not rejected it unless the School Committee is really sad.
They voted no.
Within days, School Committee Chairman Rob Sheppard and others who support building a new school were searching for a procedural crowbar to pry open the ballot box and try again. Nothing says “we respect the voters” quite like scheduling emergency meetings to figure out how to ignore them.
Let’s give credit where it’s due: New School Committee Member Allison Stilian, who threw former Chairman Renee Young out of office in May, was the only member of the committee against asking the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a four-month extension on grant funding so the town could hold a second debt exclusion vote on the project. She deserves praise for standing up for the election results.
Likewise, Selectmen Josh Taylor, Don Plummer and Tony Archinski voted against asking for the extension because they understood a simple concept that somehow escaped most school officials: when voters say no, the answer is no.
Then there’s new Selectman Kristie Wohlander, who managed to disappoint a lot of people in record time. Less than eight weeks after being elected, she joined the effort to pursue another vote instead of respecting the one that already happened.
Wohlander said, “I do believe in democracy, but I also believe in timely and accurate information, and I think there is accountability on both boards for not, uh, providing timely, sharing information timely, and cohesively communicating with the community about this.”
Here’s the part that would be hilarious if it weren’t so absurd: the losing side is trying to cry foul due to misinformation—which is misinformation itself.
Let’s review the actual record.
The town’s Tax Impact Calculator showed residents what they could expect to pay if the debt exclusion passed. Those numbers were absolutely correct according to the state’s Division of Local Services and town legal counsel, who said the calculator had to reflect the full amount taxpayers were actually borrowing. School project supporters hated those numbers so much that the calculator was eventually removed from the town website.
Think about that.
They say the alleged misinformation was from a calculator using the real debt amount. The truth is that the real misinformation was coming from people who didn’t want the real numbers to be known to the voters.
Speaking of which, School Committee Member Dr. Rebecca Duda appeared just days before the election with a completely different set of project numbers that the town manager and other officials had never seen, reviewed or discussed.
Talk about spreading misinformation.
Here’s another example: Rob Sheppard personally paid roughly $2,000 for pro-school mailers that heavily promoted the potential $80 million MSBA grant while conveniently avoiding the little detail that the project cost $177 million and taxpayers would still be responsible for roughly $95 million plus interest.
Imagine a car dealership advertising, “You might get a rebate!” while hiding the actual sticker price. Misinformation at its worst, courtesy of the guy who tried to let the school department oversee its own financial audit. Everyone remembers the kids are watching, right?
Meanwhile, those supporting the debt exclusion somehow tried to make Town Manager Kate Hodges the villain in this whole ordeal. Her apparent crime was insisting that residents receive accurate financial information. That’s not misconduct. That’s called doing your job.
That’s called integrity.
Along those lines, let’s talk about election integrity for a moment. Wohlander won her seat by only 105 votes over perennial candidate Phil Thibault, who lost his tenth town election this year. Meanwhile, roughly 1,000 more voters participated in the Campbell School election than in the town election.
By the School Committee’s logic, should Dracut hold a revote on Wohlander’s election, too?
Maybe claim voters were confused? Maybe say there was too much misinformation?
Or not a high enough turnout? Or Mercury was in retrograde?
Of course not. Elections count even when the margin is small. That principle shouldn’t change based on the losing side.
Which brings us to the larger point: The debt exclusion vote wasn’t merely a rejection of building a new Campbell School. It was a rejection of the give-me, give-me, give-me mindset that has come to define this tone-deaf school committee.
It was a message about spending, priorities and trust. It was a demand for better leadership.
Democracy doesn’t end when elected officials dislike the outcome. It begins with accepting it. Right now, a majority of the Dracut School Committee is flunking that test.
— Brian Genest is the producer and host of Eye On Dracut, winner of the Hometown Media Award for News. Follow online at Facebook.com/EyeOnDracut. ◊