To the editor,

Allow me to respond to Westport’s School Building Committee Chair’s attempt to discredit me in her recent letter. Do we vote for what is printed on the ballot or what Dianne Baron tells us it says?

By now voters should know that on January 23, Special Town Meeting appropriated the amount of $96,884,896 for a new school project … that to meet this appropriation the treasurer, with the approval of the selectmen, “is authorized to borrow said amount.” Ms. Baron writes, “State law requires each community to vote to appropriate the full amount at town meeting and at the ballot box, and, then, the community actually borrows only its share.”

With all due respect, if the own only borrows its share, then why doesn’t the February 27 ballot say that? We should all be asking: “Why doesn’t the state allow the voter to approve the town’s share of approximately $60 million if it agrees to give us a $40 million grant?” Ms. Baron writes that the ballot language “is prescribed by the state.”

On February 10, the Westport School Building Committee hosted another informational forum at the Town Library which I attended. I asked Ms. Baron if I could see the actual ballot question which she allowed me to copy. I was surprised to see that the 470 word motion approved at Special Town Meeting had been reduced to 120 words (approximately) with no dollar amount – blank check – and no mention of the MSBA grant.

So we’ve gone from blank check on the article at Special Town Meeting, to $96,884,896 approved amount on the motion, and now we’re back to a blank check on the ballot. Confused? Blame it on the MSBA. They require vague, uncertain language with non-entitlement, discretionary grants (also spelled out in the approved Special Town Meeting Motion) because if we don’t satisfy any unfunded mandates, if we don’t jump through the MSBA’s hoops, or comply with the strings attached – we are no longer entitled to their money.

Ms. Baron failed to inform us of these important facts. Selectman R. Michael Sullivan said at the February 10 forum, “it’s the Golden Rule. The people who have the gold write the rules. The state … is giving us the money and this is exactly how they want it done.” (Fall River Herald, February 11, 2018) Ms. Baron makes that clear in her letter when she refers to “Westport’s financial obligations in partnering with the MSBA.”

History repeats itself. Westport Community Schools sold out to restructured education in the 1990s resulting in unfunded mandates. I hope we learned from that and Boston’s Big Dig how government spends other people’s money. Somehow this deal that’s too good to pass up is losing its luster. We have to consider the consequences if we write a blank check to buy that gold on February 27.

Marilyn Pease

Wesport