Dear Editors:
As the Board of Education moves forward with plans for a bond referendum to fund repairs to our public schools, and as the Board of Commissioners grapples with the prospect of a drug rehab facility on the Bancroft campus — right next door to our high school — Haddonfield residents can expect an avalanche of misinformation, innuendo, and false “facts” from a few members of the community who seem to delight in fomenting dissent.
In the coming months, I hope the community will give school board members and the commissioners the space and time they need to develop and present their proposals. I hope they will give the proposals a fair hearing. And I hope that those who disagree with the proposals will offer constructive, detailed and realistic alternatives.
Above all, I hope we will remember that school board members and commissioners are not evil-doers. I hope we will remember that they are the neighbors we elected to develop the proposals and take the actions they believe are in the best interests of the community as a whole.
Finally, I hope we will listen and learn, and take care to distinguish between authoritative, reliable information and unfounded allegations and inflammatory rhetoric. (There’s more than enough of that on the presidential campaign trail.) These are serious matters. We must treat them seriously, respectfully and responsibly.
Jeff Tucker
