Mark Rosman

In the News

When your inner voice speaks, pay attention My boss, Greater Media News-papers Executive Editor Greg Bean, has given me plenty of good advice over the years. The best thing he has told me is to follow my intuition when pursuing a story.

Things that seem a bit out of the ordinary make my intuition alarm go off. That happened a week ago when I checked my e-mail and found I had received two letters to the editor supporting a pair of individuals who are running for the Jackson Board of Education in the April 17 school election.

The letters, which both arrived on a Saturday, were from two different Jackson residents who said they supported newcomers Scott Sargent and Sharon Dey for election to the board. Sargent and Dey are two of the six candidates in the race for two seats on the school board.

I thought it was unusual, but not completely impossible, that two letters to the editor supporting new candidates arrived on the same day. Who knows? Maybe Sargent and Dey have asked their friends to write letters on their behalf. There's nothing wrong with that.

I called one person who wrote a letter and left a message asking that person to return my call and leave a voice mail stating what her letter was about.

I called the second person and reached her directly. My first question was, "Did you write a letter to the editor for publication?" Her answer was yes. I then asked her what it was about. After some hesitation she said, in a questioning voice, "the school board." I asked her to be more explicit and after some more hesitation she said "taxes." I was convinced at that point that the woman did not write the letter. I thanked her for speaking with me.

If I wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper about two people I was supporting for election to a school board and someone called to ask me what my letter was about, I would say without hesitation, "It was an endorsement letter for Jack and Jane. They're running for the school board and they're really good people."

A day or so later I got a voice mail from the letter writer for whom I had left the message. She named the candidates and said she wrote the letter. Frankly, I was not 100 percent convinced of that, but at least she seemed to know what it was about.

With my intuition on alert I then took a good look at both letters. In my way of thinking, if I was endorsing a candidate for school board I would probably mention how long I had known that person and what they had done for the local schools to merit other people's votes.

Strangely enough, the two letters I received for Sargent and Dey did not do much, if any of that. The letter writers seemed more concerned with what is happening in Jackson's political world or at town hall.

One letter states: "I am sick of the half-truths and outright campaign lies I have been fed by the Jackson Township political establishment in town hall and on the Board of Education ... I am proud to see good people, and parents fighting back. This out-of-control spending and lack of accountability, and incompetence shown by members of the current town council and school board must end."

Somehow, in a letter endorsing two candidates for the school board, the writer gets two shots in at elected officials in Jackson's town hall. What the heck does that have to do with Sargent's and Dey's ability to oversee the operation of a school district?

The second letter states: "I am voting for Scott Sargent and Sharon Dey for school board on April 17. These are good people who are not political ..."

Excuse me, but who ever said Sargent and Dey are political? Why does the letter writer even mention the word political? This is a school board election, not a race for seats on the Township Council.

Letters like these two make me very nervous. They appear to be about one thing (the school board race) but have clues that they are about something else (power and politics).

Jackson is a political cauldron despite the fact that the mayor and council members are supposed to be nonpartisan. There is a Democratic Party which may have more than one faction, and a Republican Party which has at least two factions.

The school board race should be a nonpolitical affair, but my inner alarm - the little voice that my boss advises me to listen to - tells me that may not be the case in the Jackson school board election this year.

Mark Rosman is the managing editor of the Tri-Town News.