Taxes were not increased "summarily"; the tax increase was approved by the majority of voters.

I did a little browsing at edutopia.org. I see nothing there about cost cutting. Can you direct me to the data on the website indicating that implementing their vision will lead to lower costs?

Summarily: ?adverb in a prompt or direct manner; immediately; straightaway.

Although I suggested edutopia.org as a source for ideas, try typing "budget cuts" in the search field to find 300+ article, blogs and discussions on how communities across the country are responding to budget cuts. As is often the case, the comments to the original post often provide the most insight. Please enlighten us with any resources you are aware of too.

We seem to be forgetting that in the recent past, our school district administration was lobbying hard for a bond vote for significant sports infrastructure. It seemed like a high pressure sales job to me, and in light of the fact that our High School's football field was incorrectly proportioned, thereby rendering it essentially illegal for league play leads me to ponder our administration's game plan, in general. The word "hubris" comes to mind.

Rick, to say the football field was incorrectly proportioned is only superficially true. The fact is that one goalpost--or maybe it was a pair of goalposts--was the wrong height by a foot or so is more accurate though less newsworthy. The fault was quickly and easily corrected, a job that you and I could probably have done in an afternoon.

This information comes from neighbor and long-time friend Melanie Mulroy-Robinson, so we can assume it's true. It came to me as correction to a mistake-riddled earlier post of mine, in which I'd bought into a substantial amount of misinformation provided by somebody opposed, for the wrong reasons, to the whole football-field drama.

Thanks for this clarification, Stephan. Still, it's curious that there was never (to my knowledge) a definitive public statement from the school board acknowledging this relatively small mistake, and thereby allowing the rumor-mill to fly.

I guess I'm trying to get back to what Mr. Summerfield has described as a culture of entitlement, and to make the point that during a period of economic stress, the board floated a very ambitious and costly bond proposal for athletics in advance of the annual budget process. By preemptively dangling a potentially large tax increase before residents, the 5% budget increase may have lead many residents to feel they dodged a bullet, and were actually getting a bargain. I find it hard not to pair these two things together.

Yes, you're right, and I don't understand why -nobody- responds on this forum, or in the Local, to questions that should be easy for those in a position of authority to answer, particularly a mayor, trustees, school superintendant, etc.

For example, it's generally assumed that Cornwall's football team "wanted to play in a bigger league" assumedly for the glory, and that we were going to have to pay for the facilities to allow them to voluntarily do that.

Truth is, the football team is REQUIRED to now play in a bigger league, due to a variety of factors including school population. Otherwise, you could have a high school of 5,000 kids setting up a football schedule with a dozen small rural schools so they'd end up with an undefeated season.

but nobody has bothered to explain that, so you have a community outraged by "runaway sports expenses."

Not to digress, but during my term as village trustee, I, on several occasions joined in various dialogue threads on this site to discuss issues. Andrew Argenio also recently posted an open letter to explain what he's been working on. I think the "nobody" characterization is a bit absolute, but not far from the truth.

I think, and what I have heard, is that many people still like the football games at the middle school because so many people can still walk to the games, seems no real harm to continue the tradition of having football there.

Mr. Schneider, I have no qualms with continuing the tradition of football at the original field. It is certainly worth reflecting on the emotional and practical value that the middle school field has for our community, and perhaps to consider, in retrospect, that given these feelings we missed an opportunity to reinvigorate that site as the high school that it once was. Could it be that we lost sight of that in our rush for the new?

Could this story possibly be an allegory for what is now a misguided direction in our school district? We need to be mindful of the evolution we are on with our school district infrastructure, and to look back at the decisions we have made to get us to this point.