Dear Members of the Community,
It saddens me to witness misguided vitriol being directed at an institution that has always held my interests and the interests of thousands of other students in the highest regard.
I seek to reciprocate by educating the community as it did with me and others through leveraging the abilities I attained while I was a student at Georgetown and a professional at different multinational corporations.
The Administration of Mayor David S. Cassetti is gambling with the futures of the youth of Ansonia, seeking a political payout at the expense of the citizenry. I will explain, purely on economic terms, how the writing is on the wall.
Mayor Cassetti and his cohort bank on the ignorance of the citizenry to get away with scoring political gains at the expense of the entire community. They seek to frame the narrative in a way to divert attention from their own improper understanding of decades-long caselaw and the structural nature of our community-oriented institutions.
I provide irrefutable evidence so that citizens may demand better from their elected leaders, political affiliation notwithstanding. We must find common ground in education, without sacrificing facts to individual bias. It is time to hold elected official accountable, and for the community to collectively hold facts above politics. The future of our community depends on it.
In 1963, the Board of Education of the Town of Ellington sued the Town of Ellington for a very similar situation where the City attempted to erroneously appropriate funds. The Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut ruled in favor of the Board of Education and mentioned the following:
“A town board of education is an agency of the state in charge of education in the town, and broad powers are granted it by the legislature to that end. In the exercise of those powers or in the incurring of expense necessitated thereby to be paid by the town, the board of education is beyond control by the town or any of its officers except as limitations are found in statutory provisions.”
The Board of Education stood its ground on decades-long precedent; it was necessary to sue the city to prevent the plague that is moral hazard. Many members of the Mayor’s administration claim that they must take these steps to prevent departments from doing as they please, when the reality is completely flipped; the Board of Education had a civic duty to sue the City to protect all children’s education.
The City constantly relegates education, cutting funding for the arts and other ancillary programs. The reason the City willingly holds a losing hand is to steer the narrative in their favor. They release funds to the Board of Education, increase taxes to fund their unsustainable and frivolous spending habits and proceed to direct the blame at the board of education.
The City’s fiscal woes go beyond $600,000. Resist all attempts to smokescreen the truth and demand better from your elected officials. Your children’s futures depend on it.
The writer is an Ansonia resident.
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