I totally agree with the editorials published July 27 by Councilor Messer and Brendan Moran, editor of the Current.

Number one, the relationships between the Scarborough Town Council members and members of the Scarborough Board of Education are severely strained. Number two, taxpayers and citizens of Scarborough have a right to know about town projects and how their tax dollars are being spent. Number three, if public representatives can’t set their personal feelings aside and do the job the public elected them to do, they should step down.

I have watched our Scarborough Board of Education over the past three years become more dysfunctional every meeting. The past meeting reached a crisis point that should be dealt with. I have watched School Board member David Beneman, consistently berate and intimidate his fellow colleagues, citizens and parents of school children whenever their point of view differs from his.

Mr. Beneman is constantly giving us his points of view like, funding the new schools is a “no brainer.” As if we taxpayers haven’t the brains, and should not be allowed to vote for new schools? After all, as he never ceases to remind us, he is an attorney and of course much smarter than we are about these complicated issues. He has consistently been secretive and unwilling to answer the simplest questions about the high school expansion.

Folks, watch the past School Board meeting tapes. Mr. Beneman usually does most of the talking and I think often prevented healthy discourse between all School Board members. Had Mr. Beneman not been a member of this Board of Education, I feel that the other members would have been much more cordial, responsive and forthright when dealing with the Town Council on the high school issue.

I felt completely unsatisfied with the answers that were provided, during the last School Board meeting, concerning the corrective construction issues at the new high school.

To start the presentation off, Mr. Michaud stated, “Once again, I would say we have political action to maybe undermine the School Department.” Mr. Michaud is a paid employee of the town of Scarborough, he does not represent me as an elected official. For him to open the dialogue with this political diatribe was completely inappropriate and it set a biased, adversarial tone that threaded through the entire presentation, ending in the horrific behavior of Mr. Beneman, once again monopolizing the question and answer period, steering it to his point of view and then humiliating Councilor Ross and Mrs. Messer, when they tried to divert from his planned agenda and ask very appropriate questions. Folks, this is just plain wrong.

I agree with Councilor Messer, that the recent repairs at the high school were not routine maintenance. I would feel much more comfortable if the warranty period by Pizzagalli was extended or at least Scarborough purchases the insurance that the construction investigator recommended (perhaps Pizzagalli would contribute something towards that policy, since they are so confident about the quality of their work).

I want all our councilors’ questions answered, until we are satisfied and feel comfortable that our $27 million was well spent. I don’t want one bully to stop us from receiving the answers we deserve and are our right. We should absolutely not start any further large-scale school buildings until we get to the truth on this one first. We also should expect an apology from Mr. Beneman to Mr. Ross and Mrs. Messer, and he must start to have a much less adversarial position with the Town Council or I feel he should resign immediately.

Kathleen Schuyler

Scarborough