BY DONNA WESTFALL

Life is full of firsts.  This is our first time to endorse a candidate.

Roger Daley sat on the platform along with other school board candidates including one incumbent, Frances Costello .  This is what made him stand out.  He talked about getting back to basics.  Teaching  to learn rather than teaching to take a test. He talked about parents being the most influential people in their children’s lives. He talked about medical decisions being left to the parents and not upsurped by the School.   He talked about lowering salaries for administration.  He’s aware of union contracts, yet it seems reasonable to him to re-negotiate in these economic times..  Where have I heard that before?  Oh ? Right.  Me…. at the Solid Waste Supercommittee meeting.  I asked that the 5% bump up in salary be stopped and Martha McClure said that we can’t do that because we have a union contract.  Wrong answer as far as I’m concerned.  Contracts are there to be negotiated and re-negotiated as times change.

The reason behind not endorsing Frances Costello, even though she was a fount of information and experience is simply because she has not been responsive.  Several attempts in the last couple of months had been made by Katherine Kelly from the Del Norte Clean Water Coalition to get on the agenda for a discussion of Measure A before the School Board takes a vote on the issue.  No one from the Del Norte County School Board has bothered to answer Ms. Kelly although all school board members were contacted as was School Superintendent, Don Olson.

Roger Daley. School Board.  4th District.  Good luck in your campaign.  We’re behind you.