Letter to Stamford 18th District Representatives

Dear Representative Raduazzo and Representative Caterbone

I am writing to you today to express my deep concern about the current state of Stamford commitments to our children, their education and the future of our city. My wife's family has lived in Stamford for 3 generations. We are the proud parents of three children ages 8, 5 and 2, with the older two attending Toquam Magnet Elementary School. We stood together with my fellow Toquam parents 2 years ago to defend our school during the redistricting process and became very ingrained in the business of the board of education, which has provided me with a great perspective of the real challenges that this community faces. In that same process, I met multiple other parents from across the city, who are all interested in achieving exactly the same thing, sending their kids to the best schools system possible We are also members of various other community organizations and our kids participate in Stamford Youth sports. If you add this up, we are very invested in the city what is happening in the city now and how the decisions that are made today are going to impact us immediately and how they may effect our children in the coming years.

As one of the 600 people who attended the joint Board of Finance / Board of Representatives Finance Committee this past Monday at Turn of River Middle School, and one of the 75 people who spoke in favor of the current budgets as presented, I believe the community spoke loud and clear that we are all willing to accept a tax increase in order to preserve the current level of services that we as a community have come to expect from our schools, libraries, fire and police. In spite of the fact that current levels are barely sufficient to achieve or maintain any standard of excellent.

What is increasingly concerning is the apparent recklessness which certain members of the Board of Finance are approaching this budgeting process. There seems to be no reality check amongst the Board of Finance members who have set an agenda without a real understanding of what the impact of their proposals will really wreck upon our fine community.

I would like to request that as our elected representatives, that you stand up and fight for what is best for our district and our city. Providing the necessary funding for our schools is an absolute necessity, and any further budget cuts would be absolutely devastating to our school district and to our city. It is not like any cuts that are made this budget season are just going to miraculously return in full force next year. The impact of further cuts could be a reduction in teachers, meaning larger class sizes and less individual attention for every student. Today's Advocate talked about the possibility of closing a school, but even this draconian measure unfortunately would not fill the entire budget cuts that the Board of Finance is requesting. Closing a school or letting teachers go will also not help the value of our homes, nor will it help attract new families (and new taxpayers) to move to Stamford, since we will be known as the town that does not care about education or children.

Finally, I would like to ask you where the mayor has been during this whole process? Mayor Pavia ran on a platform of supporting education, however, he has yet to attend a Board of Education meeting, and was noticeably absent from the public hearing on Monday. Although the city charter does not require the mayor to attend these public hearing, as it is the budget he presented, he should take responsibility and accountability to the people and be willing to listen to a packed auditorium of voters speaking about his proposed budget.

I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you in more detail about this issue as I firmly believe that the decisions being forced upon the community by a very minority members of the Board of Finance will have a long term and lasting negative impact that will take years or decades for us to fully recover. As someone pointed out Monday night at the public hearing that the current economic downturn is temporary and already beginning to show signs of turning around, let us not overreact to a temporary situation.

Thank you for your time

Jeff Herz
47 Cascade Court
Stamford, CT 06903