An open letter to Fayette County Board of Education Chairman Debbie Condon: First, your errors.

1. You tried an end-around the voters by calling a special election. Why could you have not waited for the general election in a couple of months?

2. You listened to the Realtors, the teachers, the school board members, and all the wrong people. Why didn't you listen to the voters who elected you?

3. You never explained to the satisfaction of the people what you were going to spend all that millions of dollars on. You tried to hide the fact that half of the money would go for sport facilities, and not education. Shame on you.

I believe if you had gone to the voters and said we will first use the money to replace all the trailers with permanent classrooms and, if there is money left over, we may use it for the sports programs, then the voters would have supported you. The first thing voters think you should do with their tax money is to educate. Put your priorities in the right place. Sports are not essential. They are extra.

I firmly believe that the sports programs should pay their own way. The football proceeds should more than pay for the needs of the game plus extra funds for bleachers and bathrooms and upkeep of the facility. I think basketball will pay its own way. If these two programs are not in the black then raise the price of admission. As for all other sports that are dependent on tax money, eliminate them. Let no nonessential sport drain off direly needed dollars.

I hope this will guide you someway when next you bring up another SPLOST vote. You have already cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars on a special election that was needless. Please don't do this again. I will campaign against you if this happens.

Now Debbie, let's get back to basics. Cut out all the “EDs.” Eliminate sex ed, phys-ed, drivers ed, field trip ed, finger painting ed, claw molding ed, and no telling what else you can come up with that will replace education. Get back to reading ed, writing ed, spelling ed, arithmetic ed. That will take care of the basics. Now if there is spare time, for God's sake, teach a class in manners; that went out the door a few years back. At least get your students to take their hats off while dining in a restaurant, and to stop trashing the byways with the fast-food wrappers and drink cups. Teach one class on respect for others.

Come time for you to run again for the school board, tell the voters you will listen to them next time instead of the Realtors. And should you go for another SPLOST, be sure you have the support of the parents of your students, which you didn't have this time. They forgot to go vote.

Frank Hyde
Peachtree City

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