I recently received a series of e-mails related to election issues and thought this part of the exchange might be of interest to bloggers. At this point, the names are not relevant, hence the xxx and xxxxx.

"xxx's specific comments do a good job of pointing out the significant, larger issues surrounding our school board.

1. School locations have not been based on local needs and desires (we all saw what happened to the attempted recommendations from our citizen redistricting committee) but on much larger issues and long-range projections versus facts. Despite the slight increase in overall population, the facts show that our school age population has been steadily decreasing for the last several years. The school bond documents for 2005 and 2007 clearly show that the district was aware that if these schools were built we would have a gross excess of capacity. This was not shared with the community when we were asked to vote in 2004 for the bond nor anytime since. Furthermore, the new school locations directly correlate to the East and West Bypass projects where residential development did not exist when the sites were purchased.

2. Peachtree City, despite being the biggest city, does not have representation on the board. PTC accounts for more than a third of the county population and the vast majority of the tax base due to the high-end housing and density. xxx seems to feel that having PTC representation is somehow not needed or that someone from PTC couldn't possibly understand the larger issues for the county. xxx failed to point out that Nicole File actually lived in Fayetteville for more years than she has lived in PTC so she actually is better suited to understanding the needs of our county than someone who lives in one of the smallest cities.

3. The school district has shown that they did not have a long-term financial strategy in place despite knowing that the trend for the last several years has been a reduction in state funding. Our reserves have been depleted, and we have continued to build despite the fact that the district knew the long-term consequences.

The bigger issue that we now know is that our school system has been focused on building an infrastructure for a community that will exist - perhaps - 15 to 20 years in the future. This is not the stated mission of our school system, nor does it address the needs of our students now or in the near future. The SPLOST has been proven to be hastily put together and without good financial information.

The point is not that we don't all support the idea of excellence in schools. The point is that we can't continue to throw money 20 years into the future. We need a school board that will focus on what our students need now with an eye toward reasonable and responsible growth for needs within a 3-5 year time period.

We need people on our school board who will be responsible with our student resources and with our tax money. Once we get a responsive school board, I would be happy to revisit the idea of a SPLOST but I am not willing to support such a flimsy proposition that does not have built-in accountability."

xxxxx