Stop with false narrative

To the editor,

Let’s just stop right now – can we agree to that simple step?

The recall effort is underway. Soon a decision will be rendered by the court allowing the election to proceed or not.

Claiming that the Kennebunk town manager and select board chair “backed members of the board into a corner” is an outrageous claim …much like challenging the validation of a petition signer’s legitimacy based upon their social media presence. Having spent nine years on the select board and three as chair, I am positive that the recent executive sessions with the town attorney were directed precisely at this recall process.

As much as some have tried to highjack the narrative; read the charter. Recalls are a product of lack of confidence to perform the duties and responsibilities of the office. The official being recalled can request a public hearing, but decisions are rendered in the voting booth.

Since the inception of the RSU, there has been a broad disconnect between the school board and the municipalities it serves. Remember, in Kennebunk, the schools consume 75 cents of every tax dollar. Spending has been done routinely without collaboration or consultation with the municipalities served despite invitations to do so.

The school board serves three constituents: students, staff and the municipalities that elect them. To ignore any of the three creates dysfunction and a lack of confidence. Of that, we have plenty.

So, stop with the false narrative, stop blaming the town administration, racial bias, sexual orientation, or the worn-out CRT and DEI. If you don’t like the process – work to change the charter. If you think the threshold is too low – change the charter.

The RSU 21 has big problems. And it takes all of us to fix it.

Richard Morin

Kennebunk

Be aware of national groups

To the editor,

Community members should be aware of national groups trying to influence our school district and others nationwide. Special interest groups such as Parents Defending Education, DefendingEd, and No Left Turn peddle strategies for parents to thwart advancement of district curriculum. In their websites, they encourage parents to disrupt school board proceedings and distract from business as usual using Freedom of Information Access (FOIA) requests targeting the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

These groups have one clear message, they don’t want DEI taught to students. They reference this type of education as indoctrination and argue it represents liberal brainwashing.

Parents Defending Education also asks RSU 21 parents and citizens to report (spy on?) teachers who don’t follow its agenda of censoring books and controlling curriculum. From its “Shine A Light” webpage: “The more hard evidence you gather [in your child’s classroom], the stronger your case will be.” These groups even establish tip lines for complaints against teachers.

Examining FOIA requests to RSU 21, one sees several submitted by community members requesting documentation related to DEI curriculum, which has received widespread community support. One FOIA request was made by Asra Nomani, vice president of DefendingEd in Washington. One would be correct in wondering why a Washington special interest group would make FOIA requests for DEI information for our small Maine district. A quick Google search of Asra Nomani connects to various Fox News interviews and articles.

Why are these FOIA requests being made now to RSU 21? Is the timing of RSU 21 recall efforts just coincidental? Is the timing of these FOIA requests and others, shortly after the hiring of the first black female superintendent in Maine, also coincidental? An astute observer should be suspect of national interference in our local district.

Please vote against the March 29 recall.

Rebecca Read

Kennebunkport

Responsibility and facing issues

To the editor,

The Kennebunk community is currently suffering from three different, but divisive events: the school board recall initiative, the mass resignation of Town Committee on Aging and the theft of the Black Lives Matter flag from First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church.

The public response to the first seems to be legalistic. To the second, a recommendation for training on communicating with older people accompanies public stonewalling. To the third, the church raised a new BLM flag and reached out to those who objected to the flag, but the theft is also a police matter.

Are these actions sufficient to bring us back together?

Many people are probably suffering from deeper frustrations than evidenced by the confrontational and passive-aggressive actions we have seen in these three incidences. The frustrations are not so easily dealt with but they should not prevent us from trying to solve their community level manifestations. In normal times the interested parties would strive for a chance to sit down, talk to one another and find ways work together. Sadly, this common-sense approach is now more often seen as naïve and impractical – not only in our town but also nationwide and beyond.

Why are we so afraid to talk together? Are the problems too deep to openly admit? Are the larger frustrations of living with COVID-19 too overwhelming?

The American experience has been rife with such moments of unbridled value-clashes and confrontations but somehow as a nation we have always recovered by rebuilding the necessary trust and regaining our collective spirit. Why can’t we do that now in Kennebunk? Why can’t we face our fears and try to rebuild the trust that we have had? After all, we are a town symbolized by a hockey rink at which all of us can freely gather and enjoy our lives together. Is there some kind of leadership training to help restore our ability to trust one another and work things out? Perhaps some kind of community reconciliation commission? We pride ourselves as a great town in which to live and work. That should mean we take responsibility for facing our real issues.

Ted Trainer

Kennebunk

Outraged by recall effort

To the editor,

I am outraged by the current recall effort of an RSU 21 school board member.

I am grateful to a group of citizens (dubbed The Upstanders) working to fight this costly, unjust, and damaging recall. They are asking the hard questions, and ensuring that a flawed system is implemented with as much transparency and integrity as possible.

Merton Brown, our town clerk, has been burdened beyond reason, because a disgruntled minority isn’t willing to wait until the next election in June (just two short months following the recall election) to have their voices heard. This action disenfranchises voters. Why bother to vote at all? This recall is an organized attempt to overthrow the democratic voting process.

There are real problems with the current charter language and approach that allows anyone with an ax to grind to initiate a recall with an affidavit – regardless of its validity, accuracy or truth of the assertions it contains.

Norm Archer recently wrote that his motivation is new board leadership. How does recalling one non-leadership board member less than three months before his term is up anyway, provide new leadership?

Thank you to the those who remain united about the unjust nature of this recall. This recall may be legally available in the charter’s current problematic language, but it should clearly be reserved for criminal or deviant behavior.

Thank you, Upstanders. I admire your unwillingness to ignore an injustice.

Kennebunkers, please join me in voting no on the recall.

Lisa Eaton

Kennebunk

Confront inconvenient, uncomfortable truths

To the editor,

One has to cynically observe that, while people are trying to raise awareness and inclusion into our society, acts of vandalism (the trashing of the Black Lives Matter flag at the First Parish Church in Kennebunk) are not all that surprising. It is hard to reckon with underlying racial sentiments in our communities and times like these bring out the ugliness that has to be confronted.

To say these resentful sentiments don’t exist is to literally whitewash an existing problem that takes a lot of soul searching from all of us regardless of political persuasion, as we all have biases whether we acknowledge them or not. It is indeed ironic that across the street from the church, the Brick Store Museum has a very powerful exhibit exploring the treatment of Black and Indigenous People in our own backyard.

The main premise is that we have to separate American mythology from American history, which can be uncomfortable. If we are to go forward with this “grand experiment in democracy” where there is liberty and justice for all, then we have to confront the uncomfortable and inconvenient truths that got us here and acknowledge it as part of our history as a nation.

Only then can we see our way forward to a totally egalitarian society where all are treated as one.

Jake Hawkins

Arundel

To the editor,

In a recent letter to the editor, Norm Archer asserted that to infer that the true motive behind the RSU 21 recall lies in racism and homophobia is “lazy.”

Am I lazy, or is it just that obvious?

As I have observed the evolution of the recall, I have marveled at the athletic level of contortion that recall proponents have delivered in order to create an intellectually reasonable platform. I tried to keep up, but it has become less a political discussion and more a game of Whack-a-Mole.

First, it was teachers leaving in droves even though RSU 21 has a better retention rate than other districts of similar size.

Then, it was runaway spending by the targeted board member, who is not even on the finance committee.

There was an attempt to stir up indignation about salaries, and frequent mention of the performative Red for Ed campaign. This attack did not gain a lot of traction, given the 92 percent satisfaction rate with the contract (was it the hot dogs? I suspect otherwise).

Now we have moved on to COVID and masks.

Meanwhile, we have heard all about the lack of experience our well-vetted superintendent brings, her lack of transparency (before her first review?), and everyone’s favorite code, not being a good fit.

A truly solid thesis should not be this hard to follow.

What has remained consistent throughout all of this obfuscation: despite a board structure that does not allow rule by one member, despite his limited term … despite all of this, the one board member who is being targeted for recall is the one who is openly gay. And although her predecessors demonstrated significant incompetence in the handling of a great many embarrassing concerns, the superintendent who is being most vilified is the first one in our state’s history who is Black.

Whether we are referencing Sir William of Ockham or Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the intellectual technique is the same: the most straightforward explanation is probably the correct one. That’s not laziness. That’s logic.

Merideth C. Norris
Kennebunk