Mike Quinlan may have conservative views on education (probably pretty aligned with what Reagan would have espoused), but he never attacked the other two candidates -- he only tried to differentiate his approach from theirs. If you don't like a conservative perspective, that is fine, but don't attack the motivation or mental perspective of others without good reason.

After the concerted` mass-attack on Mike at the Wednesday MS forum, Bill Kelly sends out a last-minute, widely-distributed e-mail with the following attack on Mike Quinlan and the North Andover Taxpayers Association (NATA):

Bill wrote: "I normally like to take the high road but I feel compelled to give you my
opinion about the 3rd candidate in the race Mr. Michael Quinlan. Mr Quinlan
home schools his five children, w hich is his right, and has deliberately
chosen to not be a consumer of public education. What disturbs me is the
argumentative and condescending demeanor he displayed at the candidates
forum this past Wednesday. He has a close association to a small-minded
group of organized anti-public education/anti-any tax supporters, known as
NATA. He has also signed the petition in support of the repeal(not
reduction) of the state income tax without offering a plan for our schools
if this vital funding were to be eliminated. Nor has He spoke of what would
happen to state and local services if it were to pass. Mr Quinlan appears to
have made up his mind on all issues despite that fact he is not fully
informed on many of them. I f ear his election would be to instantly polarize
the school committee and would mak e the already difficult task ahead in
finding a permanent replacement for Supt Dr. Marini near impossible."

I guess disagreeing with Bill is "small minded". I assume he meant narrow minded. Oddly, it is Mike that will most likely split the education of his children between home-schooling in K-8 and HS in 9-12th grades ... seems broad-minded to me. The apparently big-minded (broad-minded?) Bill seems to think that ONLY public schooling should be considered by parents ... seems narrow-minded to me.

Bill's claim that NATA is "anti-public education" is also I lie. NATA, as an organization, ONLY insists that the schools live within the constraints of Prop 2 1/2 funding ... Nothing else has EVER been pitched by NATA except pleas for improving academic outcomes within available funding.

Now, I suspect that I am the bogeyman. Why? Because I actually think the public school system should have to compete for its funding and jobs and benefits (my position supporting vouchers ... Not NATA's). Bill Kelly seems to think that only blind devotion to a single mode of education qualifies someone for public service or the school committee. Heaven forbid that anyone gets on the board that actually is skeptical of the institution's devotion to the children (could they possibly be looking out for themselves?) or seek to hold it accountable for its performance.

How Mike's presence on the NA SC will make finding a Superintendent "near-impossible" is a mystery to me. Does Bill think that having members pushing for high standards and greater parental involvement will scare off candidates? Bill must be a two-gallon a day Kool Aid drinker.

Note that Bill himself has done more damage to education in North Andover than any recent SC member when he cast the deciding vote for the 4%/3%/3% teachers' contract (on top of the 1.5% steps & columns ... making the contract actually, 5.5%,4.5%, 4.5%). This contract set salaries WELL above what the town could afford and is the main reason that thousands of North Andover children have been denied education services over the last three years.

BTW, Mike and his family have home-schooled 5 children ... That has saved the district approx $45,000 every year (1 teacher!) while he has continued to pay several thousand each year to the school district through his property taxes.

Final note: Bill made a public commitment to the voters when he ran for office, that he would not accept the stipend if he was elected by the voters as a member of the School Committee. A year or so later he decided to ignore his promise and start taking the stipend which grew from $2000 to $5000 per year. What is it about keeping promises that Mr. Kelly doesn't understand? I guess we know what he thinks his integrity is worth.

Chuck Ormsby,

North Andover School Committee, Member of the Board of Trustees of Haverhill's Hillview Montessori Public Charter School, Mathematics Professor at University of Massachusetts/Lowell, ... and narrow-minded member of NATA ... and proud of it!

Dear Readers and Chuck Ormsby,

North Andover United tries very hard to stick to the issues and leave out the personalities. We’ve seen how ugly politics can get in this town, and we’ve seen how anger polarizes the community. It prevents us from governing with clear heads; we absolutely must focus on the long-term health of our town.

Chuck, as upset as you are with Bill’s letter, I would no more ask him to curb his freedom of speech than I would curb yours. I find it curious that you prefer to rebut his statements with a personal attack, instead of getting Michael Quinlan to stand up to the keyboard, assert his independence, and give voters verifiable facts and figures to back up his positions on the issues important to the people he wishes to serve. If Michael is upset about Bill’s letter, let Michael rebut it.

North Andover United invited Michael to sit down with us – we wanted to give him a fair shot at explaining his views, using the exact same set of questions we used for every candidate. We wanted to rely on an honest, face to face discussion with him. He ignored the invitation. Instead, he preferred us to rely on letters to the newspapers written by his friends and family, and his vague responses in public forums that showed little advance preparation other than talking to you.

Does home-schooling automatically mean you can’t understand and work productively to support public schools? No. But having no experience, no hard data to back up his assertions, and no solid plans for moving ahead, coupled with a repeated lack of desire to work as a member of a 5-person team, let alone abide by the collaborative terms of the Joint Resolution, is a pretty strong indicator of his being unqualified for the demands of the position.

Do we need affordable contracts? Yes. But there is more than one approach to containing escalating contract costs. Do we need higher standards and excellent curriculum? Yes. But to get there, we need assessment standards implemented, we need professional development to train our teachers on an on-going basis, and we need leadership in place with the skills to inspire and guide staff on reaching those goals. Do these issues require additional money? Maybe, but we know that significant improvement can take place within the proposed budget parameters.

Chuck, you often bring important ideas to the table, I often applaud your efforts, and I often lament how much more you could accomplish for our students if you approached these issues from a collaborative point of view.

We already have one Chuck – we don’t need a second, pale shadow of you elected to the School Committee. Especially one who doesn’t stand up for himself and campaign like he knows what he’s talking about.

Sincerely,
Sandy Gleed

Sandy,

Stick to the issue. You divert the discussion and then throw 50 new issues against the wall.

The current issue, if we can stick to the point, is a last minute campaign e-mail from Bill Kelly that lied about Mike's position on public schooling and lied about NATA's position on public education ... not to mention name calling.

I responded to Bill's cowardly tactic and addressed his lies. You respond to the facts I presented by complaining about my responding instead of Mike (who is making calls to voters and putting his five children to bed because they are a higher priority than responding to Bill Kelly). Why can't you ever just respond to the issue and the facts and not resort to throwing up smoke?

Speaking of which, you have never responded to my criticisms of NAU's claim during the override campaign that North Andover's lack of sufficient taxation caused our property values to decline. Instead, you did the same thing then ... you threw up a smoke screen. When asked the same four questions a second time, you refused to answer. When will you address the issue instead of obfuscating? By the way, how have our real estate values been doing now that we followed your advice and passed the override?

I'm sorry you feel that Mike did not pay enough attention to NAU. Maybe that is because NAU is viewed as a partisan organization that will not invest time or energy in reforming a terribly under-performimg institution.

Chuck

Apparently a 'partisan organization' that is allowing your viewpoint to be expressed in its public forum.

... and the ability to view both videos from the League of Women Voters forum as well as the PTAC Meet the Candidates Forum... unedited... to allow people to have access to these events.

... and the creation of candidate profiles on our site (posted with content in whatever way the candidate wanted) with links to their web sites and the establishment of a discussion forum for each candidate to use.

... and the countless hours spent by people sitting in meetings that most other people do not sit in to try and distill some information... and post the information on this site with the ability for people to discuss it in public.

So, as we discussed on Saturday with me holding my Limpert/Nobile sign and you holding your Quinlan sign... we can disagree on who we are supporting... but let's try to 'come back to the center' a bit because at least as far as I can tell... NAU is one of the few organizations in town trying to promote communication and the understanding of complex challenges that we all face and attempting to promote more of a collaborative approach.

I look forward to your opinions on more topics in the future and the (hopeful) result that we all can make some continuous improvement.

I think if we all step back from this we should be able to agree that Bill Kelly is stepping over the line when he uses terms like "small minded" and "undemocratic" to attack a candidate rather than backing up his disagrements with well thought out arguments.

Unfortunately, this continues an apparent school department tradition of employees and elected officials behaving badly when they leave (which I could list if you'd like but it might be better if I didn't).

NAU has started the ball rolling with Honest Questions/Honest answers. We need more Honest Question/Honest answers and less Bill Kelly smears.

Best wishes,
ahbgone