Guess what, taxpayers of Hicksville. The proposed bond issue is not for $41.8 million, as advertised, but will cost all of us $75 million. The interest will total at least $20 million by the school district's own estimate, over the 15-year term of the bond. The superintendent failed to mention that fact in his deceptive presentation that I and many other residents attended on Wednesday night, Jan. 16. The special meeting of the board, by the way, started 35 minutes late when the president, with the typical arrogance of the board of education, called the session to order without a word of apology to the people who arrived on time.

The voters of Hicksville must stand up on their hind legs and defeat this bond issue. The list of projects the district would finance reads like a catalog of the neglect for which the school board and the superintendent were responsible over the years. We must all ask why most of these projects were not addressed in the regular annual budgets, especially in last year's bloated $70 million monstrosity, the highest school budget in Hicksville's history. If the school district's infrastructure has been deteriorating so badly, where has all the money gone that was supposed to keep the infrastructure in good repair?

I mentioned above the arrogance of the school board. How else can we explain this enormous bond issue in a time of recession when Hicksville families are struggling and many wage earners have lost their jobs? And how does the board expect retirees on fixed income to handle this additional burden?

We must not pass a bond issue proposed by this incompetent school board. Remember, it was this board that backed the superintendent and his assistant when they disgraced Hicksville following the 9/11 attack, calling on the carpet a teacher who legally took leave to participate as a firefighter in emergency rescue work at the site of the fallen Twin Towers. The rest of America honored our Sept. 11 heroes. The Hicksville School District appeared to be alone in dishonoring them.

Our first aim must be to replace the board members up for election this year and the rest when their turn comes. Secondly, Hicksville must press for the dismissal of this superintendent and of his entire senior staff. Then we can address the problems of the infrastructure.

John J. Jones