I am worried about Roslyn. I am worried that after being victimized by a well organized and vicious group of conspirators, who stole not only money but drove a stake into our collective community heart, that now we are going to finish up the job all by ourselves; community suicide through the faulty decision of an elected school board that seems to have gotten carried away with some overblown sense of financial responsibility and forgotten that its first job is to represent the community and to benefit our children. It is now time for us to send our opinion, literally, to the School Board, in the form of a grass roots e-mail referendum, and let them know if we are not happy with their decision to continue legal action against the former Board members.

Just to update those you who missed it, at a Board meeting in December a long line of residents got up and spoke, some impassionedly, about the wrongness of the lawsuit being brought by the present school board against the former school board members. They were eloquent, they were sincere, they were convincing, they were right. And these were probably some of the same people who, months ago, were calling for the total resignation of the previous school board. Ironic, isn't it?

During the open comments, in which no resident got up to speak in support of the lawsuit, one courageous board member intervened, and stated, to big applause, that he would introduce a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Later on this person did do that, and was joined by one other member in voting to end the legal action, but was overruled by the remaining three. Amazing. Isn't it true that we elect our Board to represent the community?

No one seems to want to sue our neighbors for their personal money. It seems clear enough that anyone who is asked thinks this lawsuit is a shame and not in the best interests of our community. I am even guessing that each member of the board, who voted to continue it that evening, if asked for an opinion as a private citizen, might agree it is a bad idea. It is such a patently obviously bad idea, that I begin to wonder what thoughts have compelled them to continue it to this date. While on one level my heart goes out to this embattled school board, I am trying to understand how in the world they could persist in the absurd and heartless punishment of people who, at worst, were sloppy and overly trusting, and at best, were honest public servants giving away lots of their time, who were duped as any of us (including the present Board) might be?

One might try to read their minds, to understand why this group of intelligent and well-intentioned board members might have their common sense swayed so far from the simple realities. Could it be overblown feelings of responsibility that wiped out their humanity, as they were told by the lawyers it was their "fiduciary responsibility" to the community? The lawyers did tell them that, and that reclaiming maximum funds was their legal goal. On the other hand, I was told that the Board has since then been advised by higher government that the decision to continue is simply a local issue, implying it must be decided locally. No matter what any lawyer or official says, this is the bottom line truth as far as I see it.

Or maybe it is financial paranoia about the possibility this Board might be accused of the same "crimes" in the future if they don't carry through every possible avenue suggested to them by the lawyers now - I could certainly see that thought circulating in their heads. Or maybe it's an inescapable anger they harbor and can't release. Maybe it's a personality issue. The sadness of that situation would be for me the sadness I feel whenever I see uncontrolled anger overrule, the kind of uncontrolled anger that leads to familial abuse or unjust acts toward the young or the weak, the kind of anger that eats away at our basic human decency.

Is it simply such a narrowly focused adherence to the letter of the law that has caused a majority of these people to lose their connection to their humanity, close off their feelings and respond mechanically? If so, I believe we are looking at a major problem in our society brought down to microcosm.

If there is some other reason, some hidden reason, the public needs to be made aware. Transparency, not secrecy, is the new order of the day. Whatever it is, it needs to be dealt with. And we, as a community, need to get off our collective comfortable seats and actually do something organized. I know from reading this newspaper and listening to those around me that the community clearly does not want to continue this callous hurting behavior. But there are other important things going on, if you just think about it for a moment.

We are the community that landed in the public eye. We were the community whose dirty laundry went public, and the way we act will no doubt be seen by other communities as an example - to follow or to avoid. What type of example are we setting for other districts? Will any well-intentioned person ever want to join a school board again? And what type of horrible example are we setting for our children, to show them that we will "go after" our own neighbors for financial reasons, when they are hurting personally, persecute those community spirited people that have volunteered time and energy, just because they were trusting/sloppy enough to be duped. Quite frankly, this is a caricature of the "money first" image that causes some people to have disdain for Roslyn in the first place. And think of this: If you were shopping for a community to move into, and you heard that the school board was suing the previous school boards for their personal money, suing people who never were offered malpractice insurance as doctors would have to cover their possible mistakes, and that the community had tacitly approved this kind of behavior, well, would you want to move there?

So exactly whose nose are we cutting off to spite whose face?

And while we are on the subject, have we, in our anger about being robbed and our emphasis on finance, elected a school board that is losing the educational focus, over-scrutinizing every legitimate expense, making it at the very least, cumbersome, and at worst, impossible, to continue providing our children with an educational experience that is beyond subsistence? Now that we are discovering the wrongs to our kids built up over years of neglect, will they lose yet again as a quagmire of financial red tape or accusations of impropriety now bind us up whenever we try to give our kids something more? Unfortunately I see that now happening. Right now I feel terribly out of control, as our elected school board seems to be moving farther and farther from the good of the community. Perhaps you feel similarly.

While this letter is an open call to those Board members who voted to continue the lawsuit to please search their souls a bit deeper, it is also a call to the community. Efforts to date to end this lawsuit have been fragmented, and not reached their goal. Perhaps a more united and simple effort is necessary. We need some direct democracy. On that note, those who email the Board should only state if they are for or against the continuation of the lawsuit.

In the meantime, let us call for an immediate halt to all legal proceedings until the community speaks. Let not another dollar be spent on the Board's lawyers or those hired by the ex-board members, until we have our mandate. It must be possible to stop those wheels from turning, at least temporarily, at this time. If anyone there has a personal connection to any Board member, please call them personally now; ask them to call a special session and vote to suspend all such activity immediately until the results are in. Let Roslyn reclaim its reputation as a community with a heart, as well as a wallet.

Elizabeth Spicer