Citizens For A Better Norwood

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Anti-Tax Candidate(s) To Run for Norwood BOE

Will said candidate(s) run under COAST banner or undercover…again?

According to Michael D. Clark’s reporting on the front page of today’s Enquirer, “anti-tax activists plan to support entire slates of candidates in hopes of capturing majorities in some districts and gaining new footholds in others…at least one anti-tax candidate, and possibly more are predicted by activists to run in Norwood, Three Rivers, Lakota, Reading, Sycamore, Loveland, Kings and Franklin schools.”

If last year's 1/28/06 article by Michael D. Clark is to be believed, COAST ran at least one unnamed candidate in our 2005 BOE race:

The group ran candidates in Lakota, Kings, Little Miami, Springboro, Monroe, Norwood and elsewhere. They also battled - in some cases successfully - to defeat school tax issues in several districts.

Quite naturally, we’ve always wondered about the validity of COAST’s claim about their 2005 Norwood candidate(s), though it is plausible because of the hesitancy Clark reported some already-elected school board members have about being publicly identified with COAST:

Coalition officials claim they have about a dozen school board members sympathetic to their conservative agenda. But for personal or political reasons, those members have not publicly identified themselves with the group.

Responsible school spending is a topic near and dear to our hearts, but we have many serious reservations about COAST‘s anti-tax philosophy and, yes, tactics, too, both locally and elsewhere. Depending on who this year’s BOE candidates are, we may find ourselves breaking with our 6-year-old tradition of not officially supporting candidates for local offices. Like everyone else, we’ll just have to wait to see who files at the Board of Elections between now and the August 23 deadline.