Dear Editor:
Disgraceful, disorganized and dysfunctional all describe a recent Union City Board of Education meeting. I attended the meeting as I usually do. However, even as a veteran of Union City’s assembly practices, Carlos Perez, Board President and Felina Del-Nodal, Board Vice President, still managed to shock me. Once again the board members bestowed their social graces (or lack thereof) upon the citizens of Union City. They were disrespectful and discourteous to me while I asked questions, and to the parents and other students who were also asking questions. At times their belligerent attitudes, fueled by a fear of an elected board seemed to blind them to their duties.
While Ms. Del-Nodal and Mr. Perez yelled at parents and students about "taking too much time to ask questions," I was hit with a monumental epiphany. My theory is simple. If the board members do not like listening to parents and students asking questions and making suggestions that would eventually enhance the quality of education in Union City, then they should not be Board Members and should immediately step down from their positions.
Sadly, that will never happen. As a board member one does not receive a pay check, so why do
Mr. Perez and Ms. Del-Nodal fear losing their positions as volunteers? Very easily, they and the rest of the board members like the power they have. The Board is not comprised of civil servants, but rather a group of hostile, self-serving totalitarians. Mr. Perez’s wife is principal of adult education programs, so her salary depends on the votes of the board. How many perks are given to board members and their relatives? Here we have a group of people who work hard at doing nothing, yet get compensated very well. They are all "Yes" men and women. None have any real goals or aspirations for the children of Union City and have proven to be ignorant by the way they present themselves.
I, however, would like to apologize to Ms. Del-Nodal, Carlos Perez and the rest of the Board of Education for asking questions and expressing my intellectual views on the Union City school system. For a second, I thought Union City was ruled democratically, but it seems that I have overstepped my boundaries as a trivial student and have burdened the board members with trifling questions.
I guess someone should have told me earlier that mediocrity is acceptable in Union City and that questions should not be asked at an open forum.
Chris Kanik
Union Hill Alumnus