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It has come to my attention that the Berkeley school board is about to consider the placing of a maintenance parcel tax on the fall ballot. Meanwhile, our teachers are campaigning for an equitable salary schedule, our parents and students are supporting well-developed programs to prevent retentions, and our high school campus seems to be under siege. All of these issues are of immediate concern to our community. It seems that they must first be solved before we embark on other less significant projects. 

Additionally, the rumor around South Berkeley is that the parcel tax will be used to fund street closures and the building of a baseball field, projects that the majority of us in South Berkeley oppose. It has even been mentioned that the school board is willing to pay $65,000 for a new study regarding such an issue. If this is true, then you can be sure that South Berkeley will be in the forefront of resisting such efforts to sit in opposition to the will of our neighborhoods, both now and in the fall elections. Let’s get back to the most important concerns facing us and stop wasting time with peripheral “distractions.”