Edgemont budget in the New York Times

Edgemont schools superintendent Nancy Taddiken was quoted in an article on school budgets in today's New York Times:

Before any vote, most school boards are holding another round of public meetings to discuss the budgets with local taxpayers. But many officials are not optimistic about such meetings, pointing out that most of those who usually attend already favor proposed increases.

"We did not hear from anyone who was angry or against the proposal," said Nancy Taddiken, superintendent of Edgemont schools, where an 11 percent spending increase lost by 7 votes. "However people voted, we want them to come and talk to us. We want to listen to what people feel in order to move forward."

Ms. Taddiken acknowledged that many residents may well be frustrated by double-digit percentage increases in their property tax bills several times in recent years. The proposed school spending plan would create a 12-percent increase in the tax levy.

Presumably when Taddiken said she had not heard from those against the proposed budget, she was speaking about the school board meetings many weeks ago when the budget proposal was openly discussed. From what I hear, at those meetings the anti-budget, keep-our-taxes-down voices were silent indeed.

Unfortunately, today's Times article makes it look like Taddiken was saying that the no voices have not been heard recently, when in fact no voices were articulately represented at the recent public hearing. Taddiken knows this well and would not have expressed anything otherwise to a journalist.

I suspect that either the Times reporter misquoted Taddiken, or the article was written before the recent hearings but not published until today (rendering once-true statements to be no longer true). Either way, the reporter did Taddiken and the community a disservice.