Editor,

I would like to thank the two dozen retired Oak Harbor teachers for their Feb. 4 letter, expressing support for the Oak Harbor school district bond. There message is straightforward and vital:

“This bond … will be able to replace three aging schools, provide critical safety enhancements for all schools and address important needs of the Oak Harbor Community. The cost of this bond is expected to be less than the … [previous, paid off] bond!”

Compare this to the naysayers who have no intention of supporting our students’ futures.

In their Feb. 1 letter, Al and Barb Williams tell us they want to hold the Oak Harbor schools and community hostage until their absurd demands are met, and until an employee of the school district comes up with their ransom.

In her Feb. 1 editorial, Jessica Thomson offers us a list of excuses as to why we should not support schools: According to Ms. Thomson, federal funding is there, but …. the schools are in immediate and dire need of upgrade and expansion, but…. Financial experts and underwriters treat municipalities fairly, but …. and there has been national public outrage over school safety, but.

As her final solution, Ms. Thomson offers us (as usual) no solution. Instead, she engages in fear-mongering, insisting this bond will be a burden – as if failing and unsafe schools aren’t – and she creates a fairy-tale version of the bond market and borrowing money in general.

I’m surprised she hasn’t mentioned the CRT monster or all the “grooming” that the communist teachers are doing in our local schools.

What then are Ms. Thomson’s fair-tale solutions? That we raise federal, state and local taxes to pay for our schools, thereby forgoing have to pay interest? Or perhaps she’d like to get a low-interest loan from Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos, or even George Soros?

As a real alternative to this ransom-taking and fear-mongering, we should listen to the advice of the teachers: “As a community, we need to value our schools and show how much we care about the future of Oak Harbor by investing in.”

David Freed

Clinton