To the Editor: My name is James Foody, I am married with two children, one in seventh grade and one starting kindergarten next year. I have been a resident of West Milford for over 17 years and I would like to present myself as a candidate for the West Milford Township Board of Education. I have worked in RandD, the Construction Industry, Real Estate Sales and Development and I am currently a Consultative Sales Representative. In each area of my work history, I have had to analyze, develop and execute the solutions to specific problems that I have encountered and in each instance had to be aware of the cost of that solution in order to stay within budget and more importantly to see a cost savings. Please let me explain to you the reasons I am running as a candidate for the school board. The first and most important reason is our children. We all want the best for our children, whether that means another teacher, an updated facility, tutoring or whatever it may be, it is all about our children nothing more or nothing less. For the parents of the children I coached in little league, you know that. The second reason is that I think we have all been misled by our School Administration and now let me explain what I mean by that. A couple of years ago we were told that the school board was retiring a debt and that if we approved an expenditure for various projects throughout the district that our tax levy would not go up. I, along with many of you, agreed and this was approved by a majority of the voters in town. One of the projects was all new windows and entrance doors at Marshall Hill School. Now this is where I believe and I think you will also where we were misled. When you look at Marshall Hill School from the parking lot or from the road you see new windows and doors, but when you walk behind the school where we cannot see the windows were never replaced. If you do not believe me walk around the school and see for yourself. As a taxpayer I am offended by this and can only wonder what else “we do not see “because where there is smoke there usually is fire. Lets be realistic, Governor Corzine was elected on the promise of lowering our property taxes, however, unless he is going to get involved with approximately 565 municipal governments in this state he will never be able to do it. The school tax is the largest portion of our municipal budget and unless we as a community get involved and ask the questions, we will continue to see our taxes go up. As an example at the February 28, board of education meeting was a proposed expenditure for 30 lunch tables, five at each elementary school at a cost of $180,000 that is $6000 per table. Do you think we can do better? As a parent and a taxpayer we all need to get more involved with the investment in our children’s education and their future. I look forward to serving the children and taxpayers of West Milford. Jim Foody West Milford