Explain vote

During the past 13 years of teaching high school in Whitefish, I have experienced nothing but enthusiastic support for our town's schools, teachers and our educational mission.

It was a bit puzzling to me, therefore, to learn that the recent school bond, which would have provided for much needed remodeling and rebuilding of the Whitefish high school, was rejected by the voters.

Indeed, those who have spoken out publicly against the bond all enthusiastically agree that something needs to be done to upgrade our facilities; they just don't believe this is it.

The point has been well-made by others that those who have led the anti-bond movement now have a responsibility to work together with its supporters to construct a plan that will meet students' needs and meet with the approval of voters.

It is difficult to determine, however, what such a plan might be, since voters had the chance only to vote "no" to the proposed plan and not "yes" for the plan of their choice — and there may be a myriad of reasons for voting "no." Some method of more accurately assessing the nuances of public opinion seems called for, which is the very purpose for which I write this letter.

I am a member of a small weekly discussion group that calls itself The Whitefish Flyfishing and Philosophical Society. Not quite monthly, we entertain a "Question of the Month" meant to generate thought and discussion on some topic of political, social or philosophical interest.

We have decided to ask a practical question of a narrowly targeted audience: "Why did you vote 'no' on the school bond?" We invite all those who voted "no" but are truly interested in the well-being of our schools to visit our Web site: http://anglingfortruth.org and take our short, anonymous, survey.

We invite all concerned parties, regardless of how you voted, to participate in the dialogue by posting comments to our online forum. Ongoing results of the survey will be publicly available on the Web site for all concerned to view.

Tom Frieze

Whitefish