Let me start by acknowledging that my household did participate in the Dec. 13 special election (in the Millstone Township K-8 School District) and voted yes.
With that out of the way, until now I must say that I have intentionally kept out from publicly commenting on this entire roof special election episode. But now that the dust has settled and we got our roof project approval passed by 2.8 percent of the eligible voters of Millstone Township, someone needs to ask the tough questions.
Once again, I must reiterate that my issue with our Board of Education is not that anything is being done wrong, but rather how things are getting done. I question the process and the culture within the board; case in point:
Considering that the roof project has been on the front burner for the past two to three years, why was this special election question not part of the Nov. 8 election?
• Millstone Township general election turnout, Nov. 8: registered voters, 7,868; number of people who voted, 5,207; turnout: 66 percent.
• Millstone Township special election turnout, Dec. 13: registered voters, 7,930; number of people who voted, 318; number of people who voted yes, 222; number of people who voted no, 96; turnout: 4 percent.
Reading the numbers, I can only conclude the intent to control and manipulate the outcome of the results.
Considering the cost of the special election and factoring in the history of low turnout for this type of election, was it necessary to have 28 to 30 people working the polls?
Wouldn’t it have been sufficient to have one voting machine instead of seven? What will be the final cost to the taxpayer? Our district will be billed, but we pay for it.
Again, the questions: Why was this special election question not part of the Nov. 8 election? What was the board afraid of by not placing the question on Nov. 8? With a larger voter pool, wouldn’t the results have been more democratic and transparent at no extra cost?
Ramon Recalde
Millstone Township
