We usually try to keep on the high road around here, showing due respect for our media elders. Not today.
In this issue you were to read about a very special event, a big-time fundraiser for one of the Valley’s most prominent charities. We were requested to meet some of the people producing the event, get some quotes, take a photo and write the story. Our staff met all the prerequisites.
It would have been a great article. But towards press time, a representative from the charity called and told us to hold the story. Why? Another paper would get mad if we ran it first. It seems its staff couldn’t get the story done earlier in the week so they’ll write and publish the story later.
As the event’s media sponsor, that paper is entitled to a few benefits. Dictating our news coverage is not one of them.
Still, and regardless of the publicity it would generate, the charity requested that we delay our coverage – coverage attained under its specific direction – until the other paper gets around to running its version first.
Despite being in the right, we relented. The piece will not run in The Sun. You won’t get the scoop or see the photo. The event will sell fewer tickets. The bully wins, and we’ll get nothing in return, other than a clean conscience.
On second thought, perhaps that’s not such a bad deal after all.
School District to vote on GO Bond
Tonight, the Sonoma Valley Unified School District will hold a special board meeting to vote on whether to place a school bond measure on the November ballot. According to a SVUSD press release, the measure is designed to help the district significantly improve energy efficiency in order to save more than one million dollars each year. It states that this money will be put back into classrooms and used to retain and attract quality teachers, keep class sizes small, preserve school library hours, maintain music and art classes as well as upgrade technology in our schools. The press release states that the bond is structured so as not to increase the current tax rate that Sonoma Valley homeowners currently pay for local schools.
As a Proposition 39 GO Bond, the measure is constricted by strict fiscal accountability provisions including the formation of a Citizens Oversight Committee, annual independent audits and no money for administrator salaries.
In a telephone survey conducted in May, of the 400 registered voters polled almost 70 percent indicated that they would vote to pass the measure. Of those polled, three in five voters rated investments in career readiness and technology as highly important priorities and 91 percent said that providing funding that will directly benefit the classroom – while saving money – is a top priority.
The measure itself provides a detailed list of improvements for every school in the district with a key provision for the district to expand access and classrooms for Career Technical Education and technology training.
If approved for the November ballot, the measure will need 55 percent of the vote to be successful.
