Christy Cunningham

To the editor,

I was pleased to see that in his column on Monday in the Daily Sun Ron Tunning again pointed out the deceit

of Niel Young.

Mr. Young is noted for his distortions and for making misleading statements as he attempts to promote his

radical political agenda. This most recent attempt by Young to smear our local political leaders, school board members and school administrators is typical of his tactics.

What Mr. Young offered to readers of his column was the observation that politicians, school board members and superintendents send their children to private schools while demanding that the public send their children to "government schools."

That's a frequent complaint one hears on radical, right-wing talk radio — such as Niel's program on WEZS each Saturday morning — though the reference is usually made to senators and congressmen sending their

children to private schools in the Washington, D.C. area.

It simply is not the case here in New Hampshire that our local politicians or school board members are sending their kids to private schools, as Mr. Tunning so thoroughly investigated. Nor do I suspect that in the remainder of the country more than a handful of local officials opt out of the public school system.

Naturally, there are many people in all walks of life, from politicians to businessmen, and from truck drivers to retail workers, who choose to send their children to religious schools. And there are also, of course, the privileged few, such as the Bush family and the Kennedy family, who have traditionally enrolled their children in expensive private schools.

But by and large, Americans from all walks of life choose the public schools because they're affordable, and thanks to local control, offer the quality of education the local community desires.

Mr. Young's comments were made largely to further inflame those who are concerned about the potential cost of building new schools in Laconia. Any method he can devise to build resistance to spending money on

schools he'll gladly employ.

The truth is simple. Young doesn't want to spend the money out of his own pocket to educate his neighbors' children. For that matter, it's pretty clear that he doesn't want to contribute to any aspect of the public good.

His proposed tax cap, which sounds marvelous to those of us working for a living and struggling to make ends meet, will have disastrous effects, cutting back on the number of police and firefighters in our

community, as well as improvements to our infrastructure, such as streets, sidewalks, parks, etc.

One can only hope that the majority of Laconians will recognize his cheap pandering for what it is. If Niel Young truly cared about his community he would be offering ideas as to how to improve it, not merely throw rocks at the handiest targets.

Christy Cunningham

Laconia