This week's Sakonnet Times features a letter by Karen taking them to task for last week's all-singing, all-dancing, all PCC issue. In an interesting note, the headline of the story Karen criticized, "Judge agrees to hear PCC's side" has been changed on the web site to, "Judge lets Portsmouth Concerned Citizens' join the fray." Here's Karen's letter:

On the issue of the Portsmouth schools, your bias is showing. This week's editorial makes the newspaper's position clear. Your headline, "The voters' will undone," is misleading, however. While the will of the 10 percent of voters able to spend more than five hours at the tent meeting may be unraveling, the will of the more than 60 percent of registered voters who voted in November is clearly being carried out. If the tent meeting outcome had represented the will of the people of Portsmouth, the November elections — for both school committee and town council — would have removed those candidates who (in your words) "made no secret of their sympathy for the school budget cause." It is precisely the will of the voters that these people continue to serve, and that they act according to their stated positions in considering a settlement.

The town meeting has become (again, your words) "a fraudulent waste of time and money" because it does not represent the will of the voters as a whole. Citizens present last August could have voted to adopt a $0 budget for Portsmouth schools. Instead, they chose an arbitrary budget figure that, as even Larry Fitzmorris said at the 11/28/06 school committee meeting, creates a deficit of "more like half a million" dollars. How fortunate that Caruolo exists to protect our children and our schools from such irresponsibility.

While I respect your right to editorialize, those opinions have no place on the newspaper's front page. I urge readers to compare Jill Rodrigues' article regarding the town's conference with Judge Gilbert Indeglia with coverage provided by the Providence Journal.

Not only did Judge Indeglia refuse the PCC's request to be a party to this lawsuit, he also rejected the cornerstone of their argument, saying that Portsmouth's town charter is "not really unique" in comparison to those of other towns that have had similar predicaments and resolved them through Caruolo. Yet, your front page article reads like a victory celebration for the PCC, or perhaps more accurately, blind acceptance of PCC talking points. The town's position is not mentioned until paragraph 8, on page 4. As if that weren't enough, you then follow up with a second PCC article, this one on their fundraising efforts and attempt to file as a non-profit corporation.

Clearly the town council and school committee need to learn some lessons in public relations from the PCC. But further, the Sakonnet Times needs to confine editorializing to the editorial page.

Karen McDaid
Portsmouth