Current School Committee member Terri Cortvriend is running for re-election in the Democratic Primary next Tuesday, and sent me this note for publication.

Dear Portsmouth Friends,
I would like remind all Portsmouth residents interested in education to vote in the Democratic primary on as September 9th as the 3 winners will run unopposed in the general election in November.

I would first like to explain why I am running as an "unendorsed" Democrat; due to personal reasons I was unable to commit to the nominating committee when they spoke to me earlier in the year. After the Town committee endorsements were made I was strongly urged by my fellow committee members and others in the community to reconsider my decision and since of my personal issues had resolved themselves

I would also like to comment on several topics that have come up in the two candidate forums that have been held in Portsmouth. The first being the budget; my opponents have suggested that they will comb through the budget "line by line" to determine what we really need. Hmmm, if any of these interested candidates had ever attended a budget meeting they would know that is exactly what the finance sub-committee, which I have sat on for the last two years, does during every budget cycle. Since I have been on the committee we have made many difficult decisions that ideally we would not have chosen to make.

I also have to address the statements made by two of my opponents regarding the Caruolo Action filed by the school committee during the 2007 budget cycle. Both Ms. King and Ms. Volipcelli have proclaimed how terrible it was for the school committee to sue the town and that they would never be able to support such an action. These emotional and politically motivated statements reflect their lack of understanding of how education laws work in the state of Rhode Island. After auditing the books, a CPA firm specializing in educational matters advised us that there was no legal way that we could sustain the more than one million dollar cut made at the tent meeting on August 19th 2006. The school committee then followed the step by step protocol laid out in RI law. It would have been illegal for us to have done otherwise. Neither Marilyn King nor Angela Volipcelli have said what they would have done, at least PCC member Thomas Vadney gave us the benefit of the doubt!!

Serving on the school committee is becoming increasingly complex and requires an understanding of all the various moving parts including contracts, state and federal mandates, use of restricted funds, labor laws, operations vs. capital improvements, the appropriate use of warrants and our own issues specific to Portsmouth such as the findings in the Berkshire Performance Audit and how all this affects how we develop our future budgets. It is also very important for committee members to be able to respectfully work with each other, as decisions are not made by individuals but collectively as a group. I respectfully ask the Democratic and Independent voters of Portsmouth to consider the past four years of service and experience of Sylvia Wedge and myself as incumbent candidates and the value we can bring to the school committee for the benefit of both students and residents when you vote on September 9th, 2008.

Respectfully Submitted by,
Terri Cortvriend