To the Editor:

If I remember right, when Northampton Area School District presented its budget, [administrators and board members] said there was a $1.8 million deficit, but they could transfer funds to offset the deficit for a no-tax increase this year. Then I read in a local newspaper that NASD was one of the school districts that made requests to raise taxes above the index while holding millions of dollars in its general fund. It’s not a question of whether they raised taxes above the index or not; the question remains: Is that where they kept the funds to pay over $1.8 million, so far, just to architects and engineers to develop a property on Seemsville Road that, I believe, is unsafe to house elementary school children?

It seems like they had no problem paying those bills. In the economic crisis our country is in today, they are electing to build a $73 million complex after just completing a $34 million elementary school in Lehigh Township. When is enough enough?

Some of our residents are struggling now to pay their school taxes, and [the district decision makers] just keep spending and spending, while telling us the state government does not provide enough funding.

The complex they are presently looking to build is on property located in the middle of a 5-mile radius of multimillion-square-foot warehouses, which will be showering us with thousands of tractor-trailers daily, while closing an elementary school in Moore Township, where there is little truck traffic and clean air.

Is this not just plain stupid?

A former school board member had a wonderful letter in The Press on how to elect school board members, as five of the present school board members are up for reelection this year. Twenty years ago, an election stopped this unsafe money pit project, and I feel that needs to happen again.

We need to get back to the basics of providing a great education for our students. Buildings do not educate - good teachers do.

Maggie Kemp

East Allen Township