The Lansing Star Online, Lansing, NY

Jul 13 2007

Letters: Iacobucci

David Dubin
Friday, 13 July 2007
In your July 6th issue, “School Board Says Frewell to Iacobucci”, you stated that during the last BOE meeting “…almost nothing could be passed, because four votes were needed to pass resolutions, and with only four members present everyone had to vote 'yea' in order to pass action items. Iacobucci abstained on almost all resolutions, including passing a new tobacco policy and several other items, some of which will mean that paying this month's bills will be put on hold until the full board can meet to pass the financial items.” While what you stated is the truth, it is anything but the whole truth. In this case, your less than complete truth misrepresented the events of the evening. Having attended that meeting and subsequently having read your article, I know that a reader, without such first hand experience, who depends on your journalistic integrity, would have been left with a rather negative impression of Ms. Iacobucci. After all, does she advocate students “lighting up” on school grounds? In fact, she briefly stated a concern about enforcement of the tobacco policy, but felt that since it was her last meeting, it was appropriate to leave the issue for the new BOE. She even inquired if such a delay would cause an undue burden? These facts potentially shift a reader’s impression of Ms. Iacobucci from negative, to either neutral or positive. The “…other items…” you referenced were invoices totaling some fifty or sixty thousand dollars, if memory serves, and Ms. Iacobucci had some questions that she wanted answered before approving them. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the Business Manager was not in attendance at the meeting and the Superintendent was not able to answer any of her questions. Taking her fiduciary responsibility to district taxpayers seriously, as she has repeatedly demonstrated, she was not able to approve the invoices. I hope that the new BOE members are as scrupulous with taxpayer dollars. Now, one could still conclude that bills were paid late because of Ms. Iacobucci. However, with all the facts, I believe that the more likely conclusion is that the Business Manager’s absence was unfortunate and ill-timed. Even if I’m wrong about the ultimate conclusion reached by the average reader, your obligation is, barring a concession by you that there are no “news articles” in the Lansing Star, to present the reader with all the facts and to allow them to reach their own conclusion, unless of course, you made a mistake in placing this article in the News section. Perhaps you intended it as an editorial. So endeth Lesson 1 of Journalism 101. From: David Dubin Lansing, NY 14882 ---- v3i26