In the early morning of Aug. 23, the members of the Roslyn School Board met secretly. They adhered to the required postings of the meeting by posting it at the school's administration building where during the summer months only squirrels and chipmunks seem to visit.

If you wish to publicize anything to the community as well as not publishing it, this is a very safe way of doing it. The meeting had to do with the ratification and acceptance of an offer by the erstwhile accountants, Miller, Lilly and Pearce as a settlement in a lawsuit brought by the school district against them; they being the firm on whose watch the school district funds were systematically looted by former school officials.

All fine and good but the way the ratification by the board was conducted and handled was befitting of a board being more and more influenced by a member who once bragged at board meetings as being a conservative Republican. No doubt the secrecy of the meeting, the no comments to the press regarding the matter was evidently testament to a person of that persuasion. A public airing of the settlement at a special meeting called by the board with a representative of the law firm present explaining the reasons for acceptance of the settlement would have been proper. Of course, the final approval rests with the board but the board members should remember that ultimately it is the district's taxpayers' money that is involved.

The secretive ways of the board in this matter are familiar as well as disheartening, reminding one of a previous era at the district and the sentiment that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Ron Horowitz