Just what is it about District 91 that has village commissioners Hosty and Mannix so irate? The pair were at it again Monday night in the council chambers taking immature shots and making incorrect charges against the elementary school board and administration.
The subject Monday was a housekeeping step recommended by the village attorney. The lawyer wanted the council to rescind an ordinance adopted months back calling for traffic cameras to be installed on the stop-arms of District 91’s school buses. It should be rescinded, said the lawyer, because without a matching approval of the concept from the school board it was not an operative ordinance.
And, regular readers will recall, after due consideration the school board chose several months ago not to partner with the village on this concept.
That didn’t stop Commissioner Tom Mannix from calling the school board spineless and incorrectly stating that “it had simply tabled it indefinitely.” That false charge was quickly corrected by Mayor Anthony Calderone who read a letter from the school superintendent referring to the school board’s definitive action to reject the proposal.
Commissioner Mark Hosty continued his ongoing assault on District 91. Last month he claimed the elementary schools were driving families out of Forest Park, suggesting that half of the local youth soccer and baseball teams had abandoned the village due to the schools. On Monday he argued for leaving the orphan ordinance on the books. “If the school board were to change their mind in the future and decide to actually care about the safety of the children …”
Honestly, how dare Mark Hosty charge that the school board does not care about the safety of the children in its charge. Always volatile, Hosty is now turning into a loose cannon on the subject of the elementary schools.
Two questions, one longstanding. Why is everything so personal when it comes to the Forest Park village council? This is no way to run a village, divisiveness, pettiness, personalities.
And, if Mannix and Hosty and possibly other commissioners are so worried over the safety of kids riding school buses, about drivers ignoring the stop-arms, why over the course of the past six months hasn’t the police department been assigned to crack down on these drivers and issue the very hefty tickets that are called for? That, to us, would send a clearer, more visible message to drivers than childish commissioners ranting at the board table.
