I write this having just returned from the RSU 16 School Board meeting Monday evening. I sit on the Mechanic Falls Budget Committee and have been attentively listening and digesting the information I have received.

Our school system has done an amazing job for our children and, like many of us, they have done it with a decreasing revenue stream.

I feel the school board and the superintendent have taken an onerous task that is counter to their natural inclinations and created a budget that I hope will pass. I say it is counter to their inclination because they truly have the best interest of our children at heart.

I have two children in the school system; I want the best for them. I wish the school offered more language and music; but if wishes were horses, we would have a lot of manure.

We all wish for more, but the funding or the support for the funding has not been there. I do not want to step on or in anybody’s wish. The residents of Regional School Unit 16 towns must get out and vote at the next referendum. Exercising the franchise is the first step in responsible citizenship and in creating the society we want for our children.

Robert Belanger, Mechanic Falls