The Sun Journal editorial for March 23 saw fit to harshly denounce the Auburn city councilors who walked out during a School Committee presentation. The editorial labeled the behavior as “the dumbest ever.”

The School Committee was to give a presentation of its budget to the Council with hard numbers; instead, councilors were forced to listen to a presentation on what committee members wanted in terms of “following a national trend toward tailoring educational curriculum to individual students.”

I expected hard numbers; I got none.

Nobody would deny that their wish list is what most people would want for their children, but where was that money to come from? I thought that was to be the purpose of the presentation: hard numbers. They never gave those.

Even the editorial suggested that “The newspaper may even eventually oppose such a large increase at this time.” Obviously, the School Committee’s pie-in-the-sky proposal lacked reality.

So, in total disgust at the obvious ploy to enhance their image at our expense, we walked out.

How about their “disrespect for a sincere group of people who are trying to do their level best for Auburn’s children”?

The bottom line is that their grandstanding is all form and no content.

I submit that the School Committee, hiding behind the students to make dissenters look mean and petty, never took its responsibility seriously enough to show councilors how it was going to be done. How could we afford these extravagant plans during the current financial settings? They didn’t care about the truth, which is, simply, that we can’t. Committee members merely paraded their noble demands and let councilors worry on how to accomplish it.

They had the unmitigated gall of merely serving their sanctimonious position in front of the public.

They walked out on their responsibility, to my mind a more despicable and heinous walk out than one that simply refused to listen to the same propaganda paraded in front of an audience as a self-serving, albeit, cowardly act.

So we walked out in disgust at this obvious ploy.

I do want the best possible education for Auburn students and resent the implication that I don’t, but the best taxpayers can afford. We spend hours and hours trying to figure out what we can and cannot afford, only to have an arrogant and smug suggestion from a committee unable or unwilling to give us numbers as to how we are to afford these.

As to the editorial’s suggestion that we leave office, I simply state that I serve at the pleasure of my constituents. They will let me know when to leave.

It’s time to face reality.

Daniel Herrick, Ward 3 Councilor, Auburn