William Marvel: Pipe Dream

Any hope of financial relief went out the window when the Conway School Board established an unwieldy subcommittee to decide the fate of John Fuller School. Not until last week's school board meeting did I foresee the possibility that a building we closed to reduce unnecessary expenses might be used by shortsighted, starstruck school board members to create a permanent financial drain on taxpayers.

The John Fuller subcommittee was packed with the usual suspects in such a cattle call, misidentified I suppose as "stakeholders," although it isn't clear what stakes any of them held. Most had no real claim on the school district, or on land that district had acquired with taxpayer money. There are, however, always slick talkers with some personal interest or social cause that idle municipal property might satisfy.