School board politics at play in Cosby redistricting

I read with great interest your article about the efforts of the school board to redistrict students from Cosby High School. Two board members seem to support a plan for redistricting that is opposed by Cosby’s school board Matoaca representative and the citizens in the affected area.

I found it fascinating that Bermuda District representative Marshall Trammell chose to criticize Matoaca District representative Omarh Rajah (who represents the Cosby school district) for “pushing the board to do something about the overcrowding problem at Cosby ever since he got on the board. It’s been a relentless campaign on his part.” I thought that was the job of a good representative. Trammell apparently feels otherwise.

Trammell, by this statement, seems to be admitting that he and some of his fellow board members have chosen to ignore the overcrowding problem at Cosby until this election year.

I also find it interesting that Clover Hill representative Dianne Pettitt offers many reasons why it doesn’t make sense to look at redistricting at any overcrowded schools in her district, only in Rajah’s district. Rajah, on the other hand, seems to be proposing that the overcrowding problem be addressed on a countywide basis, rather than singling out one school at a time.

Anyone who closely follows the Chesterfield [school system] knows that Rajah has not been shy about disagreeing with the rest of the board when he feels [it’s] going in the wrong direction. For example, he was the one school board member to speak out against raising property taxes in Chesterfield County. He was also the one school board member to vote against the capital improvement budget because it spends millions of dollars to build new gyms at schools that already have them. Those dollars could be used to deal with the overcrowding problems that the rest of the board suddenly claims to be so concerned about.

Does anyone out there buy into the theory that it’s purely coincidental that other board members are now suddenly anxious to ram through a controversial and unpopular redistricting plan in Rajah’s district, knowing that could have an impact on Rajah’s re-election in November? There were close to 10 possible solutions proposed to deal with Cosby’s overcrowding. Is it really a coincidence that the other board members are so anxious to pick the one option that actually disrupts families and neighborhoods again?

I can only hope that Rajah’s constituents pay enough attention to know which board member is fighting for them and which board members aren’t.

M.C. Crews

Chesterfield