This weekend in San Jose, the California School Boards Association will host the 17th annual Celebrating Educational Opportunities for Hispanic Students conference.

Educators from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas will attend. Most attendees from the East Bay will carpool each day to San Jose, taking advantage of the liberal, two-person car-pool lane on Interstate 680.

Marching to the beat of a much different drummer, the West Contra Costa school board has voted to send Charles Ramsey and Madeline Kronenberg to the weekend conference and provide them with several nights' accommodation at a luxury five-star hotel in San Jose. So, thanks to the board, Ramsey and Kronenberg will have a long and very nice weekend getaway on your tax dollars.

I believe that if Ramsey and Kronenberg want to spend the weekend in San Jose, they should pay their own hotel bill.

When the school board asks you to vote for a new parcel tax this November, thereby raising your property tax bill again, please ask yourself why we should trust this board to not waste more of our tax money on themselves. Join me and just say no!

Robert W. Brower

El Sobrante