Bayus owes Canfield residents an explanation

Two out of the three members of the Canfield Township trustees have gone on record in support of a 6.9-mill, five-year school operating levy that is on the ballot this May. What the third trustee thinks of the levy is anybody's guess because Judy Bayus abstained. Why the abstention? "Executive privilege," she told a Vindicator reporter. Now an elected official doesn't have to explain an abstention, but township residents are right to wonder why Bayus doesn't think it's anybody business what she decides to do regarding everybody's business.
While Bayus has been a strong voice for the township against what many perceive to be land grabs by Canfield Village, a trustee has to have more than one-issue of interest and concern.
This isn't the first time she's taken the easy way out. In the 2001 election, The Vindicator declined to endorse Bayus given her expressed intent to proceed along what we believed was an unnecessarily divisive path. Unfortunately, our fears have been realized.
There are a number of reasons for an elected official to abstain. Most frequently, the action is taken because that individual has some interest in the issue under consideration that could affect her objectivity: not voting on the contract of a relative, for instance. But that hardly seems applicable to the question of a school levy.
Bayus could have been thinking that township trustees shouldn't get involved in what she sees as school district politics. But if that were the case, why not just say so.
On the other hand, she might be trying to avoid the enmity of those who would be displeased with her support for the levy -- or conversely, those who would be angered if she opposed the levy.
Out of the kitchen? In either case, an elected official has a responsibility to make the tough calls and take the heat one way or another. As Harry Truman so aptly put it, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Speaking of heat, we wonder if Trustee William Reese is feeling a little warm over his statement that his son, a product of the Canfield school system, was the only member of his Harvard University class not to have attended a prep school.
Harvard, however, reports that some two-thirds of those it admits graduate from public high schools, only one-third from private schools. This fact notwithstanding, the excellence of the Canfield schools, one of the top 71 districts out of 611 in the state, should not be called into question.