To the editor:

We have a sales tax election this Tuesday. The 1 cent increase is being used to construct schools in Story County. The normal procedure is to float a bond issue, but legislation made this option available after some large cities could not get bond issues passed.

The Ames school district has not tried to pass a bond issue. Instead, it opted to put the burden on low and fixed income residents, including the elderly and students.

Last but not least, the tax would be paid by people from other counties who come here to shop. This is a wealthy county based on per capita income. The citizens of Ames have the resources to build their own schools.

When I arrived at WOI Radio to be interviewed about my opposition to the sales tax, its proponents, Dr. Charles Jons, a retired doctor from the McFarland Clinic, and Stephen Ringlee, the present President of the school board were yelling at the interviewer, Kathryn Perkins.

They refused to take part in what were to be separate live interviews. I am told that they objected to my presence. Ms. Perkins was put in a very difficult position, given their very disruptive behavior.

She later called and asked that I remove myself from the interview and ask someone to take my place. I refused.

These two individuals should not be accorded this right. I will file a complaint with the Ames and lowa Civil Liberties Union.

As a graduate of UCLA, I am deeply disturbed that Mr. Ringlee, a graduate of the mother school, Berkeley, doesn’t understand free speech.

Mr. Ringlee and the district superintendent recently appeared in a featured article in the Des Moines Register Metro section asking that teachers do more work to get merit pay. Certainly some of you, as graduates of public education, must know how hard teachers work for low salaries. It is in the interests of students to defeat this 1 cent sales tax increase by going to the polls.

It is time students and others understand the value of free speech in our society and the efforts of people, pleading power and privilege, to keep views they consider to be errant from being heard. Please vote Feb. 15.

Katherine B. Fromm

3531 G. W. Carver

Ames, lowa 50010