Edison board member under fire, fires back
Incumbent in the race, Stephen Berry, offers no explanation for past inflammatory remarks
MILAN — The already contentious election for the Edison Schools board of education took a sharp turn into district finances, as a high-ranking local official pushed back Tuesday against what he called “irrational” and “nonsensical” rhetoric from one candidate.
Erie County Health Commissioner Pete Schade responded to incumbent board member Stephen Berry’s recent call to “defund” the health department by exposing the severe, immediate financial consequences that such a move would place directly on the Edison school district and its taxpayers.
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Berry was asked by a Sandusky Register reporter about a past comment he made at Facebook that’s viewed as inflammatory and unsubstantiated, accusing a former district superintendent of “abusing children.” The reporter, in a written inquiry to Berry, also asked him to address a district employee’s stated fear of being “targeted” with similar accusations from him. Berry did answer either question, but instead he launched an aggressive political counter-attack against the local media and the Erie County Health Department (ECHD).
Slow down, you’re thinking too fast
In an exclusive interview, Commissioner Schade addressed Berry’s call for defunding public health — which he described as part of a “misinformation train of thought” and a “conspiracy theory.”
“He clearly still doesn’t understand the process of public health funding and pandemic response,” said Schade, who also challenged the lack of any detail from Berry about how or why anyone would want to defund public health. “It’s nonsensical, irrational, it doesn’t make any sense.”
There would be clear and immediate cost to the Edison community and the larger community, according to Schade, if Berry’s anti-funding position prevailed. For Edison:
Skyrocketing School Nursing Costs: Schade said the health department charges a nominal rate of about $54 an hour for its school nurses. If the department were to be defunded and its services cut, the district would be forced to hire nurses from a third-party, for-profit agency at a cost that would be “three to four times that per hour.”
Taxpayer Burden: Schade warned that he does not want to see the “good people of the Edison school district have to pick up a tab that’s unnecessary” simply because Berry “may be angry with me personally or with the health department.”
Loss of Services: The health department currently provides numerous low-cost services, including dental care via a mobile health vehicle and sports physicals, all of which would cost the district significantly more if Berry’s defunding request was followed.
Other school districts would suffer similar loss of services and would face expenses spiraling up. The damage to communities and the quality of life and health care would be immeasurable, according advocates for public health. And like Berry, critics rarely answer questions about how services would be provided of funding was cut off.
Undermining public health using demagoguery
Schade was pointed in his criticism of the brand of political discourse Berry is employing, agreeing that the candidate seems to be “gravitating toward buzzwords and talking point language.”
The “lingering dissent or division” among some members of our communities seems to stem from a widespread “distrust of public health and the government” that originated during the pandemic.
“We were all pretty nervous about what could’ve mutated and what could’ve spread pretty easy,” Schade said, referencing the early days of COVID-19. He added that people hurling darts at public health now are acting like “an armchair quarterback five years later.”
Dodging accountability, attacking partners
Berry’s original public response completely avoided addressing the core controversy: his 2021 claim that a former superintendent “enjoys abusing children,” which prompted at least one district employee to express a “genuine fear” of being targeted by similar accusations.
Instead, Berry framed the media’s questions as “smear merchant tactics” and spent his entire reply attacking the ECHD, calling the Commissioner an “unelected tool of the government who needs prosecuted.”
Schade, in the interview, described Berry’s actions as attempting to demean “the paper and the health department or any other entity that has actually been a stakeholder and been a partner of the school.” He concluded that for Berry to attack those partners and dodge the questions he was asked “doesn’t really sit well with most people.”
Schade emphasized that the best way to combat such misinformation is for citizens to “ask a source, ask another source,” and invited any concerned member of the community to call him directly for information on ECHD policies and procedures.