Editor, Gazette-Journal: As long-term residents of Mathews County, we attended the second candidate forum for Mathews School Board held in an open town hall format graciously sponsored by the Mathews Republican Committee Monday, October 24. Unfortunately, only Ms. Mari Gibbs attended to field questions and presented her platform. We sincerely wanted to hear from school board appointee, Ms. Lorraine Forrest who elected not to attend citing reasons of partisanship. It should be noted that both candidates attended the first forum sponsored by the NAACP. We need a strong school board for Mathews County to handle the issues of mounting absenteeism, shrinking school enrollment, age-appropriate school textbooks, the mental and academic state of our students, teacher recruitment and retention, and the deterioration, repair, and modernization of our facilities. School budget transparency and accountability with a focus on the line-item budgetary process is strongly needed to maintain fiscal res...