"People should not be so naive as to think that people like Frank Duehay and Alice Wolf and the other pious hypocrites of city government are not as much into patronage aas some of the other hard-core political figures they criticize," Koocher says.

Long Range

Leib believes that the school committee needs to focus more on its objectives, giving more thought to long-range goals rather than short-term remedies. She says that Superintendent Robert S. Peterkin's "Key Results" proposal presented in June gave the committee an agenda and has pulled the community together.

"It's the first time that anybody has tried to get an overall goal with long-range plan," says Leib. "He's very conscious of people's different interests and concerns and he takes the time to respond to them."

At the same time, she points out that parents and school staff were not consulted before Peterkin's proposal was formulated. The extent of parent involvement within the school department, particularly in evaluating teachers and administrators, has become an important issue in this year's committee race.

"There have been too many times that people have been ignored even though their input has been asked for," says Leib