Though in the end he has been a disappointment in his articulation of the issues, Bedford Central Board of Education member Joseph Whelan has loomed large on the board, and the board is better because of him.

Mr. Whelan has decided not to run for a second term. "What I went on the board to accomplish cannot be accomplished under this existing structure," he told us two weeks ago. "What I want to do is work on a state level and work on a local level in order to get the ship back on course. Right now, spending-wise, it's a runaway train."

He leaves the board in frustration, but the bar he set for himself three years ago was quite high by any standard. He was the clinched-fisted maverick who was going to clean up this mess. He was the free-thinking economic pragmatist gunning to expose the district's wasteful ways. His shocking upset of then-board President Paul Alcorn three years ago rattled all on the so-called "pro-education" side.

But in practice, Mr. Whelan was often surprisingly mum at board meetings. He would vote against budgets, but offer very little in terms of coherent alternatives. A healthy uncertainty about district spending sometimes played like distasteful mistrust. He would fail to recognize that just because he was the official advocate of taxpayers' groups didn't make his fellow board members any less concerned about spending than he.

Still, his presence kept other board members watching their backs, and that's not a bad thing. His style of checks and balances sometimes felt like body-checks and balances. But perhaps because of that, the current board members became more skilled and shrewd in budgetary matters than any board we've known at Bedford Central. They seem more inclined to question each expenditure and pry financial wiggle room for cost savings. They have, for the first time, set spending increase targets, which they have kept. They have asked teachers to start sharing the cost of their health care coverage.

We're sure none of this goes far enough for Mr. Whelan. But his presence on the board has had a great deal to do with these positive changes. Furthermore, he's the only board member who has it right when he calls for the district to capitalize financially on its cell tower site at Fox Lane - the best, most unobtrusive spot in town for telecommunications antennas.

When he ran three years ago he said. "For a board to work, a diversity of viewpoints must be represented." We should all be able to agree to that.