Last May, I wrote in these pages about my gratitude for a column by former City Council president Bill Dwight in which he laid out pertinent facts about Northampton’s city and school budgets. All of us should do that sort of detailed homework before forming an opinion, but when it comes to city policies, few of us do.

I was surprised and disappointed by subsequent letters last May that called Mr. Dwight and others who were pointing out the facts, the numbers and the history as “cranky,” and as “Chicken Littles” using “fear tactics.” Those writers did not build a counter-argument, they just asserted that there’s plenty of money and it should go to the schools. I said in that column that I didn’t want to see name-calling and disparagement take the place of fact-based debate in Northampton. I write today for the same reason. In some quarters, name-calling and personal disparagement have gotten worse.

Recently I watched hours of a School Committee meeting where staff, teachers and students spoke with heart-wrenching immediacy about the real-time impact of being short-staffed. It was heartbreaking to watch.

At that same meeting, two elected officials described the situation as having been created by the mayor by willfully withholding millions of dollars that could easily be applied to the schools. I was shocked at the personal tone of their comments.

Although I am not on any social media, friends who are have sent me copies of open posts by these officials asserting that the mayor is either “lying or incompetent or both,” and spreading rumor and innuendo about the mayor and others.

I’ve seen the school budgets and heard the logic in creating them. I’ve not seen a counter-argument other than, “There is plenty of money and people in power don’t care about our kids.”

Really? Why not start with the assumption that of course we all want the best for our kids? If there are better near-term options that don’t sabotage the long term, why not start with the facts and make that case?

A 2018 study from the MIT Media Lab concluded that “falsehoods are 70% more likely to be retweeted on Twitter than the truth, researchers found. And false news reached people about six times faster than the truth.”

That study also found that “false rumors also inspired replies expressing greater surprise and greater fear and disgust.” Messages that elicit an emotional response are more likely to get amplified and passed along than boring and complicated descriptions of the many moving parts of a city’s finances.

But it is the job of those in leadership positions to educate voters, not to incite them with misinformation or personal attacks.

Mr. Dwight wrote again last week to correct a couple of assertions about the budget by a previous writer, listing the financial increases that had been instead described as “slashing” and clarifying the way in which reserves are actually allocated. He concluded his letter by saying: “We are already suffering a national dialogue plagued by misinformation. In Northampton, we can hold ourselves to a higher standard, employing the same set of facts in which to root our differences of opinion.”

I agree. Especially in our public discussions, we have to recognize that our words and behavior affect the norms and the spirit of our community. Sustaining Northampton’s “good soul” requires that all of us, as as another columnist wrote last May, “start with kindness, accuracy and respect.”

Kevin Lake lives in Northampton.