Who Paid For Emergency Referendum?
- on 02.25.06
- Winthrop Harbor
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The following quotes are from comments during last falls referendums:
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The cost of the election is being paid for by a group of concerned citizens who raising the money. |
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The referendum comittee, who are funding the election, are called the “Citizens for Quality Schoolsâ€. It’s members (parents) have written letters to the local papers, attendend recent school board meetings, and village board meetings. Their website is whsd1voteyes.org. |
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At the forum on Tuesday, in response to a suggestion that Yes supporters donate money to the district if the referendum fails, district officials said the district could not accept donations from individuals (actually school districts can accept donations through education foundations, as many districts have long had in place). Later in the afternoon, they said the cost of the election would be covered by donations from individuals. I guess the individuals will send their checks directly to the elections officials, and they won’t go through the school district. |
As you can see, the District was telling its residents that community members were paying for the referendum and not the school district. This was in spite of the fact that the district cannot take donations except from an education foundation.
I decided it would be interesting to follow up on this claim made by the District. I sent an email to the Lake County Clerk’s Office asking for the actual cost breakdown and who paid for the bill. I received the following back (reformatted for ease of viewing, emphasis mine):
Winthrop Harbor School District #1 has paid the charges. |
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This email provided good and bad news for the District. The good news is that the actual costs were less than the original estimate by about $800. The bad news was that the school district paid the bill. I decided to get a copy of the latest report by the PAC, “Citizens for Quality Schoolsâ€, to see if they wrote a check to the school district.
This reports covers 7/1/2005 to 12/31/2005. It shows expenditures of 3053.54. The problem is, none of it went to the School District or to the County Clerk. As you can verify yourself, the money went to yard signs, post cards, website, mega event, newspaper ad, and auto phone dialing, etc. (Schedule B Page 1, Schedule B Page 2)
I leave you with some questions:
- Doesn’t the District claim that they are telling the voters everything?
- Why did the District tell the voters that community members were paying for the referendum, when in fact they paid for it themselves?
- What else is the District not telling the voters?
Awesome work Lennie. Keep it up.