The Journal Star didn’t publish its pro-intergovernmental-agreement editorial online today, so I can’t link to it. But I’m still going to comment on it. I think everyone is aware that District 150 and the Peoria Park District on March 29, 2006, signed a Letter of Intent to enter into an intergovernmental agreement that would allow the school district to build a new school at the corner of Frye and Prospect using a combination of acquired parcels and shared Glen Oak Park land. The Journal Star thinks the park board should stick by that agreement, despite public outcry against it.

The Journal Star editors’ thesis is summed up in the first sentence:

If the Peoria Park Board were to pull the rug out now from beneath its partnership with District 150 regarding the construction of a new school in upper Glen Oak Park, just eight months after effectively greenlighting the project, it would represent an act of bad faith not only against District 150, but against its own taxpayers.

That sentence is the epitome of spin. First of all, what represents “an act of bad faith…against its own taxpayers” is the park district violating the Open Meetings Act to hammer out an agreement with the school board in secret (there’s a lawsuit still pending on that matter), and the school board subsequently acting on a letter of intent as if it were legally binding.

Secondly, the taxpayers don’t want the school in the park! The Journal Star Editorial Board (JSEB) can’t seem to get that through their heads. If the park district were to cancel their participation in this project, it would show — contrary to the JSEB’s assertions — that they were acting in good faith, listening to the taxpayers, and making amends for their earlier errors.

The JSEB then writes this whopper:

[A]ny misgivings Park Board member Roger Allen and perhaps others had about this project should have been voiced publicly before March 29, when the two boards agreed to go forward, and before District 150 spent $877,500 purchasing eight private properties next to the park. Even if it was premature of District 150 to begin buying homes before it had the park district’s rock-solid OK, there was time for the park board to say “whoa” before it got this far.

No kidding. Apparently the park board didn’t realize this would be so unpopular with the public, otherwise they wouldn’t have signed the letter of intent in the first place. Which is why it might have been a good idea to not have secret meetings in violation of the Open Meetings Act in the first place. Those laws are there for a reason — and one of them is to protect the park board from foolish mistakes like this one.

If a majority of the park board follows Allen’s lead [i.e., changing their minds] …they’ll have some real explaining to do to [the] taxpayers.

Au contraire; if a majority of the park board continues to ignore the public and act on secret deals, then they’ll have some explaining to do to taxpayers.

Despite feigned concern for taxpayers, the JSEB in the very next paragraph implies that those same taxpayers are either malicious (spreading misinformation; suing the park board), or stupid (believing misinformation), or simply ungrateful (for not embracing a new East Bluff school at any cost).

There’s more, which you can read below (just click the “show more” link to read the whole editorial), but those are the main points. |inline