Last time Rep. Schock spoke on SB2477 on the House floor, he said the City Council supported the legislation, which was not true. Yesterday, Sen. Shadid took to the Senate floor to argue for overturning the Governor’s veto (which is surprisingly easy in Illinois, needing only a 3/5 majority instead of the 2/3 required at the federal level). He pointed out that the District 150 board passed a levy cap of .60% at a recent board meeting, which is true. But then he went on to state that the current levy is .62%, so the levy would go down for Peorians. That’s false. As I reported in a previous post:
First, the school district capped the tax rate at .60%. And, as you can see from Part 1 of this post, the current rate is .5578%. So, even by their own definition it will be a tax increase — an increase of .0422%. And, of course, since this supposed “cap” is only set by the school board and not state law, it could easily be repealed at any time.
Where did I get my information? From the Peoria County Clerk’s office — the ones who actually figure our tax bills. The levy figure came from the 2005 Tax Computation Report (there is no 2006 report yet). So, once again, lawmakers are making decisions based on faulty information provided by those who are supposed to be representing our interests.
But instead of representing the people, Shadid has chosen instead of represent the school board. Let’s hope Koehler doesn’t follow in his footsteps.
SEN. SHADID DOES NOT ATTEMPT TO REPRESENT THE SCHOOL BOARD, HE IS TRYING TO ALLOW THEM TO GET MONEY TO BUILD SCHOOLS WHICH ARE BADLY NEEDED. ASK HIM HIS POSITION ON THE GLENOAK SCHOOL FIASCO AND YOU WILL LEARN HE IS NOT CRAZY ABOUT THE PRESENT SCHOOL BOARD. GET IN THE KNOW BEFORE YOU START RAPPING A DAMN GOOD REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE.
Who says our school are so bad they need to be replaced? The School Board? The same school board that said Blaine-Sumner needed to be replaced, then rehabbed it and turned it into district offices? The same school board that admitted they had only done a “preliminary review” of whether Glen Oak could be rehabbed rather than replaced, yet proceeded with plans to replace it anyway, spending over $800,000 for property by Glen Oak Park even before they had a signed intergovernmental agreement? This is why citizens of Peoria don’t trust the school board and probably wouldn’t pass a referendum for new schools at this time. The school board has not done due diligence to prove their ambitious building plan is necessary or wise.
But thanks to Sen. Shadid, they’ll get all the funding they need before the voters have a chance to vote them out of office. Once the bonds are issued, it won’t matter who the next school board members are.
You can say what you want, but he is not representing the citizens of Peoria. Overriding the governor’s veto represents only one constituency–the only one in favor of this school building plan: the school board.