Thursday, August 11, 2005

I can't hear you, la la la la la!

Three months ago the city of Mason passed a 9.94 mil (if someone could define a mil for me I would appreciate it) school levy by a 53-47% margin. Well now some group called the Citizens for Accountability and Results in Education (CARE) has gathered signatures to challenge the levy. They're looking to get a referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot to render the levy null and void. They might as well just call their group SCREW YOU.

Apparently this is the new right strategy to battling election results they don't like; act like it didn't happen in the first place. Notice that nowhere in the article do they challenge the validity of the results of the election. They just didn't like the outcome, so now they want to get their own measure on the ballot to see how that goes. CARE president John Meyer stated the following: "It's in bad character by school officials in trying to stop the will of the people to vote on a tax issue". Funny how he doesn't have quite the concern of stopping the will of the people when it came to the tax levy, but trying to stop the will of the people who want to stop the will of the people is in bad character. (I know people will try to compare this to the Bush/Gore election. Gore asked for a recount; that's tremendously different from this situation.)

I also wonder if this proposed referendum gets on the ballot and passes, will CARE object if Mason puts the levy back on the ballot in May? I'd say that's at least fair, it'd be a tiebreaker, best two out of three vote. That sounds silly I know, but this whole situation is as well.

Adam

Reality Bytes

4 comments:

  1. A mill is equal to $1.00 of tax for each $1,000 of assessment. To calculate the property tax multiple the assessment of the property by the mill rate and then divide by 1,000. For example, a property with an assessed value of $50,000 located in a municipality with a mill rate of 20 mills would have a property tax bill of $1,000.00 per year.

    http://www.onlinecthomes.com/public/announcementSingle.do?announcement.announceID=852

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  2. We can get immigrants to come here and take up highly skilled jobs. Why do we need to provide that opportunity to our kids? Its hard to study. They can make money giving each other haircuts, mowing lawns without having to go through this whole painful college process. Bill Gates wants to remove all barriers of work permits and open our gates to skilled people. I think thats the optimal process that saves all our pocketbooks from wasting money on education. CARE is a wonderful organization that makes sure our NASA jobs and research jobs are assured to be taken by an immigrant population. People in other countries make our minimum wage doing highly skilled jobs. Let them come in to design our planes, trains and automobiles while we can take it easy here. Hmmm, we should also have them take care of our terrorism threats too.

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  3. This isn't the same as putting a failed levy back on the ballot, THE LEVY ALREADY PASSED! The democratic process played out, the vote for a 9.94 mil levy was added to the ballot and voted on by any and all registered voters that wanted to voice their acceptance or displeasure. And it passed by a 53% to 47% margin.

    It's my understanding that this is first school levy that CARE actively fought that was passed. It doesn't surprise me that they pulled out a little known legal loophole out to try to save face. Now the voting public needs to understand that, in a sense, they need to "Vote no" to support the schools so that this reduction does not take place. This is the same type of bureaucratic non-sense that has crippled our court system and has no place affecting the top-notch education of or our children.

    As far as Discrimination is concern – it’s not a suburban, urban or rural problem, it’s a problem of ignorance and there is no place for it period.

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  4. The vote was put to members of the community. The community was well educated as to what the levy meant to the schools as well as what the financial impact would be. The community decided that they were in favor of the levy. That is straight up democracy. Now CARE has found a loophole that allows them to take what the community has decided is right for the itself and reduce it to nothing. What a slap in the face to a community that is proud of the way its schools are performing-both academically and financially. The financial records are all public record as well as a recent performance audit conducted by an independent 3rd party. They passed the audit with flying colors.

    What CARE is trying to do is what some 9-year olds do when they are being beaten in a game of kickball and they are unhappy about it. They pick up the ball and they go home with it. I think they have worn out there welcome in Mason. I wish they would go home--but they should leave the ball.

    I think the scariest part of this issue is that CARE isn't even composed of members of the community of which it claims to "care" so much about. They are led by Arnie "Sour grapes because I got let go by my previous empoyer-Fairfield Schools-because I am a worthless sack" Engel, and they are operating on an agenda that is foreign to the members of the community. They claim they are looking out for our best interests, but that couldn't be further from the truth. CARE has been all around the state opposing operating levies that are designed to improve the school system. They are not looking at the issue objectively and they have no personal interest in how the vote plays out. Misinfomred and misguided members of the community that think that good schools are not important to a city's development and prosperity may view these hacks as saviors. The truth is that CARE couldn't CARE less about Mason and they should be treated as such by its residents.

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