Vote 'No' On District 86 Referendum: Letter

HINSDALE, IL - Tom Smith of Willowbrook sent the following letter regarding the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 referendum.

D86 Referendum: The number every voter needs to remember.

$20,396 per high school student per year as of 2017. Every taxpayer in our district needs to remember this number.

$20,396 is the amount District 86 taxpayers spent in 2017 on our Hinsdale Central and South students as reported by Illinois Report Card (https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/). That amount is substantially more than every neighboring district. Glenbard (D87) spends $17,156. Lagrange (D204) spends $18,343. Lemont (D210) $18,299. In addition, D86 spends more per student than virtually any district in the state and country.

Yet this is what we see repeatedly from the "D86 VOTE YES" campaign.

"Save Our Schools!"

"Home Values will Plummet!"

"Schools at the Breaking Point!"

Is this kind of hyperbole familiar to you?

Even if this referendum is rejected our spending per student will remain in the top 3% of the state and our teachers will be paid more than 98% of their peers nationally. How exactly will home values plummet? How exactly do our schools require not a penny less than $140 million in order to be saved?

YES supporters have employed a signature challenge to remove a candidate for BOE election.

They have harassed a sitting BOE member into resigning. They have cut extracurricular activities costing a fraction of their budget in order to compel voters into providing the district with a $140 million spending package.

Are these tactics familiar to you?

They are to me. These are the rhetoric and tactics of the Cook County political machine. I moved my family to Willowbrook in 2005 in part to leave this type of corruption behind. My NO vote will be as much a rebuke of the tactics and rhetoric of the YES campaign as it will be a rejection of a referendum cost $100 million higher than what actually should be spent.

Tom Smith, Willowbrook