Rep. Bob Rita Makes Shameless Grab For D218 Schools: Bury

OAK LAWN, IL — School board elections hardly ever get attention, but it’s worth taking the time to learn about them, if only because our public schools receive more of our property taxes than any other local taxing body.

This is especially true at CHSD Dist. 218, which includes Richards, Eisenhower and Shepard High Schools as well as the Delta and Summit Learning Centers. The district is headquartered in Oak Lawn and Oak Lawn accounts for the majority of the D218's population (about 20%), with the rest split among 10 other south suburban communities.

Yet despite this, State Rep. Bob Rita (Blue Island) is trying to take control of Dist. 218, which should concern every honest and hard-working citizen in communities served by the high school district.

If you aren’t familiar with Bob Rita, he serves in the Illinois legislature and takes great pride in working FOR special interests and AGAINST the tax-payers he is elected to serve. He is particularly fond of sponsoring legislation that benefits the gaming, tobacco, and liquor industries, and in the last 5 years alone he received almost $350,000 in donations from them.

When our Oak Lawn village board passed a $.01 push-tax (i.e., 1 penny) on video gaming in Oak Lawn, Rita immediately went into action to kill our efforts and provide cover to the video gaming machine owners who have taken millions of dollars from Oak Lawn and who have provided almost nothing in return.

Now Rita has turned his sights onto CHSD 218, and if you aren't asking yourself these questions, you should be:

Why would a state representative in a city (Blue Island) which only accounts for 15% of the high school district's population want to take control of the school board?

If you know Bob Rita like I do the answer is simple. Money, jobs and power are the three things that Rita craves more than anything else, and the three things that – in the hands of people like Rita – have driven Illinois to the verge of bankruptcy.

How much money, exactly?

How about almost $100 million dollars a year?!?! That’s right, last year Dist. 218’s tax levy was more than $95 million, an increase of $10 million over the last four years alone, despite enrollment numbers that have been flat and in some years even decreasing.

How is Bob Rita trying to "take over" Dist. 218?

By recruiting and backing candidates to take a majority of the board seats (i.e. four of the seven candidates), and then taking control of our $100 million in tax dollars and the hundreds of jobs in the district.

What proof do you have of his efforts?

Funny enough, plenty, because Bob Rita didn’t attempt to disguise his brazen plan. Take a look at images attached to this article. His legislative staff – hopefully not during their tax-payer funded work hours – notarized all four of the Rita-backed candidates’ petitions. And Bob Rita is listed as the “contact” for each of the four candidates. He even included his personal email address as the way to contact him.

Who specifically are the Bob Rita-backed candidates?

They are Cindy Barteczak (2nd Sub-District), Candice Cantelo (3rd Sub-District), Frank Gassmere, Jr. (4th Sub-District), and William Bill Christian (7th Sub-District). Mr. Christian’s 7th Sub-District serves almost the entire populations of Oak Lawn and Chicago Ridge between 99th Street and 107th Street. He has been especially disappointing as a 4-year incumbent and member of the Finance Committee who led the effort to increase our taxes every year he has been on the board.

Who should I vote for instead?

If you want INDEPENDENT people making decisions on your behalf and in your best interests, vote for:

· 2nd Sub-District: Sarah Kaliski-Roll (serving Alsip, Blue Island, and Calumet Park)

· 3rd Sub-District: Tanjlisa Williams (serving Alsip, Blue Island, and Merrionette Park)

· 4th Sub-District: Tom Kosowski (serving Alsip, Crestwood, Palos Heights, Oak Lawn, and Worth)

· 7th Sub-District: Matt Heinlen (serving Oak Lawn and Chicago Ridge)

Why is this so important?

Because people like Bob Rita are responsible for the mess that our State is in, and each one of us should do everything in our power to stop it from getting worse. I don’t believe that someone so power-hungry and entrenched in in the gambling, liquor, vaping, and tobacco industries should have any influence over our schools, let alone control of them.

Please do your part if you live in District 218’s boundaries and help us rid it of the stink of Illinois machine politics, and please share this with everyone you know, so they can do the same.