A Taxpayer's Guide to Surviving CUSD 200: Part VII

[Note: there are two Exhibit images above. Click the little thumbnail icons to switch back and forth.]

Well, friends, it’s been a long time since I last wrote a blog post about CUSD 200, and right up until this morning I was happily extending that streak of silence. Enter Mr. Harold Lonks, an old friend of mine, who ruined my extended blogging vacation.

Mr. Lonks is running for a position on the board of CUSD 200, and I heartily recommend him. He's the kind of person we want representing us on the board. I was about to ask him for a lawn sign. But did I want one of those big signs that opposed the $132M referendum? I didn’t know too much about the referendum, so I did a bit of Googling. That’s when I felt a blog post coming up from within me.

Friends, nothing has changed. CUSD 200 is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Again. Same games. Same deceptions. As Mr. Lonks notes in an online post:

“The school board refuses to tell the public the true cost of the referendum over the 20 years but only states it will cost the 'median' homeowner only $180 per year," he said. "The $180 is only for the first 3 years and then it climbs to $531 by year 11 and stays at the amount until year 20. The ‘median’ homeowner will pay close to $7,300 for this referendum to be paid off."

Holy cow! Would they be that misleading? Oh, I forgot. This is CUSD 200. They would.

CUSD 200 has a long and rich history of selling local taxpayers a dodgy story, and I’ve explained a few of those howlers in previous posts. But let’s focus today on this latest edition of “We’ll tell you a fraction of the truth and hope you don’t figure out the rest.”

In Exhibit A? That’s the “truth” that CUSD 200 wants you to hear.

In Exhibit B? That’s the truth they’re hoping you don’t work out until it’s too late.

Sure, Exhibit B comes from a few extra clicks on the CUSD 200 website. They’re just hoping you won’t click that far. Exhibit B is the small print CUSD 200 doesn’t want you to read. Now it’s true, I note, that the various signs they've posted on school lawns have a chart that gives a truer picture of the cost, but I personally never saw one until I began to write this blog and looked for a picture online. I think CUSD 200 is banking on most people getting their misinformation from online half-truths and falsehoods.

Falsehoods? Yes. I’ve seen this CUSD 200 trick employed before: state a half-truth and watch the media twist it even further. Want to see it in action? Google CUSD 200 Referendum and find yourself on...

mysuburbanlife.com — “If approved, the referendum would cost the owner of a $320,000 home about an additional $175 per year in taxes.”

Yeah, that’s Exhibit A after a round of that childhood game called Post Office. The story changes. CUSD 200 likes it that way. That way local taxpayers get fooled. Think I’m cherry-picking? Take the next link you find. Now you’re on...

dailyherald.com — “If approved, the owner of a $322,300 home -- the median value in the district -- can expect an estimated $180 annual increase in their taxes.”

There’s not much else that needs to be said, friends. This referendum is going to cost a lot more than CUSD 200 wants you to believe. And local media is playing along with the game.

I have a policy with my children. When they try to deceive me? They don’t get what they’re asking for, even if what they want is something I might have given to them under other circumstances.

CUSD 200 doesn’t have any business asking this community for more money until they start shooting straight with us about the true cost. Until that day, my recommendation is NO.

Oh, one other thing. CUSD 200 officials might defend their deception by noting that the larger $531 payments in Exhibit B still net out to lower total payments because our existing debt will have been retired by then. All well and good, until you remember that those existing payments are covering the last boondoggle they sold us – Hubble Middle School. Yeah, we’ve still got about 10 years to pay off what CUSD 200 spent making a Taj Mahal of a Middle School building. To this day that building has an awful lot of empty and unused space in it. And we the taxpayers are still paying for it.

I don’t know about you, fellow taxpayers, but I’m not keen to reward CUSD 200 mismanagement and deception. Vote No.