I’m not sure why the West Bend School Board has to do all of these things with special meetings and not as a part of their regular order, but here it is:
May 7, 2018 – West Bend, WI – The West Bend School Board will hold a special meeting at 5:15 p.m. tonight, to approve spending $35,000 on a community-wide survey regarding Jackson Elementary School and the West Bend High Schools.
The Washington County Insider has a lot of background information and financial information.
I’ll remind the gentle reader that this is part of a predictable liberal playbook to con the taxpayers into passing a referendum. The school board is about to spend, and has already spent, tens of thousands of dollars hiring sham companies whose sole purpose is to get school referenda passed. In this case, the district doesn’t even have a superintendent. This is all on the school board.
I watched some of the meeting live. It was noted by the Assistant Superintendent that the $35,000 figure as to the cost of the survey is misinformation, that the budget of $35,000 also covers other items in the process leading up to the referendum, such as the CFAC committee activities. It is hard to catch everything on the live broadcast, but I did not hear a specific figure given as to what the survey will cost. The Board went ahead and approved the survey. There was one opposed vote (one of the women).
A year ago some of these Board members were running on the platform of “transparency” and accused the Board members before them of not being transparent. I get the sense that we have some board members and administrators that do not have much knowledge of the dynamics of our community when it comes to things like this.
But when the WisGOP does it, it’s free $peech!
Don’t whine. Tell us a more fair system than letting elected officials make decisions.
Nobody is arguing that it isn’t within their power to make decisions. We are saying that they are making stupid decisions. That is also part of our fair system.
“Sham companies” that have been around for decades. “Con the taxpayers.”
Don’t be shy. Just say there is no referendum that you’d ever like.
In 2012, the Board passed a comprehensive 25-year facilities plan and followed that up with a referendum request to initiate the plan. Numerous meetings were held to provide information and answer questions – those built community trust and the referendum passed. Part of that plan’s intent (although not part of the legal question) was to save up money to help pay for the identified need in Jackson – in approximately 10 years – when debt was retired.
The new Board majority, only 5 years later, became impatient and, as Owen states, has decided to run the same game plan that failed miserably in 2007. We’ll see if the voters are as gullible as they think – maybe they are – after all, this bunch of “conservatives” did get elected!