Fellow Residents of District 86, 192 False Safety Claims by D86 We all expect safe schools and we expect the truth from school officials, so the 192 false safety claims come as a shock and yet another reason to Vote NO! How can we trust anything from this administration and Board? It is unfair, unethical and immoral for the D86 Board and staff to use inaccurate and untruthful information on "life safety" matters to intimidate voters, scare parents, and use student safety as a political ploy. Shameful and Unfair!
Please Vote NO on D86! WASTEFUL & UNFAIR. Voting Information - order your absentee ballot! We can help. The Safety Ruse in D86 The D86 safety ruse is just one of many misinformation campaigns to mislead and scare parents for special interest groups. The school is safe so there is no panic. We must wait until we get a Board with an honest majority. D86 leadership was caught in a whopper of a lie with the "life safety ruse". Unfortunately this is but one of many falsehoods being used to increase your taxes for special interest groups. See upcoming emails regarding massive waste in this third attempt at passing a wasteful referendum. Last year's annual budget was a record $114 Million, approximately $26,300 per student, more than enough for all sports and activities. Even without any work rule reforms in the union contract, there is money available to reinstate sports and activities as well as complete safety improvements. The safety issue is a RUSE. The Safety measures were labeled categories A, B and C. See the well-presented evidence below from our neighbors regarding the 192 false claims. Items in the "A" category are already completed per D86. Many item "B" matters are completed and the rest are scheduled for completion this summer along with some of the item "C" matters, without a referendum and using the already available annual budget on the normal summer schedule! 192 False Claims appear to have been presented by D86. Many of the "C" items were not even safety matters, but were used to rile up parents. This is being done even with the unsustainable teacher's contract, pension spiking and free healthcare after retirement for employees. There is so much waste in the system a referendum is NOT required until basic reform is instituted in Union contracts and with the administration.
SAFETY & SCHOOL Architect Arcon's Role and Conflicts If there were indeed real requirements for the safety issues, D86 needs no referendum to fix the safety items. The law allows a school district to issue bonds without a referendum to remediate true safety issues. No referendum was needed and below is a description of how 192 items were not certified as "life safety". This is just one of many serious ethical issues we raise regarding the D86 Board and the administration's zealous push for a massive tax hike that serves special interest groups. Included among these special interest beneficiaries is the school architect, Arcon, which prepared portions of the safety report and is frequently charged with driving up taxpayer costs by providing high scope of work estimates. We believe Arcon will make out like a bandit for its overpriced work and excessive estimates. Arcon recently donated $5,000 to the campaign (click on Arcon for evidence of their unethical political donation, the 2nd biggest). This should be illegal and it is certainly unethical. Union advocate D86 Board member Kathleen Hirsman as well as Superintendent Bruce Law attested the "safety reports" to be true and accurate, when in fact the opposite was true per the below reference. See below reference. Unfair and Unethical. We need the D86 Board to stop with the lies and intimidation tactics, reinstate sports & activities, and cease using our families as political pawns. Please Vote NO! WASTEFUL, UNAFFORDABLE & UNFAIR Voting Information here - please order your absentee ballots now! See below references to the false safety claims of D86 Life Safety Deception by D86 - Fill South First website reference 2019-01-13
False Claims of Life Safety Violations Acknowledged by School Board Chairman At the 1/7/2019 Hinsdale District #86 School Board meeting, Chairman Bill Carpenter acknowledged that Priority C items submitted by the School District in compliance with Life Safety laws were not, in fact, Life Safety violations. He further acknowledged that they were the architect's recommendations but not legal mandates.
We believe that it is no coincidence that Mr. Carpenter's public acknowledgment came on the heels of our 1/5/2019 message to you in which we exposed the inclusion of 192 false claims of Life Safety violations at Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South in reports filed by our School District with Regional and State authorities.
It is now clearly understood that Priority C items are not so imperative or legally unavoidable that School District #86 has no choice but to make draconian cuts to academics and co-curriculars in order to fund compliance initiatives with the School Building Code. Whether it chooses to do so would be up to the School Board.
As expected, the School Board's meeting discussion did not address the point of our complaint, their own deceptive conduct. Instead, the School Board member discussion pivoted to the merits of funding Priority C projects, which to our ears sounded like a failed attempt to self-justify voter deception. The Board members never explained why these 192 pseudo-Priority C items were added into the Life Safety reports where they clearly did not belong. Furthermore, they never explained how these reports were proven to be true and accurate as attested by School Board Superintendent Dr. Law and School Board Secretary Ms. Hirsman.
As much as the School Board now wants to divert attention to the merits of Priority C items, that is not the issue. The issue is over the Board's deceptive mischaracterization of these items as legally unavoidable.
Ask yourself a few things.
During the last referendum, did the School Board members ever tell you that 192 of the 367 items they submitted in their Life Safety report to the Regional and State authorities were not Life Safety items?
Did they tell you that there were 185 Priority C pseudo-Life Safety items in the supporting documentation they used to justify their last referendum proposal?
Did they tell you that the associated cost of those 185 Priority C pseudo-Life Safety items was $9,764,6715, and that the corresponding cost of those items has now been grossed up to $10,100,000 for their April, 2019 referendum proposal? There are further details including a list of the evidence on the FSF site regarding the safety matters. In all cases, C4CH believes real safety issues should always be addressed. However, C4CH believes the taxpayers should not trust the D86 leadership based on a demonstrable history of deceptive practices.
Voting Information - VOTE NO! Please get your absentee ballot to stop this wasteful, unaffordable and unfair $208M referendum
Your Neighbors, C4CH - Citizens for Clarendon Hills Edward A. Corcoran President