Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley had the following reaction to the Illinois Supreme Court decision
Aaron Shepley
My reaction is that while this is a victory for property rights and due process of the law, there is little cause to celebrate because people have been hurt and taxpayers in our community have taken it on the chin.
The school board could have stopped this cruel exercise at any one of a hundred points along the way but they chose to forge ahead in callous disregard of the property rights of people whose lives they were impacting in a profoundly negative way. Members of the school board should serve as role models in a community, but in this case the behaviors they modeled included ignorance of the law and bullying.
This is simply unacceptable in our society.
I wish I could believe that those responsible were actually sorry for the damage they did, but I fear that they are not. Even in their press release following the release of the court’s decision they refuse to admit they were wrong.
That type of attitude is difficult to explain and impossible to accept especially considering that every legal authority, including the highest one in our state, has told them that they were wrong.
We are hopeful that at long last the Board will “do the right thing” by these neighbors but their past behavior gives us no reason to believe they will.
I suppose we will see.
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The guts of the case and a link to the Illinois Supreme Court decision can be found here.
The statement of District 155 School Board President Ted Wagner about plans to tear down the bleachers is here.
The reaction of the City of Crystal Lake can be found here.
Mayor Aaron Shepley is surprised and dismayed by the fact the GOVERNMENT AGENCIES waste taxpayers’s money?
Wow, stop the presses !!!
Government and schools have little regard for taxpayers’ hard earned income as they shovel it to government who waste it – OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!
I thought taxes were “for the children”?
That’s what all the school board members told us.
What’s next, social services really don’t care for the poor?
Chicago let’s restaurants have exclusive contracts to restaurants who contribute to they Mayor’s election campaign?
Say it ain’t so, Joe !!!!
Mayor Shepley, we need your help in stopping this injustice !!!!
Oh, wait, you control the city. the government, and the police.
Oh, and THEY have had a great track record in Crystal Lake.
LOL.
🙁
To whom do we go?
“I wish I could believe that those responsible were actually sorry for the damage they did, but I fear that they are not.”
This guy is a real piece of work.
The booster clubs involvement seems to keep being over looked.
Their whining about looking into the sun set for 2 or 3 games early in the season started the mess of changing the home bleachers to the other side of the field.
Shepley like most politicians seem to not know a good rule to follow is: Silence is Golden.
Wow. The mayor comes out swinging, lays blame EXACTLY where it belongs.
And some of you guys don’t like it?
D-155 needs an immediate change of leadership, from the superintendent to the school board president.
This is not unprecedented.
The politics and decisions of school districts have in the past surprised others in government leadership positions.
The school districts operate in a more insular specialized world than most other units of government, as a lot of school law is specialized only for schools.
So while Shepley is surprised, this is not unusual type behavior for far too many school districts in Illinois.
Typically there is a player or more who drive seemingly illogical decisions such as this Surprise Towering Bleachers over Neighbor fiasco, and sometimes each has a different agenda.
Could be someone on the board, Superintendent, a booster with deep pockets, a lawyer wanting billable hours, etc.
But once again bleachers are not the main taxpayer problem.
Pensions are the main taxpayer problem.
Everyday not spent working on deciphering the pension problem is a day more pennies fly out of taxpayer wallets to fund pensions.
The system needs to be crashed.
Human operators are entrenched in positions, benefitting from status quo.
How about: a lawsuit against each school district to fully fund (and keep current) all pension obligations for current employees and new hires (teachers AND administrators).
This could force abrupt recalibration of budgeting and force a halt to new hires.
It would pit employee vs. employee fighting over dwindling pool of resources, and make apparent what, if any, willingness they have to sacrifice for children’s’ programs.
That would be very different scenario than pitting school employees against all
non-school-employed/contracted townspeople.
Different motivating factors for change may result in different outcomes than what we now face.
Mark is correct, many school districts have become fiefdoms with the feudal lords accountable to no one.
I wonder what the next election will bring?
Shep….you are part of the problem
Well Aarons lips or moving again.
Everybody should ask did he thank Lou Bianchi at Tina Hills fundraiser, while they were eatting tacos.
we seen Pam there also.
WOW
Thank u aaron Lou and Pam
What would the parents said if the prior old wooden bleachers had collapsed during a football game?
The old bleacher was also only a few feet lower than the new.
I find it a bit disingenuous then one of the photos submitted in the lawsuit (see the prior blog) was taken while the old bleachers had been taken down and thus imply that there were no obstruction.