McHenry County Blog

Elgin has the second largest Illinois school district. In the 1970’s I used to represent it.

Today it has the distinction of having all five of its high schools in failure mode.

And because of an overlapping tax district problem that allowed a clerical mistake, it will lose about $10 million in State Aid to Education next year.

Will Democratic Party State Reps. Keith Farnham and Fred Crespo and Senator Mike Noland let this opportunity slip through their fingers or seize the day, so to speak?

The bill that would do the trip is Senate Bill 2283 and former Huntley School Board member Larry Snow has made a persuasive case for how Democrats should help U-46 get the millions in state aid it would otherwise be receiving, if the technical fix in SB 2283 is passed.

Of course the bill would help Huntley School District 158, too, to the tune of $2 million a year.

State Senator Pam Althoff is the sponsor of the bill, which has yet to receive a “No” vote.

The article under which Snow commented announced that House sponsor Republican State Rep. Mike Tryon had agreed not to seek past State Aid to Education that has been lost.

Snow posted comments to the Daily Herald story that mentioned SB 2283.

Elgin-area Republicans may have a large potential campaign issue if the House Democratic Party leadership lets this bill die on the floor without its being called to a vote.

Snow is hoping the political powers wake up soon enough to realize the information that an Illinois State Board of Education staffer gave the House leadership failed to mention the huge injustice to the 25,000 minority students in U-46, 15,000 of whom are Hispanic.

When I contacted Snow he said,

“It’s ridiculous this bureaucrat from the State Board of Education may make Democrat leaders and politicians look like real jackasses by killing this bill and not allowing a vote on the House floor.

“I have met her, listened to her and anyone who listened to her committee testimony recently should be able to tell she is off the deep end wanting to preserve this injustice and not disclosing the ongoing impact to the State’s second largest school district.”

Snow’s comments in the Daily Herald are below:

posted by Larry Snow on Sat May 23, 2009 10:37 AM

Here is the amendment to SB2283 Amend Senate Bill 2283 on page 3, line 3,

“after ‘5%’, by inserting ‘and only those adjustments made after Tax Year 2008-2009 and payable in School Year 2009-2010 are eligible for a claim for reimbursement under this paragraph.’”

It is a fix for year after year, not a one-year fix. The immediate impact on U-46 is about 10 million dollars with no approval.

Superintendent Torres has been informed this has a huge impact for his school district.

Let’s see what he does about it, if anything, to prevent more cuts and help the students. Over the past years U-46 lost about 50 million in State aid.

Congrats to Sen. Michael Noland for becoming a chief co-sponsor.

Now let’s see him fight to get what’s right done within his own party.

What good are you if you can’t get a technical correction fix that is huge for your district?

Which Chicago democrat would let this abuse continue for the Chicago Public schools? Go get ‘em.

The local teachers union and school board have been snoozing on this for years.

Residents need your leadership, Sen. Noland. What House Democrats are going to help you get it passed?

posted by Larry Snow on Sat May 23, 2009 11:54 AM

U-46’s teachers’ union leaders and board members need to get out of snooze mode and beat the drums to get SB2283 passed. They should be in uproar over about 50 million being lost in the past because of a technical error.

If Speaker Madigan will let it be voted on in the House, after easily passing in the Senate, then U-46 will get the state aid funding it is being deprived of because of technical errors that need fixing.

Where is the Hispanic caucus in the House? Why aren’t they out in front to help their own on this bill? The fiscal office in U-46 should have been all over this, years ago. I am hoping Superintendent Torres has the guts and brains to go out and get this bill passed. It is H U G E for U-46.

Jesse Ruiz, chair of the State Board of Education should do something about one of ISBE’s employees, Toni Wagner making it her personal “job” and mission to prevent SB2283 and U-46 from recovering and receiving the millions of State Aid it rightfully deserves.

Wagner has opposed SB2283. which would help over 15,000 Hispanic students in U-46 by making a technical fix in the law. Anyone think if Wagner was Gonzalez there would be cooperation, not opposition?

posted by Larry Snow on Sat May 23, 2009 1:06 PM

Speaker Madigan was a true leader in getting referendum reform legislation passed in the past. He saw the injustice to taxpayers and got it fixed. I have praised him and the Democrats in the past for doing this and it is praise well deserved.

I disagree with any Republican sentiments to not press hard for SB2283 and let it fail because they can then potentially use its failure as a future political campaign issue.

It is a huge injustice U-46 has five out of five failing high schools for five years in a row (last time I looked) and they are being underfunded by millions in state aid because of a technical glitch in the School Code.

Speaker Madigan and Jesse Ruiz aren’t involved at this level of detail.

Good House Democrats voted it out of committee in spite of an underling ISBE employee ranting against doing so to the House committee. I didn’t need to be physically present in Springfield for that committee hearing. The committee hearing was transmitted on the internet. (continued in next comment)

posted by Larry Snow on Sat May 23, 2009 1:50 PM

If Republican legislators are afraid of publicly calling out an ISBE employee for preventing an injustice from being corrected, I am not. The injustice needs to be corrected and there’s not a lot of time left for more patty-cake politics that let’s an ISBE bureaucrat perpetuate a real injustice to the second largest school district in the State.

If this gets this injustice the publicity it deserves so it gets corrected, great. It doesn’t matter how much Wagner may be right about anything else in the past. Her opposition speaking for ISBE to SB2283 is as wrong as underfunding five out of five failing high schools in Illinois’ second largest school district.

I am hopeful if Speaker Madigan and his office get the correct information and facts and don’t rely on the biased opinion of an underling ISBE employee, the injustice to over 15,000 Hispanic students will get corrected. Properly funding education is a Democrat mantra. I am hopeful Speaker Madigan will stop the abuse and injustice once he knows that’s what is going on.

posted by Larry Snow on Sat May 23, 2009 3:43 PM

Superintendent Torres may want to direct someone in U-46’s fiscal office to take the fifteen minutes it takes to make the calculation showing the loss of state aid SB2283 will fix and get the facts straightened out with someone in Speaker Madigan’s office. Hopefully Mr. Ruiz, chair of the Illinois State Board of Education will also make sure the correct facts get to Speaker Madigan’s office.

The Democrats, with Speaker Madigan’s leadership, need to right this technical flaw wrong that is disadvantaging so many Hispanic children in U-46.

25,000 minority (including 15,000 Hispanic) children shouldn’t be receiving erroneous second rate funding because they are in second largest school district in Illinois.

Democrat leaders wouldn’t tolerate this for the largest school district in Illinois and shouldn’t tolerate this for the second largest as well.

Especially when it is on the floor of the House to pass the legislature.

Governor Quinn needs to be heard on whether he supports this technical fix in SB2283 that will help 25,000 minority children get a better education.

Even if Governor Quinn stays silent on helping these children, Speaker Madigan should make sure SB2283 is passed.

= = = = =
In the photo on top newly elected State Rep. Keith Farnham (D-Elgin) was talking to Carpentersville School District 300 Chief Technology Officer Eric Willard. The head shot at the bottom is of Larry Snow.

Maybe I should have entitled this “Another Entrepreneurial Employee” since I wrote a little while ago about Carpentersville District 300 energy czar David Ulm’s efforts to explore using windmills to offset electric costs.

After the District 300 legislative meeting during which pleas were made for the state funding for school construction which were assumed in the $185 million bond approved in 2006, newly elected State Rep. Keith Farnham (D-Elgin) was talking to Chief Technology Officer Eric Willard.

They discussed the possibility of commuter trains between Rockford, where Willard lives, and Elgin, among other things.

Impressed with what I heard about Willard’s plan for fiber optic linkage of the schools, I stuck around and got a fascinating presentation.

Willard has rented two dark fibers owned by the Illinois State Tollway Authority. This project was initiated in conjunction with NIU, that had similarly leased Tollway fiber down I-90, I-88 and is just about finished with linking the two systems to the third side of the triangle, I-39 (thanks to funds obtained from a federal grant).

The D300 fiber will connect from I-90 to NIU’s Hoffman Estates campus and then gain access to the Internet from them. This is how we’ll distribute the current risk from all schools in the district having their Internet access at DCHS.

At a current cost of about $88,000 a mile to bury new fiber to connect to the leased fiber, NIU has made quite an investment to connect their campuses in DeKalb, Rockford, Hoffman Estates and Naperville.

District 300 has rights to two strands beginning at the truck stop on I-90 at Route 20 and extending to Meacham Road.

My short course in fiber optic capacity taught me that eight colors will be transmitted over the fibers, allowing eight different connections each way.

If more capacity it needed, the electronics can be swapped out and up to 32 colors or message pathways can be used on the existing fiber, Willard said.

The new Hampshire High will be connected directly to the tollway cable and over-the-air connections will be made from there to the old high school, now a middle school and the grade school in town. Fiber already connects the new high school with Gary D. Wright Elementary School in Hampshire.

Willard wants to run a line up from the tollway to Dundee-Crown, where the the school district has its technology headquarters.

He is also talking to Kane County and McHenry County officials about the possibility of a joint project to run a fiber optic cable up Randall Road to serve the growing communications needs of the two counties and various cities and villages along the way.

His goal is for the cable to be laid when Randall Road is widened.

Willard has been approached by Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg for access to the cable strands that the Carpentersville School District is leasing.

Local law enforcement units are also showing interest in the opportunity.

I asked Willard if the District might bring in more money than it costs.

He grinned broadly and said he hadn’t mentioned that at this year’s presentation to legislators.

I wouldn’t lay odds that such an announcement might be made next year.

Finally, it occurs to me that if Crystal Lake gets its wish fulfillment of a new interceptor sewer, McHenry County College might want to pop for the cost of $88,000 to lay cable up Route 14.

Maybe I should have entitled this “Another Entrepreneurial Employee” since I wrote a little while ago about Carpentersville District 300 energy czar David Ulm’s efforts to explore using windmills to offset electric costs.

After the District 300 legislative meeting during which pleas were made for the state funding for school construction which were assumed in the $185 million bond approved in 2006, newly elected State Rep. Keith Farnham (D-Elgin) was talking to Chief Technology Officer Eric Willard.

They discussed the possibility of commuter trains between Rockford, where Willard lives, and Elgin, among other things.

Impressed with what I heard about Willard’s plan for fiber optic linkage of the schools, I stuck around and got a fascinating presentation.

Willard has rented two dark fibers owned by the Illinois State Tollway Authority. This project was initiated in conjunction with NIU, that had similarly leased Tollway fiber down I-90, I-88 and is just about finished with linking the two systems to the third side of the triangle, I-39 (thanks to funds obtained from a federal grant).

The D300 fiber will connect from I-90 to NIU’s Hoffman Estates campus and then gain access to the Internet from them. This is how we’ll distribute the current risk from all schools in the district having their Internet access at DCHS.

At a current cost of about $88,000 a mile to bury new fiber to connect to the leased fiber, NIU has made quite an investment to connect their campuses in DeKalb, Rockford, Hoffman Estates and Naperville.

District 300 has rights to two strands beginning at the truck stop on I-90 at Route 20 and extending to Meacham Road.

My short course in fiber optic capacity taught me that eight colors will be transmitted over the fibers, allowing eight different connections each way.

If more capacity it needed, the electronics can be swapped out and up to 32 colors or message pathways can be used on the existing fiber, Willard said.

The new Hampshire High will be connected directly to the tollway cable and over-the-air connections will be made from there to the old high school, now a middle school and the grade school in town. Fiber already connects the new high school with Gary D. Wright Elementary School in Hampshire.

Willard wants to run a line up from the tollway to Dundee-Crown, where the the school district has its technology headquarters.

He is also talking to Kane County and McHenry County officials about the possibility of a joint project to run a fiber optic cable up Randall Road to serve the growing communications needs of the two counties and various cities and villages along the way.

His goal is for the cable to be laid when Randall Road is widened.

Willard has been approached by Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg for access to the cable strands that the Carpentersville School District is leasing.

Local law enforcement units are also showing interest in the opportunity.

I asked Willard if the District might bring in more money than it costs.

He grinned broadly and said he hadn’t mentioned that at this year’s presentation to legislators.

I wouldn’t lay odds that such an announcement might be made next year.

Finally, it occurs to me that if Crystal Lake gets its wish fulfillment of a new interceptor sewer, McHenry County College might want to pop for the cost of $88,000 to lay cable up Route 14.

Early on in the Protect Marriage Illinois advisory petition campaign the Illinois Republican Party was making supportive noises.

There was even a link on the main page of the state GOP web site.

But, as far as I know, no Republican organization helped gather signatures.

And the petition effort fell short.

Not a lot short, but not enough signatures were gathered where it was thought the petition could withstand a vigorous attack from well-financed organized homosexuals.

Now, it turns out that about the only bright spot on the conservative election horizon is the constitutional amendment banning of same sex marriage in California.

The ballot measure, labeled Proposition 8, is passing 52.3% to 47.7%. There’s over a half million vote spread.

Ironically, many of the same voters who pushed Barack Obama to victory voted to ban same sex marriage.

Exit polls taken of 1,200 voters in 50 Los Angeles precincts by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University found that “50 percent of Latinos voted for Proposition 8 and 39 opposed it, while 47 percent of African-Americans voted for it and 40 percent against it,” according to the LA Times

So, here’s my question?

Had the state GOP gotten the Protect Marriage advisory referendum on the ballot in Illinois, might someone like Elgin’s State Rep. Ruth Munson have eeked out a victory, instead of losing by an unofficial 322 votes?

Understand that I don’t know how Munson stands on the issue and she would obviously have to been against gay marriage and her opponent Keith Farnham would have had to have been in favor of it for my suggested strategy to have had a chance of working.

However, if they had been on opposite sides of the issue, Elgin could have been ready-made to have replicated how California voters behaved.

In 2000, Elgin had 34% Latinos and almost 7% African Americans. These Elgin minorities are concentrated in Munson’s district. The district also dips into Carpentersville, which has 41% Hispanics, most of whom live on the East side in the Munson district.

“Blacks voted 70 percent in favor of Proposition 8, and slightly more than half the Hispanic voters backed the measure, according to exit polls released by the National Election Pool,” the Washington Times reported.

And, Andrew Pugno of ProtectMarriage.com said, “Inner-city black neighborhoods voted stronger for Prop. 8 than the Republican suburbs. An amazing analysis.”

According to Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll in California,

“The Field Poll, completed one week before the election, had Catholics voting at about their registered voter population size (24% of the electorate) with voting preferences similar to those of the overall electorate, with 44% on the Yes side.

“However the network exit poll shows that they accounted for 30% of the CA electorate and had 64% of them voting Yes. Regular churchgoers showed a similar movement toward the Yes side. The pre-election Field Poll showed 72% of these voters voting Yes, while the exit poll showed that 84% of them voted Yes…

“My take is that polling on issues like same-sex marriage that have a direct bearing on religious doctrine can be affected in a big way in the final weekend by last minute appeals by the clergy and religious organizations.”

Whether Catholic Church priests and black ministers in Munson’s district would have done what their counterparts are said to have done in California is unknowable.

But, if they had, and if Munson had a campaign staff astute enough to capitalize on the issue, maybe she would have been re-elected.

Since neither the State GOP nor House Republicans nor Senate Republicans showed any inclination to help get the signatures to put the referendum on the ballot this year, I somehow doubt Munson would have been able to grab the opportunity.

If Tom Cross or Frank Watson’s successor or Andy McKenna figure out this could issue could help some legislators or even the GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2010, the time to be starting a petition campaign is now.

Early on in the Protect Marriage Illinois advisory petition campaign the Illinois Republican Party was making supportive noises.

There was even a link on the main page of the state GOP web site.

But, as far as I know, no Republican organization helped gather signatures.

And the petition effort fell short.

Not a lot short, but not enough signatures were gathered where it was thought the petition could withstand a vigorous attack from well-financed organized homosexuals.

Now, it turns out that about the only bright spot on the conservative election horizon is the constitutional amendment banning of same sex marriage in California.

The ballot measure, labeled Proposition 8, is passing 52.3% to 47.7%. There’s over a half million vote spread.

Ironically, many of the same voters who pushed Barack Obama to victory voted to ban same sex marriage.

Exit polls taken of 1,200 voters in 50 Los Angeles precincts by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University found that “50 percent of Latinos voted for Proposition 8 and 39 opposed it, while 47 percent of African-Americans voted for it and 40 percent against it,” according to the LA Times

So, here’s my question?

Had the state GOP gotten the Protect Marriage advisory referendum on the ballot in Illinois, might someone like Elgin’s State Rep. Ruth Munson have eeked out a victory, instead of losing by an unofficial 322 votes?

Understand that I don’t know how Munson stands on the issue and she would obviously have to been against gay marriage and her opponent Keith Farnham would have had to have been in favor of it for my suggested strategy to have had a chance of working.

However, if they had been on opposite sides of the issue, Elgin could have been ready-made to have replicated how California voters behaved.

In 2000, Elgin had 34% Latinos and almost 7% African Americans. These Elgin minorities are concentrated in Munson’s district. The district also dips into Carpentersville, which has 41% Hispanics, most of whom live on the East side in the Munson district.

“Blacks voted 70 percent in favor of Proposition 8, and slightly more than half the Hispanic voters backed the measure, according to exit polls released by the National Election Pool,” the Washington Times reported.

And, Andrew Pugno of ProtectMarriage.com said, “Inner-city black neighborhoods voted stronger for Prop. 8 than the Republican suburbs. An amazing analysis.”

According to Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll in California,

“The Field Poll, completed one week before the election, had Catholics voting at about their registered voter population size (24% of the electorate) with voting preferences similar to those of the overall electorate, with 44% on the Yes side.

“However the network exit poll shows that they accounted for 30% of the CA electorate and had 64% of them voting Yes. Regular churchgoers showed a similar movement toward the Yes side. The pre-election Field Poll showed 72% of these voters voting Yes, while the exit poll showed that 84% of them voted Yes…

“My take is that polling on issues like same-sex marriage that have a direct bearing on religious doctrine can be affected in a big way in the final weekend by last minute appeals by the clergy and religious organizations.”

Whether Catholic Church priests and black ministers in Munson’s district would have done what their counterparts are said to have done in California is unknowable.

But, if they had, and if Munson had a campaign staff astute enough to capitalize on the issue, maybe she would have been re-elected.

Since neither the State GOP nor House Republicans nor Senate Republicans showed any inclination to help get the signatures to put the referendum on the ballot this year, I somehow doubt Munson would have been able to grab the opportunity.

If Tom Cross or Frank Watson’s successor or Andy McKenna figure out this could issue could help some legislators or even the GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2010, the time to be starting a petition campaign is now.