Black is white.

Up is down.

That’s what a Weird Al Yankovic song says:

“Everything you know is wrong. Black is white. Up is down. Short is long…”

And, that’s what came to mind when I saw a much commented upon Northwest Herald letter to the editor.

In the continuing war over at Huntley School District 158, one of the spear carriers in the November 2004 55-cent tax rate hike referendum effort sent a December 30th letter to the Northwest Herald.

One paragraph struck me as just plain false:

“Regarding our school taxes and the erroneous accusations that they would go up; they have gone down despite the referendums, and that’s directly related to Tony Quagliano and Mike Skala, not the two bad apples”.

That’s what Kevin Rewerts wrote.

Both Quagliano and Skala endorsed the referendum, by the way.

Let’s try an appeal to logic.

Voters approve a tax hike referendum.

Rewerts says that taxes then went down.

Does that make sense?

I thought not.

Let’s check it out, I thought.

Let’s look at facts.

Having been McHenry County Treasurer forty years ago, I know that tax bills are public information.

I looked at Rewerts’ District 158 tax bills–the ones paid the year before the November 2004 referendum and those paid in 2005, 2006 and 2007 at his home on 3650 Lakeview Drive in Algonquin. It’s right down the street from Tony Quagliano’s.

Here’s what I found:

Huntley School District 158 real estate taxes went up by 17% on the Rewerts home the year after the November 2004 referendum passed.

The family paid $4,325.58 for schools in 2004 and $5,061.67 in 2005.

Up $736.

They increased 2.4% the next year and 2.2% this past year to a total of $5,299.73.

School board member Kevin Gentry, who won election this past April, commented more than a couple of times under the letter, but didn’t point out Rewerts’ math problem. Gentry is a CPA, by the way.

Weird Al would be right at home in Huntley.

So would George Orwell.

“Who Controls the Past Controls the Future; and he who controls the present controls the past.”

That was in “1984?”

The motto of the “Ministry of Education.”

And

is right on one of this poster about Orwell’s book.