In our examination of political emails involving the re-election of Grayslake School Board members Mary Garcia, president of a Skokie school district’s union, and Sue Fackham, we are now about two weeks away from the April 5th election.
Fackham was re-elected, coming in third, while Garcia was not, placing fourth.
Images, remember, can be enlarged by clicking on them.
Earlier collections of emails can be found in Part 1 and Part 2.
That the Lake County State’s Attorney is investigating the matter is found here.
School Board incumbent has a list of Grayslake School District 46 employees for which incumbent running mate Sue Facklam request. One wonders where the list originated.
A proposed letter to Illinois Education Association (teacher union) members was discused on March 16th in an email from Bob Garcia, an employee of the school district with his School Board wife. While some might think it strange for a school board member to have a spouse on the payroll, it is less rare than one might think. Taxpayers do not seem to see any conflict of (or convergence of) interest.
The incumbents are still trying to tap into the resources of the Lake County Democratic Party's Votebuilder on March 17th. The suggestion from incumbent Sue Facklam to incumbent Mary Garcia is to call their consultant, Alex Finke, to whom they have now sent a check.
This email (subject line: "the campaign") from Sue Fackham tells last name withheld "Lisa" and Mary Garcia that her son's friends are willing to pass out literature...for a price. Facklam also solicits senders of friend-to-friend endorsement cards for which postage will be supplied.
"Prohibited political activity" is the topic of this email from Lennie Jarratt to District 46 School Board members and other school district personnel. Attached evidence was apparently not provided by the school district Freedom of Information Officer. See the rest of the email below.
This is a continuation of the email from Round Lake Beach's Lennie Jarratt above.
With the election about a week away, after the warning email from Lennie Jarratt, School Board President Mary Garcia begins to be cautious about using school district email addresses.
Email traffic with Grayslake School District addresses stops showing up about ten days before the election.
The next one–right before the election–is from the office of Republican State Senator Suzi Schmidt.
It conveyed a letter about “alleged ethics violation of Mary Gracia” concerning a March 5th email. It was sent to Northbrook/Glenview Elementary School Distrrict 30 Superintendent Ed Tivador and Board President Jim Beam and members of the Board of Education. District 30 is where Grayslake School Board President Mary Garcia is President of the teachers’ union.
The last email is from Chicago Tribune reporter to defeated School Board President Mary Garcia.
I summarized her various roles.
Mary Garcia is a Seventh Grade Science teacher at Maple School in Northbrook, which is in the Northbrook/Glenview Elementary School District 30.
She is also the President of the District No. 30 Education Association, which is the teachers union for District 30. District No. 30 Education Association is a local affiliate of the Illinois Education Association (IEA), which in turn is a state affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA).
On April 5, 2011 she lost her re-election bid to the Grayslake Elementary School District 46 School Board where she had been serving as the School Board President.
You can read an article in the Chicago Tribune about this being investigated.
You may not be a tiny, tiny bit surprised how the Daily Herald doesn’t want its subscribed readers to be reading about this!
Think an “investigation” will be in a NWH article?
Cal, I’ve been reading your summaries and analysis with great interest! Keep up the good work.