Gloom & Doom Threat for Tax Referendum and Steel Mill IdleArchived Message
Posted by Not A Sucker on March 28, 2015, 12:33 am
I think as a community, it's high time for those with any remnants of gray matter, to start putting two and two together.
The first part of the puzzle is FEAR. Without exception, fear is the single greatest motivator to human beings. And fear is what our school district administration, as well as, the largest employer in our fine city, is serving up on a silver platter.
Yes, if the citizens and property owners of this town do not dole out even more tax monies, the school district will literally be flushed down the proverbial sh*tter. And if the steel mill isn't given a decrease in it's property assessment, as well as concessions or a decrease in compensation and/or benefits from it's employees, it's bound to be shut down once and for all.
It's a constant forced feeding of how the "children will suffer" if we refuse to gladly hand over more of our hard earned bucks to an entity (Granite City School District #9) that has historically mismanaged it's finances, who continues to operate with as little transparency as possible, who is notorious for rampant nepotism and who consistently operates in spite of conflicts of interest in matters of determining and negotiating salary for family members and friends.
It's time to be realistic, it's time to face facts. The time and energy that has been spent into cramming this tax referendum down the throats of the Granite City citizens has turned this into a circus. Perpetuating the gloom and doom prophecy through every available resource, down to to and including, the borderline whoring of students who have yet to pay a penny of property tax, as many of their renting parents have never paid a penny of property tax, by having them pass out referendum information, walking neighborhoods, begging and pleading for people to vote yes to this referendum so they can continue to play the flute in the school band or participate in yet another embarrassing football season. Yes, they made sure to instill fear into the students as well.
This referendum is not about our children, who have been forced to share text books while sitting in classes of thirty students or more during times when our district was financially sound!
How can two students share a text book? How can two students study or do homework from a shared textbook? How can this happen when there is money for sports, field trips and even for ripping the facade off of Worthen Elementary? Why are there not enough text books when I look at the amount of taxes I'm currently paying to our school district?
This referendum is vital, not for the education of our children, but to keep administrator's salaries at a top shelf level, and to compensate union custodians, maintenance workers, secretaries, cooks, monitors, aides and other support staff employees at outrageous union salaries for, in many cases, unskilled labor.
Because that's what we do in a union town, right?
At least that's what our district does for family and friends in this union town.
When teacher salaries are brought into question, it's the same old song and dance. These are educated professionals with varying degrees, from B.A.s to Masters and Doctorates, who deserve prime compensation. I understand that, so why are the scholastic results within the district so disappointing? If you are paying top dollar for teachers with advanced degrees you should be getting, at a minimum, average to plus average testing results. I don't see that happening, does anyone else?
How many of our elementary schools are performing sub par?
Throw US Steel into the pot. Any reasonably intelligent person with minimal computer skills can research their profit history. And from what I have read, it's a far cry from dismal. A long, long way from anywhere near the vicinity of dismal. Union contract negotiations are on the horizon and maybe even more importantly, tax reassessment time.
Let's talk tax reassessment. Does everyone realize that the decision to raise or lower the property assessment for the steel mill sits directly on the shoulders of one single person? That's right, one single person. The Granite City Township Assessor Darlene Laub. She single handedly decides how much property tax the mill pays to the city. Her word alone decides if they pay less, pay more or their taxes stay the same.
Mrs. Laub has been very generous to US Steel in the past if memory serves.
How generous will she be this time considering the temporary shutdown and possible impending closure of the plant if they aren't awarded a huge adjustment?
Shouldn't a decision of this magnitude be reviewed and decided upon by a group of informed, fiscally savvy people instead of someone who has sat in the assessor's chair for literal decades?
Gloom and doom, despair, failure, plummeting real estate values, lost volleyball teams, program after program being cut from the school district's list, but not a single adjustment in salary or contract renegotiation for a single employee. Think about that.
Thousands of employees possibly losing their employment from a manipulative billion dollar big business and the loss of a tremendous tax revenue, possibly based on a property tax adjustment...in other words the sad demise of our town.
NOW THAT IS SOME FEAR!
With that hanging over your head you are most certainly going to do what you are told to do to keep it from becoming a reality. And that's what they are banking on, literally.
They are counting on us to vote yes to throwing more of our tax dollars at the school board and allowing our assessor to devise a super sweet ass deal for the steel mill, based solely on the information they feed us.
The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. If you had a bucket with a hole in the bottom, would you continuously refill it at the well only to have it empty itself over and over again? It's the same way with the school district, we the tax payers keep filling them up, over and over again only to have our tax dollars bleed through a thousand open veins.
Maybe we should consider finding the open veins? Try to repair them and stop the bleeding?
Voting for higher property taxes IS NOT the answer, no matter how hard they try to convince us that it is.
Voice your concerns to Darlene Laub about the impending property tax reassessment for US Steel, and pray she doesn't give away the city by offering them a huge decrease because of this temporary idle.
The decision she makes for us as a city has an enormous impact on all of us. This is not a single residence or an apartment building, she will be reassessing a billion dollar business. A decrease in tax revenue will only put additional profit dollars in their pockets, but could be devastating to so many vital services right here where we live, in Granite City.
I'll be voting NO on April 7th. Ignored and unanswered questions at the "informational meetings" pushed me over the edge. Please don't let a handful of school district administrators and yes men insult you any further.
Yes school board, we are smart enough to understand your complete avoidance of accountability and also smart enough to realize you think we are stupid.