This is the plan, this is the time, this is the way.

The one thing everyone agrees on in the District 113 Referendum debate is
that our schools have significant needs.

One of the best summaries though comes from a successfully educated Highland
Park High School student, Charlie Rotering, but Audris Griffith,  Principal at
Deerfield High School put it another way:  “It boggles the imagination to think how much more productive and successful we could be as educators with a modern, comfortable, fully functioning facility.

 
We can rail at the perceived failings of past boards and administrations, but
they are in the past and we need to deal with the present and the future. We
could elect another school board and fire the current administrators, but
neither would address the problems that the aged facilities present. So then the
question of what to do and when to do it. The BOE and a substantial group of
volunteers spent a lot of time and effort analyzing virtually every aspect of
the problem and developed a plan. The opposition's leader, Sam Shapiro, admitted
at our Coromandel meeting that the Education 1st plan was (and I quote) ‘One
man's opinion’ of how to do things. Who would you trust to develop a plan, a
plan for anything? One person, or a group of over a hundred, representing
stakeholders (yes, including educators because after all, they do know something
about education), and assisted by professionals with exceptional experience in
this particular area. "One versus one hundred?”

The Education First “Plan” is thus a political ploy, designed to get the
voter to believe there is a reasonable alternative, when in reality the only
goal is to gain a NO vote.

Then comes the question of when to do what and how to pay for it all. Frank
Pirri suggests that the District just take it out of cash reserves -- a strategy
rejected as risky by virtually every adviser to the District and a committee of
very conservative community finance experts. With costs escalating at a rate of
4% per year and an expected interest rate of 3.65% (or less) it only makes sense
to borrow and build now, for what will surely be more expensive later.
Furthermore, why would a financially responsible entity risk its current cash
position rather than extend payments over 20 to 25 years, for projects that are
expected to serve us for at least that duration. We aren't paying for this now.
We are deciding now, to borrow and pay as we go, at an interest rate that would
make for a simple decision in a B-School plan, if the specific nature of the
"business" wasn't known.

If you believe that public educational institutions in our area need
adequate, up-to-date, functional facilities, then this is the plan and this is
the time and this is the way to pay for it as determined by a whole lot of
people, versus just a few loud individuals, who believe they know better. I go
with the hundred versus the one or 2.

Finally I would just like to note one other thing Sam Shapiro said at
Coromandel Wednesday evening that was very telling. Sam, in making his final
pitch for the NO vote, asked the audience to "send a message" to all the other
taxing bodies, that enough is enough (paraphased). Sam seems to have forgotten
that we are only voting on one thing; Whether to allow High School District 113
to sell $89M in bonds to finance improvements. If you want to send a message,
write your Board of Education, your Mayor, your Congressman or Senator, or vote
the bum out. The only message we are sending is whether we value our schools and
the education they provide for the students of Bannockburn, Deerfield, Fort
Sheridan, Highland Park, Highwood and Riverwoods, and whether we want to invest
in the future for those students and those who will come after them.

I VOTED YES and if you haven't voted yet I hope you will too.