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Political columnist Paul Frank discusses what the latest news is with the school board, the city council and the park district -- and what it means for Highland Park residents.For months I've been curious about the newly organized Citizens for Property Tax Relief (CPTR). To be honest, I winced when a member first asked me to sign one of the group's petitions, which demands "immediate and long-term property tax relief from all public taxing bodies." I was asked on my way into a park district board meeting in late August. All of us were there to express our frustrations to the board about the pension spiking scandal that had just come to light. Yet, I hesitated to sign a petition that broadly asked both our school boards, our city council and the park board to …
The national story of the midterm elections is about the U.S. House of Representatives changing parties in dramatic fashion. In Illinois, the story is very different. Here's my view on what we learned last week. 1. Illinois Will Not Elect Socially Conservative Candidates in Statewide Races. Up until about 11 p.m. Tuesday, I really didn't think Governor Pat Quinn was going to win. I wanted him to win, but I just didn't think it was going to happen. I had seen too many polls and other political trends this year showing us that the Republicans would have huge advantages across the board this …
I believe in polls. If done properly, I think pre-election polls have a great track record of predicting results. This year, however, the poll results have been all over the place. State Sen. Bill Brady's lead over Gov. Pat Quinn's, for example, has varied from 13 points to non-existent in the last four weeks. The publicly-released polls don't paint a picture that TV pundits can easily describe to us. Early voting periods and voting by mail are also going to affect election results and will cause them to vary from final poll numbers because people who have already voted won't see late TV ads…
Pension. The word alone has taken on a very negative connotation in public policy discussions and around Highland Park for sure. It wasn't always this way. For a long time public employee pensions served a valid purpose to protect low-paid and middle-class public employees from poverty in their retirement. Some classes of public employees in Illinois don't pay into Social Security, so their pension truly is their most important retirement instrument. As a society we really do need and value all of our public servants: fire fighters, police officers and teachers. We rely on them to protect us…
If you read the documents that Township High School District 113 has made public regarding its facilities and technology renovation plans, you'll see that the district is making a sincere effort to seek community input on a variety of spending priorities. Some have asked if the district's school board has already made the decision to seek a referendum to approve of borrowing to pay for $80 million worth of projects. District 113 answers that question in the FAQ document available on its site: "No decision regarding a referendum has been reached. The BOE (Board of Education) is hosting …
It takes a big scandal to get residents to pay attention to our local governing bodies (and we have a lot of them). Following our awakening to the park district's pension-spiking scandal, some of us paid careful attention to city council members' recent decision to end their city-provided health insurance benefits, which they also get in "retirement" for each year they serve on the council. We pay a full-time city manager $225,000 per year, a deputy city manager $126,000, an assistant city manager $112,000 and three other city department directors at least $130,000 per year. If that's our …
