Transparency & Accountability, MJ style.

In August, 2012 the School Board was considering a $2 million expenditure. District residents raised questions about the prudence of such spending by making the following points:

1..Over the previous decade, student enrollment had steadily declined from 11 hundred to 9 hundred.

2..Over the previous decade, the district tax levy had doubled from $8 million to $16 million.

3..By operation of those two trends, Tax collections per student enrolled had skyrocketed from $7 thousand to $18 thousand.

The residents raised their question in a Gazebo story that included a graphic that highlighted the three historical facts listed above, shown below:

District Resident Richard Hegg wrote to the President of the School Board, MJ Brady to confirm the validity of those three simple facts. As he recounts in an April, 2013 letter to Gazebo:

Wondering if these could possibly be correct, I sent a very brief email to the President of the School Board directly asking if these were valid facts. The response was both surprising and disappointing.

I was told this was “very difficult to wade through” and I should contact the Superintendent, which I did. Dr. Sophie gave me an honest and candid response that as she had just begun her job on July 1st, she was still getting up to speed on issues. Although the School Board President was copied on this response from Dr. Sophie I never received an answer from this simple and direct question.

In a comment to Mr. Hegg’s April recounting, Ms. Brady simply posted her original email to Mr. Hegg in which she did indeed claim that confirming these simple facts “would be very difficult to wade through” and passed the buck to the Superintendent who had just started her job the previous month.

So, given a second chance to answer his simple and direct question, she for the second time simply declined. This time, however, the School Board President preceding her stonewalling of a District resident with the following, utterly misleading and needlessly disparaging statement:

“Never let the truth get in the way of saying something negative.”

Ms. Brady then disingenuously continued, “The ENTIRE text of the email I sent to Mr. Hegg…” as if he had been unfair in paraphrasing it. But it shows that he had not. Mr. Hegg sought clarification; Ms. Brady sought obfuscation.

And then, Brady apologist Barb Pigg added the comment, “Thank you for posting the actual letter, MJ.”

Well. Since posting the “actual letter” was irrelevant to answering Mr. Hegg’s original and repeated request for confirmation of three simple facts, there are two possible explanations for Ms. Pigg’s comment:

Either Ms. Pigg understands that Ms. Brady’s only purpose was to obfuscate and she wishes to assist in that effort, or Ms. Pigg is simply confused because Ms. Brady’s obfuscation was successful, at least with her.

So the question, Lake Bluff, is a simple one: Will we reelect MJ Brady because she dissembles so skillfully?

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