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THE TOP TEN FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2009: #2

Posted by Kevin Fischer on Dec. 30, 2009

TOP TEN FRANKLIN NEWS STORIES OF 2009

It’s true, the Franklin Common Council voted to increase city property taxes. But, at least the aldermen (two in particular, Steve Olson and Lyle Sohns) argued for greater spending cuts to help the beleaguered taxpayers. Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor took action back in June to address a projected budget shortfall. Aldermen met ther first week of December to consider even more spending cuts.

When it comes to the Franklin School Board, the MO is pick a number to represent this year’s big tax increase, everyone nods their heads in brain-dead concurrence, there is no discussion about alternatives, and before you can say “How the hell am I supposed to pay for this?” the tax increase is approved like, cue John Travolta, Greased Lightnin’!

In the spring of 2009, there were two vacant school board positions open and oo and behold, a whole whoppin’ two candidates. Janet Evans and Judith Bialk were gift-wrapped spots on the school board.

New school board members….same old school board. Translation: Screw you, taxpayers!

The budget process used to attain a school property tax levy increase in Franklin is our city’s biggest sham. Anyone who disputes that is either a school district employee, clueless, a liberal, or all three.

Mark Schaaf of FranklinNOW covered the Franklin School Board’s annual meeting in August 2009 and you’ve got to feel sorry for Schaaf. He couldn’t report what an absolute atrocity of a process this meeting truly is.

Someone should film this annual affair and post it for all the world to see to show how not to run a local government meeting. This is clearly democracy NOT in action.

Let’s begin with the headline that topped  Schaaf’s story on this very website:

Voters approve 3.9 hike in school levy

Now, reporters will often argue, and they’re absolutely right that they have zero input on how the headline is written for their stories. Headline writers will, on the other hand, counter that they’re limited by space and the fact that they weren’t at the event in question and don’t know all the details.

Schaaf writes that, and I quote,  “Franklin voters at the annual meeting approved the 2009-10 budget that includes a property tax levy increase of an estimated 3.9 percent. About 25 district residents approved the $30.6 million levy. Because some factors have not yet been determined, the budget could change between now and when it becomes official later this fall.”

That is Schaaf’s reporting. Let’s just say that I have a different perspective on what actually is the truth here, based on over 30 years of covering local government and having attended this farce of an annual meeting in Franklin in the past.

Again, here was the dubious headline:

Voters approve 3.9 hike in school levy

Sorry, folks. Voters didn’t approve crapola. There was no election.

A small band of merrily frolicking members of the School District machine (all 25 of them) raised their hands like blind sheep, like lemmings at the annual meeting and basically told the Jesse James Gang, i.e. the Franklin School Board, please ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we’re bending over quite a bit. Please tax us some more.

Voters? Are you kidding me?

The voters were home after working hard all day to pay the ridiculous Franklin taxes, spending time with their loved ones. Attend the annual meeting in the middle of August? Most, if not all, had no idea it was happening! And even if they did, why bother showing up and trying to talk common sense to this tax/spend happy bunch? Their minds are made up. They will tax you to death because, as I’ve mentioned so many times, they don’t care.

Recession?  So what! Who the hell cares?!

Voters? How in the hell do we know if the 25 people who attended that meeting and nodded their heads like mindless robots when the question was asked about a levy increase were actual voters?

Did they check ID’s at the door?

Did they cross check against actual voter lists and Franklin addresses?

Voters?

You want voters?

How about the turnout (actual registered voters) during the spring April 2007 election in Franklin that voted on two school referenda, including a tax increase of over $78-million?

In case anyone forgot, let me remind you of what the taxpaying voters of Franklin decided with a loud and clear message in April of 2007 on TWO referenda.

(Are you paying attention, Franklin School Board members? Probably not. After all, it’s a clueless bunch): 


QUESTION #1 (GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS)

YES     2,495 (39.57%)

NO       3,811 (60.43%)


QUESTION #2 (Exceed revenue limits)

YES     2,365 (38.05%)

NO       3,851 (62.95%)


NOW THIS IS CLEARLY A STORY OF VOTERS DECIDING AN ISSUE, NOT A COUPLE DOZEN FRIENDS AND FAMILY MEMBERS OF SCHOOL DISTRICT PEOPLE TURNING OUT AT A WHO CARES MEETING IN SUMMER, ATTEMPTING TO SPEAK FOR OVER 30,000 CITIZENS.

Want to know what really happens at this charade of a meeting?

The voters in reality have nothing to say about it.

Franklin School District Business Manager Jim Milzer (A true enemy to the taxpayers who, as reported accurately on this blog informed Franklin School Board members in the past they’d be voting on a 5 percent tax increase when it turned out to be just under 12 percent) tells the School Board members in advance of the cattle call of lemmings at the annual meeting what he deems the school property tax levy increase should be.

The School Board members react by nodding in near unison breathlessly (One board member, Janet Evans, would spit out the Kool-Aid and vote NO) yes, yes, yes, there must be a school property tax increase. The recession be damned. Pink slips in the private sector be damned. School taxes up! YES!!!!!!!  YES!!! YES!!

So the brain dead school board, and that’s exactly what they are, refusing to question or debate the potential tax and spend increase before them, simply goes along and like Nights of the Living Dead rubber stamps a big tax increase.

Am I going too fast, Franklin taxpayer? You get it, I know. The School Board doesn’t.

Shyster Jim Milzer comes up with a tax increase figure. The brain dead (sorry to be so repetitious but it fits so well), afraid to raise a peep Franklin School Board nods like mummies in approval.

The same walking dead School Board goes to the farce of an annual meeting. Before the meeting starts, brain dead sheep in the audience of an entire off the charts 25 are asked to take index cards and when called upon at the meeting, read them out loud:

“I move that the annual school property tax levy increase be set at 3.9%.”

After reading, they smile from ear to ear. It’s for the children. Never mind they have no semblance of what they just read. My neighbor sitting next to me said it was OK.

And by the way, anyone who wants to take issue and debate that this garbage isn’t orchestrated and used to pull one over on the taxpayers, save your breath and don’t insult my or any other Franklin resident’s intelligence. The annual meeting is a total disregard for democracy and the wishes of the majority of taxpayers.

So, the 25 potted plants at the annual meeting nod proclaiming, of course we want our taxes to go sky high, and the School Board votes yes, and then the School Board votes yes again in the fall and taxpayers open their bills in December wondering what the hell happened.

That’s how your school tax increase is approved.

Voters approving a big school tax increase?

Not on your life, Mark Schaaf or Franklin taxpayers.

Voters did nothing at that ridiculous annual meeting. If voters knew, and actually cared enough, taxes might be reasonable.

Shame on school board member David Works who actually told me personally he hates the taxing and spending for schools. Works also tried to assure me that Linda Witkowski really cared about cutting taxing and spending. Both voted for big school tax increases.

I lampooned the school board about that annual meeting, but I believe this is close to the God’s honest truth.

By the way, this is basically the same brand of school board thieves that tosses your tax dollars around like candy that approved big salary increases in 2008.

Prior to being elected to the School Board, Janet Evans used to attend School Board meetings, record them, then tell us oh so proudly over and over and over and over and over  on her blog that she did so and here’s what I found out., yada, yada, yada.

Problem was that Ms. Astuteness never reported this most important action taken by the school board in 2008. Aww, shucks!  I guess that ol’ trusty recorder must have had the pause button down. And now she’s on the school board when she missed the biggest school board story of 2008. Hope she’s paying a lot more attention now that she’s on the other side of the table.

Franklin, your school board is arrogant. Witness how they flaunted the state’s open meetings laws in 2009.

THEY
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DON’T

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CARE.


They raised taxes despite our current economic mess.

They don’t get it, don’t care, or both.

And so you get the damage in your mailbox every December.

The School Board's priorities are messed up. Cut bussing to private school students, but spend $1 million on an unnecessary fiber optics program when sate aid to schools was reduced. Absolutely clueless.

Until you rise up, Franklin, this nonsense will continue every year.


NOTE TO DON DORSAN: How d’ya like them apples??!!


THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2009

1) ?
2)  RECESSION? WHAT RECESSION? SCHOOL TAXES GO UP
3)  RECESSION? WHAT RECESSION? CITY TAXES GO UP
4)  BUCKHORN CLOSED, BUT ONLY TEMPORARILY
5)  SACRED HEART AT MONASTERY LAKE
6)  GREAT WORK BY FRANKLIN POLICE
7)  ROSANN LEWANDOWSKI
8)  FRANKLIN LITTLE LEAGUE ALL-STAR SNUB
9)  KAREN NESBIT
10) FRANKLIN HIGH FOOTBALL GOES TO STATE SEMI-FINALS