School Bond and Finger Pointing
To the editor:
Ms. Snyder’s response to my letter last week demonstrated clearly how far I missed the mark on the 90 million dollar bond election. Her article started out with the “false statement” I made in the paper about the bond election being for $93 million when the board was asking for a mere $90 million. But what is 3 million dollars between friends? I noticed she didn’t bother doing the math herself. Here’s a challenge for Ms. Snyder: How much will $90 million be after 25 years and 4% interest? Did I really overshoot the number at 93 million?
She also said the audience was allowed to participate at the board meeting about the bond. This is partly true. Three residents signed up to speak on the bond having not yet received information on it prior to the meeting (One of the school board members even said at that meeting he thought the bond was for around 50-70 million.) Two speakers were against the bond, one was for it, the rest of us didn’t know a thing about it yet.
But Ms. Snyder’s claim about “audience participation” ignores a crucial history. One of those three residents who spoke was Jeremy Janda, a 5th generation La Grange resident and one of the most Christlike men I have ever met. Mr. Janda was rudely interrupted multiple times by the board president as he read his prepared speech. Mr. Janda had to plead with them to be allowed to finish what he had prepared to say. He was completely cut off as he reminded the school board of their history of working hard to not hear from tax payers when making important decisions.
Mr. Janda reminded the board that he had been voicing concerns about the library to them for two and a half years, behind closed doors out of respect, but then was forced to go public with those concerns due to their inaction. Many of the books he brought to their attention, which are still available to K-12th graders, are full of pornographic smut and prepubescent sexual perversion… often depicting graphic sexual acts between underage children. Those books are so full of gut turning trash that when Mr. Janda read directly from them at a board meeting a couple of years ago, the board would not let him finish...and later Superintendant McHazlett banned him from all LGISD campuses, claiming he was a threat to teachers and students. The school board then promptly changed their rules to disallow non-parent taxpayers to voice opposition against books that are harmful to children. They worked carefully to ensure that they would never again have to hear Mr. Janda hold them accountable for their inexcusable inaction…interestingly they still took his tax money. These are not the actions of people who truly care for dissenting opinions. They owe Mr. Janda an apology he will never demand of them. And that apology should be as public as the insult they gave to him. So much for Ms. Snyder’s “audience participation.” Participation is most welcome to the board as long as it supports their decisions.
Ms. Snyder also said dividing the bond into a cost-per-student basis was a “ridiculous” way to look at the bond as it would “benefit…far beyond one year’s enrollment.” True enough, if you call it a benefit for students to be saddled with decades of debt service. Has anyone told LGISD students that when they grow up they will have to pay for this bond or move away? Current students who want to live, work, and worship in La Grange will grow up to the great privilege of having to pay off this bond along with the one from 2017 and future bonds…Please explain to me again, why it is ridiculous to ask how much it costs to educate a child?
Ms. Snyder took issue with the difference between what students need and deserve. But where does that end exactly? Spending what we do not have so that kids will have what they deserve is a recipe for our children having nothing in the future. This is the way the world works. Spend what you don’t have and go broke. Maybe “C” rated schools don’t teach things like “No such thing as a free lunch” and “money doesn’t grow on trees.”
There is much more in Ms. Snyder’s article I would like to challenge but I’ll end with this: She, like all slaves to the tyrant, seeks to justify the unjust actions of leaders by hiding them behind the bureaucracy. “It isn’t the school board raising our taxes its the state.” This is what tax payers are so tired of: our property taxes going forever up, while everybody that has a hand in it points the finger at a different part of the bureaucracy. We want leaders to take responsibility, to be fiscally responsible with the finances they already have, and to stop stealing more money from future generations via taxation. The school board is trying to rush this bond through at the very moment legislators in Austin are trying to give tax payers a break on property tax. We may get a break from the State, but if this bond goes through locally, our “break” will be eclipsed by the new bond taxes. The school is doing this knowingly: Attempting to spend the money that the state legislators are trying to give back to the people of Texas.
But there is one part of Ms. Snyder’s article I agree with. “Do your own research.” By all means, lets all follow this part of her advice: Ask why there are still countless codeof- conduct violating, pornographic books in the school libraries despite the super intendant and school board having four years to address this evil. Ask why they ban dissenting options while taking taxes from the ones they ban from the conversation. Run the numbers: $90 million at 4% over 25 years equals $52.5 million dollars in interest paid. A graduating senior this year will turn 43 before he or she writes their final check towards this bond. And that does not factor in the already $37 million dollar school bond from 2017. Let those numbers sink in when we ask what our children deserve. Find out what property tax breaks the state is working to give taxpayers and compare that savings to the school board’s desired raise in spending. Ask whether or not giving good money to bad performance has ever worked. Explain to me how brainwashing children towards normalizing behavior that Satan loves and God abominates, and stealing money from them in the future, is “giving the children what they deserve.”
Most importantly, research what Jesus, the Lord and Savior of the world, says about those who are the cause of little ones being tempted to sin (Luke 17:2…let he who has ears hear what the LORD says.) Research to see whether or not the Lord of glory has anything to say about a school that will not honor Him as Lord over every subject, every library book, every student, and every administrator, every teacher, and every dollar that is spent.