JG Excerpt:IT SHOULD raise eyebrows. The referendum was approved 13,000 to 10,000 and surprised a lot of people. Those who supported the referendum may have won the game, but I wouldn’t put too much stock into how the game was played. What is important, is the fact that nearly TEN THOUSAND people came out to vote on their own free will and accord, without any help and against all the powers that be, in the face of overwhelming odds and voted against the referendum and lost. There are a lot of angry people in Janesville.
The thumbs-up that Janesville voters gave to last November’s high school referendum has raised eyebrows – and hopes – elsewhere in Wisconsin.
LOOKING BACK at the election, the NO vote had zero organization aside from my little rants and the efforts from Dwight Brass, a brave soul from Fulton Township who held a few meetings at the Hedberg Library trying to drum up opposition. While the YES vote had the support from the town's newspaper, the Janesville Gazette, organized business (Forward Janesville) and a $30,000 ad hoc committee called TLC. People are only now finally beginning to realize what hit them, and I would guess with everything being equal, if the referendum vote were suddenly held tomorrow, it would lose.
JG Excerpt:
Officials of the Elmbrook School district visited Janesville "and reviewed plans and politics surrounding our November 2006 high school facilities referendum" according to a memo from Superintendent Tom Evert to the school board.
Now the Elmbrook School District in Wisconsin is attempting to pass a $99 million school referendum on April 3rd. The Elmbrook School District is approximately 20% smaller than Janesville's and their referendum is approximately 40% larger at nearly $100 million, but the district has one thing working in its favor. The Elmbrook school district lies in Wisconsin’s wealthiest county. It is composed of mainly upper and some middle class residents, with a median income at around $76,000 according to the 2000 U.S. Census. They don’t turn down their thermostats in the winter to save money to pay bus fare to go to work. Surely they must think that if a working-class town like Janesville can pass a $70.8 million school referendum, the upper crust could wing this with ease.
The Janesville School District however had very little to do with selling the referendum, in fact, I think they are not permitted to offer any recommendations to the voter except to explain the actual make-up of the referendum. So the school district may not be the right place to visit unless you just want to talk about the referendum itself.
If you really want to review the tactics employed to accomplish this amazing feat, you have to visit the town's newspaper, the Janesville Gazette. They are the ones who kept the wraps on the school budget deficits during the run-up, they also ran referendum question and answer articles regularly favoring the referendum, apparently on their own dime. For those who haven’t scheduled a “How to pass a school referendum seminar” yet, I could save you a trip and explain right here the basic requirements.
1. If your referendum includes expanding your schools while facing projections of declining enrollment, never connect the two. Just talk about declining enrollment as the reason why teachers and special aide programs must be cut and blame state enrollment guidelines, BUT ONLY AFTER the referendum has passed.
2. If your district is facing heart-wrenching consecutive annual deficits or other impending tax increases, MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE the local newspapers DO NOT REMIND the taxpayers of this for at least three months before election, seven months are even better.
3. Don’t write or talk about high state taxes or property taxes at all during the run-up, in fact, only talk about how other public utilities like garbage pick-up, water and sewer, library or even the wages of your city leaders are lower than others in peer cities. This helps give people the impression they have loads of extra money to burn.
4. DO NOT give the voters any choice by breaking the referendum into individual projects. If you do, people will naturally assume then that something is wrong and only vote for the things that are really necessary. Play hardball politics with this, throw as much in the referendum as you can.
5. Although this is about education, impress upon people that even if they don’t care about the schools, they should still be selfish enough to vote YES because it may increase their property values.
6. Tell the people that now is the time to take LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY and beat the Madison politicians at their own game and vote yourself tax increases - before they do.
7. Downplay opposition as stingy old people who hate kids and divide the community into the “haves” and the “have nots.”
OF COURSE all of this is moot if the town's main newspaper is not on your side. And lastly, if you’re just starting to learn this three weeks before the referendum polling takes place, it will probably fail. It takes at least six months of a constant drumbeat and complete censorship of the real issues to make something like this work. But ask your newspaper, not your school board.
2 comments:
Idiot.
Hey idiot, you signed your note but you forgot to leave a message.
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