Lincolnwood Voters Say Nuts To Leona Helmsley-Like, High-Life Education Elite

Little suburban Lincolnwood (pop. 11,700) hasn't been a Republican voting town for a long time. It regularly votes liberal Dems into office, although not with quite as much gusto as its seedy neighbor to the North, Skokie, or its city jobholder-laden Sauganash and Edgebrook Chicago neighborhoods to the South.

But in last Tuesday's elections, Lincolnwood residents displayed a contempt for government elites more in line with Barrington tea-partiers than anything seen in that vicinity in a very long time.

By a whopping 91.07% margin Lincolnwood voters told their corrupt education elites that there was no way in hell they were going to vote them a $25 million tax windfall.

And for good measure, by a hefty 65.1% margin they told their Village government elites that they weren't at all interested in ceding their long-standing right to elect their own Village Clerk. Their mayor wanted to give appointive powers for that post to a gaggle of political insiders.

What spurred the uncharacteristic Lincolnwood anti-government backlash was the blatant arrogance of the village's School District 74 education establishment.

The elected school board, in cahoots with the education bureaucracy contrived to build a new multi-million dollar middle school without going to the taxpayers for approval.

They engaged in legal shenanigans by planning a covered walkway from the existing school to another building so that the demolition and reconstruction would be considered repairs to an existing building.

A taxpayers group filed suit to demand a referendum on the proposed $25 million project and it forced the education monopoly to relent.

To top this, the Lincolnwood grass roots activists filed dozens of freedom of information requests which were grudgingly honored by the educ-establishment and, lo and behold, they discovered a morass of big money abuses.

School Bd. President
"Diamond Dave" Koder

In short, they discovered the education establishment living high on the hog on their hard-earned dime. Among other things the FOI documents disclosed:

-- A 2011 Cadillac CTS leased for the school superintendent, Mark Klaisner

-- An insurance claim for $1,968 to repair rear-end damage done to the superintendent's Cadillac

-- $4,400 in gas charges made by the superintendent for his Cadillac

-- A $14,000, 16 person trip to Orlando, that included a visit to the John F. Kennedy Space Station

-- A $13,500 trip to San Francisco that included a $600 dinner tab (complete with 6 bottles of wine, probably not Mad Dog 20/20) for four people

>-- School board President David Koder charging $139 limousine rides to O'Hare airport from his Lincolnwood home before flying first-class on the San Francisco education junket, where he then charged taxpayers $100 for "Grandview breakfasts" in his high-end hotel suite.

In the face of the growing Lincolnwood citizen furor, the local education establishment acted as if this was simply a very natural, normal state of affairs.

They defended the school superintendent's free gas and Caddy by bleating that the poor guy deserves it, because his $200k annual salary is less than that pulled down by some nearby Skokie education bureaucrats.

Rather like saying Baby Face Nelson can't be blamed because John Dillinger raked in a whole lot more boodle.

And the School Board President, "Diamond Dave" Koder, justified his taxpayer subsidized, Leona Helmsley-like spending lifestyle saying that no one ran against him last time, so he had to take the job.

"There was nobody else to fill my seat," Koder bleated. "I won't be seeking reelection next year because I know I'm not going to win," he said.

Boy he sure got that straight.