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.

West Northfield SD 31 Annual Tax Hike Ploy: Teachers' Salaries Listed

Listed below are the names and 2011 salaries of the teachers and administrators of West Northfield School District 31.

You will note that despite the educational establishment's pleas of poverty, they were strangely able to give all their teachers nice hefty little pay hikes over the previous year (we posted last years' salaries here during the last tax hike contratemps - this years' are posted below, whereby you can note the increases.)

Although qualitatively teachers are undereducated -
schools of education attract the lowest SAT students

This is the little North suburban, Chicago area elementary school district whose education establishment seems to annually try to squeeze more cash out of its cash-strapped residents with tax hike referenda.

They keep getting swatted down by recession-beleaguered taxpayers who've had quite enough. By a 2 to 1 margin the people did that just this past year.

But here they go again!

On the March 20th primary ballot the education consortium is again asking their taxpayers to agree to fork over yet another $446 or so per homeowner a year in property taxes.

And this time the teachers are money laundering a portion of their fat salaries into a political action committee aimed at forcing thru the vote, so as to, in turn, safeguard those very salaries and gold plated pensions (lifetime pensions of 85% of their salaries for their top 3 earning years.)

As usual, the teachers are spinning gloom and doom scenarios if their tax grab fails again -- crumbling buildings, extracurricular activity cuts, bigger class sizes -- the usual.

Never, of course is there ever a murmur of the possibility of these unionized employees of the taxpayers taking actual cuts in their fat salaries -- as was commonplace for teachers during the earlier economic depression of the 1930s and is common today in unionized private sector firms facing economic hardships.

Obama calls it "shared sacrifice". The teachers' own union was abuzz with excitement over Obama's election, but want none of this "shared sacrifice" talk.

Last year we printed their 2010 salaries. Printed below, here, are the 2011 salaries for their 9 month gigs as elementary school teachers. No fat at all here, right?

As before these are provided courtesy of the Family Taxpayer's Foundation Teachers' salary database. You can get more in depth data on the length of service, education specialty etc. at the FTF site.


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West Northfield SD 31 2011 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NAME SALARY
Ament, Arlene $103,261
Aydt, Alicia $61,544
Barbanente, Laura $55,779
Bass, Amanda $56,908
Baumann, Jackie $59,167
Bergman, Janette $90,068