Not all that many years ago, when one of our local governmental bodies decided it needed to raise or borrow a big chunk of money for some facility or project, its governing officials would commission architects and engineers to design and cost-out the project. Then the officials would vote to put a referendum question on the ballot.

Once that was done, those public officials would print up a couple versions of inexpensive “information sheets” that were relatively neutral and reasonably truthful, run a couple/three/four “public information” sessions” based on that same information, and then step back and let the voters decide.

That’s because something called the Election Interference Prohibition Act, 10 ILCS 5/9-25.1, provides:

“No public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition…[but] shall not prohibit the use of public funds for dissemination of factual information relative to any proposition appearing on an election ballot….”

Not surprisingly, the Maine Township High School District 207 superintendent and Board members – not unlike the politicians who run other local governmental bodies in this “State of Corruption” – have figured what they believe to be a way around that ban: Spend public funds on data generation, polling and messaging under the guise of “community engagement” that can later be used by private citizens to campaign for the referendum. And, to help get away with such deceit, they make sure to lock in contracts to spend that money months before the referendum question is even approved for the ballot.

That’s what Supt. Ken Wallace and his accomplices on the D-207 Board did back at the January 8, 2018, meeting when a three-member majority du jour of Paula Bessler, Jin Lee and Carla Owen voted to approve three contracts for what they vaguely described as – SURPRISE! – “community engagement” services. Only Board member Sean Sullivan voted against it (Yes, that Sean Sullivan; and we’re as shocked as you are!), while members Aurora Austriaco, Teri Collins and Linda Coyle were conveniently MIA.

Because the D-207 Board – unlike the City, the Library, the Park District and even Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 – doesn’t publish its meeting packets, taxpayers had no details of these expenditures in advance of the meeting.

But if you watch Part I of the meeting video, from the 28:35 mark to the 30:18 mark, you will see and hear no meaningful discussion of the reasons for, or merits of, those contracts. Even dissenter Sullivan gave no reasons for his “no” vote, raising doubts about the reasons for, and the legitimacy of, his vote.

According to Item 9A of the minutes of that meeting, however, George K. Baum & Company (“Baum”) got the lion’s share of these public dollars, a $75,000 fee, presumably because a “privately held investment banking firm focused on municipal finance” has the most to gain from a $195 million bond issue. The other two recipients of what appears to have been a package deal were Public Opinion Strategies (“POS,” appropriately enough), hired to perform “Phone Surveys” for $19,500 (see Item 9B of the minutes); and something called Minding Your Business, which was hired to be a “Citizen Task Force Meeting Facilitator” (meaning “manipulator”) at a fee not to exceed $20,000 (see Item 9C of the minutes).

Those three contracts total a shade under $115,000, not counting the out-of-pocket and travel expenses the District agreed to pay Baum, per Paragraph 2 of Exhibit A to Baum’s “Professional Services Agreement”

Not surprisingly, Wallace et al. issued no press releases hailing those contracts and services – which may explain why we can’t find even one newspaper article about them by our Pulitzer Prize winning local reporters. Wallace and the Board obviously didn’t want taxpayers realizing that their tax dollars are being used to buy high-line professionals and a blueprint for a political campaign to win the District’s mega-bucks/mega-debt referendum.

Interestingly enough, Paragraph 1 D of Exhibit A to that Baum agreement contains the following language:

It is expressly understood and agreed that this Agreement does not intend, and is not under any circumstances to be construed as requiring [Baum] to perform or provide any services to or on behalf of [D-207] which may constitute advocacy for or against any future ballot measure campaign.

Why is that language included? Because Baum wants plausible deniability of any accusations – such as this blog’s – that Baum’s “community engagement” efforts are just front-loaded political research designed to give disingenuous public officials – “Hello, Ken Wallace and you D-207 Board members!” – a pre-packaged referendum-related political strategy and campaign initiatives that they can share with whatever group(s) of referendum supporters form up, or are already locked and loaded, thereby end-running (arguably) the Election Interference Prohibition Act.

Want proof?

Let’s start with the 37-page POS “Feasibility of a Ballot Measure” Survey of a whopping 300 likely voters conducted May 19-22, 2018” – two months before the Board voted to go to referendum in November – which can be found on the District’s website and, therefore, is readily accessible to the strongest referendum supporters that POS identifies, at Pages 5-11 of that Survey, as being: “Democrats,” “Independents,” “younger voters,” “women” and “parents.”

Besides targeting the referendum’s strongest supporters, the POS survey also polled what messages and arguments worked best, and worst – the results of which can be seen at Pages 27-35.

But the true “Bottom Line” can be found at Page 37 of the Survey, which calls support for the $195 million bond deal “strong” but labels support for the $135 million deal as “bordering on overwhelming” with, “[n]ot surprisingly, Democrats driv[ing] the support of both funding options.”

In other words, the D-207 Board’s sub rosa strategy that we hinted at in our previous post is to use the $195 million November, high-turnout referendum as basically a stalking horse for a $135 million April 2019, easier-to-win, low-turnout referendum.

That professional strategy cost us taxpayers $115,000, compliments of a dishonest Superintendent and an equally dishonest, or just mindlessly-complicit, D-207 Board that views us taxpayers as clueless dupes to be manipulated into voting for what appears to be the biggest borrowing in District history – in order to make up for almost a decade of Wallace’s (and several flights of Board members’) neglect of the District’s infrastructure.

And compliments of a local press that remains in a coma when it comes to reporting on such dishonesty and mopery.

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