Hartford’s Latest School Referendum Looks Familiar

Since we’re talking about school boards this morning…

Take a look at the school referendum on the ballot in Hartford.  The school board is asking to borrow $24,952,000 for the purpose of acquiring land and to permanently exceed the revenue limits by $593,000 for the operating costs of a new elementary school. 

Does any of this sound familiar?  It should, because this is the exact same referendum that was on the ballot in November of last year.  It failed in November 65% to 35%.  And yet the the school board didn’t even have the courtesy of modifying the referendum to take the citizens’ concerns about it into consideration.  They just threw the exact same referendum on the ballot to see if it will pass this time. 

It’s pretty easy to see why by the school board president’s comments about the failure of the referendum last time. 

“I’m very disappointed,” School Board President Kate Carroll said. “We had a soft sell approach, and it didn’t work. We didn’t have a phone campaign. There were no yard signs, and no political action committee was formed.”

If it makes her feel any better, they tried the hard sell in West Bend and that didn’t work either.  But notice the utter arrogance of that statement.  It doesn’t even appear to cross her mind that the citizens voted against the referendum because they disagreed with it.  In her mind, the problem was that they didn’t sell it hard enough.  It reminds me of the attitude of some of the supporters of West Bend’s past school referendum who were convinced that if people were properly “informed,” then they couldn’t possibly oppose the referendum.

It is precisely this attitude that has led to the Hartford School Board’s decision to put a referendum on the ballot that is identical to one that the voters overwhelmingly rejected a few months ago.  If I lived in Hartford, I’d vote against this referendum and then put Kate Carroll out to pasture at the first opportunity.  She obviously isn’t terribly concerned with what the citizens want for their school district. 

1. Just like the IRA used to say, you have to be lucky every single time.  We only have to get lucky once.

   Posted by Brian J. on March 22, 2008 at 1419 hrs




2. First, Thanks so much for taking the time to post on this.

   I am amazed at the “no yard signs” comment. If only it was that easy to get rid of a governor.
   But seriously- they have yard signs now on Hwy 60 at least.

   To steal a wonderful line from Scott Walker, hopefully on April 1 the fools will stay home (poetic license considered).

   Posted by on March 22, 2008 at 2218 hrs