McHenry County Blog

I just posted this on Illinoize, an aggregator of Illinois political blogs and thought you might be interested as well.

Thirty-some years ago, supporters of Illinois campaign disclosure predicted that it would have a self-policing effect.

In other words, once citizens knew about who was financing campaigns, their votes would be affected.

The weak link has always been the media.

It still is in most parts of the state, but this little blog of mine decided to watch contributions to Carpentersville District 300, Woodstock District 200 and McHenry District 15.

And like the candle in the children’s Sunday School song, the shine of its light on District 300 vendors and developers has had an effect. Here’s an index of the stories.

One district tax hike advocate told Northwest Herald reporter Allison Smith—who wrote a wonderful early story about how District 300 tax hikers had a $153,000 budget for a 40-some thousand household area—that

media coverage and online commentary about her group's outreach to local builders and real estate agents made some of them wary.

"Some of the publicity that comes out from 'that group' on the other side gives the erroneous perception that the developers are a front for the district," she said.

"They're gun-shy now."

The story even mentioned McHenry County Blog’s role:

However, it is the developer contributions that have some talking.

Former state Rep. Cal Skinner has bashed the practice through his online forum, McHenryCountyBlog.com, (linking to the blog in its electronic edition).

"Growth does not pay its part of the way," Skinner said. "And these contributions prove it."

Oh, the media can figure out when a conservative they consider a bogyman like Jack Roeser makes a huge contributions (like $200,000 reported last night to Jim Oberweis), but they ignore huge local donations to school tax hike committees. And, those tax hike committees have more impact on most people’s pocket books than anything a partisan politician ever does.

Here’s an example of a story I don’t think has been written yet: the $25,000 Lakewood Homes gave to Citizens for Good Schools & Good Kids, Manteno’s school tax hike committee. It’s big news not only because of its size, but because Lakewood Homes does not even have a subdivision in Manteno yet. Nevertheless, the developer obviously thinks it has a big stake in Kankakee County taxes being raised. Searching for “Lakewood Homes, Manteno” on Google brings up no stories. Perhaps local papers are not searchable or perhaps they will run a story after the election when it will be history, rather than news.

There are numerous tax hike efforts I call “pop-up” committees. They suddenly appear during the campaign season, collect a lot of money, run a campaign to hike taxes, then most fade away.

I found 15 this year.

Are reporters or bloggers looking at them?

Here are some new school tax hike committees:
Byron Referendum Committee
Caring About the Schools (C.A.T.S.) – Wilmington
Citizens for District 7 Schools - Edwardsville
Citizens for Riverside Brookfield High School
Committee to Preserve River Forest Schools
District 205 Referendum Committee - Elmhurst
Friends of ECC - Elgin Community College
204 the Kids - Naperville’s Indian Prairie District
Our Children Our Future - Berwyn
Our Children: Our Investment – McHenry Grade School
Plano New ERA Committee
Yes for Kids Campaign – Triad School District

And to support other tax hike proposals:
Citizens for Boone County Fire
Friends of the Park Ridge Park District
T & C Library Referendum Committee – Elburn

Plus one for an anti-Home Rule effort:
Downers Grove Information Network

Has your blog had an effect on local referendums or elections?