Tuesday, August 29, 2006
District 300 Hires Northwest Herald’s Allison Smith to Run Public Relations
8/29/6 - At last night’s school board meeting, Superintendent Ken Arndt welcomed Northwest Herald reporter Allison Smith as the new communications director for District 300.
Smith covered School District 300 for the Northwest Herald during the past referendum and gave the tax hikers fits.
She will be paid $60,707, which has to be a substantial increase from her Northwest Herald salary, where she worked about three years. She starts her new job Sept. 5th.
She must be getting at least a 50% pay hike. And, that’s assuming that the Northwest Herald pays a lot better than I think they do.
Maybe she doubled or almost doubled her salary (as would be the case if she were earning $30,000 before).
There was a good political reason for District 300’s hiring of Allison Smith.
This will prevent articles like the one I link to below, dated January 26th. That one revealed that the District 300 tax hike committee’s budget was $153,000. Making that information public did not help the tax hike supporters. (It is the biggest school tax hike campaign budget I have ever seen.)
Here’s were you can find that article and some of the other reasons for District 300’s wanting to hire Allison Smith:
January 26, 2006 - Who Wants to Raise Your Taxes in District 300?
February 13, 2006 - Low-Balling State Aid to Education
March 12, 2006 - Northwest Herald Confirms Developers & Vendors Financing District 300 Tax Hikers
March 12, 2006 - How’d You Like to Wake Up to This on Sunday Morning, If You Were Running the District 300 Tax Hike Campaign?
March 15, 2006 - Blog Deters Tax Hiker Cash
Of course, I was reporting the campaign contributions, as well, but it was helpful to have Allison Smith’s Northwest Herald articles to link to. You can get a flavor of that from this election day post on McHenry County Blog:
March 21, 2006 - District 300 Tax Hike Committee Makes Fund Raising Goal with $2,500 from (Hold Your Breath) Another Developer
Part of Smith’s job will undoubtedly be to minimize the impact of stories like she wrote prior to the referendum.
A recent story was a soft piece about how fellow employees were putting monkeys in Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Crates’ office.
The article had this paragraph:
(I would have thought people would have been interested in how much was collected and spent 1 and 2 and the tremendous amount left over for school board elections and/or the next tax hike referendum.)
I find it sad that a reporter has to leave reporting to earn what he or she thinks is needed to live the lifestyle he or she desires.
Smith covered School District 300 for the Northwest Herald during the past referendum and gave the tax hikers fits.
She will be paid $60,707, which has to be a substantial increase from her Northwest Herald salary, where she worked about three years. She starts her new job Sept. 5th.
She must be getting at least a 50% pay hike. And, that’s assuming that the Northwest Herald pays a lot better than I think they do.
Maybe she doubled or almost doubled her salary (as would be the case if she were earning $30,000 before).
There was a good political reason for District 300’s hiring of Allison Smith.
This will prevent articles like the one I link to below, dated January 26th. That one revealed that the District 300 tax hike committee’s budget was $153,000. Making that information public did not help the tax hike supporters. (It is the biggest school tax hike campaign budget I have ever seen.)
Here’s were you can find that article and some of the other reasons for District 300’s wanting to hire Allison Smith:
January 26, 2006 - Who Wants to Raise Your Taxes in District 300?
February 13, 2006 - Low-Balling State Aid to Education
March 12, 2006 - Northwest Herald Confirms Developers & Vendors Financing District 300 Tax Hikers
March 12, 2006 - How’d You Like to Wake Up to This on Sunday Morning, If You Were Running the District 300 Tax Hike Campaign?
March 15, 2006 - Blog Deters Tax Hiker Cash
Of course, I was reporting the campaign contributions, as well, but it was helpful to have Allison Smith’s Northwest Herald articles to link to. You can get a flavor of that from this election day post on McHenry County Blog:
March 21, 2006 - District 300 Tax Hike Committee Makes Fund Raising Goal with $2,500 from (Hold Your Breath) Another Developer
Part of Smith’s job will undoubtedly be to minimize the impact of stories like she wrote prior to the referendum.
A recent story was a soft piece about how fellow employees were putting monkeys in Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Crates’ office.
The article had this paragraph:
Zettler said she found the Fioretti comment so entertaining that her new e-mail name is "brmonkeys." But she denied being the self-dubbed "backroom monkies" visitor to Cal Skinner's conservative blog, www.mchenrycountyblog.comPerhaps it is significant that she did not write a story in July about how much the District 300 tax hike committee spent, but, then, again, neither did anyone else.
(I would have thought people would have been interested in how much was collected and spent 1 and 2 and the tremendous amount left over for school board elections and/or the next tax hike referendum.)
I find it sad that a reporter has to leave reporting to earn what he or she thinks is needed to live the lifestyle he or she desires.
Comments:
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District 300 is wasting money on a public relations person when they had one for free.
How pathetic. I hope readers of the Northwest Herald will keep this in mind when reading future reports that so blatantly support school referenda.
The below was posted on the CRAFT Blog on August 11th. http://citizensforreasonableandfairtaxes.blogspot.com/2006/08/monkey-business-afoot-in-d-300-monkey.html
Monkey business afoot in D-300 - Monkey Business afoot at the Northwest Herald
The following piece appeared in the Northwest Herald. Allison Smith's bias continues to be all too apparent in her reporting. What a deal D - 300 has a public relations person working for the local paper without having to pay her one dime. Equally disgusting is that D - 300 and Crates think that depriving hard earned dollars from D -300 residents based on half-truths, shoddy accounting and extremely poor projections to pass the referenda is something to joke about.
Cathy
How pathetic. I hope readers of the Northwest Herald will keep this in mind when reading future reports that so blatantly support school referenda.
The below was posted on the CRAFT Blog on August 11th. http://citizensforreasonableandfairtaxes.blogspot.com/2006/08/monkey-business-afoot-in-d-300-monkey.html
Monkey business afoot in D-300 - Monkey Business afoot at the Northwest Herald
The following piece appeared in the Northwest Herald. Allison Smith's bias continues to be all too apparent in her reporting. What a deal D - 300 has a public relations person working for the local paper without having to pay her one dime. Equally disgusting is that D - 300 and Crates think that depriving hard earned dollars from D -300 residents based on half-truths, shoddy accounting and extremely poor projections to pass the referenda is something to joke about.
Cathy
Okay - so Ms. Smith gets paid for PR instead of taking the money and putting it toward books or something?
This PR thing comes up over and over again.
School Districts have all the "free" PR they need.
Newsletters only tell what they want you to know.
Reporters (usually) only tell what the District wants them to know.
Board Members - been there and done that it previous posts.....
Teachers and Administrators and Board Members are talented at doing coffees, meetings, etc. that all encourage people to be one big happy family - instead of business people serving the public. (It's harder to fire a friend, demand accountability, or refuse them raises and benefits - especially when they have your kids all day.)
Developers enjoying telling potential buyers that their projects are in excellent or exemplary Districts - even though the ISBE doesn't even have criteria for those "ratings".
And Districts have Foundations, PTAs, PTOs, etc. etc.
And Ms. Smith is getting paid for what?
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This PR thing comes up over and over again.
School Districts have all the "free" PR they need.
Newsletters only tell what they want you to know.
Reporters (usually) only tell what the District wants them to know.
Board Members - been there and done that it previous posts.....
Teachers and Administrators and Board Members are talented at doing coffees, meetings, etc. that all encourage people to be one big happy family - instead of business people serving the public. (It's harder to fire a friend, demand accountability, or refuse them raises and benefits - especially when they have your kids all day.)
Developers enjoying telling potential buyers that their projects are in excellent or exemplary Districts - even though the ISBE doesn't even have criteria for those "ratings".
And Districts have Foundations, PTAs, PTOs, etc. etc.
And Ms. Smith is getting paid for what?
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