McHenry County Blog

Elected Algonquin Republican precinct committeeman John Ryan has filed nominating petitions for the Carpentersville School District 300 Board.

If, as expected, appointed Algonquin Republican precinct committeeman Mary Fioretti, who is now School Board President, runs, too, it could be quite a contest.

Fioretti’s school board has been under attack both for having grossly overestimated enrollment projects and for meeting inappropriately behind closed doors.

Ryan already has a web site up. It notes both weakness--being attacked by local daily newspapers and calls for accountability.

Ryan also pledges to work for two ethics changes:

I will introduce and work to pass an amendment to the Board’s Conflict Of Interest Policy. Specifically, any individuals or firms doing $5,000 or more in business with the District within a fiscal year shall not contribute to any political campaign that directly affects the District while involved in a business relationship with the District or for a period of two years after completion of business with the District. The District will not enter into significant business (in excess of $5,000) with a company or individual that has contributed to a political campaign that directly affects the District within two years prior to commencing a business relationship. Political campaigns that directly affect the District shall be defined as:

1) School Board elections
2) Tax or bond referendums

I will introduce and work to pass an amendment prohibiting any individual who represents a firm presently engaged in a business relationship with the District from serving on any District committee as long as that business relationship exists. Also, any individual serving on a committee will be required to resign their position should they work towards establishing a business relationship with the District while serving on any District committee.

Additional issues can be found here, including the scare tactics used by the district’s tax hike committee, the widely errant enrollment projections, and bonuses after the successful referendums to top administrators.

The way unit school district board election laws are written, if only two people run from Algonquin Township, only one can win, even if they run one-two in the final election returns.

So, if Fioretti and Ryan are the only two candidates from Algonquin Township it could end up being a one-on-one race between the two.

In any event, only one can be elected.

This makes a large assumption and that is that Ryan can be competitive with Fioretti.

He is a local political figure, while she has been active district-wide for such a long time.

This probably explains why Ryan is asking people to cast a bullet vote for him, voting for no one else.

Volunteers are solicited and it appears that in the future there will be a place for people to comment.

And, finally, to my surprise I find a link link to McHenry County Blog, not to mention recent Northwest Herald articles about faulty enrollment projections and inappropriate secret meetings.

Labels: District 300, John Ryan, Mary Fioretti