Mokena School District 159 Board of Education candidate Stacy Cesta addressed concerns that fellow candidates distributed literature attacking her campaign platform during the public comment portion of the school board’s Feb. 20 meeting.
“It saddens me that there’s already negative stuff,” Cesta told the board.
Cesta was referring to a campaign brochure for candidate team Mark Franceschini, an incumbent, and Bob Swale, who are running for two of the four school board seats opening up in April.
The literature was distributed as part of Franceschini and Swale's door-to-door canvassing efforts and states that a vote for Cesta or for candidate Anna Briscoe is a vote for “‘Yes’ on increase taxes.” Of candidate Jim Andresen, the brochure says “More spending = deficit.”
Franceschini and Swale told Patch that the brochures were designed to bring a discussion of taxes to the forefront. The candidate team said they are concerned that Cesta and Briscoe will formulate a referendum campaign if they are elected, because they lobbied in favor of the district referendum in 2011.
“We believe that we need to bring the issues up,” said Swale.
Briscoe told Patch that the campaign literature is inaccurate and that she and Cesta were targeted by Franceshini and Swale. Cesta said that she has not yet officially published a candidate platform.
“I don’t need anybody bashing me,” said Briscoe. “This is about the children of our school district and our community.”
The portion of the brochure about which Briscoe and Cesta are concerned is formatted to resemble an election ballot. However, candidates Jeff Regan, an incumbent, and Danielle Didrickson are not included on the brochure ballot and the names of Cesta, Briscoe and Andresen are spelled incorrectly.
Swale told Patch that the decision to include specific candidates and not others was based on space allotment and his and Franceschini’s knowledge of candidate opinions surrounding the referendum issue. He said that there was no specific reason for the misspellings.
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- People who are against tax increases are selfish and should be glad to pay more. - That our older citizens should move south instead of living in their current community - You make personal attacks against people you do not know by calling them 'retarded' instead of making solid points on the comments page. - You are also making the point through your responses that Franceschini and Swale are right: this is about an upcoming tax increase just look at your quote Jack: ".....chose Mokena because it has the lowest tax rate compared to the other LW-feeder school towns. Which is why we need to keep our school quality up if we want our house values to be competitive to other areas. I don't think larger classroom sizes compared to other surrounding schools, outdated (12 yr old) textbooks put us on the map either. Add poor morale and lack of support from people like you and our town is not looking too optimal for young families." If any statement is building momentum for a "tax increase" that is it. Why do you think enrollment is going down Jack, in this town and across the state? It's because of the taxes. Businesses cannot afford the high taxes in this state and they leave. So raising taxes will exacerbate the situation. So if you want young families, you need quality schools as you said and low taxes. Young families I know avoided Mokena because of the taxes. They chose New Lenox instead.
The young families that you know that chose New Lenox were willing to pay alot more in taxes for a good school system. So, what is your point?
You talk about "big boy" "big girl pants." I ask you this: why was there a $2M deficit in 2011 that got turned around into a $100K surplus in 18 months? Perhaps the "old board" orchestrated by Perry was a rubber stamp and populated by people that accepted everything she said at face value? It seems the people who are wearing the big boy/girl pants are those that have the wherewithal to say no to something; instead of going along with the program for years. In regard to solutions to problems: Why is it when the old board was in charge, 9 year old textbooks (now 12 according to Jack) were not a problem then but they are now? Maybe some solutions are things like ebooks, which have new info in them each year at less cost? How come the pros as Jack calls them, who he says should provide the budgets the board should pass, haven't jumped at ebooks? Maybe because they don't know or maybe because they haven't been pressured to know? Holding the professionals accountable is the board's job, not being all pleasant and saying "What do you want?" and then voting in favor without question.
Comments that include offensive or derogatory terms are in violation of Patch's terms of use and will be deleted. Thank you for reading, Anna
Point IS: The Three Candidates a prone to advocate TAX INCREASES. However informing voters of their choices, as the ballot did, is a terrible thing! Did anyone notice the candidates mentioned say ANYTHING was NOT TRUE? So let the voters know you stood and stand for Tax Increases and Let the VOTERS decide who should represent them. Maybe the candidate’s supporters DRAG this WAY off TOPIC as You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on. Swale and Franceschini are for living within the budget, the others have tried to increase the budget. (easy way out). It sure looks that way with the PRO REF activities and statements made.