Oct 15, 2023·edited Oct 15, 2023Liked by Tom Hayden
It makes zero sense that they raised the funds 19 months ago and have yet to put a shovel in the ground. This is not how construction financing works and indicates there is a much bigger problem.
Yeah this seems pretty egregious that they took the money with like .. no plan? I guess it makes sense if you assume Horton never really wanted to build the school to begin with.
Technically he would be correct because before the 08 crisis, he took out mortgages on worthless properties, refinanced them for cash and then defaulted on the payments. This is what led to his first bankrupcty:
Remember that the superintendent at the time of his hire had a well-publicized issue with his own real estate side business owing tens of thousands of dollars to creditors.
Of course since the board hired him without first revealing his name to the public there was no way for citizens to ask simple questions about his qualifications.
When Horton described the lease certificates as ‘miraculous’ that should have been all anyone needed to know about their viability and appropriateness.
Unfortunately the board is so dismissive of the public and empirical evidence we are stuck with this mess.
We are talking about building a brand new state of the art leed designed building when fifty per cent of the students coming into ETHS need remediation and there is a large exodus of students from District 65 schools. This indicates a much larger problem than the school board wishes to acknowledge. If we want to be transparent I.e. see through what its going on let’s look at the larger picture
With regard to your comment about a Wheaton citizen suing their district, was this before or after they proceeded with the securing of funds through the lease certificates? What is the potentiality of a lawsuit brought against our district and board now? What, if anything, could it accomplish? Could the whole project be dismantled? Personally, I don’t think this school is feasible and it’s purpose (to pad resumes) is sketchy and I don’t even think the student population bears out it’s necessity (except if you only consider it to be righting a wrong of yore). Righting this wrong creates more wrongs that in the end will hurt the very population it was intended to serve. I wish we could go back and force a referendum. This whole financial malfeasance makes me so angry. All we read about is how in a few short years both our city and school district will be in absolutely dire financial straights and the city council and administration fiddle while Rome burns. Spending money like they just won the lottery. Taxes are being raised annually, sewer and water predicted to increase 66% over the next few years- it is all absolutely crazy yet seemingly NO ONE CARES.
The Wheaton lawsuit was before they received the funds, which is obviously a relevant point. I have no idea what a lawsuit would do now, I'm not a lawyer!
In my last post, my subtitle was "Can you buy a time machine for $40m" because I get the sense they actually a time machine to go back to the 1960s and change the bussing policy. This whole school is more of a political statement regarding their beliefs regarding 60s era bussing policy than it is anything about kids or schools. Every other District in America worked through this in the 70s and 80s but .. here we are...
There are folks in the fifth ward that have advocated tirelessly for this school for decades now and who can blame them - it would be nice to have a walkable school in your neighborhood! God knows I like having one in mine. But that's not what the Board's intent was with this project...
I know you aren’t a lawyer, i thought maybe you had learned something about this as part of your research. I agree that wasn’t the intent…I happen to live in the affected ward and the school would be racially relevant to me. However, I am still opposed due to population and economic issues. I also can’t help but think that the minute the new and modern school building is in existence, the demographics will change even more… I was here during Dr. Coffin’s tenure when the bussing plan was adopted and at the time, the white parents were not on board with bussing their kids out. The plan that was implemented was going to be the only way to desegregate the schools. This was the same bs that created redlining and every other policy that benefited the affluent white residents. This said, creating a segregated school is not the answer. I don’t really know if there could ever be a right answer. I just know we don’t have the money for this and I don’t want a bigger burden on my family just so my kids can walk to school for 5 years, because the financial implications will last much longer than that. Especially when the current board and admin are long gone, the ward further gentrifies, and no one cares about the school, just the millions in debt we are paying for it long after my kids graduate from college. I have been told I am a glass half full person, but this is how I see it. And I’m not alone here in the neighborhood.
Yes, and not to mention that the whole thing was rejected by voters in 2012 and this entire effort is a fundamentally anti-democratic effort to undo the will of the voters. It's not unreasonable to have another referendum, though..
I think the legal stuff is unknown, not because I'm not a lawyer (I AM just a local idiot) but because it's actually untested legal waters. The whole basis for the lease certificate is that the IL Debt Reform Act supercedes the School Code when it comes to funding construction .. but like, I see no evidence why this is actually true besides claims from various District and Wall St. lawyers, being paid to say that. I don't think anyone has ever really sued and had a court rule on whether this is actually a legitimate funding mechanism. The case in Wheaton settled long before reaching that point.
I think if someone sued, literally anything could happen because there's not a ton of law on this. There is really no lease certificate situation like this before in the history of Illinois. Evanston, always the political innovators..
We need demand a forensic audit of the entire spending of District 65. There's either incompetence, embezzling, willful lying or all three going on at the District Administration office.
I can’t attend but will watch the video. I wonder if there is a prepayment penalty? It’s hard to imagine but what if they paid back the principal and started over the “right way?”
In the RoundTable article on the “dedication “ ceremony for the school it says: “ Stepping to the lectern one final time, Horton said that back in 2020, when he had just arrived in Evanston, the school board gave him the all-important task of returning a school to the Fifth Ward, even though a funding source had not been identified at that point.”
So Horton says the Board gave him this task at the time of hire. Was there any discussion of the school in the board meeting minutes in 2020?
Was there any mention of the need for a new school during the superintendent search?
A non-public search, a hire with zero experience as a superintendent. The fix was in.
So the efforts to build this school date back to 2012, after the referendum failed that year. There were alot of efforts, things like STEM Schools, etc. The ECF funded some research into funding in 2020-21, and that ended up on Hortons desk, which is what got this current iteration going..
It would have been helpful if the board publicly scheduled the meeting further in advance, so more people could make plans to attend.
I think that's the whole point!
It makes zero sense that they raised the funds 19 months ago and have yet to put a shovel in the ground. This is not how construction financing works and indicates there is a much bigger problem.
Yeah this seems pretty egregious that they took the money with like .. no plan? I guess it makes sense if you assume Horton never really wanted to build the school to begin with.
Bc in Horton’s miraculous world, it’s free. Because that’s how loans work. Financial misfeasance.
Technically he would be correct because before the 08 crisis, he took out mortgages on worthless properties, refinanced them for cash and then defaulted on the payments. This is what led to his first bankrupcty:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17AONCBkdWQm0ihmxCnhy8zmWbONBg6IRbBmcykDRLd0/edit#gid=0
Perhaps we could try this scheme!! Let's refinance the empty field
Remember that the superintendent at the time of his hire had a well-publicized issue with his own real estate side business owing tens of thousands of dollars to creditors.
Of course since the board hired him without first revealing his name to the public there was no way for citizens to ask simple questions about his qualifications.
When Horton described the lease certificates as ‘miraculous’ that should have been all anyone needed to know about their viability and appropriateness.
Unfortunately the board is so dismissive of the public and empirical evidence we are stuck with this mess.
Before 2008, he participated in a scheme that was pretty close to mortgage fraud. See the records for yourself. This led to his first bankruptcy.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17AONCBkdWQm0ihmxCnhy8zmWbONBg6IRbBmcykDRLd0/edit#gid=0
After 2008, his second bankruptcy was due to not maintaining worthless properties and piling up fees.
We are talking about building a brand new state of the art leed designed building when fifty per cent of the students coming into ETHS need remediation and there is a large exodus of students from District 65 schools. This indicates a much larger problem than the school board wishes to acknowledge. If we want to be transparent I.e. see through what its going on let’s look at the larger picture
With regard to your comment about a Wheaton citizen suing their district, was this before or after they proceeded with the securing of funds through the lease certificates? What is the potentiality of a lawsuit brought against our district and board now? What, if anything, could it accomplish? Could the whole project be dismantled? Personally, I don’t think this school is feasible and it’s purpose (to pad resumes) is sketchy and I don’t even think the student population bears out it’s necessity (except if you only consider it to be righting a wrong of yore). Righting this wrong creates more wrongs that in the end will hurt the very population it was intended to serve. I wish we could go back and force a referendum. This whole financial malfeasance makes me so angry. All we read about is how in a few short years both our city and school district will be in absolutely dire financial straights and the city council and administration fiddle while Rome burns. Spending money like they just won the lottery. Taxes are being raised annually, sewer and water predicted to increase 66% over the next few years- it is all absolutely crazy yet seemingly NO ONE CARES.
The Wheaton lawsuit was before they received the funds, which is obviously a relevant point. I have no idea what a lawsuit would do now, I'm not a lawyer!
In my last post, my subtitle was "Can you buy a time machine for $40m" because I get the sense they actually a time machine to go back to the 1960s and change the bussing policy. This whole school is more of a political statement regarding their beliefs regarding 60s era bussing policy than it is anything about kids or schools. Every other District in America worked through this in the 70s and 80s but .. here we are...
There are folks in the fifth ward that have advocated tirelessly for this school for decades now and who can blame them - it would be nice to have a walkable school in your neighborhood! God knows I like having one in mine. But that's not what the Board's intent was with this project...
I know you aren’t a lawyer, i thought maybe you had learned something about this as part of your research. I agree that wasn’t the intent…I happen to live in the affected ward and the school would be racially relevant to me. However, I am still opposed due to population and economic issues. I also can’t help but think that the minute the new and modern school building is in existence, the demographics will change even more… I was here during Dr. Coffin’s tenure when the bussing plan was adopted and at the time, the white parents were not on board with bussing their kids out. The plan that was implemented was going to be the only way to desegregate the schools. This was the same bs that created redlining and every other policy that benefited the affluent white residents. This said, creating a segregated school is not the answer. I don’t really know if there could ever be a right answer. I just know we don’t have the money for this and I don’t want a bigger burden on my family just so my kids can walk to school for 5 years, because the financial implications will last much longer than that. Especially when the current board and admin are long gone, the ward further gentrifies, and no one cares about the school, just the millions in debt we are paying for it long after my kids graduate from college. I have been told I am a glass half full person, but this is how I see it. And I’m not alone here in the neighborhood.
Yes, and not to mention that the whole thing was rejected by voters in 2012 and this entire effort is a fundamentally anti-democratic effort to undo the will of the voters. It's not unreasonable to have another referendum, though..
I think the legal stuff is unknown, not because I'm not a lawyer (I AM just a local idiot) but because it's actually untested legal waters. The whole basis for the lease certificate is that the IL Debt Reform Act supercedes the School Code when it comes to funding construction .. but like, I see no evidence why this is actually true besides claims from various District and Wall St. lawyers, being paid to say that. I don't think anyone has ever really sued and had a court rule on whether this is actually a legitimate funding mechanism. The case in Wheaton settled long before reaching that point.
I think if someone sued, literally anything could happen because there's not a ton of law on this. There is really no lease certificate situation like this before in the history of Illinois. Evanston, always the political innovators..
We need demand a forensic audit of the entire spending of District 65. There's either incompetence, embezzling, willful lying or all three going on at the District Administration office.
I can’t attend but will watch the video. I wonder if there is a prepayment penalty? It’s hard to imagine but what if they paid back the principal and started over the “right way?”
I have a hard time believing the bondholders would let them off that easily. They're gonna make $18 million bucks over the course of this lease!
In the RoundTable article on the “dedication “ ceremony for the school it says: “ Stepping to the lectern one final time, Horton said that back in 2020, when he had just arrived in Evanston, the school board gave him the all-important task of returning a school to the Fifth Ward, even though a funding source had not been identified at that point.”
So Horton says the Board gave him this task at the time of hire. Was there any discussion of the school in the board meeting minutes in 2020?
Was there any mention of the need for a new school during the superintendent search?
A non-public search, a hire with zero experience as a superintendent. The fix was in.
So the efforts to build this school date back to 2012, after the referendum failed that year. There were alot of efforts, things like STEM Schools, etc. The ECF funded some research into funding in 2020-21, and that ended up on Hortons desk, which is what got this current iteration going..
Horton revisionism. Just like he revised what happened to the parent who supposedly pulled a gun on him.