No on H6

Big business is sponsoring 72 percent of the Oak Park bond issue campaigns, as of Sept. 30, to the tune of $86,500.

UBS Securities, the bond company, has paid $40,000; Harley Ellis Devereaux, architects, has paid $35,000; and other corporations have paid $11,500. These figures are a matter of public record under the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

The Oak Park PTAs have paid $33,800. I wonder if their members knew they were contributing to a political campaign.

Why are the corporations doing this? Because they do business with the school district, and if the measure passes, they'll do more. Do we need big business like architects, bond companies, insurance agents, and law firms paying for slick campaigns that don't tell the whole truth? That's the way politics is played in Sacramento and Washington, but it doesn't have to be played that way here in Oak Park.

"Repair Oak Park Schools" is the message of the proponents, but by the district's own master plan, they'd be hard-pressed to pay $5 million for repairs.

And they're not accounting for where all of the other $70 million will go.

The Oak Park Library cost less than $2.5 million; now the architect says the new building for Brookside Elementary should cost four times that much, $10 million; for what?

"Repair Oak Park Schools" is a working title; the real title should be "Extreme Makeover-- School Edition."

I urge you to vote no on H6. Glen Wilcox Oak Park

I am writing to express my dismay and disgust at the improper contribution of Oak Park Parent Teacher Association money to the Yes on H6 Campaign.

The Brookside PTA has donated a total of $8,200 to the school bond campaigns, with $5,200 donated for the H6 campaign on Aug. 30, 2006. At no point when the PTA was soliciting money from Brookside parents for the "Just for the Funds" campaign in the letter that teachers handed out on back to school night, or when it proposed its budgets to the PTA membership, did the PTA ever say that it had or was going to use those funds for a political campaign. Instead, it spoke about using those funds for the music teacher and other programs at Brookside which will benefit and educate our children..

The PTA has betrayed the parents from whom it raised money.

I demand that the school bond campaign committee refund every dollar contributed by every PTA in Oak Park Unified School District. (Other OPUSD PTAs contributed an additional $25,000 plus to the bond campaigns.) I also demand that the OPUSD superintendent and school booard demand the refund as well.

No matter what happens to H6, our kids are going to lose because parents such as myself no longer will donate money to our PTAs out of fear that it again will be misapplied to the political campaign of the moment. Donna Klugman Oak Park

The recent Oct. 11 mailing by Oak Park Schools Moving Forward supporting school bond measure H6 is more interesting for what it does not include rather than what information it provides.

The projects listed are essentially the same as reported in The Acorn on Sept. 28, minus the solar panels. If you add up the cost of the projects it would amount to $39.7 million.

What the article and brochure do not account for is the remaining $40-million plus. (Measure H6, $71.1 million, plus state matching funds of $9 million, minus $39.7 million equals $40.4 million).

What the voters must decide on Nov. 7 is: Should the Oak Park property owners take on $71.1 million in debt until the year 2037 when it appears that the current needs (as defined in the brochure) of the school district could be met for $40 million?

The bonding company, architects and lawyers who will benefit from the construction activity think the answer is yes. That is why they have funded over 70 percent of the campaign costs to help pass Measure H6.

H6 requests far more than what is needed to meet the school district's needs as the student population continues to decline.

Please vote "no" on H6. Nadine Suber Oak Park