26 Reasons Why Challenging This School District Was a Mistake - Voices Cary Illinois Live w/ Randy Scott
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Hi there, my name is Randy Scott. Welcome to Voices Carry Live. I am broadcasting to
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you from the beautiful village of Kerry. This is a podcast, it's an independent venture
from me to you to try to bridge the gap between social media and talking with your neighbor.
I started this about a year ago now. I leased this industrial place. I turned it into an
office and a studio in the hopes of doing just that, to have our community talk. And for those
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of you that are tuning in for answers for stuff that you see online and stuff, I had a heart to
heart with all of you last show. And a lot of the answers are in there. And if any of you have more
questions, there's a live text and call in. So feel free to do that. I wanted to stick to the issues.
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And I have this overlay here before I get into the meat and potatoes of what I'm going to be
focusing on today. It's about the school districts, specifically school district 26, a school district
of which this scoreboard once stood tall and proud on. And touching off the points on here,
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it says vote Scott for March 17 through the April 1. And there's some bullet points. And I wanted
to go through them with you. Reduce bureaucracy. What do I mean by that? Usually you hear that term
at a federal level. And there's really no different at a local level. You don't have as many
tentacles per se within the organization. But what we see at a local level is that it's not just
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unelected officials within government that are pulling strings, but it's unelected organizations
and corporations and influence from state funding and other things that put the thumb on the scale
of why people deem it necessary to grow or to do other things in town and to go through the motions
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of listening to voices and then not really cutting that into the fold completely. The other, and the
red tape, like we need to, that's actually our, you can't see it right there, that stack of paper
stack of paper right there. It's actually not 800 pages anymore. I had to use some for printing,
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but that is our village code is over 800 pages. And going through that with a fine tooth comb,
it was put together by a service. It's pretty much a blanket for communities that are wishing
to conform to the new Anytown USA that you're starting to see all across America. And what I
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want to do is go through that with a fine tooth comb. And it's not that I'm against safety
regulations. I'm all for exceeding, not just meeting, but exceeding fire code stuff. Making
sure when you go to sleep at night, your electrical work's not going to catch on fire. There's other
stuff in there that's kind of overstepping, that's just waiting in the bushes to be activated.
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And just to go through with a fine tooth comb, get some pruners out and responsibly
shave off things that are overreaching to you, your family, your property, and to also businesses.
Some of the things I went through with my local business, if that's any indication of what's
going on at an industrial level, like when you're hiring hundreds of people, we have a problem.
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We need to secure those and make them feel welcome to where they're not
putting feelers out to be like, hey, should we move? We need to have frequent meetings with them
and make sure that because if they were to move it, that'd be something like,
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it'd be a big impact on our community. And we're very thankful for industrial and small
businesses alike. I think we should have frequent meetings with them so stuff doesn't brew
and start to percolate to where, I don't know why I'm using coffee terms, over time.
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That's one of the things that I saw was that if somebody just, right down the street,
instead of putting out memorandums and legal terms, one of the things I was against was
watching, you'll see the intro after I get done with this go through, you'll see the intro of
what we used to have and carry a long time ago. And I think if they saw, fast forward, if they saw
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800 pages on the books of regulation and everything else, and how we've carried ourselves,
they would be very disappointed. What else do we have? Back to basics, priority you.
There's a lot of fancy footwork to get these incentives and to make everybody happy.
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There's a lot of stuff that I haven't really gotten into, meaning that I've found it and I haven't
spoke about it because it's all part of the machine. We're a product of the machine.
And I really don't hold specific people
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to account for that because I consider it part of the human tradition. We're always
fighting for that other dollar. And
whether it be to make our family life better or sometimes it's greed,
it's just something that we have to address and to roll back and acknowledge that human condition
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and to take a stand for getting back to basics, getting back to the street in front of your house.
And the street in front of your house isn't just potholes to me. It's the school buses that go on
there. Are we taking care of our school district, which we're going to talk about today?
Are we taking care of public works? They work their butt off. I've shared the story.
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There was a street light that was out and I put in a work request. Next day they were up there
changing the damn light bulb. We have so many people that are out there that are not working.
They're not changing the damn light bulb. We have so many. That's one of the reasons why that this all
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stuck with me up until a point because I never went public with it because going public with it means
a blanket. And it shouldn't be a blanket. It's just the machine.
You can only do as much as the person above you allows you to do.
Or the organization itself allows you to do. So that's why I never call out.
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There's sometimes you can call out individuals, but it's mainly the human condition and the machine
that needs to be addressed. And that's why I've never taken to social media on the business side
or personally to air this out because those folks that walk into the village to work every day to make
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Carrie wonderful how it is should not be subject to that as much as I wanted to share the story
and stories with you. I didn't want to do that to our town to where I was like just
laying it all out there. And it's still like a careful rollout of like getting back to the
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priority you on the streets. School buses, public works, police, fire, making sure that they know
that they have the full backing of the municipality to where they know that they can do their job.
And mistakes are going to happen. But I'm a firm believer that if like when I worked at the hospital,
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you're always with the patient's interest in mind, top of mind.
And if you act with the residents top of mind, just like how our superintendent said, Brandon Bruce,
our Dr. White, Superintendent of School District 26, he's really trying to turn this ship.
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And he's pulling that lever to try to get them throwing coal in the engine bay.
He said, if you act with the children in mind, it's very rarely that you're going to go wrong.
And that's what I want to bring into the village to where we don't, right now we have a,
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like when I was a firefighter, there's something called a unified command. That's where
the police and the fire and whatever other resources, the heads are in the same room together.
And it's very powerful. And I, we need to, we need to be able to do that.
So, working together as part of us, as part of this organization.
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Repaired school district relationships, we're going to get into that. But just as a brief thing is
that we've done some damage to our school districts. Not just monetary, but morale's down
after looking through all this stuff. Morale's down. It makes future discussions tense.
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And if we go through another four years of what I'm about to roll out to you,
what we put our school district through, we're going to be,
like our kids are already behind a little bit from COVID.
We're going to, we're not going to be helping that cause to move the goalpost forward.
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Never home rule candidate. I was debating whether or not to say never for the following reason,
because it's a population based thing. I was always against home rule. There's a whole
discussion about taxes and whatnot. I didn't really get into that too much. I was just concerned
about the levers that it gave this current organization, the levers that they were able to
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pull since their track record hasn't really been aligned with the residents. That's why I was,
the overall voter turnout for that against home rule was, it was a mandate.
And what we saw from that was, it's like, okay, well, we're going to have to do a
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little bit of a
mandate. And what we saw from that was, it's like, okay, well, we got that, they said no.
But now, then they immediately went to the drawing board of like, well, how can we work around this?
It's tone deaf. You're tone deaf to your residents. And you need to have the finger on the pulse of
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your community to where it's like, that's an indication, that's a mandate. That's a signal.
You have to work that in to where you're not just, because there's always a work around.
And if you don't have that vision and that strength to stay on track, you're going to just
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always try to find a work around, which there's plenty of them. I mean,
you just need to have that strong sense of, your compass needs to be pointed north.
And not come along stranger things to where it starts moving around.
Because then you start looking for other things. Like if, stranger things, you never,
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if they never had the compass issue, they would have been fine. But the compass turned away
towards the government facility and they're like, oh, what's over here? You need to have a compass
that never veers off. Small town values. That's, like the video of the intro that you'll see after
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this intro. You just, you see the community. You see before smartphones, before tablets,
before computers, before AI, before surveillance, before tracking, it was just
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like the baseball fields over here. I looked at old aerials of the baseball field and it was
even before baseball fields were officially built, there was just a path of a baseball field.
And I was thinking to myself, where do we see like a beaten path anymore in parks? We don't see
kids just putting paths in and like putting baseball fields in and like getting out there
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and doing it. We need to get back to basics and getting back to basics at a government level as
well. It goes back to priority you. To stop doing the ballet and of all the deal making and stuff,
it complicates things because it takes time and resources. When you take that time and resources
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and you put it towards other projects like your New Haven project and you put it towards Maplewood
and you put it towards, Maplewood was just a full on assault against the school district
over the course of 14 years and I have the receipts here.
And the reason why I say that they picked the wrong school district was because I'm a product
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of that school district and I'm here with my hat in the ring saying not so fast.
So we're bringing back small town.
Homes not high rises. I think that's something that I, a mayor is like a cheerleader for the
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community. He or she also needs to be a CEO of the organization but it also comes back to leadership
and not to be a cheerleader within the community. And it doesn't mean just making your rounds at
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drinking events and stuff like that. I'm not a huge drinker so I don't have those relationships
but it's being a cheerleader. Like I did 10 years of in town work and I'm a cheerleader.
And I think I shook my opponent's hand for the first time five months ago.
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I want to be, I want to like frequent just go in and go on a few calls, be like you know
what do you guys need and talking with the chief, you know, where can we do better? You want to set
up some trainings, police and fire and public works. You know I'm a nerd. I want to find out
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how public works operates like the water handlers and stuff. How can we like with the technology,
I want to bring those standards up. And I'm going to touch on that again in a little bit.
Homes not high rises. The reason why I brought up that was the cheerleader aspect of it is because
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I can't just come and be like there's a few lovers there but it's like that's not how you
win friends and influence people. The board, the elected board,
needs to have a stronger voice to do independent thinking
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and make those decisions based on what they see for the public because they all live in the community.
And sometimes they run unopposed. I want to get parents involved. I want to get parents,
like when these things go out there, I want to get them involved. I want to get them involved.
Like when these things go out for election, I want to be doing like hey an election's coming up,
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not just keep it on the down low. Even for mayor, like I want to be opposed. You know I created,
I tried to create more time with my family and I with opening a business so I could you know,
let's be honest, schools, I wanted you know to do homeschooling and I'm still kind of have that foot
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in that camp. And I'm personally pissed that not just on a national level that the schools have
been neglected but at a local level that we've put that hardship through on these school on the
school district especially with my relationship. I was with them because I went through district 26 and 155
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and I want to stand up for them. I want to take that parent at home that is now considering
homeschooling because of maybe some of the national things they see or some of the local things they
see that we're going to go over. The left hand's not talking to the right here and I don't blame
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you if you're considering homeschooling. And what I want to do is get in there and repair those
relationships and essentially be like what do you need? And then formally compose a letter on
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village of Cary letterhead apologizing for what we put them through. So that's that's on their books.
So that they have that. And then putting things in place to where that this never happens again.
And then tying into the school district and the water quality thing. It's not really water quality.
We do have we have great water here. Like I said we have great public works.
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But I think with new technology and the new regulations we can kind of roll that out.
And with the with the school district it makes me think back to like the
school district it makes me think back to like Three Oaks school. I was in Three Oaks school.
I can take you to the water fountain right now. I'm standing in line between class waiting to go
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to like computer lab and I'm drinking water. I remember drinking water at this water fountain at Three Oaks.
And now that I have all this scaffolding on which I'm standing on to try to bring to you and implement
to where it works better for the community. And I see I've seen behind the curtain
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that water means more to me than just water. I'm like
that kid that's drinking at that water fountain that has no recollection of
village operations and all this BS.
When they get old enough to to realize and to to dig in to their school district.
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I want them to never have the spread. Of disgusting. Of of what we put our district through.
So when that kid grows up.
They knew that the adults in the room knew what the hell they were doing.
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So that's my bullet points there.
It I'm I'm passionate about it. I'm I got some receipts here.
We'll have some fun. We'll go through it. I'll show you this. I guess I won't. I'll fix that.
And welcome to Voices Carry Life.
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It's
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Hi
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The next Metro train approaching your station will be a Metro Express train and will not
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stop.
Welcome to Voices Carry Live.
My name is Randy Scott.
I am broadcasting to you live from the Village of Carry.
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Beautiful Village of Carry.
This is your megaphone and microphone.
I want to be a conduit for you to have your voices heard and get cut into the fold, cut
into the deck of decision making within our village.
And it was nice to get some of that off my chest about what I have seen and what we're
going to focus on today.
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The title, 26 Reasons Why Challenging the School District was a Mistake.
I'm going to try to give you a lay of the land here of what the school district has
been put through.
It goes back a ways, but I'm going to try my best to keep it consolidated, no pun intended.
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And here we go.
So this is the Maplewood property.
And we all know it for its baseball fields and the beautiful old school.
And this was what District 26 had wanted to do.
This was their rendering of what they were fighting for to get the village to agree.
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And they had 14 years of, ever since this building was listed for sale, which going
back to there was financial constraints and zoning issues.
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And going all the way back to 2009 when our first TIF district was put into place, and
a TIF district essentially takes tax dollars and puts it into a separate account so that
those tax dollars don't go to schools and other resources.
They go to improving that area of what that zone was created for.
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And when they drew that zone out, it took some dollars away from the school district.
So 2009 you have your first one, and that lasted 23 years.
And then they started another one with some of the same zoning, and then now we're under
one right now.
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And our superintendent for District 26 did everything he could until he was met with
a letter I'm going to show you that starts off friendly, and I've been on the receiving
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end of some of those, and then it turns into litigation talk.
And that's something that we don't do to our school district.
That's something that we don't do to our residents.
That's something we don't do to our business owners.
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So here's District 26, Maplewood property.
They wanted to add parking, a school building, a play area, keep some ball fields.
This field is actually the one where this scoreboard is from.
Fun fact.
And then you have your bus lot that they wanted to build.
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So what happened was Cary gave the school district 5.5 million, and it was originally
five or no, it was 5.5 and then Aldi where they wanted to move this bus lot to Aldi,
which the land agreements have already happened.
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And the bus lot idea, Aldi was like, no.
It's in our contract that next to us, we already put the infrastructure of like the roads going
to nowhere because we were planning on having something other than just buses sitting.
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We wanted to have customers, like minded people shopping.
So they said that's 50 grand to get out of that contract.
So then they went back to the drawing board.
They got their money.
Then now it's all the land agreements have been.
But I think the ink's still a little wet on that.
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So what happened here was that now, okay, here's 5.5 million for your bus lot.
We move that to Aldi.
Let's go into Aldi.
And I was considering, I always played devil's advocate.
I was like, is this, okay, is this maybe this is a, I'm still, I still have, I'm like, okay,
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all these residents over here and here, they moved here with the pretense of, hey, there's
baseball fields in a school in my backyard.
That's great.
By the way, we're going to put 400 apartments in and that doesn't sit well with me.
And especially since they gave them such a hard time on zoning, which I'm going to show
you in these about literally just improving existing.
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It's like if you were to redo a deck on your house, maybe cheat a few more inches bigger,
it's still improving existing.
They wouldn't let them do it.
Now what the district is in is I was like devil's advocate.
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So you got some money in their pocket, right?
The school district's got some cash, although it's TIF dollars, which would have been potentially
theirs anyway.
They have some money in their pocket.
Okay, you're going to, what's a bus lot?
Nice building that our bus drivers deserve.
They've been in a shack for way too long with literally mushrooms growing in the ceiling
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tiles.
And that's something that hit me too was that when I was a firefighter, you had something
called change over, a Passover.
And it's something that you would have a half hour lap and be like, hey, you know, the engine
was doing this.
You know, this tool was not working properly.
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I replaced it with this.
There was a call here.
You might have to go back here tonight.
Critical information.
And now we gave them literally a trailer to do that pass down.
So that comes back to a safety thing.
And the reason why that trailer stayed that way for such a long time was the inaction
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and the dragging of the feet of the machine.
And I hate saying the word the village because there's a lot of good people in the village
that do their job amazingly well, but it's the machine.
And now you have, so devil's advocate, they got some cash in their pocket.
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What's a bus lot?
You pave it, you get a nice building.
Okay, they're going to have some money left over.
No.
So the Aldi land and the bus lot, they're even.
So now they have no cash from this deal.
They have a bus lot, but now none of this.
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No room to expand, no school building.
But we're going to put 400 apartments here.
And then another 400 by New Haven, say 200 in front of the village hall in the empty
lot.
And that's phase one.
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We got phases to Aldi's, maybe not this one, but you have two phases here, maybe another
300 here.
Now you've just essentially railroaded your school district into not having land to expand.
Now they're going to have to buy land and build, whereas they had the land before this
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with the land that they've had for a long time.
So the school district tried to keep some baseball fields, do their thing, even accommodate
the road that the villages had their eyes set on, even accommodate them.
And the village said no.
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So that's a lay of the land.
So let's hear the tension over Maplewood, a 15.6 acre site at 422 West Crens Avenue
escalated as the village blocked.
This is from GrokX search tool and district 26 plans for six million transportation
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center leading to explicit mentions of potential lawsuits.
Here's the timeline and specifics.
Going denials set the stage 23, 24.
That's kind of fast forward.
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Going this document here says going back to 2013, the Maplewood was closed by Cary School
District 26 in 2010 due to declining enrollment and budget issues, which this district's
sought to sell it.
The village of Cary's actions during this period created several challenges for the
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district affecting its ability to finalize the sale until 2018.
And then now it fast forward to 25, now we're just acting on it.
2013, development moratorium, the village imposed a six month moratorium on new developments
in the area, including the Maplewood property to update its comprehensive plan, which was
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a hundred thousand dollar document created out of a company out of city Chicago with
all the toys of the carbon copy new city approach that we're seeing go up everywhere.
This likely prevented potential buyers from proceeding, delaying the sale.
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Zoning disputes 2014, a developer wanted to build townhouses requiring a zoning change
from single family homes, but the village council was divided, leading to a prolonged
approval process that stalled the sale.
2015 litigation when the village denied rezoning, the developer sued, claiming arbitrary decision
making.
Though District 26 wasn't a direct party, the legal battle lasting over a year further
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delayed the sale as it hinged on zoning resolution.
2016, village interest in purchasing, so 2016, the village begins licking their chops at
like we want the Maplewood property and they probably going back here, well actually going
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back to the comprehensive plan because the comprehensive plan included and we always
I did a prior show where you saw the gentleman speak about board goals and using this company
that created our comprehensive plan as a tool on how to navigate this Maplewood property.
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So going back to 2013 is when they started licking their chops about Maplewood, essentially
knowing that they were never going to, District 26 was never going to be able to do anything
with that.
So District 2016, the village considered buying part of the property for a police station
and community center entering negotiations with the district.
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This created uncertainty and potentially delayed the sale to other buyers.
Though the district ultimately accepted a higher offer from the private developer, these
actions collectively extended the sale process creating financial strain and administrative
challenges for District 26.
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This is bad morale and bad juju in the community when the left hand is not talking to the right
with the adults in the room.
Detailed report, village of Cary's impact on District 26 regarding Maplewood property.
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the hardships faced by District 26, context
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background, budget constraints, the 09 TIF lasting for 23 years did not help the situation.
So that goes, and here's some site, some references here of where it pulled, village of Cary,
council minutes of 2013, Northwest Herald in 2014, Cary District 26 board meeting notes
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2015, Cary Courier village considers buying Maplewood property March 2016.
And then fast forward to 2013, rezoning denial set the stage, District 26 wanted to rezone
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Maplewood from single family residential to allow a modern, this is where I don't get
it.
There's already a bus facility there.
It's your local school district.
It's their property.
So now we're not only infringing on private property rights, business property rights,
but now we're tinkering around with school district property.
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District 26 wanted to rezone Maplewood from a single family residential to allow a modern
bus facility.
That's probably how they got away with it, modern.
Zoning a crumbling trailer from the 1990s.
The village's zoning board rejected this multiple times, which the zoning board is all hired
by the mayor.
It's all hired and appointed by the mayor.
There's actually an application out to get somebody in there right now, probably waiting
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for the right person to come along to approve because they still have some zoning issues.
The Route 31 is all still zoned agriculture, but there's external sources, private forces
that are saying, I want some development here.
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What can you do for me?
Then you get into, well, let's put a water tower out there and say it's for the betterment
of the entire system.
Who's going to pay for it?
You.
You can just raise your water bill.
These are the games that I don't like.
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Rejected this multiple times with a key denial recommended by the Cary Board of Zoning Planning
and Appeals on March 14th, 24, finalized later by the village board.
This stalled the district's timeline as noted in March 21, 24 district update.
And looms as a pressure point June of 24 by June of 24, the district and village entered
a temporary negotiation agreement.
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This is insane to me.
Temporary negotiation agreement to avoid court.
District 26 attorney Jason Manning explained on August 22nd.
So you got the district's 26 attorney.
Now you're now you're paying lawyers instead of opening schools.
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We'll get into that of how that you got money going to lawyers instead of going to classrooms.
This deal would hold lawsuits at bay and unless either side terminated it and playing litigation
was a real option.
If talks failed, Superintendent Brandon White highlighted this in August 24 meeting saying
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he recommended selling Maplewood property to avoid costly litigation with the village
of Cary over rezoning denial.
I'm going to stop right there and go into this.
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This is a village of Cary correspondence to the district 26 and you got all this all this
wording here.
This took your money as well.
This was time and resources to fight your school district.
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Time and resources instead of the street in front of your house went into giving our school
district hell.
So they're just sitting down like adults.
That's the problem when you have these if you let these outside influences influence
you too much, your compass becomes not it's not calibrated anymore.
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So I marked one point right here school district position TIF is unlawful if there is any interested
developer.
You have asserted that the TIF is unlawful by only referencing this phrase.
Any commercial growth or development if is the standard citing to the Illinois appellate
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decision and then they seek they cite case law and this was the first time I they mentioned
or they mentioned case law up here.
And if you're if you're a superintendent of a school district and you get this from the
village in which you operate and you're sitting there like that that's exactly what I went
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through except he's playing with tax dollars that he knows needs to go into school and
he's like I'm not going to give this to lawyers we'll just give up.
We'll sell it to avoid costly litigation.
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And then the only difference between me and the overstepping that I saw was that I decided
that I was going to spend money to try to get attention on this and enact change for
the better of our families.
So you got this long document
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and they were fighting for just to just to update their property.
This was put together by a lawyer.
And when I when I when I saw some documents for what I was going through through a FOIA
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request that infamous Facebook post that they did on their social media about our sign and
we never took the social media but they did and they're like that was actually drafted
up by a lawyer.
And I will always remember this I have an alarm set called primetime on my laptop he
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says this the final draft is like ready for primetime.
So now you're putting your school district through threatening them with litigation to
just update their own property.
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This is from the Northwest Herald.
Kerry Bay School District 26 continues planning for a new bus transportation center at the
Old Maplewood School property but the village of Kerry may stop those plans.
The district has requested an amendment to exist to existing zoning to allow school related
transportation centers.
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It also seeks a conditional use permit and some variances for the project including an
increased fence height.
So they're making an effort here.
And then fast forward to this was March of 24 this is August of 24.
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Kerry School District 26 might sell its Maplewood property to the village of Kerry for five
point five million.
After a year years long dispute it was actually in the making since that comprehensive plan.
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Since the 2009 comprehensive plan is when they started eyeing the Maplewood property
and they knew they had no intention of working with the school district.
District 26 Superintendent Brandon White said he had hoped to keep the Maplewood property.
This is our current superintendent but ultimately I recommended the transfer agreement to the
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school board.
I don't sit here today with a big smile White said but he said he wants to avoid costly
litigation with the village over its denial of rezoning for the land.
He goes on to say I have to place I have to even place my own personal feelings aside
and return back to those three goals.
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What's best for our kids doesn't make financial sense to the district and ensuring sustainability
in our transportation center and the services that we provide and safe working conditions
for our staff.
White said.
District 26 originally planned to demolish the former Maplewood school building and construct
a new six million dollar transportation center on the property which is what we saw on that
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map.
The transportation center would be allowed to stay at Maplewood until the new center
at another location is completed which is Aldi.
The village however has hopes of spurring development on the property and getting the
area back on the tax rolls.
But keep in mind that's under a TIF district so you're thinking like devil's advocate.
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OK they're they're bringing bringing it back on the tax rolls but it's actually still in
a TIF and that TIF can last 23 years.
So all that increased TIF money would not even make it to the school district.
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Several residents told the school board last week that they oppose a sale said is wary
of the proposal based on how the village has treated the district in the past.
Completely agree.
Quote the village does not play nice from what I see historically she said the deal
seems too good to be true and that's a big warning sign for me.
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I'm frustrated district 26 board president D Darling said we were very transparent in
the process following through with putting in a zoning application doing all the stuff
and I feel like right now we're acting under duress and not being able to use our property.
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If you just look at this.
This is a district 26 responding.
Well this is district 26 responding to another one of these and then this is answering this
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one I believe.
And if you just look at they had a thing in the fire service about just holding like your
certification binder of like how heavy is it and it was actually funny.
How heavy is it?
How many certifications do you have?
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That's what I'm about to show you right now.
Just look at it's time and resources.
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And then you go to the district 26's which is most likely not dictated by a lawyer.
Maybe a lawyer reviewed it.
It did not most likely come directly from a lawyer.
And you just look at this one.
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So we got to get back to basics.
We got to get back to taking care of our schools and it's not just a campaign thing for me.
Like I said it's a they messed with the wrong school district.
I went through I remember walking in waiting in the in the in the recess area for my first
day of preschool at Three Oaks School.
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Went to Prairie Hill for one for my first year junior high.
Went to Three Oaks from kindergarten through sixth and then went to Cary Junior High the
Prairie Hill old one.
Went to the first graduating class of the new one and then went through four years of
Cary Grove High School.
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I saw how they they dumped so much money into that Prairie Hill location and they offloaded
it probably because they needed cash because of some of the fun that the village was having
with TIF districts.
So I've seen all the nooks and crannies of the district.
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The school district 26 and 155.
I've seen all the nooks and crannies of the village going on calls.
No pun intended.
I have the finger on the pulse of what this village needs and we need to get the voices
of Cary back into government.
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When you I had written down something here.
When it comes to like private public private it's bureaucracy but it expands out out of
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just the village.
It's like clicks.
And there's other influences like public money bonds.
And there's a there's a book called filling the void and what I don't know if that's
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the exact title but what it gets into is that people are not involved anymore.
And the people in government have gotten so comfortable especially after 2020 and all
the toys that they were given.
They were they were given all these toys during 2020 and empowered and now they've all retreated
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back into government and gotten really comfortable.
And the people of the public have undergone 2020 and retreated back into their homes.
We need to get the public back involved in the shaping of our community and improve that
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morale.
I can't tell you how much I want to I already know the meeting room in the district 26 office
that I want to sit down with Mr. White
and hand them a formal apology from the village of Kerry.
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What do we have here.
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On this website called Kerry Dad's group and it just has some pictures of what needs to
get fixed.
That bond that was voted on for is going to take care of some of this and some of the
security stuff.
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But some of the pictures of what whoever put this together touched on and it like noted
that some of the facts and this is I believe a result from just pinching art and squeezing
our school district.
There's some history there of misdirection with the school district.
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But there's adults in the room again at the school district.
They're smart people at the village and I see a great opportunity to slingshot and get
back on track and correct course.
And what they were looking at here is you know we protect our retail with these bollards
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posts to prevent malicious people from driving in or accidental people from driving in and
there's nothing here.
Like if you're a kid standing here you shouldn't have to pay attention and watch your six.
You should have a barrier here of an accidental jumping of the curb or somebody having a heart
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attack and they we just saw it at Three Oaks.
My favorite Thorntons.
Look at all those.
We take care of chewing tobacco better than we do our kids.
This is an example of how it can be done to where it looks nice.
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When this building opened like I said I was oh I didn't have it on here.
So you shouldn't be you shouldn't have to be watching your six when you're standing
in line at the at the Carrey Junior High.
You should be able to have some protection there.
We take care of our Thorntons here.
Gotta protect those cigarettes.
But it's not just about cigarettes it's about the people here.
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You shouldn't have to be.
This is most likely the result of somebody getting hit and then their insurance company
says yeah you got to put them up everywhere.
But we're just waiting for something to happen.
This is a school I went to for the first graduating class.
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This is a evacuation unit for sawdust.
When we worked with our hands when that school opened it had a wood shop that I actually
I made a lamp in this class.
I made used a lathe for to make a pen a wood pen.
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They had a CNC machining for for CAD design.
We made balsa wood cars.
We did drafting.
There was an art class.
And what I saw on this website they actually pulled a similar unit to what this is a sitting
vacant now because we've squeezed our school district so much that it can't be used and
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it's just sitting there vacant.
So you got a five thousand dollar piece of equipment sitting there.
And then they got a picture of the sawdust in there.
That sawdust probably from my lamp from that long ago still sitting in there.
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This brought back memories.
This is a picture of the wood shop class.
And if you look at the ceiling here there's lamps.
Those fluorescent tube lamps are not like they're considered like protective.
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Like if you have wood shop and something kicks off you don't break the fluorescent tubing
in there.
Those aren't cheap.
We built out that's five hundred dollars ahead five six hundred dollars ahead.
And you just you you have a whole classroom to inspire minds and to to broaden minds.
And we've we're sending litigation letters to our school district tying them up and stuff
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since 2009 or paving the way since 2009 with hardship.
And that sits as storage right now.
This was my art classroom.
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We just had a kiln for firing clay made it made cups.
They had nice lighting in here.
We had a they built a whole.
This was brand new when I went there and it was a whole obstacle course for team building.
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And that's been left behind.
We got to get back on track get back to basics.
I want to make it to the to the person at home that's considering homeschooling.
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And it's not my job to you might have a whole bunch of other reasons.
I know I do of wanting to homeschool.
But I'm a little I'm very motivated and I think about it of watching my kids grow up
in a place that doesn't play nice in the sandbox with its school district.
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And it stops April 1st.
And I I ask you for your vote to.
It's not going to be easy but relationships are going to be have to be mended with not
just a school district but with the board because I'm sure that the board is there's
a lot of just got to listen to the board.
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I want to bring I want to I want to vent the ceiling and firefighting you vent the ceiling
to get all the heat out and you cut the hole in the roof get the heat and the smoke out.
And I sit down and I'm not a huge fan of meetings but I'm going to sit down in a meeting and
just be like take a nice deep breath.
And when we get back on track to priority you it's everything falls into place instead
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of just chasing the dollar chasing all these incentives that chasing the people with the
clipboards that are telling us to you got to have you got to have this housing you got
to have this you got to fit this mold.
And we're going to be Kerry.
It's what you signed on to when you moved in here and that's what I intend to to bring.
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I greatly look forward to it and I'm glad that what was this last one we had here.
This was something put out by the district 26 to in response to them wanting to move
forward but we already covered most of that.
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So that kid at the water fountain that has no idea about the big ball of rubber band
of government and how life works and they shouldn't they they don't have they don't
know but they don't have to know.
And that when they get older and they have those memories of standing at that at that
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water fountain they don't have all this they're left with the feeling of yeah my kids are
going to go there.
Thank you for joining me for Voices Kerry Live today.
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Have a wonderful weekend.
We broadcast I broadcast live to X Rumble YouTube Facebook.
I'll do one last check for any correspondence.
Thank you for joining me and have a great weekend.
And I'll see you on Monday at nine o'clock.
(01:03:58):
Thank you.
You're confirmed at T minus 10 seconds.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Reach for the sky.
Huh?
This town ain't big enough for the two of us.
(01:04:21):
What?
Somebody's poisoned the water hole.
It's busted.
Who you calling busted Buster?
That's right.
I'm talking to you Sid.
We don't like being blown up.
What's that?
We're right.
(01:04:43):
Your toys.
A pink bear toy.
gardens.
(01:05:08):
Gardens.
tripods.
Just take good care of your toys, because if you don't, we'll find out, Sid.
We toys can see everything.
(01:05:31):
So play nice.
Hi there, my name is Randy Scott. Welcome to Voices Carry Live. I am broadcasting to
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you from the beautiful village of Kerry. This is a podcast, it's an independent venture
from me to you to try to bridge the gap between social media and talking with your neighbor.
I started this about a year ago now. I leased this industrial place. I turned it into an
office and a studio in the hopes of doing just that, to have our community talk. And for those
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of you that are tuning in for answers for stuff that you see online and stuff, I had a heart to
heart with all of you last show. And a lot of the answers are in there. And if any of you have more
questions, there's a live text and call in. So feel free to do that. I wanted to stick to the issues.
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And I have this overlay here before I get into the meat and potatoes of what I'm going to be
focusing on today. It's about the school districts, specifically school district 26, a school district
of which this scoreboard once stood tall and proud on. And touching off the points on here,
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it says vote Scott for March 17 through the April 1. And there's some bullet points. And I wanted
to go through them with you. Reduce bureaucracy. What do I mean by that? Usually you hear that term
at a federal level. And there's really no different at a local level. You don't have as many
tentacles per se within the organization. But what we see at a local level is that it's not just
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unelected officials within government that are pulling strings, but it's unelected organizations
and corporations and influence from state funding and other things that put the thumb on the scale
of why people deem it necessary to grow or to do other things in town and to go through the motions
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of listening to voices and then not really cutting that into the fold completely. The other, and the
red tape, like we need to, that's actually our, you can't see it right there, that stack of paper
stack of paper right there. It's actually not 800 pages anymore. I had to use some for printing,
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but that is our village code is over 800 pages. And going through that with a fine tooth comb,
it was put together by a service. It's pretty much a blanket for communities that are wishing
to conform to the new Anytown USA that you're starting to see all across America. And what I
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want to do is go through that with a fine tooth comb. And it's not that I'm against safety
regulations. I'm all for exceeding, not just meeting, but exceeding fire code stuff. Making
sure when you go to sleep at night, your electrical work's not going to catch on fire. There's other
stuff in there that's kind of overstepping, that's just waiting in the bushes to be activated.
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And just to go through with a fine tooth comb, get some pruners out and responsibly
shave off things that are overreaching to you, your family, your property, and to also businesses.
Some of the things I went through with my local business, if that's any indication of what's
going on at an industrial level, like when you're hiring hundreds of people, we have a problem.
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We need to secure those and make them feel welcome to where they're not
putting feelers out to be like, hey, should we move? We need to have frequent meetings with them
and make sure that because if they were to move it, that'd be something like,
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it'd be a big impact on our community. And we're very thankful for industrial and small
businesses alike. I think we should have frequent meetings with them so stuff doesn't brew
and start to percolate to where, I don't know why I'm using coffee terms, over time.
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That's one of the things that I saw was that if somebody just, right down the street,
instead of putting out memorandums and legal terms, one of the things I was against was
watching, you'll see the intro after I get done with this go through, you'll see the intro of
what we used to have and carry a long time ago. And I think if they saw, fast forward, if they saw
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800 pages on the books of regulation and everything else, and how we've carried ourselves,
they would be very disappointed. What else do we have? Back to basics, priority you.
There's a lot of fancy footwork to get these incentives and to make everybody happy.
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There's a lot of stuff that I haven't really gotten into, meaning that I've found it and I haven't
spoke about it because it's all part of the machine. We're a product of the machine.
And I really don't hold specific people
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to account for that because I consider it part of the human tradition. We're always
fighting for that other dollar. And
whether it be to make our family life better or sometimes it's greed,
it's just something that we have to address and to roll back and acknowledge that human condition
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and to take a stand for getting back to basics, getting back to the street in front of your house.
And the street in front of your house isn't just potholes to me. It's the school buses that go on
there. Are we taking care of our school district, which we're going to talk about today?
Are we taking care of public works? They work their butt off. I've shared the story.
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There was a street light that was out and I put in a work request. Next day they were up there
changing the damn light bulb. We have so many people that are out there that are not working.
They're not changing the damn light bulb. We have so many. That's one of the reasons why that this all
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stuck with me up until a point because I never went public with it because going public with it means
a blanket. And it shouldn't be a blanket. It's just the machine.
You can only do as much as the person above you allows you to do.
Or the organization itself allows you to do. So that's why I never call out.
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There's sometimes you can call out individuals, but it's mainly the human condition and the machine
that needs to be addressed. And that's why I've never taken to social media on the business side
or personally to air this out because those folks that walk into the village to work every day to make
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Carrie wonderful how it is should not be subject to that as much as I wanted to share the story
and stories with you. I didn't want to do that to our town to where I was like just
laying it all out there. And it's still like a careful rollout of like getting back to the
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priority you on the streets. School buses, public works, police, fire, making sure that they know
that they have the full backing of the municipality to where they know that they can do their job.
And mistakes are going to happen. But I'm a firm believer that if like when I worked at the hospital,
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you're always with the patient's interest in mind, top of mind.
And if you act with the residents top of mind, just like how our superintendent said, Brandon Bruce,
our Dr. White, Superintendent of School District 26, he's really trying to turn this ship.
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And he's pulling that lever to try to get them throwing coal in the engine bay.
He said, if you act with the children in mind, it's very rarely that you're going to go wrong.
And that's what I want to bring into the village to where we don't, right now we have a,
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like when I was a firefighter, there's something called a unified command. That's where
the police and the fire and whatever other resources, the heads are in the same room together.
And it's very powerful. And I, we need to, we need to be able to do that.
So, working together as part of us, as part of this organization.
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Repaired school district relationships, we're going to get into that. But just as a brief thing is
that we've done some damage to our school districts. Not just monetary, but morale's down
after looking through all this stuff. Morale's down. It makes future discussions tense.
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And if we go through another four years of what I'm about to roll out to you,
what we put our school district through, we're going to be,
like our kids are already behind a little bit from COVID.
We're going to, we're not going to be helping that cause to move the goalpost forward.
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Never home rule candidate. I was debating whether or not to say never for the following reason,
because it's a population based thing. I was always against home rule. There's a whole
discussion about taxes and whatnot. I didn't really get into that too much. I was just concerned
about the levers that it gave this current organization, the levers that they were able to
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pull since their track record hasn't really been aligned with the residents. That's why I was,
the overall voter turnout for that against home rule was, it was a mandate.
And what we saw from that was, it's like, okay, well, we're going to have to do a
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little bit of a
mandate. And what we saw from that was, it's like, okay, well, we got that, they said no.
But now, then they immediately went to the drawing board of like, well, how can we work around this?
It's tone deaf. You're tone deaf to your residents. And you need to have the finger on the pulse of
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your community to where it's like, that's an indication, that's a mandate. That's a signal.
You have to work that in to where you're not just, because there's always a work around.
And if you don't have that vision and that strength to stay on track, you're going to just
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always try to find a work around, which there's plenty of them. I mean,
you just need to have that strong sense of, your compass needs to be pointed north.
And not come along stranger things to where it starts moving around.
Because then you start looking for other things. Like if, stranger things, you never,
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if they never had the compass issue, they would have been fine. But the compass turned away
towards the government facility and they're like, oh, what's over here? You need to have a compass
that never veers off. Small town values. That's, like the video of the intro that you'll see after
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this intro. You just, you see the community. You see before smartphones, before tablets,
before computers, before AI, before surveillance, before tracking, it was just
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like the baseball fields over here. I looked at old aerials of the baseball field and it was
even before baseball fields were officially built, there was just a path of a baseball field.
And I was thinking to myself, where do we see like a beaten path anymore in parks? We don't see
kids just putting paths in and like putting baseball fields in and like getting out there
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and doing it. We need to get back to basics and getting back to basics at a government level as
well. It goes back to priority you. To stop doing the ballet and of all the deal making and stuff,
it complicates things because it takes time and resources. When you take that time and resources
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and you put it towards other projects like your New Haven project and you put it towards Maplewood
and you put it towards, Maplewood was just a full on assault against the school district
over the course of 14 years and I have the receipts here.
And the reason why I say that they picked the wrong school district was because I'm a product
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of that school district and I'm here with my hat in the ring saying not so fast.
So we're bringing back small town.
Homes not high rises. I think that's something that I, a mayor is like a cheerleader for the
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community. He or she also needs to be a CEO of the organization but it also comes back to leadership
and not to be a cheerleader within the community. And it doesn't mean just making your rounds at
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drinking events and stuff like that. I'm not a huge drinker so I don't have those relationships
but it's being a cheerleader. Like I did 10 years of in town work and I'm a cheerleader.
And I think I shook my opponent's hand for the first time five months ago.
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I want to be, I want to like frequent just go in and go on a few calls, be like you know
what do you guys need and talking with the chief, you know, where can we do better? You want to set
up some trainings, police and fire and public works. You know I'm a nerd. I want to find out
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how public works operates like the water handlers and stuff. How can we like with the technology,
I want to bring those standards up. And I'm going to touch on that again in a little bit.
Homes not high rises. The reason why I brought up that was the cheerleader aspect of it is because
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I can't just come and be like there's a few lovers there but it's like that's not how you
win friends and influence people. The board, the elected board,
needs to have a stronger voice to do independent thinking
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and make those decisions based on what they see for the public because they all live in the community.
And sometimes they run unopposed. I want to get parents involved. I want to get parents,
like when these things go out there, I want to get them involved. I want to get them involved.
Like when these things go out for election, I want to be doing like hey an election's coming up,
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not just keep it on the down low. Even for mayor, like I want to be opposed. You know I created,
I tried to create more time with my family and I with opening a business so I could you know,
let's be honest, schools, I wanted you know to do homeschooling and I'm still kind of have that foot
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in that camp. And I'm personally pissed that not just on a national level that the schools have
been neglected but at a local level that we've put that hardship through on these school on the
school district especially with my relationship. I was with them because I went through district 26 and 155
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and I want to stand up for them. I want to take that parent at home that is now considering
homeschooling because of maybe some of the national things they see or some of the local things they
see that we're going to go over. The left hand's not talking to the right here and I don't blame
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you if you're considering homeschooling. And what I want to do is get in there and repair those
relationships and essentially be like what do you need? And then formally compose a letter on
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village of Cary letterhead apologizing for what we put them through. So that's that's on their books.
So that they have that. And then putting things in place to where that this never happens again.
And then tying into the school district and the water quality thing. It's not really water quality.
We do have we have great water here. Like I said we have great public works.
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But I think with new technology and the new regulations we can kind of roll that out.
And with the with the school district it makes me think back to like the
school district it makes me think back to like Three Oaks school. I was in Three Oaks school.
I can take you to the water fountain right now. I'm standing in line between class waiting to go
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to like computer lab and I'm drinking water. I remember drinking water at this water fountain at Three Oaks.
And now that I have all this scaffolding on which I'm standing on to try to bring to you and implement
to where it works better for the community. And I see I've seen behind the curtain
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that water means more to me than just water. I'm like
that kid that's drinking at that water fountain that has no recollection of
village operations and all this BS.
When they get old enough to to realize and to to dig in to their school district.
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I want them to never have the spread. Of disgusting. Of of what we put our district through.
So when that kid grows up.
They knew that the adults in the room knew what the hell they were doing.
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So that's my bullet points there.
It I'm I'm passionate about it. I'm I got some receipts here.
We'll have some fun. We'll go through it. I'll show you this. I guess I won't. I'll fix that.
And welcome to Voices Carry Life.
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It's
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Hi
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The next Metro train approaching your station will be a Metro Express train and will not
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stop.
Welcome to Voices Carry Live.
My name is Randy Scott.
I am broadcasting to you live from the Village of Carry.
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Beautiful Village of Carry.
This is your megaphone and microphone.
I want to be a conduit for you to have your voices heard and get cut into the fold, cut
into the deck of decision making within our village.
And it was nice to get some of that off my chest about what I have seen and what we're
going to focus on today.
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The title, 26 Reasons Why Challenging the School District was a Mistake.
I'm going to try to give you a lay of the land here of what the school district has
been put through.
It goes back a ways, but I'm going to try my best to keep it consolidated, no pun intended.
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And here we go.
So this is the Maplewood property.
And we all know it for its baseball fields and the beautiful old school.
And this was what District 26 had wanted to do.
This was their rendering of what they were fighting for to get the village to agree.
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And they had 14 years of, ever since this building was listed for sale, which going
back to there was financial constraints and zoning issues.
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And going all the way back to 2009 when our first TIF district was put into place, and
a TIF district essentially takes tax dollars and puts it into a separate account so that
those tax dollars don't go to schools and other resources.
They go to improving that area of what that zone was created for.
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And when they drew that zone out, it took some dollars away from the school district.
So 2009 you have your first one, and that lasted 23 years.
And then they started another one with some of the same zoning, and then now we're under
one right now.
(26:51):
And our superintendent for District 26 did everything he could until he was met with
a letter I'm going to show you that starts off friendly, and I've been on the receiving
(27:11):
end of some of those, and then it turns into litigation talk.
And that's something that we don't do to our school district.
That's something that we don't do to our residents.
That's something we don't do to our business owners.
(27:32):
So here's District 26, Maplewood property.
They wanted to add parking, a school building, a play area, keep some ball fields.
This field is actually the one where this scoreboard is from.
Fun fact.
And then you have your bus lot that they wanted to build.
(27:54):
So what happened was Cary gave the school district 5.5 million, and it was originally
five or no, it was 5.5 and then Aldi where they wanted to move this bus lot to Aldi,
which the land agreements have already happened.
(28:15):
And the bus lot idea, Aldi was like, no.
It's in our contract that next to us, we already put the infrastructure of like the roads going
to nowhere because we were planning on having something other than just buses sitting.
(28:36):
We wanted to have customers, like minded people shopping.
So they said that's 50 grand to get out of that contract.
So then they went back to the drawing board.
They got their money.
Then now it's all the land agreements have been.
But I think the ink's still a little wet on that.
(28:57):
So what happened here was that now, okay, here's 5.5 million for your bus lot.
We move that to Aldi.
Let's go into Aldi.
And I was considering, I always played devil's advocate.
I was like, is this, okay, is this maybe this is a, I'm still, I still have, I'm like, okay,
(29:20):
all these residents over here and here, they moved here with the pretense of, hey, there's
baseball fields in a school in my backyard.
That's great.
By the way, we're going to put 400 apartments in and that doesn't sit well with me.
And especially since they gave them such a hard time on zoning, which I'm going to show
you in these about literally just improving existing.
(29:43):
It's like if you were to redo a deck on your house, maybe cheat a few more inches bigger,
it's still improving existing.
They wouldn't let them do it.
Now what the district is in is I was like devil's advocate.
(30:04):
So you got some money in their pocket, right?
The school district's got some cash, although it's TIF dollars, which would have been potentially
theirs anyway.
They have some money in their pocket.
Okay, you're going to, what's a bus lot?
Nice building that our bus drivers deserve.
They've been in a shack for way too long with literally mushrooms growing in the ceiling
(30:31):
tiles.
And that's something that hit me too was that when I was a firefighter, you had something
called change over, a Passover.
And it's something that you would have a half hour lap and be like, hey, you know, the engine
was doing this.
You know, this tool was not working properly.
(30:53):
I replaced it with this.
There was a call here.
You might have to go back here tonight.
Critical information.
And now we gave them literally a trailer to do that pass down.
So that comes back to a safety thing.
And the reason why that trailer stayed that way for such a long time was the inaction
(31:17):
and the dragging of the feet of the machine.
And I hate saying the word the village because there's a lot of good people in the village
that do their job amazingly well, but it's the machine.
And now you have, so devil's advocate, they got some cash in their pocket.
(31:37):
What's a bus lot?
You pave it, you get a nice building.
Okay, they're going to have some money left over.
No.
So the Aldi land and the bus lot, they're even.
So now they have no cash from this deal.
They have a bus lot, but now none of this.
(31:59):
No room to expand, no school building.
But we're going to put 400 apartments here.
And then another 400 by New Haven, say 200 in front of the village hall in the empty
lot.
And that's phase one.
(32:21):
We got phases to Aldi's, maybe not this one, but you have two phases here, maybe another
300 here.
Now you've just essentially railroaded your school district into not having land to expand.
Now they're going to have to buy land and build, whereas they had the land before this
(32:42):
with the land that they've had for a long time.
So the school district tried to keep some baseball fields, do their thing, even accommodate
the road that the villages had their eyes set on, even accommodate them.
And the village said no.
(33:04):
So that's a lay of the land.
So let's hear the tension over Maplewood, a 15.6 acre site at 422 West Crens Avenue
escalated as the village blocked.
This is from GrokX search tool and district 26 plans for six million transportation
(33:36):
center leading to explicit mentions of potential lawsuits.
Here's the timeline and specifics.
Going denials set the stage 23, 24.
That's kind of fast forward.
(33:59):
Going this document here says going back to 2013, the Maplewood was closed by Cary School
District 26 in 2010 due to declining enrollment and budget issues, which this district's
sought to sell it.
The village of Cary's actions during this period created several challenges for the
(34:19):
district affecting its ability to finalize the sale until 2018.
And then now it fast forward to 25, now we're just acting on it.
2013, development moratorium, the village imposed a six month moratorium on new developments
in the area, including the Maplewood property to update its comprehensive plan, which was
(34:40):
a hundred thousand dollar document created out of a company out of city Chicago with
all the toys of the carbon copy new city approach that we're seeing go up everywhere.
This likely prevented potential buyers from proceeding, delaying the sale.
(35:03):
Zoning disputes 2014, a developer wanted to build townhouses requiring a zoning change
from single family homes, but the village council was divided, leading to a prolonged
approval process that stalled the sale.
2015 litigation when the village denied rezoning, the developer sued, claiming arbitrary decision
making.
Though District 26 wasn't a direct party, the legal battle lasting over a year further
(35:28):
delayed the sale as it hinged on zoning resolution.
2016, village interest in purchasing, so 2016, the village begins licking their chops at
like we want the Maplewood property and they probably going back here, well actually going
(35:51):
back to the comprehensive plan because the comprehensive plan included and we always
I did a prior show where you saw the gentleman speak about board goals and using this company
that created our comprehensive plan as a tool on how to navigate this Maplewood property.
(36:13):
So going back to 2013 is when they started licking their chops about Maplewood, essentially
knowing that they were never going to, District 26 was never going to be able to do anything
with that.
So District 2016, the village considered buying part of the property for a police station
and community center entering negotiations with the district.
(36:34):
This created uncertainty and potentially delayed the sale to other buyers.
Though the district ultimately accepted a higher offer from the private developer, these
actions collectively extended the sale process creating financial strain and administrative
challenges for District 26.
(36:55):
This is bad morale and bad juju in the community when the left hand is not talking to the right
with the adults in the room.
Detailed report, village of Cary's impact on District 26 regarding Maplewood property.
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the hardships faced by District 26, context
(37:22):
background, budget constraints, the 09 TIF lasting for 23 years did not help the situation.
So that goes, and here's some site, some references here of where it pulled, village of Cary,
council minutes of 2013, Northwest Herald in 2014, Cary District 26 board meeting notes
(37:49):
2015, Cary Courier village considers buying Maplewood property March 2016.
And then fast forward to 2013, rezoning denial set the stage, District 26 wanted to rezone
(38:10):
Maplewood from single family residential to allow a modern, this is where I don't get
it.
There's already a bus facility there.
It's your local school district.
It's their property.
So now we're not only infringing on private property rights, business property rights,
but now we're tinkering around with school district property.
(38:38):
District 26 wanted to rezone Maplewood from a single family residential to allow a modern
bus facility.
That's probably how they got away with it, modern.
Zoning a crumbling trailer from the 1990s.
The village's zoning board rejected this multiple times, which the zoning board is all hired
by the mayor.
It's all hired and appointed by the mayor.
There's actually an application out to get somebody in there right now, probably waiting
(39:02):
for the right person to come along to approve because they still have some zoning issues.
The Route 31 is all still zoned agriculture, but there's external sources, private forces
that are saying, I want some development here.
(39:25):
What can you do for me?
Then you get into, well, let's put a water tower out there and say it's for the betterment
of the entire system.
Who's going to pay for it?
You.
You can just raise your water bill.
These are the games that I don't like.
(39:52):
Rejected this multiple times with a key denial recommended by the Cary Board of Zoning Planning
and Appeals on March 14th, 24, finalized later by the village board.
This stalled the district's timeline as noted in March 21, 24 district update.
And looms as a pressure point June of 24 by June of 24, the district and village entered
a temporary negotiation agreement.
(40:12):
This is insane to me.
Temporary negotiation agreement to avoid court.
District 26 attorney Jason Manning explained on August 22nd.
So you got the district's 26 attorney.
Now you're now you're paying lawyers instead of opening schools.
(40:42):
We'll get into that of how that you got money going to lawyers instead of going to classrooms.
This deal would hold lawsuits at bay and unless either side terminated it and playing litigation
was a real option.
If talks failed, Superintendent Brandon White highlighted this in August 24 meeting saying
(41:03):
he recommended selling Maplewood property to avoid costly litigation with the village
of Cary over rezoning denial.
I'm going to stop right there and go into this.
(41:24):
This is a village of Cary correspondence to the district 26 and you got all this all this
wording here.
This took your money as well.
This was time and resources to fight your school district.
(41:52):
Time and resources instead of the street in front of your house went into giving our school
district hell.
So they're just sitting down like adults.
That's the problem when you have these if you let these outside influences influence
you too much, your compass becomes not it's not calibrated anymore.
(42:17):
So I marked one point right here school district position TIF is unlawful if there is any interested
developer.
You have asserted that the TIF is unlawful by only referencing this phrase.
Any commercial growth or development if is the standard citing to the Illinois appellate
(42:38):
decision and then they seek they cite case law and this was the first time I they mentioned
or they mentioned case law up here.
And if you're if you're a superintendent of a school district and you get this from the
village in which you operate and you're sitting there like that that's exactly what I went
(43:06):
through except he's playing with tax dollars that he knows needs to go into school and
he's like I'm not going to give this to lawyers we'll just give up.
We'll sell it to avoid costly litigation.
(43:33):
And then the only difference between me and the overstepping that I saw was that I decided
that I was going to spend money to try to get attention on this and enact change for
the better of our families.
So you got this long document
(44:09):
and they were fighting for just to just to update their property.
This was put together by a lawyer.
And when I when I when I saw some documents for what I was going through through a FOIA
(44:31):
request that infamous Facebook post that they did on their social media about our sign and
we never took the social media but they did and they're like that was actually drafted
up by a lawyer.
And I will always remember this I have an alarm set called primetime on my laptop he
(44:58):
says this the final draft is like ready for primetime.
So now you're putting your school district through threatening them with litigation to
just update their own property.
(45:22):
This is from the Northwest Herald.
Kerry Bay School District 26 continues planning for a new bus transportation center at the
Old Maplewood School property but the village of Kerry may stop those plans.
The district has requested an amendment to exist to existing zoning to allow school related
transportation centers.
(45:42):
It also seeks a conditional use permit and some variances for the project including an
increased fence height.
So they're making an effort here.
And then fast forward to this was March of 24 this is August of 24.
(46:08):
Kerry School District 26 might sell its Maplewood property to the village of Kerry for five
point five million.
After a year years long dispute it was actually in the making since that comprehensive plan.
(46:33):
Since the 2009 comprehensive plan is when they started eyeing the Maplewood property
and they knew they had no intention of working with the school district.
District 26 Superintendent Brandon White said he had hoped to keep the Maplewood property.
This is our current superintendent but ultimately I recommended the transfer agreement to the
(46:55):
school board.
I don't sit here today with a big smile White said but he said he wants to avoid costly
litigation with the village over its denial of rezoning for the land.
He goes on to say I have to place I have to even place my own personal feelings aside
and return back to those three goals.
(47:16):
What's best for our kids doesn't make financial sense to the district and ensuring sustainability
in our transportation center and the services that we provide and safe working conditions
for our staff.
White said.
District 26 originally planned to demolish the former Maplewood school building and construct
a new six million dollar transportation center on the property which is what we saw on that
(47:38):
map.
The transportation center would be allowed to stay at Maplewood until the new center
at another location is completed which is Aldi.
The village however has hopes of spurring development on the property and getting the
area back on the tax rolls.
But keep in mind that's under a TIF district so you're thinking like devil's advocate.
(48:03):
OK they're they're bringing bringing it back on the tax rolls but it's actually still in
a TIF and that TIF can last 23 years.
So all that increased TIF money would not even make it to the school district.
(48:24):
Several residents told the school board last week that they oppose a sale said is wary
of the proposal based on how the village has treated the district in the past.
Completely agree.
Quote the village does not play nice from what I see historically she said the deal
seems too good to be true and that's a big warning sign for me.
(48:56):
I'm frustrated district 26 board president D Darling said we were very transparent in
the process following through with putting in a zoning application doing all the stuff
and I feel like right now we're acting under duress and not being able to use our property.
(49:31):
If you just look at this.
This is a district 26 responding.
Well this is district 26 responding to another one of these and then this is answering this
(49:54):
one I believe.
And if you just look at they had a thing in the fire service about just holding like your
certification binder of like how heavy is it and it was actually funny.
How heavy is it?
How many certifications do you have?
(50:14):
That's what I'm about to show you right now.
Just look at it's time and resources.
(50:38):
And then you go to the district 26's which is most likely not dictated by a lawyer.
Maybe a lawyer reviewed it.
It did not most likely come directly from a lawyer.
And you just look at this one.
(51:05):
So we got to get back to basics.
We got to get back to taking care of our schools and it's not just a campaign thing for me.
Like I said it's a they messed with the wrong school district.
I went through I remember walking in waiting in the in the in the recess area for my first
day of preschool at Three Oaks School.
(51:26):
Went to Prairie Hill for one for my first year junior high.
Went to Three Oaks from kindergarten through sixth and then went to Cary Junior High the
Prairie Hill old one.
Went to the first graduating class of the new one and then went through four years of
Cary Grove High School.
(51:47):
I saw how they they dumped so much money into that Prairie Hill location and they offloaded
it probably because they needed cash because of some of the fun that the village was having
with TIF districts.
So I've seen all the nooks and crannies of the district.
(52:12):
The school district 26 and 155.
I've seen all the nooks and crannies of the village going on calls.
No pun intended.
I have the finger on the pulse of what this village needs and we need to get the voices
of Cary back into government.
(52:33):
When you I had written down something here.
When it comes to like private public private it's bureaucracy but it expands out out of
(52:56):
just the village.
It's like clicks.
And there's other influences like public money bonds.
And there's a there's a book called filling the void and what I don't know if that's
(53:23):
the exact title but what it gets into is that people are not involved anymore.
And the people in government have gotten so comfortable especially after 2020 and all
the toys that they were given.
They were they were given all these toys during 2020 and empowered and now they've all retreated
(53:46):
back into government and gotten really comfortable.
And the people of the public have undergone 2020 and retreated back into their homes.
We need to get the public back involved in the shaping of our community and improve that
(54:10):
morale.
I can't tell you how much I want to I already know the meeting room in the district 26 office
that I want to sit down with Mr. White
and hand them a formal apology from the village of Kerry.
(54:34):
What do we have here.
(54:56):
On this website called Kerry Dad's group and it just has some pictures of what needs to
get fixed.
That bond that was voted on for is going to take care of some of this and some of the
security stuff.
(55:18):
But some of the pictures of what whoever put this together touched on and it like noted
that some of the facts and this is I believe a result from just pinching art and squeezing
our school district.
There's some history there of misdirection with the school district.
(55:45):
But there's adults in the room again at the school district.
They're smart people at the village and I see a great opportunity to slingshot and get
back on track and correct course.
And what they were looking at here is you know we protect our retail with these bollards
(56:07):
posts to prevent malicious people from driving in or accidental people from driving in and
there's nothing here.
Like if you're a kid standing here you shouldn't have to pay attention and watch your six.
You should have a barrier here of an accidental jumping of the curb or somebody having a heart
(56:34):
attack and they we just saw it at Three Oaks.
My favorite Thorntons.
Look at all those.
We take care of chewing tobacco better than we do our kids.
This is an example of how it can be done to where it looks nice.
(56:57):
When this building opened like I said I was oh I didn't have it on here.
So you shouldn't be you shouldn't have to be watching your six when you're standing
in line at the at the Carrey Junior High.
You should be able to have some protection there.
We take care of our Thorntons here.
Gotta protect those cigarettes.
But it's not just about cigarettes it's about the people here.
(57:19):
You shouldn't have to be.
This is most likely the result of somebody getting hit and then their insurance company
says yeah you got to put them up everywhere.
But we're just waiting for something to happen.
This is a school I went to for the first graduating class.
(57:39):
This is a evacuation unit for sawdust.
When we worked with our hands when that school opened it had a wood shop that I actually
I made a lamp in this class.
I made used a lathe for to make a pen a wood pen.
(57:59):
They had a CNC machining for for CAD design.
We made balsa wood cars.
We did drafting.
There was an art class.
And what I saw on this website they actually pulled a similar unit to what this is a sitting
vacant now because we've squeezed our school district so much that it can't be used and
(58:25):
it's just sitting there vacant.
So you got a five thousand dollar piece of equipment sitting there.
And then they got a picture of the sawdust in there.
That sawdust probably from my lamp from that long ago still sitting in there.
(58:47):
This brought back memories.
This is a picture of the wood shop class.
And if you look at the ceiling here there's lamps.
Those fluorescent tube lamps are not like they're considered like protective.
(59:08):
Like if you have wood shop and something kicks off you don't break the fluorescent tubing
in there.
Those aren't cheap.
We built out that's five hundred dollars ahead five six hundred dollars ahead.
And you just you you have a whole classroom to inspire minds and to to broaden minds.
And we've we're sending litigation letters to our school district tying them up and stuff
(59:35):
since 2009 or paving the way since 2009 with hardship.
And that sits as storage right now.
This was my art classroom.
(59:55):
We just had a kiln for firing clay made it made cups.
They had nice lighting in here.
We had a they built a whole.
This was brand new when I went there and it was a whole obstacle course for team building.
(01:00:20):
And that's been left behind.
We got to get back on track get back to basics.
I want to make it to the to the person at home that's considering homeschooling.
(01:00:42):
And it's not my job to you might have a whole bunch of other reasons.
I know I do of wanting to homeschool.
But I'm a little I'm very motivated and I think about it of watching my kids grow up
in a place that doesn't play nice in the sandbox with its school district.
(01:01:10):
And it stops April 1st.
And I I ask you for your vote to.
It's not going to be easy but relationships are going to be have to be mended with not
just a school district but with the board because I'm sure that the board is there's
a lot of just got to listen to the board.
(01:01:32):
I want to bring I want to I want to vent the ceiling and firefighting you vent the ceiling
to get all the heat out and you cut the hole in the roof get the heat and the smoke out.
And I sit down and I'm not a huge fan of meetings but I'm going to sit down in a meeting and
just be like take a nice deep breath.
And when we get back on track to priority you it's everything falls into place instead
(01:02:00):
of just chasing the dollar chasing all these incentives that chasing the people with the
clipboards that are telling us to you got to have you got to have this housing you got
to have this you got to fit this mold.
And we're going to be Kerry.
It's what you signed on to when you moved in here and that's what I intend to to bring.
(01:02:27):
I greatly look forward to it and I'm glad that what was this last one we had here.
This was something put out by the district 26 to in response to them wanting to move
forward but we already covered most of that.
(01:02:49):
So that kid at the water fountain that has no idea about the big ball of rubber band
of government and how life works and they shouldn't they they don't have they don't
know but they don't have to know.
And that when they get older and they have those memories of standing at that at that
(01:03:16):
water fountain they don't have all this they're left with the feeling of yeah my kids are
going to go there.
Thank you for joining me for Voices Kerry Live today.
(01:03:38):
Have a wonderful weekend.
We broadcast I broadcast live to X Rumble YouTube Facebook.
I'll do one last check for any correspondence.
Thank you for joining me and have a great weekend.
And I'll see you on Monday at nine o'clock.
(01:03:58):
Thank you.
You're confirmed at T minus 10 seconds.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Reach for the sky.
Huh?
This town ain't big enough for the two of us.
(01:04:21):
What?
Somebody's poisoned the water hole.
It's busted.
Who you calling busted Buster?
That's right.
I'm talking to you Sid.
We don't like being blown up.
What's that?
We're right.
(01:04:43):
Your toys.
A pink bear toy.
gardens.
(01:05:08):
Gardens.
tripods.
Just take good care of your toys, because if you don't, we'll find out, Sid.
We toys can see everything.
(01:05:31):
So play nice.
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