The chamber and it's employees can vote for the levy but I will not.The chamber may want to try and atract some real company's to this time and focus their time on this instead of pushing the community to pass a levy that fails to propery fund our schools.If they attracted good paying jobs along with the city then thee people who cannot afford any new tax might be able to pay this tax.
All of the politicians and community leaders that have actually put us in this position are coming out of the woodwork to push this flawed levy.Good luck you all are gonna need it come Tuesday.

In regard of who the players are - according to the Missouri Ethics Report the COFT received $35,000 form teamsam form Chicago in October - teamsam is the fundrasing arm of the Sam Adams Alliance which is also in Chicago. The Sam Adams Alliance is a non profit organization which takes no federal money but is funded by private funds. The Sam Adams is a watchdog group concerned with goverment waste. A group from Sam Adams is the American Majority. This group sets up training in cities across the United States including Kansas City to get ordinary citizens involved in polotics.

From thier website is the following of their mission statement -

Educational freedom expanded and the power of the unions reduced or removed from our schools is an example of this principle advanced.

Their web site contains many articals concerning privatizing schools. It is clear after reading much material of both the Sam Adams Alliance and the American Majority - this group wants to take goverment out of our lives, fight against taxes and public schools.

What is concerning is that they hide their donors and a group that demand transparency from goverment oonducts itself in the complete oppositte. This group has fought agaisnt a Kansas City trasportation tax, Platte City Parks and Recreation Tax and many local taxes. (more in second post)

it is the goal of the American Majority is to get their people invovled in the local level of city, civic and school board elecitons.

It is clear the people agaisnt the school district and the funding from teamsam which is Sam Adams Alliance is wanting to convice the citizens of the St Joe community to turn on their own to weaken the schools. This cannot be more apparent than the pieces of mail we are receiving.

Now for the past month we have seen posts from many whos message seem to be in line with those from the American Majority and Sam Adams. It is clear we have those in our community which has brought this funding into the fight. We must now question anyone of opposition if they have ever attend or have any connection to these groups duirng the school board election.

I do not think of these boardmember as my own they are puttets on a string to Mr Smtih.The do not listen to the community and do not do the right thing by our children,schools, or their own employees the teachers and staffs of our school in my opinion.They are called the good ol boys club hard at work taking care of their buddies and forgetting the rest of the community.

We get it already you have a fasination with this group we get it move on to the next issue you have please.

I have the same fasination with those groups as you seem to have with Dr. Smith and the school board.

The boardmembers are your own, they were voted in by the community.

Again everytime I bring up Sam Adams and American Majority how quickly you wish to brush that discussion aside,

The new treasurer of "CAFT" was quoted sayin that they did not change their name from "forever tax" because dispite the sunset every tax is forever. Wow, that was what the people for the levy was saying when CAFT was saying they wanted a sunset last April. They wil lie, misinform and do whatever it takes to push thier agenda

Choice St. Joe is yours, one one side you have a group who make up a differant reason for voting no everytime a levy comes up and is funded by a Chicago political group who wants to make schools private so they can teach kids their agendas, or you can simply restore funding to your community schools, backed by people who live in your community who are not perfect like yourself.

St. Joe, if you don't stand up for your kids, who will?

Yet another public entity endorsing a bandaid approach of sustaining district policies accomplishing nothing. Surprising that an agency meant to promote the community would not acknowledge the flawed thinking in approving this measure and work toward demanding what really needs to happen to improve educational excellence in the city.

Yes it seems many in the community are behind this, are you begining feeling alone, perhaps you are wrong in your thought process - just a suggestion.

sense - Remember that being said prior to the previous vote on this subject. Perhaps you are wrong in your thought process of how this may evolve - Just a suggestion.

What is surprising is an agency who literally "trashed" the sunset direction back in Apr is now for it. Again it goes to lack of committment to fight for the correct argument and that status quo appears to be acceptable. Instead of real engagement for the proper approach, there is the mindset to lock a solution in for another five years that has been proven not to be effective. This will not in my view encourage any real new business from a company standpoint. If I was a CEO looking for a new area to place my company, it would not be here, the sunset clause promotes unstability and a status quo thought process that does not commit to invest in future state projects for improvement.

John that made no sense at all, you really think CEO of a company would put a company in a community in which the communnity funds its schools lower than most districts in the state, you think they will come while the schools are making huge cutbacks and the economy gets worse, you think they are going to come because we are meeting about it?

It seems most who make a living on recuriting and bringing buisness are against your arguement. I don't like a sunset, the district does not like a sunset, they don't like having funding more.

apm - was not wrong by much on the levy in April - just a reminder

Someone should explain to Mr Allison that having a difference of opinion is not "slander'.

ibc - perhaps you should explain to yougotta what the term "slander" means, he throws that out a lot when people voice opinions about him. Just a suggestion.

It makes a lot of sense. Sunset is unstable and the argument is not the correct approach in my opinion. Tuesday will decide where the community is at on this.

Keep in mind if this does not pass, the budget for the 2010 school budget will be made knowing no more funding will be coming, that will mean more cut backs and layoffs from the school district. If you have children in school, next year will be a very difficult one.

more threats..... this and the scare tactics you have been chanting regarding damaging the third largest employee in the county. classic re-hash of the same threats the sjsd utilized in the last effort.

the district is staying quietly in the background. they have themselves brilliantly hidden in plain sight. i can just see smith flinching each time she reads your comments, which are in direct opposition of the feel good campaign the TF is trying to run.

For all those that have commented - it appears some of you need to back to school, your spelling is atrocious!!

Lets see Heritage, after the levy they froze alaries, eliminated some jobs, drew new district lines, closed two schools - now help me here, are they still considered threats when the come to be - no, the indeed become fact.

If the levy fails you know it will be bad. Im just telling people whats going to happen.

getreadstjoe - sorry, I don't have my reading glasses today, plus I am very bad at spelling and grammer to begin with -

What I find also interesting is how all of the editorials in support of this appear to come from everyone local. That in itself is ok, I have no problem with that, but to validate my rationale, not one editorial in support for this direction has come from any outside executive, company, etc, that may have an interest in investing in future business for St Joseph. Back in Apr, there were scores of opinion pieces written and published by that group of people in support of a long term investment approach,and literally 86ing the sunset clause levy as an effective means of doing business. So my question is where is that outside support now? And I would like to know how many major companies have truly made investments to build plants, offices, plans to move thier headquarters, etc, in St Joseph over the years. I believe the present way of how we manage our educational processes is a direct result of lack of investment. There were numerous articles and posts written in Apr addressing the concern of confidence in showing off many of our schools to outsiders and again I believe the sunset clause direction has contributed to that lack of confidence. I will even go as far as making an opinion of how committed the Chamber and some of its membership is to this present direction. Not one word came out of there until Axiom showed up. With all my comments, I never attacked board members or the district with such remarks Axiom used. I challenged the rationale behind some of their decisions and as a taxpayer I have every right to do that on occasion. My argument stands, I back everything I state, and I put my name to it. Will be looking forward to the end of Tuesday and the results.

In case you had not noticed John - we are in the middle of a great repression - not a lot of plant building going on right now -

How long has that supposed "repression" been going for, decades? It is time to change it and make long term investments to do so. Sunset clause does not do it, it hinders and is the root cause of all district problems. I will not support such a solution that does not work.

okay you just repeated what you have been posting for tha past month - no the repression has been going on for about a year now, didn't you know? Thats why East Hills is sitting empty.

Just wondering - how much money was saved by the cuts that was made? When the levy failed it took $32 million out of the coffers. $20 million of that went to the reserves. Which left $12 million that they used for operating cost. The reserves are built up to where they need them so if the $.63 levy passes that will give them $32 million to use as operating cost. That is $20 million more then was used the last five years. If I here one more person say that is not enough without cold hard facts in black and white I will never vote yes on another levy. I am voting yes on this levy and if they use the money wisely come back with another in five years without the sunset clause and I will vote yes again. SJSD got themselves in this mess of people not trusting them when they stashed alot of the last levy into the reserves. Yes it was needed but they should have be upfront about it. And for you folks that think they don't need a reserve - think again. Without a certain amount in the reserves the state and feds withhold funding of certain programs. SJSD lost some of this extra funding because we did not have enough in reserves.

East Hills sits empty because the population base does not support it fully and investment is not there. Many wind up going down to KC such as Zona or over to Legends and such because there is more variety and things to do. It is also a way for people to get out and about. The question is being avoided, how many major companies have truly made investments to build plants, offices, plans to move thier headquarters, etc, in St Joseph over the years? That question has nothing to do with the present economic status. I believe our educational processes at present have a direct correlation with my above question.

"REPRESSION".... a malapropism containing a freudian slip. priceless!!!!!

that was funny