One of the stories that needs to be told is just how the fictional bus savings came to be. Protecting data as predecisional is something that the Board could waive, and the new Board should.
I get the whole ethos of just moving forward and not dwelling on the past but every year for the next two generations of D65 students $3M+ of funds that should be used to educate kids is going out the door to pay off investors, so it isn't really "let bygones be bygones."
In fact, they should actually do a full on investigation and publish a report naming names and publishing e-mails, worksheets, raw data. If there are people still at D65 who were complicit with this and the ongoing lies that were told about, they should be swiftly broomed out. As for people who have since moved on, if telling the truth damages reputations and careers, so be it. A richly deserved outcome.
Wholeheartedly agreed. This can't be swept under the rug at all. For a district that routinely runs $10M annual overruns, adding what will inevitably be $5M in annual costs related to the Foster school will necessitate a tax increase. It represents the equivalent of 50 teachers salaries, which is crazy. They're literally making a decision on bricks vs instruction. Trying to manage the necessary savings via closures (While opening a new school) would be extremely painful, disruptive and likely not very effective. School closures in CPS yielded 40% less savings than expected and left gaping holes in neighborhoods.
wasn't the transportation mileage savings claim the responsibility of the person who signed the lease certificate which was described in one of foiagras's previous stories about possible security fraud?
Yes, technically the person signing would bear ultimate responsibility. Curiously, the versions of the frame documents that have been made available are all blank, unexecuted versions. The signed copies have not been made available.
I'll get it sooner or later. I haven't seen Raymond James around in a while, so I wonder if they're still working for the District. I know some citizens (including me) sent the Board an email suggesting firing them for this fiasco.
I’m so annoyed and frustrated for Maria. This stuff matters! The first candidate listed will get a vote bump just for being first. And correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it’s Andrew Wymer.
it isn't random top 4 bottom 4 - all in line at 8 AM on the FIRST day of the filing period are part of a lottery, so its possible to have 12 in a lottery for 1st place on the ballot.
then another lottery is held for filers from 4-5 PM on the LAST day of the filing period for the LAST spot on the ballot
Tom covered this in his post - “Cook County has an interesting system for ordering on ballots for large elections. In general, it is in the order that you filed - however the top 4 and bottom 4 are randomized.” My comment is more about how the software on the voting machines essentially hides her name.
Hey Tom. Thank you very much for posting my endorsement and newsletter. I really appreciate your support and the way you elevate local voices. You don’t have to do it but you do it anyway.
I have a little baby Substack and even that feels like a lot of maintenance. So I can’t imagine the work you put into maintaining yours. Plus working. Plus just existing in our crazy world. Anyway, just thank you.
I am planning to vote for Brandon Utter, Pat Anderson, Nichole Pinkard and Dan Lyonsmith. That said I am thankful that we have such a large and qualified group of people willing to take this on. To whoever wins, we are all counting on you. And to all the candidates, thank you for stepping up to this challenge.
Nichole Pinkard has worked with dozens of school districts over her career. If she failed to protect any group of students, it would be a matter of public record. Please don’t create a false narrative about what she “might do” when there is no evidence of misbehavior in her past. There.
As a community we should conduct a full post-mortem on what led us to this current crisis. However, our should approach should be methodical and sober-minded so that good and civic-minded people like Nichole don’t become guilty by association.
Well Karla Thomas has also publicly and personally endorsed Nichole - so that should tell you everything you need to know about whether to vote for Nichole. This “endorser” was Hortons biggest cheerleader, has repeatedly accused the broader Evanston community of being racist and is also moving to South Africa.
In full disclosure, I was on the staff at DePaul at the same time as Nichole. Hand on the Bible, I’ve never heard anything but praise for her and her work. Her dedication to understanding root causes of learning challenges and improving the educational experience for all children is impressive. I’m willing to bet that there are many communities that would want someone with Nichole’s capabilities on their school board, and was delighted to vote for her on Monday.
I believe you! However her actions have contributed to a significant number of Jewish students feeling unsafe and singled out at Northwestern. Do we want to the same at D65?
Dang Tom, this is going to be one heck of a story when you wrap it up, and a walking endorsement for more financial oversight of this stuff. They desperately need a full forensic audit.
Those bills are highly suspicious. $113 at a gas station? Assuming $3.65 a gallon (a little higher than the DoE data for Jan 2023) that is a 30+ gallon fill up. We know from police reports that he owned a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee which only has a 24.6 gallon capacity.
There was probably a snack purchase or something else at the gas station. It's sort of sickening to think of the money he essentially embezzled from Evanston's children to buy flowers, food and entertainment for himself.
The gas station and flowers are things that at least have a potential argument that they're for district purposes (they hand out flowers when they give awards and such). Unless the PE class was taking on boxing or something, I can't imagine a legitimate reason for Showtime pay per view.
I'm sorry, did you really just publish personal endorsements? While ignoring organizational endorsements? You do realize that every candidate has "trusted" personal endorsements? What do the other 10 candidates have to do to get their personal endorsements posted on FOIA gras?
Send me the personal endorsements if they post online in public and I'll publish them. I've been asking everyone I can find and only two people got back to me.
I wonder how Dan "My expectation is to serve out second term" Biss feels about a TikTok carpetbagger jumping in to unseat Schakowsky in the Dem primary next year?
I'm not sure how vulnerable Jan is, but she hasn't had to run a competitive campaign since 1998. Given the climate, I wouldn't discount a viable challenge from a young progressive.
Some scenarios:
1) Jan wins relatively narrowly in 2026, but the TikTok carpetbagger gets name recognition, pushing Biss to the sidelines for 2028.
2) The TikTok carpetbagger actually wins and then Biss is shut out of the seat.
3) Jan announces in the next 12 months she won't run and the TikTok carpetbagger already has momentum for 2026 and Biss will have to decide whether to go back on his word to serve his second term out and run for Jan's seat.
4) Biss loses to Jeff and then has to decide whether to run in 2026 as a failed mayoral candidate or wait it out.
I'm sure he wasn't expecting this announcement today.
So, you are not personally endorsing any candidates, but you are "endorsing" other people's endorsements"? Pretty interesting choices, since you turned off comments on the Pinkard post.
Also to add onto this, I went out of my way to wait for another story to show up on my desk (Maria's) and another local writer's endorsement (Simone's) so that it didn't seem like I was shilling for Nichole, even though that story about her alleged role in the Foster School stuff is newsworthy by itself.
I have to make editorial decisions all day long running this thing and during an election, it's virtually impossible to report on stories involving one candidate without someone showing up to call me biased.
If you go to my other post, I shared what traits *I* look for in a candidate (Horton referral + Technology pledge), something that neither Nichole nor Pat endorsed.
If you guys want me to cover elections, you're going to have to extend a little bit of grace to me, the field is 12 people and short of printing nothing but quotes, it's impossible to write on it without having allegations of bias.
Anonymous - If you have friends who are writers online and have published public endorsements, send them my way. I closed that comment section because you and a few other commenters wanted to do nothing but debate the protests at Northwestern. There are plenty of places to argue about Israel and Gaza and this is not one of them.
My intent here was to spread the word of other writers in our town and get them followers. We are all on the same team.
Some people did get off topic. But most were concerned about the views and actions of the candidate. Pinkard's letter signing made a segment of Northwestern students feel unsafe and insecure. Will she make some children at D65 feel unsafe and insecure as well?
Perhaps you should moderate individual comments and/or issue warnings to participants who stray from the rules. By shutting the entire discussion, you undermined the concern of several community members.
One of the stories that needs to be told is just how the fictional bus savings came to be. Protecting data as predecisional is something that the Board could waive, and the new Board should.
I get the whole ethos of just moving forward and not dwelling on the past but every year for the next two generations of D65 students $3M+ of funds that should be used to educate kids is going out the door to pay off investors, so it isn't really "let bygones be bygones."
In fact, they should actually do a full on investigation and publish a report naming names and publishing e-mails, worksheets, raw data. If there are people still at D65 who were complicit with this and the ongoing lies that were told about, they should be swiftly broomed out. As for people who have since moved on, if telling the truth damages reputations and careers, so be it. A richly deserved outcome.
Wholeheartedly agreed. This can't be swept under the rug at all. For a district that routinely runs $10M annual overruns, adding what will inevitably be $5M in annual costs related to the Foster school will necessitate a tax increase. It represents the equivalent of 50 teachers salaries, which is crazy. They're literally making a decision on bricks vs instruction. Trying to manage the necessary savings via closures (While opening a new school) would be extremely painful, disruptive and likely not very effective. School closures in CPS yielded 40% less savings than expected and left gaping holes in neighborhoods.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/01/1178727834/after-10-years-chicago-school-closings-have-left-big-holes-and-promises-unkept
Indeed some richly deserved outcomes are in order.
wasn't the transportation mileage savings claim the responsibility of the person who signed the lease certificate which was described in one of foiagras's previous stories about possible security fraud?
Yes, technically the person signing would bear ultimate responsibility. Curiously, the versions of the frame documents that have been made available are all blank, unexecuted versions. The signed copies have not been made available.
It’s long past time to make public the correspondence between D65 and Raymond James.
I'll get it sooner or later. I haven't seen Raymond James around in a while, so I wonder if they're still working for the District. I know some citizens (including me) sent the Board an email suggesting firing them for this fiasco.
Here are my endorsements: Borgia, Lyonsmith, Opdyke, Utter
I’m so annoyed and frustrated for Maria. This stuff matters! The first candidate listed will get a vote bump just for being first. And correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it’s Andrew Wymer.
I may be wrong, but I think ballot order is determined by who shows up first at the County Clerk's office to file their candidate petitions.
It is in order of who showed up but they randomize the top 4 and bottom 4 when its a big one like this
it isn't random top 4 bottom 4 - all in line at 8 AM on the FIRST day of the filing period are part of a lottery, so its possible to have 12 in a lottery for 1st place on the ballot.
then another lottery is held for filers from 4-5 PM on the LAST day of the filing period for the LAST spot on the ballot
Oh shit, they've already thought of my plan
Tom covered this in his post - “Cook County has an interesting system for ordering on ballots for large elections. In general, it is in the order that you filed - however the top 4 and bottom 4 are randomized.” My comment is more about how the software on the voting machines essentially hides her name.
Trick to winning an election: show up first and then have 12 friends behind you so all your opponents get jammed below the fold
Hey Tom. Thank you very much for posting my endorsement and newsletter. I really appreciate your support and the way you elevate local voices. You don’t have to do it but you do it anyway.
I have a little baby Substack and even that feels like a lot of maintenance. So I can’t imagine the work you put into maintaining yours. Plus working. Plus just existing in our crazy world. Anyway, just thank you.
I am planning to vote for Brandon Utter, Pat Anderson, Nichole Pinkard and Dan Lyonsmith. That said I am thankful that we have such a large and qualified group of people willing to take this on. To whoever wins, we are all counting on you. And to all the candidates, thank you for stepping up to this challenge.
I mailed my ballot this morning. I’m really grateful for the many hours you devoted so we could make the best decisions on the D 65 candidates
Thanks for keeping the dialogue going Tom…shaping up to be an interesting election! Happy voting everyone.
Sorry, fast fingers on the last post.
Nichole Pinkard has worked with dozens of school districts over her career. If she failed to protect any group of students, it would be a matter of public record. Please don’t create a false narrative about what she “might do” when there is no evidence of misbehavior in her past. There.
Promise I’m done.
As a community we should conduct a full post-mortem on what led us to this current crisis. However, our should approach should be methodical and sober-minded so that good and civic-minded people like Nichole don’t become guilty by association.
Well Karla Thomas has also publicly and personally endorsed Nichole - so that should tell you everything you need to know about whether to vote for Nichole. This “endorser” was Hortons biggest cheerleader, has repeatedly accused the broader Evanston community of being racist and is also moving to South Africa.
In full disclosure, I was on the staff at DePaul at the same time as Nichole. Hand on the Bible, I’ve never heard anything but praise for her and her work. Her dedication to understanding root causes of learning challenges and improving the educational experience for all children is impressive. I’m willing to bet that there are many communities that would want someone with Nichole’s capabilities on their school board, and was delighted to vote for her on Monday.
I believe you! However her actions have contributed to a significant number of Jewish students feeling unsafe and singled out at Northwestern. Do we want to the same at D65?
Wow. This surprises me. Do you have examples?
You can go read about it on the post about Pinkard
Yeah please go argue about that over there and not here, I don't want to close the comment section again because everyone is debating the NU protests
You shut off the comments in the Pinkard article. How can we continue the discussion there?
I meant Sepehr's endorsement post
https://sepehrvakil.substack.com/p/why-im-endorsing-dr-nichole-pinkard
Dang Tom, this is going to be one heck of a story when you wrap it up, and a walking endorsement for more financial oversight of this stuff. They desperately need a full forensic audit.
Those bills are highly suspicious. $113 at a gas station? Assuming $3.65 a gallon (a little higher than the DoE data for Jan 2023) that is a 30+ gallon fill up. We know from police reports that he owned a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee which only has a 24.6 gallon capacity.
Saville flowers purchase during the winter break?
There was probably a snack purchase or something else at the gas station. It's sort of sickening to think of the money he essentially embezzled from Evanston's children to buy flowers, food and entertainment for himself.
Unapologetically [stealing from your children],
Dr. Horton
The gas station and flowers are things that at least have a potential argument that they're for district purposes (they hand out flowers when they give awards and such). Unless the PE class was taking on boxing or something, I can't imagine a legitimate reason for Showtime pay per view.
I think that's an overly generous characterization, based on everything that's come out since he skipped town. But, it's really nice of you!
Had to buy flowers after ignoring his wife to watch PPV?
Aren’t there two gas station charges on consecutive days? BP & Exxon? I could be mistaken.
Yeah but the District used his card to gas up the District security vehicles:
https://www.foiagras.com/p/district-65-used-capital-funds-for
But he also used it to gas up his personal vehicle too. So who knows!
I'm sorry, did you really just publish personal endorsements? While ignoring organizational endorsements? You do realize that every candidate has "trusted" personal endorsements? What do the other 10 candidates have to do to get their personal endorsements posted on FOIA gras?
Send me the personal endorsements if they post online in public and I'll publish them. I've been asking everyone I can find and only two people got back to me.
I just posted my endorsements. Tell them to post in the comments. It's Tom's blog and he can post whatever he wants.
Thank you. Everyone is welcome to spam the comments with their endorsements.
Sure. One minute Tom is a journalist to be taken seriously, and then after the mildest critique he's suddenly just a Guy With A Blog. Got it.
If you don't like my style, you don't have to read or comment.
I wonder how Dan "My expectation is to serve out second term" Biss feels about a TikTok carpetbagger jumping in to unseat Schakowsky in the Dem primary next year?
I'm not sure how vulnerable Jan is, but she hasn't had to run a competitive campaign since 1998. Given the climate, I wouldn't discount a viable challenge from a young progressive.
Some scenarios:
1) Jan wins relatively narrowly in 2026, but the TikTok carpetbagger gets name recognition, pushing Biss to the sidelines for 2028.
2) The TikTok carpetbagger actually wins and then Biss is shut out of the seat.
3) Jan announces in the next 12 months she won't run and the TikTok carpetbagger already has momentum for 2026 and Biss will have to decide whether to go back on his word to serve his second term out and run for Jan's seat.
4) Biss loses to Jeff and then has to decide whether to run in 2026 as a failed mayoral candidate or wait it out.
I'm sure he wasn't expecting this announcement today.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5211158-progressive-influencer-kat-abughazaleh/
There will be a hundred people in this race. I think the carpetbagger has no shot
So, you are not personally endorsing any candidates, but you are "endorsing" other people's endorsements"? Pretty interesting choices, since you turned off comments on the Pinkard post.
Also to add onto this, I went out of my way to wait for another story to show up on my desk (Maria's) and another local writer's endorsement (Simone's) so that it didn't seem like I was shilling for Nichole, even though that story about her alleged role in the Foster School stuff is newsworthy by itself.
I have to make editorial decisions all day long running this thing and during an election, it's virtually impossible to report on stories involving one candidate without someone showing up to call me biased.
If you go to my other post, I shared what traits *I* look for in a candidate (Horton referral + Technology pledge), something that neither Nichole nor Pat endorsed.
https://www.foiagras.com/p/foia-gras-d65-voter-guide
If you guys want me to cover elections, you're going to have to extend a little bit of grace to me, the field is 12 people and short of printing nothing but quotes, it's impossible to write on it without having allegations of bias.
Of course. I appreciate all the work you do.
Anonymous - If you have friends who are writers online and have published public endorsements, send them my way. I closed that comment section because you and a few other commenters wanted to do nothing but debate the protests at Northwestern. There are plenty of places to argue about Israel and Gaza and this is not one of them.
My intent here was to spread the word of other writers in our town and get them followers. We are all on the same team.
Some people did get off topic. But most were concerned about the views and actions of the candidate. Pinkard's letter signing made a segment of Northwestern students feel unsafe and insecure. Will she make some children at D65 feel unsafe and insecure as well?
Perhaps you should moderate individual comments and/or issue warnings to participants who stray from the rules. By shutting the entire discussion, you undermined the concern of several community members.