More lies from the Journal Star edit page

Once again, the Journal Star editorial board is lying to its readers.

Anyone unfamiliar with the history behind the controversy over where to build a proposed replacement for Glen Oak Grade School might read this editorial and think that opposition started after the Peoria School Board voted to spend $900,000 to buy up properties, when those checks were written long after strong opposition developed and without any official open-session vote by the school board. The JS editorial board brainiacs thinks that as long as the money is spent, all opposition to stop. Never mind that is pretty much the opposite of the way things are supposed to work in a system in which there laws regulating how the government can spend taxpayers cash.

The editorial also neglects to mention that the school board has consistently lied to residents about a state law that is supposed to require a set acreage for any new school construction projects, when no such requirements exist. This means that the school district's claims that any other site there must be more expensive are lies as well, because the school board did not seriously consider lower-cost options on smaller plots of land. The district insists the new school must be build on a ranch like a suburban school would be built, even though it is supposed to serve a densely populated inner city neighborhood.

And the editorial writer tells a flat-out, bald-faced lie when claiming that residents don't want a new school or a $15 million investment. The fact is that they do. They have said so repeatedly in letters to the editor and in numerous public meetings. The residents just don't want to loose park land. They don't want their children crossing heavily trafficked Prospect Road twice a day. They don't want a neighborhood school on the westernmost boundary of the school's attendance zone. These residents have offered up suggestion after suggestion for different sites.

When the editorial writer states that opponents might not want the Ray LaHood-brokered meeting to be open (which is something I have not heard even once) the writer neglects to mention that it is the Peoria Park District and School District 150 are the agencies that have conspired -- in secret -- to conduct business and have repeatedly lied to and mislead voters and the Journal Star itself about details behind the land swap deals.

And who are the people who have "attempted to meddle in the matter," as the Journal Star puts it? Taxpayers. Residents. Voters. You know, the people the Journal Star editorial board thinks should just shut the Hell up and mind their own business. Because, as you know, elite progressives are the only ones smart enough to have a say in how taxpayer dollars are used and in how children are educated.

I don't find moral fault in the Journal Star's award-winning (snicker) editorial board disagreeing with me on this or any subject. But what infuriates and sickens me is how these peoeple play fast and loose with the facts and often ingores the content of their paper's own reporting simply because the editorial board finds these facts inconvenient to their agenda. It's dishonest and unethical.