Quick Hits – April 11, 2023

Quick Hits – April 11, 2023

Let’s catch up on a few stories!

Now they’re seeking input?

Note to school superintendents everywhere! The time to ask for serious public feedback regarding your impending district bond issue is BEFORE the question’s printed on the ballot, not after it’s failed twice in consecutive years. I’m sure D101 superintendent Lisa Hichens’ recent call for public feedback is well-intentions, but the truth is the voters have made themselves quite clear.

The fact that the first referendum failed on a November 2022 midterm night when Democrats and liberal causes did better than anyone expected is an unusually unequivocal response. It’s the kind of feedback that says that, at least for now, Batavia voters are so dissatisfied with the district’s direction they’re not willing to put another dime into it.

Then D101 compounded that error by asking the voters again in 2023 when the expected preponderance of conservative consolidated election voters meant the referendum had no shot. The questions administrators should be asking themselves at this point are what went wrong and how does the district get the voters to change their minds going forward?

Those solutions start with D101 admitting to their typical arrogance which led them to believe that all they had to do was put the question on the 2022 ballot and it would pass. Considering the scant 0.18 percent loss, had district leadership bothered to engage likely voters with just a moderately effective PROACTIVE outreach, the measure would’ve passed.

Oh! They did the typical forums, pointless social media posts, and at least one confusing mailer, but that wasn’t nearly enough to offset Batavia’s very vocal anti-tax group who’s mailer messaging was far more effective than the district’s.

Why should Batavians pay anything to replace two 50-year-old school buildings that look great from the outside? Why can’t they simply be repaired and/or remodeled, a much cheaper proposition.

Once they stop pointing fingers and take responsibility for those referenda losses, D101’s next step should be to determine what manner of messaging will move likely sympathetic voters in 2024. Then they need to enlist an enthusiastic citizens group to get that message out to them in no uncertain terms.

Asking for feedback? It’s never a bad idea, but unless it comes from Batavians who will actually vote in the next referendum cycle, it’s a patently pointless proposition.

Though no one asked, my suggestions would be for the district to hire a professional campaign manager or talk to the Sugar Grove library district about how they pulled off an odd-year referenda victory after more than ten straight defeats.

In this case I’d do both.

 

The Geneva pride hydrant is defaced – twice – again

Apparently, some of my predictions do pan out, because per a previous First Ward indication, as long as the City of Geneva persists in permitting political statements on fire hydrants, they will be defaced. It certainly doesn’t help matters that the Kane County Chronicle ensures repeated vandalism by publishing each iteration of hydrant damage in all its glorious digital detail.

Municipalities shouldn’t be in the business of endorsing political messages on city property because it ignites the prospect of the Satanists and Proud Boys applying for their fire hydrants. And once you say yes to one group, it opens the door to all the others. There’s also the ironic reality that this persistent vandalism creates the very same intolerant atmosphere that the city’s s supposedly taking a stand against.

Thank about it!

If I was a member of the LGBTQ community, a rainbow-colored fire hydrant would be nice, but it’s the kind of least amount of effort possible symbol that wouldn’t mean very much to me. Conversely, having to watch the hydrant being regularly defaced would make me feel quite unwelcome.

Of course, every time it happens that means the mendacious mayor Kevin Burns will feel the need to feign more outrage while making all manner of dire proclamations as the Geneva Police waste more of their time and taxpayer dollars investigating another unsolvable misdemeanor.

So, let’s stop painting fire hydrants any color other than red.

Meanwhile, like sports broadcasters who refuse to put the cameras on any drunk idiot who feels the need to run out onto the field, I’d like to encourage Shaw Media to STOP covering these incidents because it only encourages the next vandals to get their 15 minutes. But I won’t waste my breath because no one at those papers could spell the word “scruples” if you spotted them seven letters.

And the hydrant will continue to be defaced.

 

They’re still in business!

As The First Ward also prophesized, after contributors came through with the cash, the Lake in the Hills’ Uprising Bakery is still in business. They needed 30 grand to stay afloat, but the nationwide crowdfunding campaign actually raised a whopping $50,000.

For brief reference purposes, the local bigots were not amused by Uprising’s impending summer drag show, which led to all sorts of animosity, which culminated in the store being vandalized and a Lake in the Hills resident being arrested on felony hate crime charges.

Of course, this new donation dynamic seems to be the harbinger of a brand new “victimhood” business model by which you don’t actually have to sell anything to succeed. All you have to do is apply a stilted woke ideology to predictably rile up the local rabble and watch the donations roll in.

Who knew?

Again, this bakery’s insistence on using – yes using – the LGBTQ community to succeed is only making matters so much worse for the very folks who are already having a difficult time in that eminently intolerant and unforgiving community. Though this is one prediction I’d rather not see come true, with the Lake in the Hills battlelines clearly being drawn, the tension over this unnecessary and relentless confrontation will continue to boil over until something truly terrible happens.

I’ve said it before. When did a drag show, often aimed at children, become the pinnacle of demonstrable progressivism?

 

On what planet…

…does any bank notify an employee that they’re about to be fired and then invite them to attend the next staff meeting? It makes absolutely no sense.

In a previous life, I worked for a couple of banks, and even before all of the mega mergers, it was a miserable job and the banks knew it, too. Considering that reality and how the gig involves cash and sensitive customer data, whenever they fired someone they were immediately escorted out of the building and given a two- to four-week severance package.

I’m not saying that policy would’ve prevented the recent Louisville mass shooting, but there’s a massive difference between entering a bank after being fired to search for your targets after being fired and having them presented together to you in the same small room.

As a friend of mine said, “It was like shooting fish in a barrel.”

And this employee clearly had problems because they were terminating him after two short years. So, is this the guy you really want to let back in the building after you’ve told him he’s about to be let go?

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