Who’s There? Justice for Oak Park Taxpayers!

View release as a PDF

OAK PARK—Taxpayers United of America (TUA) is taking their demand for justice to the streets of Oak Park. In a canvass blitz of Oak Park Government School District 97, TUA is pedaling awareness of the status of its lawsuit against the district.

“Every resident in the district needs to be aware of the political games being used to protect district leadership from the consequences of the electioneering that we allege to be illegal”, said Jim Tobin, president of TUA.

“TUA and Noel Kuriakos have filed an appeal to the unbelievable ruling of Chicago Machine judicial darling, Judge Mary Mikva, that basically approves of the district’s practice of knowingly grossly underestimating the amount by which property taxes would increase on the April 5, 2011 property tax increase referendum.”

“We are covering the district with flyers to make sure every taxpayer is aware of the tactics the district used to pass the property tax increase referendum and the remarkable approval of those tactics by Judge Mikva”, added Tobin.

“Like the others before it, this property tax increase has nothing to do with ‘the children’ and everything to do with preserving the generous salaries and benefits of the government school employees. 80% of District 97 spending goes to salaries and benefits”, said Tobin.

View the top 100 pensions and salaries of Oak Park Government School District 97 (PDF).

“The lavish pensions of the government school employees are paid by the 67% income tax surcharge passed in 2011. The average government teacher pension of those who have retired in the last two years is $65,000.”

“We are not going to be intimidated and we are not going away. We are just waiting for dates for oral arguments or a ruling in the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. This is just the next step in the process that we will see to the end”, stated Tobin.

“The ‘status quo’ political gamesmanship is no longer acceptable.”