Say Yes/Say No

 In July it was announced that the Wawasee school board would be asking for an increase in property taxes to help fund their school system.  They did not have specific needs for this money, but were focused more on the fact that our district had one of the lowest assessed property tax values for public schools in the state.  I read the article to Doug and he quickly did the math.  The increased 28.5 cents per $100 assessed property value would end up costing us over $600 a year more.  Since we only paid $1200 currently for both the lot and our home that seemed outrageous.  I had been watching every since the initial referendum was announced in the paper for feedback, but there really wasn't that much about it, even in the comment section.

All of that changed this past week, however.  We had noticed that a few "Yes for Wawasee" signs had popped up in yards around our neighborhood.  That didn't surprise us as we had quite a few administrators, board members and teachers living close to us.  I thought it was misleading that the signs said "yes for Wawasee" as if voting against the referendum was a no against the school system.  I hoped that voters would realize that it was really about voting to raise property taxes or not.  

The days went on and the signs increased.  It didn't seem like it anyone was really that worked up about the tax hike until we got back from Bloomington.  All of a sudden our neighborhood and those around us were inundated with "No for Wawasee" signs everywhere.  Doug and I were pleased to see that someone had decided to take action against the referendum.  As we still had friends that taught in the school system and liked several of the board members and administrators personally, we didn't want to say much.  We had just planned on quietly voting no and encouraging Cal and Meg to do the same.  My parents felt the same way.  None of us had been impressed with the quality of education that the Heinisch children had received at Wawasee and didn't believe that throwing more money at the problem would solve anything.  Thankfully, from the looks around town it seems like a lot of others have agreed with us and we're all hopeful that the "no's" win.