Could you imagine if our side did this?

The campaign for the D11 school board in 2005 was the most expensive campaign ever. The 3 union candidates, John Gudvangen, Tami Hasling, and Sandra Mann, made it the most brutal and dishonest campaign as well. As is typical of the local media, very little information was provided to the public about this gutter-style politics.

Anyone can imagine that if any supporter of Eric Christen or Willie Breazell or Sandy Shakes or myself would have ever threatened any citizen or business over how they should vote, this would be front page news. However, when a very vocal supporter of the 3 union purchased candidates threatened a local business, the community barely took notice.

Elizabeth (Liz) Palmer is a local liberal who is a staunch supporter of the status quo. Palmer is another "activist" who believes that learning can only be accomplished by white students and that there is no hope for improving the lot of minorities or poor students. Palmer is a member of a local group called Alliance for Quality Public Schools. Their mission is simple enough - prevent any type of reform or improvement from occurring in D11. The Alliance is also strongly opposed to allowing parents to have a say in their children's education. While the Alliance opposes school choice and vouchers, its members remained strangely silent when it was discovered that D11 had provided vouchers to its own employees while refusing to do so for other parents.

During the 2005 campaign, Palmer was obviously a supporter of the anti-reform slate of Gudvangen, Hasling, and Mann. One morning Palmer noticed campaign signs on the property of the North End Diner, an established diner on North Hancock near Fillmore. Palmer flew into a fury because those campaign signs happened to belong to the 2005 slate of Carla Albers, Reggie Perry, and Bob Lathen. The owners of the North End Diner had not consulted with Palmer and her group of thugs to ask permission to support someone other than the union slate. As a result, Palmer fired off the following letter to the owners of the diner:

Notice that Palmer claims to be a supporter of "locally controlled education." It is interesting that Palmer has never complained that the biggest donor to her candidates' campaigns was the Washington D.C. based Progressive Majority, a group dedicated to purchasing elections for left-wing candidates across the country. The other huge donor was, of course, the Washington D. C. based National Education Association. Both of these groups are staunchly opposed to parental control of the public schools, so Palmer's premise in her threatening letter is somewhat odd.

Palmer has also been actively involved in the recall effort against Shakes and Christen. Palmer's attitude and tactics illustrate the type of people who really control public schools. They are deeply offended by the fact that anyone would dare run for school board without their blessing. They are deeply offended when school board members refuse to take their marching orders from them. As illustrated by Palmer's threatening letter, they are also offended when respected members of the community dare to hold beliefs that do not fall in line with their narrow ideology.

The North End Diner is a fantastic eating establishment, and the Houston family who owns the diner stood their ground against these threats. The Houstons obviously care deeply about the state of their local schools, and that is why they supported the slate of candidates who also cared deeply about their schools.