EACS - Nothing but the truth

Craig Dellinger — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:33:22 GMT

This week’s blog entry will focus mainly on the East Allen County School situation we find ourselves in - I wish it could be short and simple, but it’s a complicated issue. The East Allen County Schools (EACS) have a tough situation. They’re dealing with declining enrollment, less funding from the State, and an aging infrastructure. Their solution is to close some elementary schools and keep five high schools. This issue isn’t anything new. It’s been a fight for over twenty years. School Boards have proposed plans - mostly been rejected. Superintendents have been hired and fired. Unfortunately, we became one of the worst performing school districts in our area (and State). People and companies previously wanted to move to East Allen because they knew their children would have the highest quality education. Now our school system is a deterrent to both the real estate market and economic development in general. That’s both a tragedy and something we need to get fixed - quickly!

A group of citizens in New Haven organized about three years ago to study the situation and provide their input to the school administration. We put on forums, had private meetings with the administration, I even brought Dr. Tony Bennett (the State Superintendent of Public Instruction) to New Haven for a public forum. For the most part, both our suggestions and help offered by Dr. Bennett were ignored. When the School Board realized that their project would require a referendum (vote from the public) to pass, they broke the project into chunks so that they could proceed with the smaller projects (Woodlan and Heritage) without public opinion - and both of those will increase taxes. We begged them to keep the projects together so that the communities wouldn’t be split - to no avail. The only “say” we have is with a remonstrance process. There is one currently in process for the Woodlan project and another remonstrance will have to be done for the Heritage project (starting March 1st).

There has been a huge mis-information campaign ran by members of the school board and their supporters. They blame the New Haven City government and Chamber of Commerce for being against them and even say that if people sign the blue petition, Leo or Woodlan will be closed. That is a ridiculous statement and has never been proposed. To make things even more confusing, they’ve promised to go ahead with the Woodlan and Heritage projects no matter what the public wants. The remonstrances could end up just being a say whether we want our taxes increased or not. Also, there is NO organized effort by either the City of New Haven or the Chamber in this fight. There are people from the City Administration and the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors in this fight, but we’re private citizens. We’re speaking for ourselves, our families, our community, and our businesses. We don’t have an absolute plan that we’re pushing - we just know a bad plan when we see it. There are so many things wrong with their plan, it would take pages to cover everything. What we want is a plan that provides the BEST education for our children, makes people want to move to our area again BECAUSE of our school system, and is ECONOMICALLY SUSTAINABLE. We feel that their current proposal doesn’t guarantee any of that.

I’m asking you to please sign the blue petition which is against the tax increase. Signing BLUE is NOT signing against better education - it’s just telling them they have a bad plan. We are all about providing a better education for our children. We just don't see where their plan will do anything but divide communities and maintain budget problems. The Woodlan remonstrance signatures have to be turned in on Tuesday, February 14th so we’re running out of time. You can sign the petition this Sunday from noon to three at the Kroger parking lot in New Haven, or anytime Monday at New Haven Print. If you can’t make those times and want to sign, please let me know and we’ll get a petition to you.

Whether the Woodlan remonstrance passes or not, the Heritage remonstrance will begin March 1st. Please help us send a message that we need to re-think the plan. It's obvious we need to do something - but it shouldn't be at the expense of our children's education and well being.

Welcome to my Blog v.2

Craig Dellinger — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:02:15 GMT

Hello Neighbors:

Hope you are having a great 2012 so far. I’d first like to thank everyone who helped put me in the position to serve you as New Haven’s Third District Councilman. I really appreciate the hard work our volunteers did, and I appreciate every single vote I received on election day. Regardless of whether you voted for me or not, I want to give you as much information on what’s going on in the City of New Haven as possible. AND, I’d appreciate feedback on the issues we’re dealing with. There is rarely an issue where there aren’t two sides involved. I want to make decisions that represent District 3’s residents and what’s best for New Haven. You can help by staying in the loop and providing comments.

The most effective way for me to do this is to maintain this internet blog. I’m planning on posting an article at least twice a month on issues brought in front of the City Council and any other news concerning us in New Haven. This will include information on proposed ordinances, new construction, events, good news and bad news. You can comment on the articles, or bring up issues of your own. The blog will be moderated and we won’t allow personal attacks, or nonsense. You can visit the blog at any time, or you can subscribe to the site. When you subscribe (free), you’ll receive an email with new posts as they come out. This is my second attempt at getting this blog going. Hopefully this time we'll have more people involved and get some interesting discussions going.

You can also email me personally at cdellinger@newhavenin.org or call my cell phone at (260) 460-7161 for questions or comments.

2012 is going to be an exciting year in New Haven. We have a lot of projects going on. Work will be starting on the Moeller Road sidewalk project this summer and the Maplecrest Extension will be finishing up also. Look for our participation in an Indianapolis 500 Community Celebration again this year. We had so many good comments and great participation last year, we’re planning on doing it again. As it was last year, this is a competition among Indiana Communities. The winning community receives $20,000 and the second and third will receive $2,500 each. We were so close to winning last year, we have to give it another shot. There will also be difficult issues to deal with. The City of Fort Wayne is promising water rate hikes that will impact us. As always,it’s the job of the Council to provide the most services and best quality of life possible with the lowest tax rates. It makes it difficult when we have to deal with cost increases that our outside our control.

Again, I'm looking forward to your participation. Help me make New Haven an even greater place to live, raise our families and do business.

New Haven News and Comments

EACS - Nothing but the truth

Welcome to my Blog v.2