Conspiracy (Or not) 101

Like conspiracies?

Try these on for size, and don't get lost if you're under 40.

Q - Was Secretary of War Edwin Stanton involved in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln?

A - Nope, Ed missed the play.

Q - Did President Franklin D. Roosevelt know about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor prior to the start of America's involvement in WWII on December 7, 1941?

A - Doubtful, but a sure bet is Scott Robison will start World War III to save his referendum's _ _ _ .

Q - Was Castro involved in the assassination of President John Kennedy?

A - Ask Jimmy Hoffa.

If you are under 40 you are excused for failure to score 66%.

But now consider this closer to home as your tax heinies will be in the sling, and you'd like a little conspiracy. Zionsville is good fodder for its own convoluted plots.

Did you know there may be an insidious connection between the Zionsville Times-Sentinel with the current referendum of the Zionsville Community Schools?

Follow this: The local Zionsville paper is owned by Community Newspapers Holdings Inc., now based in Montgomery, Alabama, a privately-owned company formerly based in Birmingham, Alabama.

It was started by Alabama ex-teachers, and financed by the Retirement Systems of Alabama, the administrator of the pension fund for Alabama teachers. Duh? Zionsville's paper is owned by teachers?

Take a gander at the coverage of the Zionsville school's money grab in the Zionsville Times-Sentinel. Ask yourself, could there be a connection between hard facts about the November referendum and saving the teachers' heinies? No matter how good the Times' editor and reporter is, the boss is the boss. Call it professional courtesy between school groups.

Could the Zionsville Times-Sentinel be shying away from in-depth hard news reporting on what the referendum means to Zionsville, in favor of more "happy" news? You know, fun news about a well-meaning Political Action Committee ZCS-Yes!PAC. The ZCSYes! PAC was formed to educate Zionsville's citizens that the referendum must pass "so that we can continue operating in the manner that our schools are used to,” ZCS-Yes Treasurer Ellen Niksch said. Yeah, fun happy stuff.

Doesn't the town deserve to know that the school Superintendent went to a conference last year on "how to pass a referendum" on the taxpayer's dime? Does that show he went into the referendum process with an open mind? Do you think at the fancy conference they said to start a political action committee? Or to use kids to prey on their parent's guilt?

Won't the town's taxpayers be able to make a better decision on the referendum if all of ZCS's spending picadillos are known? Like the fleet of corporate cars, or the hiring of an outside energy firm to tell ZCS how to turn off the lights?

Score 100% if you agree with Zionsville Confidential.

Let Them Eat Pizza

When Marie Antoinette told the French people, "Let them eat cake,'' the Revolution began.

But not so in apathetic Zionsville.

When asked how much the $42 million November referendum tax will cost Zionsville taxpayers, the school superintendent Scott Robison quipped:

"About the same price as a piece of pizza a day.''

At $5,850,000 a year for 7 years, make mine double sausage, double cheese please.

Where is the public outcry that will cost Zionsville property owners millions to pay off the School Board's humongous boondoggle of a new sports complex, new football stadium? All that and a multi-million dollar school sitting vacant.

The famous line from the school's financial guru Mike Shafer was that the empty school is being held in "strategic reserve.''

Are we in Kansas yet Toto?

And if residential property owners are not concerned yet, Main Street should be doubly worried because it will shoulder the greater weight of the referendum tax than a residential property of equal value.

Commercial properties, unlike residential ones, are not eligible for deductions for mortgages and homestead exemptions which add up, meaning that Zionsville businesses will have to cough-up almost three times that of the residential properties.

In a letter to the editor in this week's Zionsville Times-Sentinel, Peter Heles of Zionsville writes:
``There are approximately 50 parcels of commercial real estate on Main Street. The average gross assessed value of these properties is $485,000 based on the March 1, 2009 assessment. That means, on average, a commercial property owner on Main Street will pay an additional $10,015 for the seven year referendum tax.''

Heles is worried, as all Zionsville should be, that as hard as shopkeepers are trying to survive in the economic downturn, and in addition to increases in property taxes owing to the reassessments of the past few years, this new tax could cause some to shut their doors.

Pass the pizza.