Damaging prank not very amusing

I woke up this morning to find our trampoline and a swing tipped over. I later found out my neighbors trampoline and children's toys were destroyed, too.

I realize these are only play items for our kids, but they were ours and some youth felt an hour of fun was worth my kids crying. Now, in the big picture of life, this is not gunfire in our street, as many unfortunately deal with. But our lives were disturbed and our kids are sad.

The fact that these teenagers probably were taught right from wrong and decided to destroy someone else's property makes me sad. I can only hope as they saw the police car outside my home and will think twice before doing this again.

Unfortunately, this is the end of the trampoline and we don't plan on getting another one. A lesson learned.

When my boys become teens, I want them to remember how they felt this Sunday morning before they think a funny little prank won't hurt anyone.

Carol Johnson

Sleepy Hollow

Residents to blame for U-46 fiasco

A great big attaboy to Mr. Hallow of North Aurora for his Sept. 15 letter on how to make school taxes fairer. That has been my personal opinion for many years, but he did the math that I never did.

I totally agree that as homeowners, a good school system is in our best interest as far as property values go. However, come the time when you haven't had children in the schools for many years and the property taxes are going to force you to sell and move, an adjustment needs to come into play.

Every property owner should pay a base amount, but from there, it should be based on how many children you are putting into the system. This would apply to renters, owners etc. and the parcel number would be a perfect way to apply those charges.

When the school portion of your tax bill reaches 67 percent of the total, you can count on a taxpayer voting "no" on a school referendum. After what the U-46 school board has shoved down our throats with this Connie Neale fiasco, it will never see a "yes" vote from this household.

Then Ken Kaczynski says we (the taxpayers) really need to put this behind us and move on. I'm ready to move on as soon as he and Karen Carney resign their positions and the Neale contract is made null and void. Expect a lawsuit? U-46 should be an expert in lawsuits by now. I would rather pay a lawyer than Neale anyway.

Do this all in closed meetings and then refuse to make the minutes available to the public?

We have the right to know what is going on with our tax dollars at these closed door meetings, and not have to find out when Dan Rich resigned.

Then Kaczynski has the gall to tell us they did not know what Neale's plans were. We all knew she was gone the minute the details of that contract hit the press. Is he totally clueless? If so, he should not be a school board president. It sounds more like he should be working for Gov. Blagojevich's office.

If the voters/taxpayers are unhappy with the current situation, they have nobody to blame but themselves. They chose to vote for those on the board or didn't bother to vote at all, which is like a "yes" vote for a bad administration.

When you have a 10 to 15 percent turnout for an election with school board positions on it, you get what you pay for.

Donald Berger

Elgin