What is COD trying to be -- Harvard?

The College of DuPage wants voter approval to borrow $168 million. Are they kidding? People are taking pay cuts or losing their jobs, social security recipients get no cost of living increase for two years, inflation is zero, and the Harvard faculty had their pay frozen, but the faculty at this taxpayer-funded junior college still receive handsome raises.

This junior college has arrogantly picked a fight with its host community, saying it doesn't have to follow the same town rules that it followed in the past, although all the other governments do (including the state itself, which secures building permits from Chicago for repairs to the Thompson Center). My, what a fine example of citizenship it sets for the students.

Now they want to cancel a tax decrease we were going to get and replace it with this loan to put them ”at the forefront of higher education.” I'm not sure that is really the obligation of DuPage County taxpayers, considering that education already gets 75 percent of our property taxes.

I, for one, am unwilling to take any more money away from the police and fire protection, flood control, libraries, streets, parks, courts, jails, etc. that the remaining sliver of funds has to cover. We should not be paying for the COD faculty to be better than Harvard's, nor to turn it from a useful vocational school into still-another 4-year college.

Stan Zegel

Winfield