Fight Property Taxes.

(Aside from voting to hold down school tax rates...)

Check out the Dallas Morning News' columnist "Ben Dover" and his recommendations about claiming property tax exemptions, reducing appraisals, and other ways of "fighting back".

See http://www.bendover.com/2004taxes.asp

(This is last year's article but the general advice applies.)

Try this.

(The site I'm pointing you to used "Active" controls so I can't just link to it. )

Print these instructions or copy them to notepad, so you can refer back to them.

Set your browser to www.corgan.com

Near the upper right, click on "PORTFOLIO"

On the new line that appears just below that, click on "EDUCATION"

Okay, with me so far? Now, over on the left, in a yellow box, click on
the line that says: BOND PLANNING / ASSISTANCE

The first (best?) example of this Architectural Firm's powers to influence
voters to support school construction projects is Lancaster ISD. See the
samples of the 2004 Bond campaign website.

Now look over to the right, in the grey box. SERVICES RENDERED
(to Lancaster ISD in 2004? )

-- Bond Program Development
-- Educational Specifications
-- Scheduling
-- Program Implementation
-- Public Relations
-- Bond Promotion.

Okay. you've seen it all? Come back to www.LISD-Rackets.blogspot.com and let's talk.

Now, There Is Nothing Illegal About This. Corgan can do any or all of this and there's no law one way or the other.

Just asking, though. Do you WANT an architectural design firm to set the specificiations for your district's educational programs? (Wouldn't teachers be better at that? )

Are the companies that stand to make millions of dollars in design fees disinterested and objective experts looking to minimize expenses on a Bond Program. Or maybe, just maybe, might they be inclined to pump up the scope of the projects a bit?

Are a private company's "Public Relations" campaigns on bond issue covered by election ethics guidelines? That is, are their publications "informational" like the schools, or "advocacy" -- like this site?

I mean, they can DO it -- but aren't they supposed to put their name on it and admit what they're doing?