“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” –Derek Bok

Friday afternoon the Great Falls (MT) Tribune posted a story on their website about a campaign complaint being filed against the anti-school levy folks in Great Falls.

A local Great Falls attorney, Ben Graybill, filed the complaint. The complaint filed with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices is called “Graybill v Parent Coalition for Accountability in Schools COPP-2014-CFP-0018.” You can read the complaint HERE.

After reading the complaint, I smiled.

Basically Graybill contends the Parent Coalition for Accountability in Schools violated the rules by not filing as a political group with the state. He contends they supported a candidate for school board and they dropped flyers on some doorsteps urging people to “Vote No on School Levy.”

The group may have more problems if they are responsible for the signs that have been placed around town that tell people to vote against the levy. I happened to see a blog post on the local Tea Party Patriots website titled, An Example of INTOLERANCE Here in Great Falls‏” about an anti-levy sign that had been torn down and placed in a trash container. Read it HERE.

Over the years I have placed thousands of signs across Montana for candidates and issue groups, and while I don’t support tearing down signs because I don’t like the candidate or the issue, I do support making sure the signs abide by the rules. It does not appear the anti-levy sign in the photo has a disclaimer on it. Maybe I missed it. A disclaimer “is the identity of the person who has paid for the election/campaign materials.”

The rules about campaign literature in the state of Montana can be found HERE.

I support the school levy. I supported the last one, too. Back then the anti-levy folks sent another flyer with the salaries of people employed by the school district, just as they have done this time. I can’t really see why there’s so much disdain from this group for people who are highly educated and teaching children or supervising the people who teach children. Back in 2013, I wrote:

What I took from the anti-levy group’s glossy flyer was that if you are highly-educated and make a decent salary from your public schools occupation, you can get your name plastered on a flyer from people who look down upon you for being successful. To the folks who had their names listed in the flyer, congratulations for being successful in life.

The anti-levy folks are probably spending much more in time and money to fight the levy than the levy would cost them. For a $100,000 home, it will cost you an extra $18.85 per year – which is about $1.57 per month. Just one dollar and fifty-seven cents per month!

See how much it will cost you to support the children HERE.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

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