Lotto Trigger goes to the Capitol

Hello From your friendly neighborhood Wickerdale WalkersOn Monday May 3rd House Bill HRC10-1007 will be introduced. This bill contains many of the provisions that Brad and I have publicized in school board meetings, television interviews, news papers and other print publications. Essentially this bill would redistribute lotto money that currently funds GOCO. When Brad and I first looked at alternate methods of school funding this idea was paramount. What was appealing to us was that it was not creating a new tax or raising an existing one. Here in Douglas County we spend a lot of time talking about the 70% of people who do not have children in school and how to reach them. We felt and feel that ideas like this show the public at large that education can get out of the box and do new things in the realm of funding. While we both have deep concerns for our environment and the preservation of land we feel that today the greater need is for our children and those who teach them. Conservation is important, however, we can make up time towards those goals in the future, when the economic climate has recovered. These difficult times call for balancing wants and needs more so than ever before. Parks and land conservation are in the want category especially when examined against education. I would add that trees do not have mortgages to pay, teachers do. The bill is being introduced by State Representative Jerry Sonnerberg from District 65. I am attaching a link to the bill below, as well as additional information on his web page. I will be at the capital on Monday to fight for this bill and I am asking for support, especially from teachers or administrators who can attend. I will apologize in advance for the next few statements, but given the nature of these times I have to go political. The CEA opposes this bill, I am sad to say that is not a shock. They oppose it because it (in their view) it pits two “progressive” and historic allies against one another, education and the environment. Why do I know this? Because we reached out to the CEA in December and again January, after 20 + phone calls and countless messages we finally spoke to a CEA representative who told us that our energies would be better spent trying to pass a mill increase for our district because our idea would put education and the environment at odds. Apparently in their myopic view they missed what their job is, to represent their members, not environmental special interests. This is an emergency measure designed to help teachers and children. The CEA’s stance is politics plain and simple and I for one feel that my children and our school district deserves much better. Thankfully they are not our union and while I would never presume to guess what position the Federation will take on this measure I will say that when Brad and I presented them with our plan (which was far more comprehensive and cut GOCO and the Colorado Land Trust much deeper) they thought it was great and encouraged us to pursue it. Lately it seems that the CEA opposes any legislation that is progressive, tenure reform to name just one. We missed out on Race to the Top money in part because of the states tenure laws and the lack of Lotto investment into education. How is it that and organization that is supposed to work for educators opposes measures that (had they existed at the time) could have won Colorado a windfall for education? This makes no sense to me. I as a private citizen interpret it like this; the political affiliations of the CEA are taking precedence over the well being of their members, the children and the communities they all serve. Please reach out to representative Sonnenberg at jerry@repsonnenberg.com to get involved. I will be there and I hope to see many of you as well. Copy of the actual bill: http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics/clics2010a/csl.nsf/fsbillcont/E494D71D4AA4DF6F872576FF006236BC?Open&file=HCR1007_01.pdf