Campaign to win school millage renewal is far from over

Hamtramck Public School officials are fighting mad.
School Superintendent Tom Niczay and school boardmembers are still upset about the sneaky and illegal negative ad campaign that likely led to the defeat of the recent school millage renewal proposal.
They plan to not only get to the bottom of who circulated fliers that blatantly lied about the millage, they are also planning to go back to voters again in the August Primary Election.
Good for them.
The defeat of the millage will mean a loss of $1.88 million a year to the district, which has no room in its budget to absorb such a loss.
The real loser in this matter will be the students.
The sting in this defeat was that most homeowners don’t even have to pay it. The millage is paid only by those who own commercial buildings and those who own rental dwellings.
It makes no sense to end this millage.
Whoever was behind the flier urging a no vote not only urged the defeat of the millage but also misled voters to believe they would save $500 a year in taxes. That was and is a lie.
And whoever was behind the anti-millage flier didn’t even have the guts to identify themselves, which violates Michigan election law. The matter is working its way over to the state’s Attorney General’s Office for possible investigation and prosecution.
In the meantime, there are some in the community gathering eyewitness accounts on several prominent community members who said publicly they supported the millage but were telling their community members to defeat it.
Stay tuned on this one folks because this is going to blow up soon.