CFBB Needs to check their facts!

[Paul]

A few articles on their site caught my attention. First of all, the one titled “Strong Firefighter Allegiance to Claar”.

In this report, Mr. Michaels says,“Now the news comes out about one fireman being a serious criminal. We will attach this below. We wonder if there is any record on file of complaints here locally, Most people know you don't start off with such serious crimes. It is not the Psychology of an individual Dahmer started off trying to make friends, not killing people. It makes us wonder once again about our safety in town.“ The article that he is referring to is one from the Sun titled “Firefighter charged with sex assault”

What Mr. Michaels failed to find out or report is that Lt. Stephen D. Porter is NOT a Bolingbrook firefighter but in fact works for the Darien-Woodridge Fire Protection District. What does his arrest have to do with the village of Bolingbrook?

The second article is titled “Schaumburg Vs. Bolingbrook for
"Best Town to Live in"

This is a report/investigation comparing Bolingbrook to Schaumburg. The report says,“Taxes in Bolingbrook have more than doubled in the last six years” This statement is FALSE. I have in my hands my 2003 property tax bill. The 2002 tax rate for Village Bolingbrook is listed on the bill as 0.8383 and the Vil Bolingbrook RD BR is listed as 0.0064 for a total village tax of 0.8447.
I also have in hand my 2008 property tax bill. The tax rate for Village Bolingbrook is 0.6202 and the Vil Bolingbrook RD BR tax rate is 0.0000 for a total village tax rate of 0.6202. This is NOT “more than double” but is actually more than a 25% DECREASE is village taxes. What tax bills are the CFBB looking at that show a village tax rate of more than 1.6894?(0.8447 x 2) As a matter of fact, the TOTAL tax rate on my bill in 202 was 7.8748 and DECREASED to 6.8825 in 2008.(I’m in VVSD, Fountaindale Library, JJC so those in other school, library…districts may be different) If the village rates have doubled as they say, why don’t they post a copy of these tax bills on their site to verify their claim? The information that I’ve provided can be verified by going to the Will County SOA website for those that are interested.
Their investigation also failed to point out that Schaumburg pays vehicle sticker taxes. Bolingbrook does not. Schaumburg pays for garbage service. Bolingbrook does not. Another interesting fact is that Schaumburg owns an AIRPORT!
Why are these points not included in their comparison chart?
They also forget to say that the residents of Schaumburg DO pay property taxes. They fail to point out that the Bolingbrook village tax rate is about 10% of the total property tax bill. Even if this was eliminated by increasing our sales and restaurant taxes, reinstating a vehicle sticker tax and charging for garbage service, the tax bills will still be about 90% of what they currently are.

Coming from a group that has complained about the tax rates in Bolingbrook and have encouraged residents to shop out of town, this seems a bit disingenuous. Please clarify; do you want taxes to increase so that the village tax portion can be eliminated?
Lastly, Mr. Michaels wrote another investigation titled “What does it cost to keep your high paying job in Bolingbrook?” In that report, he says “Then we have Joe De Paulo, who runs the airport for us. He needs to contribute to keep his job as well.”. The chart shows that Mr. De Paulo made a donation of $250.00. Where is the list of names of people that donated as much or more than Mr. De Paulo but are not working for the village? Why are their names not included in the report? If they’re suggesting that people that donate $250 get a job with the village, I would expect that there would be others besides just Mr. De Paulo.
These are just a few examples showing that the CFBB do not check facts when they investigate and report.

[Tim]

You can twist the facts any way you want to. The fireman lives in Bolingbrook. Nobody cares about tax rates. When my taxes went from 2200 six years ago until 4800 this year, I believe them. If you don't like what they write, ask to be a writer for them. Or are you just a Topix coward?

Everyone in town believes the CFBB. Their news COMES OUT in the Tribune and Sun. They do not believe the Mayor or trustees anymore.

[Proud of Bolingbrook]

Dont speak for me Tim. The CFBB can fall off the face of the earth.

[Ello]

Yup Tim, you are a Kool Aid drinker. It DOES matter that the fireman is not employed by Bolingbrook. Again they have a very important FACT wrong. The tax rate DOES matter. BBK can't control if the Will Co portion goes up. The CFBB is a bunch of half illiterate truth twisters. "Professor" Bonnie should be ashamed to claiming to be a teacher with the amount of spelling errors and distortions of the truth she makes. The only ones that believe in the CFBB are their own tin foil hat wearing members. Everyone else knows they are full of it.

[Paul]

Tim wrote:

You can twist the facts any way you want to. The fireman lives in Bolingbrook. Nobody cares about tax rates. When my taxes went from 2200 six years ago until 4800 this year, I believe them. If you don't like what they write, ask to be a writer for them. Or are you just a Topix coward?
Everyone in town believes the CFBB. Their news COMES OUT in the Tribune and Sun. They do not believe the Mayor or trustees anymore.

Tim, if you think that you speak for everyone in Bolingbrook, you're wrong. If you believe what CFBB say without first checking the facts yourself, you're foolish!

Do you think that CFBB would post a report from anyone that doesn't agree with their group? I doubt it. As a matter of fact, there was a thread here not too long ago where the topic was about contacting the CFBB group about incorrect information that they printed on their site. The reply that they got from CFBB was that they would not post anything from someone that was not a member of their team.

Twisting facts is something that CFBB is very good at. If not, why did they talk about a fireman being arrested (remember he's innocent until proven guilty) in a report about Mr. Claar and the Bolingbrook firemen if the man works for another fire district? Because he happens to live in town? If that's the case, the mayor of Schaumburg (the town that CFBB is trying to become) is just as responsible for allowing a major drug trafficker (Thavatxay T. Manirat) to live in town and the mayor of Naperville is responsible because Marilyn Lemak killed her children. See how ridiculous that sounds?

You say that nobody cares about tax rates. Where exactly do you get this information from? CFBB talk constantly about the sales tax rates in town but yet they're now comparing Bolingbrook to a town that has a much higher rate.

It's very obvious that you have no idea how to read a property tax bill. The township assessor, NOT the mayor, determines the fair market value of a property. The various taxing bodies (schools, library, county, forest preserve, township, village...) apply their tax rates based on the assessed value. The village portion of the total bill is approx 10%. The remainder is from taxing bodies that the mayor has NO CONTROL over.

You say that your property taxes doubled in the last six years. That may very well be true but it's not because the village has increased the tax rate. It's most likely because the assessor has increased the value of the property and that other taxing bodies (schools, park district ,library-which Mr. Claar did not support) passed referendums to increase their tax rates. Why are you not complaining to these taxing bodies or the assessor's office? What was the assessed value of your property 6 years ago? What is the assessed value now?

The Trib and Sun did write some article but neither of them pointed to any laws being broken. It is funny that you mention the Sun because the CFBB have said repeatedly that it's not a credible newspaper and the "Roger owns it". The CFBB did admit to having a meeting with the Trib staff before the articles came out so they're not exactly unbiased stories. I would have expected the reports to verify their facts before they went to print but they must have been drinking some of that funny juice as well.

I went back and checked the CFBB site. Apparently they read this thread because they have now added a blurb about the airport. Their investigation is still incomplete because so far, they have failed to include the fact that the village of Schaumburg owns a hotel and convention center at the cost of $156 Million. Bolingbrook does not. There are several other interesting facts of the city that they want Bolingbrook to emulate. It will be interesting to see if CFBB can find them and report on them in the comparison chart.

[Joe]

There is also the article on the web-site "Yes, it is true..."

I thought that it sounded familiar and a quick google search came up with pages and pages of links but of course they are trying to pass it off as if it was written by someone here in Bolingbrook.

They really should have someone give them a refresher course in ethics and plagiarism.

[LaQuisha]

Joe wrote:

There is also the article on the web-site "Yes, it is true..."
I thought that it sounded familiar and a quick google search came up with pages and pages of links but of course they are trying to pass it off as if it was written by someone here in Bolingbrook.
They really should have someone give them a refresher course in ethics and plagiarism.

That is their M.O. Recently there was an article on their site regarding tax credits on school books, tuition and labs that Bonnie took credit for She did not write the article; she only brought it to some of the residents attention and copied and pasted the information.

[Sha Nay Nay]

I heard Bonnie uses a White Castle crave case for a briefcase.

[Tony]

It's kinda like the question from their readers section about taxes. They say that the extra sales tax in Bolingbrook costs you at least $1,000 a year. They have a cute little chart that shows Lemont with the lowest tax rate of 7% but it's a bit misleading since much of Lemont is in Cook County with a tax rate much higher. To come up with the extra $1,000 in taxes that they're talking about, you would have to spend over $65,000 a year!!!

I'm a bit confused. Do they want Bolingbrook to increase the sales tax to 10% like Schaumburg or do they want the sales tax to be lowered to 7% like Lemont?

[Oh My]

Here they go again! This time, Bonnie says that she spoke to the Principle at the high school. I hope that she was trying to be funny since everyone should know, especially a college professor with a PhD, that Mr. Mitchem is the princiPAL!

Anyone know what "inprompo" means? Mr. Michaels used the word in his report about an illegal meeting.

[Maxwell]

The CFFB sure has a good amount of illiterates on its journalism team. They really need an outside source to review their work for any errors before sharing it with the public. Can you even imagine this team representing the town of Bolingbrook? I hope that day never comes!

[Maynard]

Oh My wrote:

Here they go again! This time, Bonnie says that she spoke to the Principle at the high school. I hope that she was trying to be funny since everyone should know, especially a college professor with a PhD, that Mr. Mitchem is the princiPAL!
Anyone know what "inprompo" means? Mr. Michaels used the word in his report about an illegal meeting.

Mr. Michaels wrote: "Maybe this meeting was inprompto in lieu of the school shooting, or maybe it was something else"

That is one nonsensical jumble of words.

[Lisa]

Maynard wrote:

<quoted text>
Mr. Michaels wrote: "Maybe this meeting was inprompto in lieu of the school shooting, or maybe it was something else"
That is one nonsensical jumble of words.

They had an "inpromto" meeting instead of the school shooting?
What is he talking about?! Is he saying that they went to the golf course for this "secret meeting" instead of going to a school to shoot someone? Is he really accusing Mr. Claar of wanting to shoot someone at a school?
My guess is that he meant to say something along the lines of "they had this secret meeting to discuss the school stabbing". He probably doesn't know what "in lieu of" means and quickly changed the stabbing into a shooting. Either way, he needs to brush up on his reporting skills and investigate and report the facts.
Can we expect to see a similar report in the Trib anytime soon?

[Maynard]

Lisa wrote:

<quoted text>
They had an "inpromto" meeting instead of the school shooting?
What is he talking about?! Is he saying that they went to the golf course for this "secret meeting" instead of going to a school to shoot someone? Is he really accusing Mr. Claar of wanting to shoot someone at a school?
My guess is that he meant to say something along the lines of "they had this secret meeting to discuss the school stabbing". He probably doesn't know what "in lieu of" means and quickly changed the stabbing into a shooting. Either way, he needs to brush up on his reporting skills and investigate and report the facts.
Can we expect to see a similar report in the Trib anytime soon?

The really funny part of this is the fact that his colleagues love his work and think he is a genius.

[BB Resident]

Here's another one from Matthew Michaels' most recent investigation.

"In order to answer this question, one would have to know how tight Bill Mayor of DuPage Township and the Mayor is. "

Who is Bill Mayor? There is no one on the DuPage Board with that spelling.

" One would have to speculate that information posted at other times on our site show they are drinking buddlies"

This sentence makes NO SENSE at all. I thought that they only report facts so why would he be inviting us to speculate whether what they print on their site is accurate or not?

"Think about it, he has a say in the school board money too and that is 67% of our taxes"

CFBB claim to only report facts. It appears that they have strayed from their claim. Please tell us how Mr. Claar has a say in the school board money (I'm assuming that you mean VVSD 365U but please clarify since there are many other school districts within the Village of Bolingbrook.)

I am asking Mr. Matthew, Bonnie, Candice, Bob... and the rest of their reporters to provide the citizens of Bolingbrook with a scanned copy of the FOIA that they base their reports on.

The more that I read that site, the more that I'm realizing that it sounds like it's being run by someone or some people that are a little off balance and are having a hard time distinguishing between fact and fiction.

For example, Matthew, can you please clarify what you meant in your report when you referenced a school shooting?

If you, as a group or individually want to be taken seriously, you need to base your reports in FACT and be able to provide those that ask PROOF. Without that, your reports are OPINION pieces written by a group that is bitter that they lost an election. Anyone that chooses to run under your endorsement in the next election will be a fool. Surely these errors will resurface and they will be left to explain the false reports that have been made by your investigators. Who knows, with the attention that had been focusing on Bolingbrook politics, maybe the Trib will get involved and point out the errors that the CFBB have made.

[Mister Matthews]

BB Resident wrote:

Here's another one from Matthew Michaels' most recent investigation.
"In order to answer this question, one would have to know how tight Bill Mayor of DuPage Township and the Mayor is. "
Who is Bill Mayor? There is no one on the DuPage Board with that spelling.
" One would have to speculate that information posted at other times on our site show they are drinking buddlies"
This sentence makes NO SENSE at all. I thought that they only report facts so why would he be inviting us to speculate whether what they print on their site is accurate or not?
"Think about it, he has a say in the school board money too and that is 67% of our taxes"
CFBB claim to only report facts. It appears that they have strayed from their claim. Please tell us how Mr. Claar has a say in the school board money (I'm assuming that you mean VVSD 365U but please clarify since there are many other school districts within the Village of Bolingbrook.)
I am asking Mr. Matthew, Bonnie, Candice, Bob... and the rest of their reporters to provide the citizens of Bolingbrook with a scanned copy of the FOIA that they base their reports on.
The more that I read that site, the more that I'm realizing that it sounds like it's being run by someone or some people that are a little off balance and are having a hard time distinguishing between fact and fiction.
For example, Matthew, can you please clarify what you meant in your report when you referenced a school shooting?
If you, as a group or individually want to be taken seriously, you need to base your reports in FACT and be able to provide those that ask PROOF. Without that, your reports are OPINION pieces written by a group that is bitter that they lost an election. Anyone that chooses to run under your endorsement in the next election will be a fool. Surely these errors will resurface and they will be left to explain the false reports that have been made by your investigators. Who knows, with the attention that had been focusing on Bolingbrook politics, maybe the Trib will get involved and point out the errors that the CFBB have made.

We has been reporting the fax and in lou of this topic board we think are spelling is grate.

[Mister Matthews]

This board is operatted bye the mafia.

[Mister Matthews]

I'm goings to sue you for deportation of charkter.

[CFBB Icon]

I am going to request a FOIA requesting this site to reveal the real names of the people posting on this board in addition to the persons W2 form. Stay tuned in four more information.

[CFBB instigator]

From the CFBB site:

Speak with Mr. Mitchem, BHS Principal
By Bonnie Alicea

When you speak to the Principal of BHS, he will tell you about his idea of teaching students. If a student fails a test, the teacher goes back to ensure he has learned the information before he can continue. It is not about passing these kids along without learning the topics. We look to summer school for flunkies, but what does a few weeks teach them to cover 9 months of school learnings? About 8 months ago I sat down with Mr. Mitchem and he discussed his way of teaching. It was innovative and precise. It was inspiring. I asked him when the middle schools will do this and he did not know.

Now is the time to make the change. The middle schools have waited long enough and these kids need a chance to survive in this world. These are the years that they build their self esteem and learn to become something with their lives. I am calling all school board members out to make this effective in January of 2010. This means that the teachers have to attend a course on how to apply this philosophy and the administrtion would need to know how to enforce it. That would not take long to do. I, as a Professor, volunteer my time if needed.

The source is there, use it! Make our children come first!

----------

What is so innovative about a teacher making sure a child understands a lesson that she/he may be struggling with? Next thing we'll hear from you is the novel approach of having another student/parent give additional, special, or remedial instruction to the child.

I love how Bonnie pretends that she has the best interest for a child that is challenged academically, but in her next sentence refers to them as "flunkies". http://www.answers.com/topic/flunky

Speaking of academically challenged; I call the professor/flunky [sic] out with hopes of her taking an English class this fall:

"learnings" - try lessons,
"administrtion" - try administration,
Just a few of the many errors...

Try using a source with an accredited program. Make Bolingbrook come first!