My husband and I are retired full-time residents of Grand Marais, living on Social Security and retirement savings. We have never had children in the local school, but we’ll be voting YES in the coming levy referendum for two important reasons.
First, strong Cook County schools build and maintain this as a viable community for every age group, from the youngest among us to the oldest. Our county’s children certainly deserve the best shot we can give them at creating their futures and maintaining a vibrant environment supporting them.
But declining enrollments have led to decreasing state funding and diminished opportunity. We have to do better. We need to exert local control to stabilize school funding for our community’s children.
Second, like many other retirees in the area, our property is one of our main assets. Like most, our property values took a serious hit in the housing downturn, and they have not yet recovered. Strong schools are one of the keys to property values, and so we will vote YES out of sheer self-interest, absorbing a modest weekly hit to our cash flow but protecting the value of our property assets for the longer term.
Using the tax checker at www.fundingourfuture.org to see the impact on us if the referendum passes, we discovered that on our homesteaded property, we will see a weekly increase of $1.40; on our rental property, $1.17. That’s a small investment for very significant personal and community outcomes.
For these reasons, we’ll be voting YES.
Carol Miller
Grand Marais
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