Telling us that our children are not safe was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me

Not only did Allerton Hill’s tactics divide this community with the “stick to the message at all costs” and scare tactics, but telling us that our children are not safe was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

by Anna Bunker

You have awakened our sleepy little community to the fact that we can no longer trust the judgment of the Loveland Board of Education to represent our community in matters relating to the Loveland City School District. When you were elected, we gave you our trust to act in the best interest of our community and a few weeks ago the polls stated you have have not.

This is the outline of Anna Bunker’s speech to the Board of Education during the Hearing of the Public portion of the meeting on November 19

As a group, you have lost my trust in your ability to recognize what the community needs. We shouldn’t need to be sold the idea of 3 new buildings, 110 acres of land, security upgrades, etc… If the Superintendent and Board of Education spent the same amount of time educating the community before they voted on adopting the plan as they did to promote it during the election, I think we would be having a much different conversation today.

The fact is you knew this was a big ask and tried to hide the overall costs in the fine print. You conducted a survey before you voted on putting this on the ballot and the survey told you that 90% of the people surveyed had no or little idea about the Building Tiger Nation plan. In that same survey, you were told that 50% of the people believed Loveland already had high taxes.

And even with this information, you approved the plan and put it on the ballot anyway.

Speaking of communications, the fact that you felt the need to hire Allerton Hill with a price tag of $133,000 to sell this levy to the community has to be one of the biggest mistakes you made. This is not Washington DC or New York City, this is Loveland, Ohio, a caring and trusting community that takes care of one another.

Not only did Allerton Hill’s tactics divide this community with the “stick to the message at all costs” and scare tactics, but telling us that our children are not safe was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

This was just a scare tactic because the truth is our Tiger community is safe.

How dare you tell our community and surrounding communities that our schools are not safe!

Are there improvements that can be made, of course.

Are there changes you would like to implement, of course.

But our schools are safe.

This was just a scare tactic because the truth is our Tiger community is safe. We have amazing administrators, teachers, staff, and safety officers that in an emergency will do their best to keep our children safe. There will always be some new theory or strategy on school safety, but it doesn’t mean our kids are not safe.

I believe you are all good people acting with good intentions. But I also believe somewhere along the road things went sideways and you may have forgotten why you initially ran for this position.

Fool me once, shame you, Fool me twice, shame on me.

What am I going to do? I am going to keep our Political Action Committee up and running to ensure two things:

1) A seat on the Board of Education will never be unopposed again.

2) I will do my best to keep myself informed and continue to keep the Loveland community informed, so they are never blindsided again.

You have not only lost my trust in your ability to represent our community’s needs, but you have also lost my vote.