As the school bond speaker at the Republican Club was asking us to vote yes, he said their campaign was only spending $19,000. After reviewing their five-page, full-color charts and graphs on glossy materials I thought there was “no way” that amount was correct.

Then a plethora of signs urging a yes vote sprung up all over town and in Scottsdale were similar messages, ditto in Mesa.

This push for huge sums of taxpayer dollars appears to be a well-coordinated effort by over 20 districts. So just who is funding it? What is flooding our town is much more than a local citizen's grassroots undertaking. I don't know who or what is funding all of this, but it is slick and professional.

The district already is spending $30,000 for this off-year election, chosen specifically to ensure only a small number of voters would likely be in town and turnout would be low. Last year, in a $20 million general election the bond folks lost by 14 points. Now they are back betting this year, on Nov. 7, taxpayers will not turn out in similar numbers and they will get away with burdening us for 15 years with a whopping $25 million debt.

The chair of the yes side is head of his HOA at a pricey summer home development in Flagstaff. Maybe higher property taxes are not important to him, but in tough times we need less, not more, taxes.