From this editorial.
Voters in school districts around the state rightly assume that when officials from the Department of Education review a major school bonding proposal, they actually conduct some level of due diligence. It turns out, however, that they don’t review the financial figures or question assumptions provided by school district consultants, even when the consultants stand to reap millions of dollars from the projects. Instead, the department routinely gives stamps of approval to projects that make no sense. Once again, the supposed watchdog is napping.
At the county level, citizens were supposed to be able to rely on the oversight of the St. Louis County Planning Department, which is charged with enforcing the county’s zoning ordinance. Instead, department officials worked hand-in-glove with JCI to improperly grease the skids for school building projects that were completely incompatible with the zone districts in which they were proposed.
And now that the projects are underway, we learn that JCI has routinely flouted the contract they signed with the school district— and the board majority seems willfully blind to the reality that they are being taken for a ride.
So what are we, as members of the public, expected to do about it all?
Call the state auditor, who has already ignored us? Call the Department of Education who approved it all to begin with? Call the county? Call the police? You’d do just as well to call the Ghostbusters.
In the end, the public has only one recourse, and it’s a courtroom. And as we all know, that’s a recourse that’s largely reserved for those with money. Which is why, for all practical purposes, the law only applies to average people. For big corporations, like JCI, or large institutions like school districts, the law can usually be ignored. Even if the public finds out, what are they going to do about it? Spend tens of thousands of dollars on attorneys?
For big companies and school districts, that’s just a cost of doing business, but for the public it’s an insurmountable hurdle that all but denies them access to justice or the protection of the law.
