Attendees of a band concert at Unit 5 the other night have contacted Cities with concerns about comments made by a band teacher who is also a McLean county board member.
“The band instructor,Corey Beirne, came out at the program last night and told people to ‘vote yes’ for the Unit 5 tax referendum,” said an attendee. “Isn’t that against the law?”
According to Article VIII Section I of the Illinois Constitution, public funds, property, and credit shall only be used for a public purpose and the use of the public property for a private purpose can constitute Official Misconduct by the County Sheriffs.
There’s been multiple school board meetings where “Yes for Unit 5,” signs were placed in the back of the auditorium towards the entrance.
McLean County board member Chuck Erickson said Curt Richardson, the Unit 5 attorney, should be looking into these examples of alleged ‘electioneering.’
We were told by Unit 5 teachers that there were fliers stuffed into the mailboxes of teachers that had “Yes for Unit 5” campaign messaging.
On the flier: “The UFEA’s endorsed school board candidates are Mark Adams, Alex Williams, Kelly Pyle and Amy Roser.”
This is the flier that was stuffed into teachers’ mailboxes.
Erickson said he doesn’t have authority over the entire county or the Sheriff’s office but he would check in to this.
“Either way this should stop,” said Erickson, who is also an attorney. “If I had done that….and I had said that?”
“Every elected official knows you can’t go on public property and talk about public issues,” said Erickson. “I don’t know what Unit 5 plans to do about it, Richardson is going to have to address that. The school board should come out and say, ‘We can’t have our teachers doing this.'”
On Unit 5’s website there is an “ethics” portion that says it is prohibited to be: “Distributing, preparing for distribution, or mailing campaign literature, campaign signs, or other campaign material on behalf of any candidate for elective office or for or against any referendum question.”
