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This page provides all of the information that we have been able to gather on Mr. Ryan to date. Mr. Ryan is one of two candidates from Algonquin township (the other is Mary Fioretti). Due to the make up of the current board, at most one candidate from Algonquin can be elected on April 17th.
WHY WON'T JOHN RYAN ANSWER EVEN THE MOST BASIC OF QUESTIONS?
While most other candidates have given us reems of information on themselves and their platforms, Mr. Ryan is interesting in his total LACK of co-operation and candor.
For instance, our questionnaire. He simply ignored it. Click here to see the basic questions about his background and his platform that he has avoided.
Since announcing his candidacy and basing it on "transparency", troubling questions have arisen about Mr. Ryan's motivation. For instance, why would someone who homeschools his kids want to be on the Board of a public school district and who is backing him? Mr. Ryan has, to date, failed to respond to either of those questions.
A recent blast put out by A300 addressed those issues.
Outstanding Questions
Since Mr. Ryan has not responded to our questions, we have questions outstanding:
Why would someone who homeschools his kids want to be on the Board of a public school district? And why is he trying to keep his homeschooling a secret?
Board candidate John Ryan says that he wants to "change District 300". He says, if elected, he will demand "transparency" and "accountability" from the BOE and the administration. He claims that he wants everything out in the open. Everything, that is, except information about himself apparently!
Information on Mr. Ryan
Mr. Ryan lives in Algonquin with his wife and children.
It appears that he works as a regional distributor for Clarke Mosquito Control.
Though he hasn't acknowleged it, Ryan is strongly affiliated with and being financed by Jack Roeser (through one of Roeser's political organizations), a wealthy long-time opponent of District 300 and public schools. Mr. Roeser owns Otto Engineering in Carpentersville, but lives outside of District 300. John Ryan was Roeser's point man last year during the referenda campaign. Now Roeser wants Mr. Ryan on the BOE. The question is - why?
As evidence, here is the transcript of a recent phone call that one of our volunteers received (apparently by accident) a number of weeks ago:
"Hi, this message is for [name withheld to protect intended recipient]. I received your name from Jack Roeser at Family Tax payers Network as someone who might be interested in seeing a change on the District 300 school board. Now there are two great candidates running for election to the school board - Monica Clark and John Ryan. They are running because they feel that the current board does not address the needs of students, parents, or the tax payers of the district. And they also want to ensure that the money received from the referendum is being spent wisely. So what we are looking to do is to find concerned citizens to assist in their campaign. Starting on March 7th, we are going to be phoning every Wednesday for two hours. Starting on Saturday March 17th, we will be walking neighborhoods hand out our literature. We are doing all we can to effect a change and get these great candidates elected... Let us know if you'd like to do a yard sign."
Interestingly, the phone call was made to our volunteer's business phone number. Note that Mr. Roeser (who does not live in the district) has been quoted as saying "If you help a good, conservative, pro-business candidate win public office, you can count on that person to be much more responsive when your issues are on the table."
Mr. Ryan's candor
Mr. Ryan often writes and speaks as if he has children in D300 schools. In railing against the District he's written:
"In my view, District 300 has not provided what I consider a quality education for my children" and "[t]he deplorable tactic of using our children as pawns to accomplish their desire is nothing short of extortion."
More recently, he says this on his campaign website: "[w]ith the passage of two referendums last year, residents of District 300 placed their trust in the District's administration and Board of Education to do what was right regarding the future of our children."
Last year, during the referendum campaign, Ryan recorded an automated phone message for Roeser in which he stated:
"Hello, my name is John, and I am a District 300 resident and parent. Our schools certainly are important........"
The only problem is that John Ryan's children do not go to District 300 schools, public, private or parochial. He homeschools his children. That is his right as a parent and all well and good but it begs the questions:
This is a troubling lack of candor from a candidate who claims publically to be running on "transparency"!
Trying to Get Answers
Because of questions raised by voters and a legitimate concern that a candidate that bases his entire campaign on "transparency" won't divulge relevant information about himself, we asked Mr. Ryan about this and other issues raised by his failure to be transparent. What follows is the e-mail that we sent on March 31, 2007. Since receiving the e-mail Mr. Ryan has removed the language from his website promising the filing of required campaign disclosures referred to in the e-mail.
**************** Email sent from Advance 300 **************
Dear Mr. Ryan:
As the next part of our effort to bring information to the voters of District 300, we are highlighting each candidate individually.
Your profile should go out sometime in the next week or so. Given the dearth of information available on your background or platform, we have received several questions about you. Here are just a few:
The voters are curious about your decision to homeschool your children. Why did you choose to homeschool? How can we trust that if elected you will make the best decisions for our childrens' education, given that your children will not be effected by those decisions?
You state that your website was paid for by "Citizens For John Ryan". Please provide us with a list of who the "Citizens For John Ryan" are? How are you funded? Who created and paid for the website and your signs?
Your website states that a copy of your "report is (or will be) available at the Illinois State Board of Elections...or the Kane County Clerk". We assume that you are referring to your campaign disclosures. As of this date, it appears that you have not yet filed those reports. When do you plan on doing so? Why have you not filed to date?
We look forward to your responses.
Nancy Zettler
Chair, Advance 300
**************** End of Email sent from Advance 300 **************
To date, Mr. Ryan has ignored the e-mail. Interestingly, the questions about funding and website creation are the same exact questions Mr. Ryan asked of Advance 300 last year during the referendum campaign, to which we promptly responded! As of today's date there is nothing on his website discussing why he homeschools his kids and why we, the parents of kids in D300 schools, should trust that the decisions he would make on the Board would benefit D300 kids and not serve whatever other interest he is representing.
Couple Mr. Ryan's apparent lack of transparency on even simple issues like who is backing him and why he wants to serve on the Board with his baseless attacks on our District and complete lack of ideas on how to improve education here, and a troubling pictures emerges.
In keeping with our promise to provide you with as much information on the candidates as possible, we update our page on candidate John Ryan with information that we learned on Saturday in a discussion with Mr. Ryan at the League of Women Voters (LOWV) candidate forum. Here is what we learned:
On His Affiliation With Jack Roeser and the Family Taxpayers Network (FTN)
Mr. Ryan admitted that Jack Roeser has paid for his yard signs, his mailers and his automated phone calls. When asked why he hasn't filed the campaign disclosure reports required by the State and Kane County, he said he would when required.
State and County Campaign Disclosure laws require that once a candidate has spent and/or received contributions in the amount of $3,000 they must file reports disclosing the existence of their campaign and listing specifically the contributions and expenditures within five days. This includes when someone pays for your signs, mailers and automated calls like FTN has done for Mr. Ryan's campaign. The value of these so-called "in kind" contributions count towards the $3,000 limit.
When asked how much money has been spent on his campaign to date, Ryan stated that he did not know. When asked why not, he said because Roeser hasn't told him. It is Mr. Ryan's responsibility under the law to keep track of how much money has gone in and out of his campaign. We asked him if he's asked Roeser how much has been spent. He said he has not. He said that he would ask Roeser Monday. We asked what he would do if it turns out that Roeser has spent over the minimum $3,000 limit on his campaign to date. He said that he would file his disclosure reports "on paper". (Note that a district-wide mailing would generally cost several $ thousand. Political signs can cost up to a few dollars a piece - How many have you seen? As the critics like to say, do the math!)
There are two ways to file reports with the State Board of Elections - electronically and on paper. If he files electronically, voters would simply have to get on the Board of Elections website, look up Mr. Ryan's name and find out who has donated to him, how much he has spent and where he's spent it.
If he files by paper, as he said he would, he would effectively prevent the voters from seeing his disclosures until after the election. Finally, we asked if he would post the details of his campaign expenses to date on his website and he refused. When we asked him why he said - "because I don't have to."
Finally, because Mr. Ryan seems so trusting of Mr. Roeser, we pointed out that Roeser paid in excess of $16,000 in fines to the State Board of Elections last year for Campaign Disclosure violations. We asked him if that fact bothered him. Ryan said that it did not because the violations did not involve his own campaign.
When asked if it turns out that Roeser has violated campaign disclosure laws with regard to Ryan's campaign, would he return the value of the goods donated to Roeser? Ryan said no.
On The Issue Of Home Schooling:
We had a discussion with Mr Ryan on his decision to home school his children. Home schooling was a personal decision by Mr. Ryan and his family, which Advance 300 respects and recommends that all voters respect. Advance 300 consists of volunteers and supporters from the full spectrum of political, social, and religious beliefs. Some may have similar views on these topics while others may disagree. We take no position on Mr. Ryan's religious beliefs or his decision to home school other than to say that both are his right.
Our issue with Mr. Ryan here, as it has been on most every topic, is not with his particular views, but with his lack of transparency regarding his views, his agenda, his finances, and his supporters, particularly since he has vehemently criticized the current board for a lack of transparency and since transparency is the prime focus of his platform. He spends most of his efforts talking about how bad the current board is and very little about what he is specifically planning to do differently.
With that said, here was our discussion:
Mr. Ryan acknowledged that he and his wife home school their children. When asked why he doesn't disclose this fact on his website . He said "because it is irrelevant" to his running for the board. However, he also said that he thinks that his home schooling would give him a unique perspective on the board in that he and his wife effectively serve as teachers, administrator, guidance counselor and board member in the process.
Mr. Ryan said that he and his wife removed their kids from Neubert School three years ago and started home schooling for "theological reasons". We asked about his positions on theological issues such as evolution, intelligent design, and creationism and their place on the curriculum in public schools. He said that he did not believe in evolution, but that this was not a primary focus of why he is running for the board and that he had no specific plan to pursue these issues. He did say when pressed that he believes that creationism should be taught along side evolution in public schools and while he wouldn't push for intelligent design to be included in the curriculum in D300 that, if given the opportunity to review new textbooks, he would review them to make sure that creationism was equally represented along side evolution in the texts.
Again we want to make clear that we defend and respect his right to hold these views as many of our members, volunteers and supporters have similar views. Our question is why he has not been forthcoming about them so that the voters can evaluate his positions?
Who Are The Citizens For John Ryan?
Mr. Ryan claims to be supported by a group called "Citizens For John Ryan". We asked Mr. Ryan who the group was made up of and he refused to disclose the names of the people who support him. When we asked him why, he replied: "It's none of your business!"
It's important to note that Campaign Disclosure laws require that when Mr. Ryan files his campaign disclosure, he will have to name officers - at least a treasurer. He cannot be both president or chair and treasurer. This makes it even more curious that he won't disclose the members of his committee.
Why the Refusal To Respond To Questions?
As mentioned before, Mr. Ryan failed to respond to our 18 question questionnaire. We asked him why. First he said it was because he was on vacation at the time. When we pointed out that we gave him the option to take more time, he stated that he did not respond because he believes that Advance 300 has an "agenda". What that agenda is, he didn't say. It's also important to note that neither he nor the other candidate being financed by FTN, Monica Clark, answered the League of Women Voters' questionnaire either. Apparently the League of Women Voters' also has an agenda that Mr. Ryan does not like.
Transparency, Integrity, Character, and Morality
During his opening and closing forum statements Ryan said very little about how he would improve our kids' educational experience but again stressed "integrity", "transparency", "character", and "morality". He believes that the current board has fallen short in this regard (his words were that the difference was like "night and day"). He said that one reason he is running for the board is because one of the ways that children are taught is by "example". He intends to educate the children of D300 by his example.
The Daily Herald endorsed Mr. Ryan saying that his "first and last name will be transparency". Do his answers appear transparent to you?
What lessons on transparency, character, integrity or morality does Mr. Ryan intend for our children to learn by his example?
Do you have more information on this candidate?
We will continue to provide you with information on Mr. Ryan when and if it becomes available.
If you have additional information that we should publish on this candidate, please contact us at advance300yes@yahoo.com.
However as we have stated all along, we will NOT post unsupported rumors, innuendo, or opinion not based in fact. We will tell you when candidates have not been forthcoming (which we believe is in itself information for you to consider), and we WILL pose questions for you to consider in light of their lack of response.
It is our belief that the voters of this district are capable of making the right decision once provided with the available facts - POSITIVE or NEGATIVE.
Click here for side-by-side answers to our candidate survey. Note however that Mr. Ryan did not respond to that survey. Click here for a menu of the other candidate pages.
Mr. Ryan's campaign website is www.CitizensForJohnRyan.org.
We are aware of the following endorsements for Mr. Ryan: Northwest Herald, Daily Herald
While we could not find any documentation or links on Mr. Ryan's site regarding any responses to questions,
you can see what all the candidates said to the Daily Herald at:
http://www.dailyherald.com/search/searchstory.asp?id=299056
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