In a local election year that has seen more than it’s fair share of ups and downs and topsy-turvy moments of despair, current sitting Unit 4 school board member has created a PAC to defeat school board president Laurie Bonnett.
Mr. Bambenek was appointed to the board in 2014.
Earlier this year, Mr. Bambenek created a PAC to defeat Mayoral candidate Joe Petry, but recently dissolved it, presumably to pursue greener pastures.
Ms. Bonnett is likely confused.
She led the charge and was the brains behind the current referendum, and the last referendum (that failed), and the contract negotiations with the teacher’s union that ended up turning into a tailgate party / strike threat outside of the Mellon Building in 2013.
Yet, she’s not running for re-election in 2015.
Mr. Bambenek has allegedly committed over $20,000.00 to start the PAC and is supposedly pounding the pavement to raise funds to see it through.
When asked about the rationale behind spending so much to defeat a candidate who isn’t even running this year, Mr. Bambenek responded, “Like that matters? I don’t pay attention to the rules, my friend. I make the rules. I’m John fucking Bambenek. If she isn’t running and ‘can’t lose,’ there are ways around that. Believe me. I’m into some next level shit that a pea-brained commie liberal like you can’t even sniff right now. There are all kinds of ways to manipulate the system, and when it happens, you are going to be all like — ‘DUDE. That was some Houdini type shit.'”
We’ve reached out to Friends of Champaign Schools — an organization that was created to trick people into to vote yes on the referendum. They have absolutely no affiliation or relationship with Ms. Bonnett by any stretch of the imagination, because she doesn’t know anyone or is even remotely close with someone who is currently speaking on behalf of the organization to the media.
They’ve given no response.