A yellow biplane towing a banner saying &uot;STOP THE B.

Wednesday, November 07, 2001

A yellow biplane towing a banner saying &uot;STOP THE B.S.! JUST VOTE NO!&uot; flew over the Albert Lea Tuesday afternoon.

The results suggest voters took the message to heart.

The pilot, Mal Prinzing, had also driven around the city Sunday and Monday nights with a huge electric board saying &uot;DECLINING ENROLLMENT DOES NOT MEAN LARGER CLASSES,&uot; and &uot;HERE WE GO AGAIN/THREATS AND MISINFORMATION.&uot;

&uot;I don’t like to be lied to,&uot; Prinzing said. &uot;They are not telling us the true story about what they are doing.&uot;

&uot;They don’t need any money when there is declining enrollment here. Less kids, less teachers. That is why I am against it.&uot;

The school says that because fixed expenses don’t change with lower enrollment, and because it wants to offer the same variety of classes, falling enrollment does not necessarily mean a proportionate cut in teachers.

Saying &uot;Albert Lea will become a town of high tax and low income,&uot; Prinzing said he thought the levy proposal, which failed by a 60-40 margin, would have aggravated the local economy. &uot;The state is cutting our taxes to help the economy,&uot; he said. &uot;The school jumps in and tries to get that money back to the school district so that nobody complains because the tax does not go up.&uot;

Prinzing said the failed levy referendum would have improved neither the quality of education nor the salary level of school teachers but would have been wasted.

&uot;I am for schools and teachers. I am for education. If there is a referendum saying we are going to raise every teacher’s salary $10,000 with this money, I will be out on the street with a sign saying ‘GO GO GO! VOTE FOR IT.&uot;