Last night, parents across Douglas County received a text message and email using the school district’s emergency system. The emergency? Was there a school shooting? A fire, perhaps? Maybe a even a rogue bear? No. The great emergency is that four union-sponsored school board members campaigned on a promise of passing a bond to pay teachers more (not like that’s a bribe or anything) and now must fulfill that promise in a conservative county that hasn’t passed a tax increase in 12 years.

Sure, we would call that an emergency – a regular old political 9-1-1. Typically, the emergency system is used to reach parents quickly in case of actual emergency. In this case, Douglas County School Board President David Ray used this taxpayer-funded resource to sell the tax increase and call for volunteers to help. Simply put, Ray used taxpayer resources to campaign for a tax increase.

Listen yourself.

It’s bad enough that Ray made the pitch to parents over the emergency system, but, then, Ray turned the voicemail into a call for volunteers. Mind blowing. Needless to say, the Douglas County community was up in arms over the move, and Ray threw the staff under the bus. Even if it was an innocent mistake, Ray still intended to use district funds All around, a poor showing on the part of Ray.

We’ll leave the legal wrangling to the lawyers, but it sure looks shady. But, we’d expect nothing less than shady behavior from a crew backed by the teachers union.