Rita Maniotis Illinois Green Party State. Rep. 21 Candidate
Rita Maniotis Illinois Green Party State. Rep. 21 CandidateGreenProgress
5 min - Aug 16, 2008
http://www.ritamaniotis.com http://www.runcynthiarun.org http://www.gp.org Make Education The Foundation Once again, the state has decided on a band-aid approach to funding public education and bypassing education funding reform that would not only equitably fund our public schools, but also put in place a sustainable funding structure for the foreseeable future. H.B. 750, a bill that was supported by grassroots organizations as well as educators and school districts would have meant property tax relief for many and spread the tax burden more equitably between those who are able to pay. Education is key to the health of our state. Without education funding reform, Illinois will remain near the bottom of the list of states in terms of per pupil expenditure. That in turn triggers a cascade of costly problems from increasing delinquency, gang violence and crime, to unemployment, teen pregnancy and child abuse. Sensible Universal Health Care Governor Blagojevich's Kids Care plan is a step in the right direction to cover all children for basic health care including dental and eye care. I would support a single-payer state healthcare plan that covers all Illinoisans. Universal Healthcare would not only relieve the anxiety of all those who have no health insurance or have pre-existing conditions and cannot obtain coverage, but it will also attract businesses to the state who will be able to offer their workers healthcare at a much less burdensome cost. We also need to curb the mandates of the Illinois Department of Public Health. This department creates ever increasing vaccine mandates forcing medical experiments on our children as early as their first day of life without regard to public protests. As a result, chronic illnesses and autism have skyrocketed in the state over 1,000 percent since the 1990s. Rita Maniotis grew up in Waterloo, Iowa but has lived in Illinois for almost a decade. She attended graduate school at SIU Carbondale and received a Masters degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in Theatre History in 1982. After living in on both coasts, she returned to the Midwest, and in 2005, she received a Masters degree in teaching from Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois. Maniotis is a high school teacher and an activist. She has taught at Proviso East High School in Maywood and Ralph Ellison Charter High School in Chicago. In 2001, Maniotis moved to Berwyn, Illinois with her husband and three children who have graduated from or are still attending public schools. Rita Maniotis has been an active participant in her children's schooling. She served on the board of Mark Twain School PTO in Iowa City 1998-2001, and while President of Emerson School PTA, 2002—2004, she successfully passed a resolution to halt the Hepatitis B vaccine mandate in the state at the 2004 Illinois PTA Convention. She is immediate past President of Morton West High School PTO where she created a member email list-serve, worked to set up a website, established monthly parent information programs including a forum for school board candidates, and served on the discipline committee where she helped to ban the use of stun guns on campus. In addition to volunteering at her children's schools, she has been active in grass roots political groups. As Secretary of Near West Citizens for Peace and Justice, 2006—2008, Maniotis has been instrumental in placing three advisory questions on the Berwyn Township ballot concerning troop withdrawal from the Iraq War and local initiatives to curb global warming. She also serves as secretary of the Illinois Vaccine Awareness Coalition and is an Active Member of the West Side Greens. A former public radio producer, Rita (Sand) Maniotis continues to produce "From the Trenches," the radio project of the Chicago Independent Media Center, which is heard monthly on 88.7FM WLUW.
