Why we oppose Loan Eby

Loan Eby has played a significant role in causing the district’s legal budget to more than double, forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for her incessant, self-serving agendas. In the meeting of September 25, 2023, Dr. Rikli cited an increasing amount of information requests in both number and complexity as a driving factor in the district’s legal budget needing such a significant increase.

We have a list of all information requests, which is public record in itself, and discovered that Loan has made by far the highest number of information requests over the course of the last few years. Of 122 total requests as of late March in 2024, Loan has submitted 47 of those. This number is much, much higher if you include requests from her friends and associates with similar agendas.

We are all paying for this. With an increase of over $100,000 from ’22-’23 to ’23-’24, and these types of requests being cited as being a driving force in that increase, how can Loan possibly claim she has the taxpayers’ interests at heart? Is she that fiscally irresponsible, or is she just incompetent and reckless? Either way, she’s unfit for our school board.

The PLCS Community Closet is a program that has provided for over 2,200 Papillion-La Vista families in need using clothing and personal hygiene products that were voluntarily donated by other families and businesses in the community.

Like Edward, Loan Eby has repeatedly protested this program. Why would she protest such a community-building program when it’s driven by donations from other community families?

KMTV did a story on the program, highlighting the generosity of others in the community. This program is available for any family in PLCS or anyone living within the district. Visit the district’s website for more information, and you can also make monetary donations through the PLCS Foundation’s website.

The PLCS Community Closet isn’t the only community-building program Loan has protested. In this post, she protests a Student Emergency Fund that’s organized and run by the PLCS Foundation, which is once again driven by donations. Why would she protest a program that helps provide the basic needs of students and their families in the district who need it the most? Would she rather these students and families suffer?

Loan Eby stated that she wants to strip students of their rights to form clubs. This was featured on her campaign website before it was eventually taken down (was she advised to?), but it was archived and captured in the Wayback Machine for all to see in the foreseeable future and her social media posts about the topic remained up just weeks prior to this writing. The archived version of her campaign website can be found here.

The freedom of students to form clubs is a constitutionally protected right. If Loan had her way, this would only result in costly court battles that the district would ultimately lose. In fact, Nebraska itself played a role in cementing this right for students. Why would Loan jeopardize the financial health of our school district in some pointless pursuit of her own personal agenda?

Loan Eby has repeatedly targeted teachers from her campaign page without provocation. It appears her motivations are purely out of spite. These are not the only times Loan has painted a target on our teachers’ backs.

This is a screenshot of a post on Loan’s campaign page naming and doxxing a targeted PLCS teacher who addressed the board during public comment while speaking for himself as a constituent. Her reason? She didn’t like how he introduced himself. Do we really need board members who so readily sic their followers on teachers who dare to introduce themselves to the board?

To further demonstrate how this post was given extra consideration before the final version was published, her edit history shows a version of this post without the dog whistle of pointing out how he introduced himself, as shown below. Loan appears to have thought this through before deciding to add something a little extra to stir up her followers. Evidenced by the extra consideration given to her final version, it’d be difficult to argue that this was accidental or unintentional.

As if that wasn’t enough, Loan then proceeds to mention his NE teaching certificate and erroneously cites state statutes that she feels could be used to threaten his livelihood, despite the fact that he was speaking for himself after hours to address the school board with his only apparent “wrong-doing” being a completely harmless self-introduction. How many other teachers is Loan so ready and willing to chase out of the state entirely?

Additional evidence to suggest ill intentions is shown in this screenshot of one of Loan’s followers calling this teacher a “head case” based purely on how he introduced himself, with Loan responding with a “like” reaction. If that’s all it takes for Loan and her friends to chase teachers out of the state, what else justifies these attacks on our teachers’ livelihoods in Loan’s opinion, and how many teachers would we even have left if her rabid series of attacks are allowed to be fully carried out?

A teacher doesn’t even need to say anything in public to draw Loan’s vengeful ire. In this next example, Loan names and targets one of our educators for the simple act of sharing a post that reads, “Every child deserves a champion — an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” Does that not basically define what it means to be a good teacher?

Not in Loan’s view. You’ll see that Loan proposes the “question” on whether this educator is “speaking about parents and/or legal guardians or someone else?” This might seem somewhat innocuous at first glance and without context, but notice that “angry” react? That was almost certainly the goal. At the time of this post, Loan was in the midst of pointing out actual criminals (which the district took action on), and using the fact that these people exist to drive certain other implications about ALL teachers she disagrees with, senselessly tying them all together. For the people paying attention, and especially for her followers, this post could easily be interpreted as a thinly veiled, vile implication that this educator is somehow guilty of inappropriate relationships with students, but we’ll let you decide that for yourselves as you continue to read about Loan’s incessant attacks and irresponsible behavior.

And sure enough, later that month, this was the topic of her public comment at a board meeting, again mentioning certifications. Of course, while she was reading it, she was addressing actual criminal behavior, but she conveniently leaves that out in the post and fails to make a clear distinction between inspiring quotes about being a good teacher and literal convicted criminals. We wonder what Loan’s end goal is by associating criminals with innocent teachers she just happens to disagree with?

Teachers aren’t the only individuals that Loan Eby targets from her campaign page completely unprovoked. She also targets community members she disagrees with in some way.

Here’s a screenshot of Loan Eby targeting a community member after their public testimony in which Loan doxxed this individual’s full work information after they asked a now resigned board member to denounce their relationship with extremist groups after the board member baselessly accused other board members and educators of “sexualizing” children. Loan not only does this from her public campaign page, but also in extremist groups she’s a member of. In this example, Moms for Liberty, an SPLC-recognized extremist organization. This post resulted in online harassment involving her career and an increased security presence at her place of work.

Furthermore, she decided to call this community member “mental”. Again, this was all after Loan had already announced her campaign to run for school board. If this is how Loan reacts to criticism that isn’t even directed at her as a candidate, how will she respond to public criticism if she makes it on the board? Is she even capable of acting with any level of decency or responsibility?

Loan Eby once again targets a community member who dared to publicly state their opinion that differed from Loan’s views. She specifically mentions his sexuality and “questions” where he lives.

Similar to the case with the teacher, this was the final version of the post after several edits were made. The following shows her history of edits to this post. As you can see, the first version didn’t mention his sexuality or question his place of residence. It was only after she failed to get any reactions from her followers that she decided to first mention his sexuality, but even more disturbingly, she later posed that “question” about his place of residence. Given her history of targeting individuals she doesn’t like, is she truly asking an innocent question here, or is this a dog whistle to incite one of her followers to track him down for less than innocent reasons? Regardless of her intentions, considering how this individual mentioned his personal struggles with mental health, it’s a grossly irresponsible decision on behalf of Loan and appears to be, at a minimum, an attempt to intimidate others from expressing opposing views.

Loan Eby consistently drafts legal threats like the one found below to our district and suggests that people (her followers?) will be “pushed” into calling the police on librarians and teachers over book disagreements.

The email itself misapplies a statute and once again brings up the revocation of teaching certificates. This legal threat was made in protest of a policy revolving around books, which allows for parents/guardians to opt their own children out of materials they personally don’t agree with, and for books that are formally contested, the district follows a responsible policy of forming a book review committee that includes 2 parents/guardians to read the book in question in its entirety before reaching a final conclusion.

Does Loan care about crafting responsible policies, or does she want to completely ignore a board’s responsibilities to their community, forcing her own views on everybody else instead and stripping parents of their rights to make these types of decisions for their own children in the process?

Loan Eby has made several blatantly false claims that the district isn’t growing despite all evidence to the contrary. She’s also suggested our district is doing nothing to “rein in the spending.” However, we’ve enjoyed a fairly consistent drop in the district’s levy on our property taxes with the largest recent drop happening this past year, as can be seen in the 2 slides from the most recent budget hearing below. It’s unclear why Loan consistently repeats this belief — or outright lie — that the district is no longer growing, especially considering that projected growth in Papillion alone can be viewed on the city’s website. It’s undeniable. Is Loan incapable of grounding herself in reality? How can she be a responsible steward of public tax dollars if she can’t even acknowledge something as basic as projected growth figures?

In this post, Loan Eby appears to be encouraging her followers to check out library books and never return them. This amounts to stealing. Loan labels this type of criminal activity as “brilliant.”