After several years of levy fights in the Lakota school district I have heard the pro tax crowd call me personally every name known to the human mind in anger that I don’t yield to their social impositions. In response to their diatribes I have come up with a lot of names of my own to call them, such as “levy addicts,” “Lakota Zombies,” “Latté sipping prostitutes,” and “Levy Cheerleaders.” This last one reflects well most of the inner sanctum of school levy supports who treat the school superintendent as though she were a rock star for a musical group. Many of these levy “cheerleaders” seem to have replaced their youthful days when they attended rock concerts and tossed their undergarments at a stage advertising themselves for backstage adventures, to becoming enema plugs for Superintendent Mantia at Lakota. Their rambunctious social display of levy support is rather sickening and deserves that type of criticism. It is what came to my mind upon their booth set up at Lakota football games advertising their levy scheme like nighttime employees of K-Street working a hustle.
The local media this time around is being very careful, as they are afraid that someone is going to get physically hurt and they might be blamed for provoking the violence. From their point of view I can see their concern. Over the last three levy attempts at Lakota things have gotten incrementally worse each time, and after the third levy I had promised a “head for an eye” revenge for the Kroger survey taken against my name during the month of February 2011. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. However, I usually only respond to attacks, I don’t issue them, so as long as the pro levy crowd engages in civil debate they have little to worry about. Where they need to worry is when they attempt extortion against known NO voters, vandalism, theft, and public reputation lynchings of characters that stand in their way. But until then, debate is acceptable, and one of the levy supporters who has been there from day one is Pam Perrino. Pam in the beginning started down the road of threats and intimidation against anyone who did not support a tax increase for her children attending Lakota schools. When I went on 700 WLW to expose the real reason for the levy needs at Lakota, she threatened the radio station with boycotts. LISTEN TO THAT BROADCAST HERE FOR REVIEW. So she has been at this pro levy business for a number of years, and she is back at it with a Letter to the Editor in the newspaper, Today’s Pulse stating:
IT IS TIME TO SUPPORT LAKOTA LEVY
I am so grateful that the Lakota School District has finalized their plans for the levy funds. It has been eight years since the last levy passed. Lakota has experienced extremely harsh cuts over the past two years. In fact, it is now operating on $20 million less than it just three years ago.
They just shared that our per pupil spending is less than it was in 2005, when the last levy passed. While I want them to be fiscally responsible, I also don’t want it to go so far that it is compromising the great education we have been providing during the 20 years I have lived here.
Because of a change in how schools are measured, we will not be given an assessment by the state o Ohio this year. We will not know exactly how these cuts have impacted Lakota’s performance. We do know that some testing scores have gone down the reduction of class offerings at the high school and participation in sports throughout the district is significantly down.
So – we are starting to feel the negative impact from cuts we have experienced over the last two years. I know that Lakota has spent the last two years reaching out to the community to find out what it wants in a school district. After the board of education presentations, I feel they responded to this input and are meeting the needs of our students and also provide services that the community has identified as the most essential for student success. It is time to support this levy to secure solid futures for our Lakota students.
Pam Perrino
Liberty Twp,
That to me was a reasonable levy cheerleading argument that deserves an answer, which I provided to the paper. Even though Perrino in the past has been quite divisive in her participation of tax increase campaigns at the school, she brings up a lot of issues that need clarification. So here is my response to Perrino’s letter which appeared in the paper.
Say No to the Lakota Levy
The assumption that there is a time to support a Lakota levy based on the years since one last passed is a poor measure of fiscal management. Levy supporters at Lakota are starting their levy promotion efforts for the November election with the very weak argument that the best reason for a tax increase is that there hasn’t been one since 2005. The postulation is that time is the measure of levy necessity, not market conditions. Only a functioning monopoly could make such a claim.
Lakota does not need a levy; it is going through an approximate ten-year period of declining enrollment which will necessitate workforce reductions at Lakota do to the much smaller classroom sizes that will be needed. The $20 million the school has had to cut over the last couple of years is due to this declining enrollment and is part of the painful process of fiscal management which should be expected.
The best way to keep costs down at Lakota is to keep money out of their hands with “NO” votes, and force the school to reduce their work force in conjunction with the declining enrollment which is a natural part of a mature community. Under the pro levy argument they are saying that every couple of years forever Lakota will expect a tax increase no matter what the market conditions dictate. The proposed tax increase in spite of claims for improved security and technology upgrades are simply going to cover payroll increases for raises issued under an upcoming 2014 labor contract. Only an organization that is functioning as an antitrust would have the audacity to make such a claim which is all the reason that school levies should be defeated at Lakota for at least the next decade.
Rich Hoffman
Liberty Twp,
The trouble with these levy discussions is that all the information is subjective to the real problem that public schools are functioning monopolies. Lakota is an antitrust by its nature, as all public schools are organized allowing them to make any claims of fiscal hardship they can imagine without having opposing facts generated through competition. This allows schools like Lakota to claim hardship when forced to make budget reductions by the tax payers to reduce their per pupil expenses at the ballot box. Voters in Lakota have had to take control of the administration’s spending by keeping money out of their hands which has forced them to make cuts they wouldn’t otherwise make—which has been on par with budget conditions. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FACTS ON THIS MATTER. The claim of hardship by the school is due to the fact that they are the only game in town, and do not have another school to compete with who operates with lower per pupil costs, allowing them to claim imposition to gain public support for tax increases.
But to the levy cheerleaders, none of those facts matter. They propose an infinite amount of tax impositions upon the community with the short-sighted intention of perpetual approval. What they don’t understand is that when costs go up, businesses, and residents sell off their properties, and they move. Lakota as a district in Butler County has benefited from having relatively low taxes, particularly with sales taxes, and this is the real reason for the spawn of real-estate growth. It has little to do with Lakota schools. Many parents would love to send their children to Lakota schools, but few can afford to live in the district which is the byproduct of being a successful community. The natural impact on the school from that success is that there will be declining enrollment. And that fact alone is enough to put out the fire that the levy cheerleaders are trying to advance by blowing on the flames of consumption for higher taxes.
Rich Hoffman
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The Overmanwarrior 