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 
. . . . . . enema plugs for . . . . now that is rich, Warrior! Very rich! Perrino has to have a dog in this fight and I would say that she IS expecting special favors for her kids in some fashion. Perhaps in sports, academics, scholarships or all of the above. The staff has it in their power to do all of the above. Reversely, they can prevent people who don’t support the levy some sort of reprisal. It happens all of the time and that is why parents are afraid to even allow their children to know how they will be voting. I can assure one and all that the children are polled in their classes. If they admit their parents aren’t for the levy there will be vindictive retaliation. That is the reason for polling them.
Also, if they have the audacity to use the schools to promote the levy in or on school property (taxpayer property) the other side has the right to do exactly what they are doing. So you can make up a huge sign and post it right next to their sign at the games or anywhere else. Be sure to make sure that cameras are posted where you have signs and prosecute anyone that tampers with your signs. They can serve time for messing with the Constitution of the United States of America. That is, as long as we honor that very same constitution. This has been tried in the courts and the schools lost that battle.
One of my pet peeves is the “Early Childhood Development Centers.” This was started by Kathy Klink during her tenure as superintendent. No one had a vote as to the need for the center or if we wanted to be taxed to open and run these centers. Klink and her pals actually went out and drummed up business to open them at all. For the most part, they started out as babysitting services. Most people already had taken care of that situation and few of the people that buy homes in the area have a need for what is basically a government Head Start program. (HS is a proven failure in spite of billions of tax dollars thrown at the program.) Statistically children that spend more of their early years with their mothers thrive much better academically.
Finally, the majority of Lakota students come from families that could afford private schools if they made that choice. These students are above average in intellect. In fact almost 25% of Lakota students are considered gifted. So why would the quality of their education get worse? I would say that would be the choice of the union and the administration to diminish the subject taught. Almost every penny of any levy will be spent on giving raises to the same teachers and administrators that are currently sitting in the buildings.
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I’d say what she has in the fight is easy Realtor sales. If you look at the kind of people who most support these school levies……….(cough) “Joan Powell,” you will find someone who wants to sell homes to the kind of panicky parents who think the world should bend their will to their 7 year old kid. Those kind of home buyers make great customers. They overpay for everything and move every couple of years. A levy that is passed makes it easy to sell homes to those types of buyers. If they really cared about the kids, they wouldn’t use them as shields to cover their own poor social behavior………….and desire to a more than average sales commission.
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I do believe that there are realtors and developers on the anti-levy side as well, correct?
http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/local/lakota-levy-opponents-emerging-1/nNbzJ/
This was just one quick example that I was able to find.
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Early childhood development centers should be outlawed for the minds they destroy in children under age 5. What a terrible thing to do to children, throw them in a pit with a bunch of other kids with no supportive parents around to nurture them, just some ratty baby sitter teaching them colors, shapes, and numbers. It might as well be a concentration camp. The harm it places on a young mind is equivalent to prison for a grown adult. The opportunity cost of destroyed imagination generation is just unfathomable.
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If the quality should decline one iota it would be per the choice of the unions. Parents who expect their child to have all of the accouterments of a private school should go ahead and pay for it themselves. Don’t trust the unions with your precious children.
Pam’s letter is full of half truths and the absence of information. That is the way the union operates. They always fail to give “all” of the information pertinent to their talking points. For example – the district received money from the stimulus distribution. She is quoting a year when Lakota had a windfall in funding. She is not comparing normal years. With declining enrollment they should not have built one more school. Like Mason, soon they will be closing schools. Mason sold an elementary school to a private school. Naturally, they wanted to get it off of their hands. Per another one of our fights, they had to sell it to the highest bidder. The union could not prevent the private school from using the school as a school. In Cincinnati private schools bid on closed buildings, but their bids were declined because the union forbid those schools to be used as schools. That is their power.
Another point is that when older teachers retire, they pay them for leaving. This does not save money in any real business sense. They also hire the very same teacher back. Double Dipping!! Because of tenure, the district cannot keep the best teachers. The worst of the worst are kept while the best of the best are let go. Why? Because the UNION contract says that time and not quality is the criteria for keeping a teaching position. So even if they do have to lay off teachers because of declining enrollment – the afore mentioned policy is mandatory according to the UNION.
Pam says the layoff of teachers and less money will have an “impact” on the quality. Why? If the best teachers were kept the quality would be better. If the truly professional teachers were kept the students would have some respect for the teachers.
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Many districts are now eliminating continuing contracts (tenure) due to a number of new state regulations, as my wife (not in Lakota) is evaluated every year by her administration even though she did have a continuing contract. Additionally, my wife’s district does count on levies obviously, but I couldn’t ever imagine her polling students in class. And, if this this were occurring, this would be a violation of law.
I do completely agree with you that it is unfortunate that the policy stated that time was the sole determination when layoffs did occur. I do believe there are number of districts and proposed legislation that would in fact change this, which would be beneficial for my wife since she is such a great teacher (not just my opinion, but I am partial).
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Your statement on just saying we need a levy because one hasn’t been passed is not sound economic principles, so I will completely agree there. If they really support the levy, they need to take the facts as they are presented by the Treasurer, and apply some sound budgeting principles to them. One, discuss the changing funding model for schools from the state. Two, discuss the lowering evaluations of property in the districts. Three, discuss the want to attract the best and brightest to the district. Four, discuss the need for physical security upgrades of the schools, and perhaps police officers in all the districts schools. Five, discuss the new unfunded mandates from the state that are adding expenses. These mandates include the Third Grade Reading Requirement (all students by third grade will read at grade level) and all state testing to be conducted online by 2015 (the date could be off). Both of these mandates would require funds to meet (capital investment in IT infrastructure and computers; reading specialists or professional development for teachers whom are not reading specialists certified).
These were just a few of the talking points that they could have used, rather than just saying time has passed, like they are some public utility going before the PUCO.
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I’m sorry, I meant THEIR statement on just saying we need a levy because one hasn’t been passed is not sound economic principles.
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No problem. : ) A few developers and realitors have come out against the levy. But they don’t openly stick up for themselves often enough. A close look at the most vocal levy supporters are the types described, primarily because they want to sell homes to the 25-35 young parent demographic. School levy issues make easy sales pitches for the weak salesman.
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Taxes paid in cash: http://www.700wlw.com/articles/national-news-104668/watch-man-pays-over-7000-in-11635989/
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