Category: Regulations

Lakota Lists 12 Million in Cuts: But What about the Wages?

During the meeting at Lakota East on February 23, 2011 it was discussed that Lakota was going to cut 12 million dollars from the budget. The contents of the news report and details of those cuts are included here as reported by the Pulse Journal for prosperity to record. Among the many things said are that Lakota needs a new revenue stream in order to survive into the future. Really?

This interview with Doc Thompson below is especially potent. If you have any doubt about impropriety among the public sector employees, then listen to this broadcast. If you want to continue walking around blind and gullible, than only read the latest news from Lakota also below. If you want the whole story then read the article and listen to the broadcast together, so take a break from your schedule and enjoy the broadcast. While you listen compare what you hear to the news released from Lakota, as reported by Lindsey Hilty, about the specific cuts announced by the Lakota Administration. I will save my closing comments for the end of that article.

By Lindsey Hilty, Staff Writer Updated 8:22 AM Thursday, February 24, 2011
LIBERTY TWP. — Tensions ran high at Lakota East High School Wednesday night as more than 200 concerned parents and community members listened to how cuts would impact students next year.
“We’ve looked at all areas of our budget — everywhere,” interim Superintendent Ron Spurlock said. “…We have to start living within our means.”

Many of the budget cuts, he said, likely could be permanent even with the passage of a levy.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” Spokeswoman Laura Kursman said. “And it’s hard to communicate bad news.”
Another meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Lakota West High School to hear about how $12.2 million in proposed cuts to the operating budget may be implemented pending school board approval.
Parents who can’t attend sessions are asked to fill out a survey on the district’s web site to help with some of the future tough choices.

“I’m very worried,” parent Tricia McCaffrey said. “The Lakota School District I moved in to eight years ago is not the school district I have now when it matters for my son. Losing electives and going to state minimums is not why I chose to pay Lakota taxes.”

Elementary reductions: $3 million, 50 employees cut
The goal is to maintain reading supports, supplemental classes taught by specialists, media center access and an accelerated gifted programs. To be cut: sixth-grade band; third-grade gifted program and services for grades four through six; gym, art, music and library time to 30 minutes each per week for grades one to six; one reading specialist per school; three media specialists sharing 14 schools; literacy coaches and two fewer English as a Second Language instructional aides.

Junior school reductions: $1.7 million, 25.5 employees cut
Reduce day from eight bells to seven with 26-minute study hall, four core content classes and two electives. Programs eliminated include wood shop, English double block, band team teaching, jazz band, an intervention math class and department performance supplemental contracts. There will be two fewer media specialists.
High School reductions: $1.9 million, 28 employees cut

Elective classes to be based on enrollment numbers with limited options, elimination of seventh bell; class size increases and 23.5 credits possible with 21 needed to graduate.

Special Services: $858,500, 19 employees cut
Six fewer special education aides, one counselor per junior school and reduced nursing aids.
Athletic reductions: $1 million cut

No funds for junior school athletics; $550 per high school athlete per sport with no family cap; supervision supplemental and sports information directors positions eliminated, and decreased transportation budgets.
Central Office: $874,143, 5.5 employees cut

Elimination of an assistant superintendent and several central office support positions. Changes to contracted services and a hold on filling positions also led to savings.
Transportation: $2.8 million cut

Already implemented in part, but in August, no student within two miles of school will receive transportation. This will impact half of Lakota’s student population.

Now, that they’ve announced the cuts, keep in mind that the average salary at Lakota is 62K per year for teachers, and those wages occupy over 75% of the total budget. When S.B.5 is passed in the Ohio State Senate and the House of Representatives, which will happen soon, the School Board will then have the power to begin discussing wage issues and other catastrophic costs that are currently being imposed by the teachers union. It would be my hope that the LEA would come to the School Board to renegotiate their very expensive contracts, but they won’t. So make sure to let the school board know that the best way for them to cut costs is to get their ballooning salary expenses under control.

After S.B.5 is passed the administration will not be able to blame the state for those costs any more. The power to control the costs of the district will fall within our district once again. So make sure you let them know that you know that. Because when it is discussed that a new revenue stream is needed, it is clear that the administration doesn’t understand the situation. A school can only consume revenue in the form of tax dollars. They cannot create revenue unless they sell something. Their solution is to implement some cosmetic cuts and ask for more money during the 2011 fiscal year. And that’s not going to happen. So what’s their plan besides asking for more money?

They don’t have one. They are going to have to think differently. Because asking for more revenue to feed wages they’ve allowed to escalate irresponsibly is not going to work. It’s a complete lack of management.

It’s time for a new plan, or to step away and let people who know what they’re doing to manage the situation. The old way won’t work because the community isn’t poised to pass another levy no matter how they chose to spin it with their new spokesman. “Lakota hasn’t passed a levy since 2005.” What will never be forgotten, because I’ll never let people forget it, is that after that levy was passed, in 2008, the LEA bent the community over backwards for increased wages which drove up the costs we are seeing today. So we won’t be traveling back down that path again, no matter how it gets manipulated to the public.

The union should have renegotiated their deal instead of letting employees be let go to preserve their own selfish interests. The cuts Lakota announced don’t begin to deal with the districts real problem, and does not deserve an approved levy in 2011. Once the administration brings the wages under control and the union agrees to some wage reductions, then we can discuss further funding from the community.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

I Don’t Want My Money Going to a Union: End of Story!

Why is it so difficult to understand that people like me, don’t want my tax money to go to a public union? I don’t want my money spent on union activity of any kind. End of story. I’m willing to go along with what society wants, but I personally think unions as an institution are un-American, socialist fronts and I want no part of them. I’ve thought that for years, well before it became popular. So to me, S.B.5 is not nearly strong enough.

Doc Thompson covers the latest with S.B.5 as Dan Hennessey of the Lebanon Tea Party reports from Columbus with a fantastic, and fair interview.

Virtually everyone covering this story of union influence assumes that public sector unions have always existed. And those that work in those unions actually believe they have a human right to certain benefits. I’ve said it more than once; unions have a right to exist. But I don’t want to pay for that activity because I do not believe in them. Their view of the world is unproductive and naive. Listen for yourself.  This audio clip is a song endorsed by SEIU.  Gives you a great insight to their mentality. 

I’ve worked in a union establishment during the 2000 election between Al Gore and George Bush and was told by the union to vote for Al Gore. Well, I never paid any dues to the union, I had no desire to be a part of the union, and I certainly wasn’t about to vote for someone they told me to vote for.

I have told my union story in another article. Feel free to have a look. The short argument is that I, as an American citizen, should have a “right” not to feed an organization that I believe makes other Americans dependent, weak, emotionally soft, collectively oriented, psychologically off balance, and behave like a crime syndicate. I believe so strongly about it that I don’t even like to put money into the movie industry, because of the union activity. I feel the same about sports. I like both entertainment venues, but I do avoid spending money on those activities because they have large unions. I think there is a real danger of there not even being a professional football season this year because of the collective bargaining situation emerging in the NFL and it makes me sick!

It is disgusting to listen to union bosses complain that Governor Walker and Governor Kasich are rushing through legislation to bust unions, that there isn’t a place at the table for unions to negotiate. For years, the public unions have pushed politicians with EXTREME aggression. It’s always been a one way street. The union has superseded management in most every case. It doesn’t work. Union leadership has proven over the decades that they cannot self-regulate.

In Ohio only 655,000 people belong to a union both public and private. That’s 13.7 percent of the 4,787,000 people employed in the state. Yet this minority has dictated an extraordinary expense upon the tax payers through taxes improperly collected and distributed.

There are Republicans that cannot stomach their emotional attachment to the marketing tactics of firefighters, police and teachers in order to do what is right, because they are guilty in their past of pandering to these groups for their own climb to power. What those Republicans fail to understand is that what is going on in America is there is a real desire to do what’s right, even if it hurts.

The Republicans that are of that selfish ilk, they care about issues so long as their world is convenient. Those are the conservatives that have made the conservative philosophy look bad for years. They are Republicans because it makes them money. They are the first Judas’s to report to a Roman guard what goes on in the garden in order to save their own necks, and this again is a pathetic by-product of the unions which have subsequently weakened our society. Lawyers, and police heads that are Republicans, but benefit off of legal antics driven by union activity, they have difficulty thinking clearly. These people are the type of Republicans that say ending collective bargaining is a bad political move because the unions have the power to put the issue on a referendum to overturn such a law as S.B.5 proposes to do. Those Republicans are afraid that they will lose office holders in the next election if such bold legislation is created.

What those Republicans don’t take into account is that if collective bargaining is ended, and Ohio becomes a right to work state, and the economy begins to show signs of improvement by 2012, and 2014 the other 86.3% will forgive any anxiety that comes from S.B.5. If the unions attempt a referendum, the old school Republicans underestimates the ability of the Tea Party in Ohio to campaign against the referendum. They are content to allow 13.7% of the population to manipulate the rest of the state. We know there will be police, firefighters, and teachers wrapping themselves in the flag to manipulate the voting public. And we know the inner cities will vote their way. But times are changing and people are waking up. I believe a referendum against the organized crime tactics used by these unions could be turned against them if they’d try such a thing, and that is a battle I’d willingly take part in.

This battle that is taking place is more than Republicans versus Democrats, or Tea Parties versus unions, but of the establishment versus the new breed. I would contend that the soft position of some Republicans has more to do with control than anything. It has to be difficult for them to see that Shannon Jones, who is a fairly new senator has proposed such aggressive, sweeping legislation, because after all, for those that have been in the State House for years have toed the line and played the game. They desire to put their own touches to a bill like S.B.5 so they can stake their claims to the success.

I can say that I’m sick of the whole process. I don’t want my money going to unions. I don’t want to see my elected representatives playing politics either. I don’t care if that’s how it’s been done in the past. We’re talking about the future, and I don’t want to see that kind of thing going on. My position is that it should not be going on. Politics and political parties are something to be thrown out the window.

Do something bold, get rid of collective bargaining. Get rid of the money and influence built around the Democratic Party. And don’t play politics like it’s a football game where there are this many Republicans and this many Democrats and whoever has the majority wins. Take the chips off the table and the majority concerns with it. Take away the special interest of union influence and lets see what Ohioans really think politically, and we’ll have a better representation of what the state really wants from its elected officials.

I don’t want to support public unions with my tax money. Get it! Keep the firefighters, the police, and the teachers, but drop the union. Union influence is as wrong as the definition of wrong can be.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

A Democrat is Supporting S.B.5 Bill in Ohio: Putting people ahead of politics and emotion

As Columbus, Ohio fills with union protestors like expected, the “real” working people are left to other devices to participate in this issue. After all, the protestors are making the case for themselves why we should pass Senate Bill 5. The primary reason aside from all the financial reasons is it is obvious that the public sector will continue to function in their absence, because life is going on while thousands of them take off all at the same time to march on the Ohio capital.

Those of us with real jobs, where our value is missed even if we take off one day, must write, give interviews to newspapers, talk on the multiple talk radio stations, or vent our frustrations at the hundreds of tea party meetings that conjugate all across the state a few times a month.

The intent of the protests is to look like a unified force, and such a force is supposed to function to intimidate the election process. It’s worked in the past, and union bosses are hoping it will work this time. They have a list of Senator’s that they are hoping to intimidate which I’ve included below. But their overall strategy is to make the whole issue of collective bargaining appear to be an “us against them” kind of thing, or a “poor rising up against the rich.” These are tired diatribes however and because of these strategies over the years it has finally caught up with us. If S.B.5 is not passed or if it is passed but watered down to appease the mob, the people who vote it down will be held directly responsible. Because like any right thinking person who understands economics, this issue is not about political revenge, or rich versus poor, but is about balancing our financial books and creating a business friendly environment for potential jobs, and it crosses party lines.

Listen to Jeff Berding, a democrat from southern Ohio speak to Doc Thompson on 700 WLW about his support for S.B.5.

If you are a frequent visitor to this site you know that Jeff isn’t an isolated politician when it comes to understanding reason. There are hundreds of hours of such conversations documented here just like the one you just heard. I admit there are hundreds of thousands of words written here and many hundreds of articles, videos and sound bites, so it can be overwhelming. That information is here like a library to help discuss topics that aren’t covered by the popular press. You can search for that information by checking the calendar off to the side of this article.

You can also pull them up by Googling “Overmanwarrior” along with whatever topic you want info for.

What’s happening in the country is Americans saw what happened to our film hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California when he started strong only to be wiped out by the unions, unable to do anything to stop the financial bleeding in the state, much the way they are attempting to do in Ohio. The unions have a long history of this kind of thing, and it’s designed to scare politicians that the people elect to represent them, which actually subvert the process. That’s one of the biggest aspects of these protests that are wrong. Public Sector Unions use money they’ve made off the tax payer to lobby members of elected officials through strong-arm tactics to subvert the will of the people who elected those politicians. That’s a very bad thing. The people who are currently in the state house of Ohio, and Wisconsin are there because tax payers do not want to become the next California, and expect bold action to return our states to prosperity lacking deficits. And the people protesting and speaking out against S.B.5 are short-sighted and selfish. They are looking at their tiny sector of the economy, which has a major impact on the whole, and seeks to preserve their imposition on society.

Some Senators have given the unions hope because of comments these Senators have made, and they are the targets of these protests. The protests are designed to break these senators’s resolve to reason out of fear from reprisal or the possibility of not being re-elected.

Sen. Bill Sietz R – Cincinnati District 8

Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 1st Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 466-8068
Email: SD08@senate.state.oh.us
“While there is much in the bill I think is good, there are some things I think are decidedly a bridge too far,” said Sen. Bill Seitz,

Sen. Frank LaRose R – Fairlawn District 27

Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 2nd Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 466-4823 (614) 466-4823
Email: SD27@senate.state.oh.us
Sen. LaRose, said he doesn’t believe the system is functioning as well as it should, but “I think that reforming collective bargaining doesn’t mean getting rid of it.”

Sen. Keith Faber R – Celina District 12

Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 1st Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 466-7584 (614) 466-7584
Email: SD12@senate.state.oh.us
The question is, what will the bill look like? Sen. Faber,, the Senate’s No. 2 GOP leader, said he was confident there would be “clear majority support in my caucus.”

Sen. Scott Oelslager R – Canton District 29

Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 2nd Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 466-0626 (614) 466-0626
Email: SD29@senate.state.oh.us
Sen. Oelslager, expressed the most definitive opposition to the bill. “I’ve been a strong supporter of collective bargaining my entire career.”

Sen. Gayle Manning R – North Ridgeville District 13

Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, Ground Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 644-7613 (614) 644-7613
Email: SD13@senate.state.oh.us
Sen. Manning, said she understands the teachers’ perspective, but she also understands the budget deficit and has not made a decision on the bill.

Sen. Bill Beagle R – Tipp City District 5

Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 1st Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 466-6247 (614) 466-6247
_Sen. Beagle, said the bill’s replacement of continuing teacher contracts with one-year contracts could be difficult to implement and is a fairness issue because administrators can have five-year contracts.

Sen. Jimmy Stewart R – Albany District 20

Majority Floor Leader
Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 1st Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 466-8076 (614) 466-8076
Email: SD20@senate.state.oh.us
Sen. Stewart, would not say whether he supports the bill, but he stressed he is searching for some middle ground with “some of my labor friends.”

Sen Jim Hughes R – Columbus District 16

Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 1st Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 466-5981 (614) 466-5981
Email: SD16@senate.state.oh.us

Sen. Hughes, said he is keeping an open mind on the bill and offered no commitments to its major provisions.

 

It’s not hard to see how some of these senators might be intimidated by the constant chants of “Kill the Bill.” To have emotional testimony from firefighters, police and teachers proclaiming that they are the hinge pins of society will work on your conscience if you are not a strong-willed person to begin with. After all, people are people and nobody wants to hurt anybody when it comes down to it. So it’s difficult to reason fact from fiction when emotion is used as the argument.

If you’ve worked on a school levy campaign like I have, you learn to see the false prophets and all the emotional testimony. Even though these are senators, it is hard to develop the experience needed to do what is right when people pull on your heart-strings. But that’s what has to be done. So be sure to send those fine people an email letting them know that they can walk that plank of sharks protesting in Columbus and you’ll be there for them. After all, think how it must feel to have hundreds, maybe thousands of emails, and letters filling their offices while they can’t even go to lunch without seeing a sea of protestors chanting at them. The protests are designed like torture, to alter people’s reality and make them think less clearly.

The reality is 15K, 20K or even 70K is not very many people. The real mass is out there in the plains and hills of Ohio, and they are busy working and watching. And if politicians waver from their task, those politicians will be removed and new ones put in place until reform does happen. It’s as simple as that.

If anyone questions the level of corruption at play here listen to Richard Trumka brag about his influence over the White House. If anybody hears this and doesn’t think there’s something wrong you’ve completely lost your way.

That is just another reason why all this public union business has to stop. It is an issue that transcends Democrats and Republicans. It’s too important to play politics with. And it requires courage in the face of adversity. The unions are betting that they can scare away enough Republics off S.B.5 through sheer intimidation. They don’t have to worry about the Democrats not voting their way, because they put those people in office……….with our tax money. Who do you think those Democrats represent? The farmers, laborers, businessmen, who aren’t, and don’t want to be represented by a union?

Congratulations Jeff Berding for reaching across the aisle and showing the kind of boldness these times require. It may hurt politically in the short-term, but it will give you a proud story to tell your grandchildren someday when they are looking for a hero and you can offer them one with your grand story. Because doing what’s hard is what we take pride in when life darkens around us.

And Senator Sietze, I was inspired by your speech last year calling on Governor Strickland to “lead.” Well, now you have a Governor willing to “lead.”

I personally think your reasonable comments about refining S.B.5 and reading it thoroughly is wise. But remember, the only reason Democrats and the unions are willing to talk now is because they pushed everything too far to the point of breaking the tax payer backs, and they see that it’s a real possibility of losing forever collective bargaining. The problem with Republicans, traditionally, is they always back off the throttle when they shouldn’t. It should be a positive to take the high road. But the political opposition never does, and if you “negotiate” too much, that window will close forever. We arrived at this point in history because Democrats pushed and pushed and pushed while good people took the high road.

I get the high and low negotiation process. I’ve done it myself many times. But when it comes to the kind of activity that goes on in collective bargaining, use the strong cards you have when you have them, and play the game to win in the long run. Not just to appease the current masses. It’s best to avoid a referendum process, but consider how many of those people in unions vote purely as Democrats because of their pay check. So long as there are public unions involved in politics we will never know what is the true nature of our Republic, because the numbers will always be skewed. Unions tell people how to vote and that’s a problem.

Being nice won’t fix this problem. It was imposed on all of us by years of greed and ruthless manipulation and it falls on us now to act with uncommon valor.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Teachers Cheat in Wisconsin: Lying about why they’re off work

During school levy campaigns, it doesn’t matter if it’s Lakota, Mason, Little Miami, Lebanon, just name the Ohio district and you’ll find a multitude of accusations of impropriety on behalf of the teachers. Teachers through their unions have learned how to “game” the system, and they’ll do whatever they can do to achieve results for themselves. This has been most obvious to those of us that work on anti-levy campaigns where State Revised Code prohibits school officials and administrators to use school resources to work on campaigns for levy requests, but they do it anyway.

Teachers and administrators participate openly in extortion tactics such as cutting busing to make transportation inconvenient on parents of the district, and other cosmetic cuts imposed for much the same reason. There is a level of arrogance in these school systems that you might experience from organized crime elements, yet we send our kids to these institutions and pay the tolls because we don’t have much choice. It’s easy for us to turn away from the crime because much of it is done in the gray areas of the law.

You can learn a lot by observing people while under duress, and now that there are protests in two states over legislation that is seeking to end collective bargaining, there’s a lot of duress from unions. The union rank and file is now out of their comfort zone and showing what they truly are, including President Obama, who has attached himself to the movement. And what we are seeing is much of what many of us feared in our deepest darkest anxieties. At the protests in Wisconsin teachers, the same people that we trust to teach our children are openly seeking doctor notes from physicians that have made themselves available to falsify documents to excuse those teachers while they protest.

Doc Thompson has some great sound bites with examples of this behavior which is extremely disgusting. He also has some great quotes from the testimony Jeff Berding who is a Democrat that has come out in support of the S.B.5. Jeff testified to collective bargaining abuses to Cincinnati’s personnel costs that are growing 18 percent annually. The city’s contract with police gives officers an average of $87 an hour for working holidays and can let workers retire with six-figure sums for unused leave, totaling $93 million. Listen to all that from Doc himself from the February 21, 2011 show.

If you really want to see what is behind this type of insidious behavior, look who emerged from his Clown Rally in Washington, Ed Schultz. It would seem that Ed couldn’t get a crowd to come to him, so he went to the crowd. Listening to these people says a lot about their mentality. What they are chanting has nothing to do with a middle class life style. What they want is essentially un-American. It is clearly socialist theories that people like Ed have been pushing for years. (That’s why the system is bankrupt, Eddie.)

It’s a good thing to know these things, because the next time these schools ask for a levy, people will know what is behind the numbers. So I encourage those protests to continue as they are and show us all what you’re made of. I’ve known for a long time. Now, it’s time the rest of America see it for themselves.


I wonder what the parents of those kids think? I’d be ashamed if my kid was participating in this vile, disgusting, hippie-like behavior. Maybe that’s why these kids are doing it, because their parents yearn for the radicalism of the 60’s. Maybe they get the ideas from MTV and through their music which again craves the radical 60’s. It’s probably a little bit of both those things topped off with the influence of radical teachers toeing the union line on a daily basis. My opinion is that nobody in the United States should behave like this. This behavior belongs in some third world country, because that’s what this behavior gets you. And to all you left winged hippie sympathizers, all you’re doing is proving Glenn Beck right. He called this behavior from you people over a year ago. If this is what education is all about these days, I want NONE of my money to go to it, because it’s not working.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Latest on School Choice: And Death Threats to Scott Walker

For the latest on what’s happening regarding School Choice up at the capital, here is some testimony from Representative Matt Huffman from Lima, Ohio given on February 16th, 2011. There are plans to expand the voucher program which is an encouraging sign for those of us that are pushing for 100% eligibility in the state.

Here are some testimonies from parents speaking for the merit of the School Choice program.

This program will go a long way to solving many of the education funding issues we have in the State of Ohio by introducing competition to the mix. I’ll post more as I get it. There’s a long way to go, but this is a big first step.

Now, for those who are on the fence with this issue have a look at these students and what they put on Twitter during the Wisconsin protests.  We need to pull our kids back into reason.  We need to bring competition to education so radical educators will lose their voice in the free market system.  It’s of utmost importance.   

If we just let this whole system go without serious reforms it will just get worse.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

Ray Warrick Testimony on S.B.5

My good friend Ray Warrick from Mason testified on Collective Bargaining in Columbus on February 17th, 2011. Since I have video of his testimony I put it here to be watched instead of read. Listen to the rumble of the crowd outside who were able to watch the proceedings on a screen and hear what was going on in the chamber.

This is what it looked like outside that chamber.

Even though many union workers took the day off to be there, “paid for I might add,” there were some who managed to go up to Columbus and show public support for the bill. Mixed in with the chanting on this next video, “kill the bill,” are people yelling, “Pass the Bill.” It is easy to ascertain that many supporters of the bill are not present. They are the silent majority, while the many of the people against the bill were encouraged by their unions to take off work and protest. This shows the fundamental difference in philosophy.

Here is a short speech by Matt Mayer. I think he took the high class approach in the face of very intimidating union tactics. As Matt said, the people supporting the bill were routinely called “retarded,” by union members chanting from the crowd.

Here is how the news was covered in Toledo, where many just aren’t ready to deal with the cost collective bargaining has imposed on tax payers, particularly the mayor there who is trying to appeal to his political base.

Unions had almost 30 years to be “fair.” Instead they just kept asking for more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and more……………………………………..

Only now that there are Republicans in place at all government levels in Ohio are they willing to “negotiate.”

I have news for those people who think like that. The Republicans did not just walk in off the street to take control of our government process. Ohioans all across the state looked at the situation and said they did not like the direction Democrats have taken the state. So they put Republicans in position to work on bills like S.B.5. They are doing their job. Taxpayers are tired of politics, and unions are wrapped up so tight with politics that it is inevitable that they will feel the impact of that wrath. But they did it to themselves and have only their leaders to blame.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Zombie Like Protestors: Who is responsible? The evidence points at President Obama.

According to The Huffington Post, Ohio is about a week behind Wisconsin. There is an organized plan, just as there is in Wisconsin, to swamp Columbus, Ohio with the type of radical behavior delivered to Madison.

So what’s going on in Wisconsin? Here is the platform for Governor Walker’s budget plans. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. The guy was elected by the citizens of Wisconsin to govern the state and balance the budget. If people wanted another democrat to further exacerbate their debts, they would have elected one. But they didn’t. So here is Walker’s proposal.

But listen to these people. Sounds like public education failed them miserably because they clearly don’t have a grip on reality. Where do they get these ideas?

Remember when everyone in the media said Glenn Beck was a crack pot for saying socialist were trying to undermine our society through social networking? Listen to these two kids. They believe what they are saying. Where’d they get their ideas?

Listen to these people, “it’s for the kids and their families.” They actually believe it. Where would they get that idea? Because it clearly isn’t, they are just repeating what they’ve learned from some other source.

Here is some of the rhetoric on the signs displayed in the protests. Look at the type of rhetoric written on them. Where did they get those ideas? They all seem so similar.

Now, we’ve seen this locally, but it’s a national tactic, where teachers use our kids to fulfill their political and financial objectives. These children have no idea why they are at the rally. All they do know is that they are off school and doing what their teachers told them to do.

So what’s behind all this crazy stuff? That’s right, it’s good ol’ George. It’s all about ideological issues according to him, even though he’s smart enough to become rich, so he’s being misleading. What he really means is that the millions he’s spent pushing left winged agendas are being rejected by the part of the country that is in the political center and to the right of that center. The ideology that he speaks of is the mark he left through his influence on all the people shown above that are protesting something they don’t understand.

And of course here is President Obama’s position on all this. Obama is simply a spokesman to people like Soros who definitely have an agenda to subvert the Constitution. The victims of this activity can be seen in these protests.

Now where do you think all these people get the ideas behind their rhetoric? Here is President Obama. Listen to what he says, and you’ll see that the protestors are asking for all the things he promised.

I was playing a video game today called Left 4 Dead 2 which is a game where a bunch of thoughtless zombies try to suck your blood. It’s a fun game intended to be action packed and scary. The zombies in Left 4 Dead reminded me of these protestors. The protestors look like us. Talk like us, but they are sick and diseased with something that is dangerous to all of us. And I blame people like President Obama for doing his part to make those poor souls sick on his rhetoric. Obama is responsible for doing his part in creating the hostile climate we are seeing in Wisconsin.

Listen to the generals of this new kind of war. Because that’s what it is.

It’s sad to see so many of our fellow citizens sick on these entitlement ideas. Like zombies, they seem to have lost all thought of their own and can only see the world based on their own needs. They spout the commands of their leaders without question and to hear them, and see them is a sad, pathetic sight.

They truly believe that if they display in mass that somehow the peer pressure will change the fate of our nation. Soon the zombies will descend on Columbus, Ohio by the command of their democratic leadership with direct support from the President of the United States who is under control by people Soros. And that’s not acceptable.

Even if all the zombie protestors which exist in the world take to the streets, they do not outnumber the normal thinking citizens that run these states and pay the taxes. Soon the protestors will learn how fruitless their endeavor is when they quickly prove how irrelevant they are to the public sector.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Need for Leadership: The trial of Arnold Schwarzenegger

This move by Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin to end collective bargaining is not a new issue. It’s certainly not revenge. That’s the way union leaders position their argument because they can’t argue actual facts.

Back in 2004 Arnold Schwarzenegger was the shining star of the Republican Party. Listen to his speech here.

But over his entire 8 year term, with all his celebrity, power, ability to reach across the aisle to Democrats, public sector unions blocked every attempt to get the escalating costs of California under control. Unions and state workers in general showed no desire at all to budge on any budget issues. Even small issues were “epic” battles.

This is the result to California.

This is a fantastic, closer look at California’s trouble.

Here is a closer, ground level look at California’s trouble. Look at the culture that has emerged there. You can see this in any state in the union.

Here’s what’s going on now, on February 19, 2011. This isn’t about Republican revenge on all the money Democrats have used to defeat Republican candidates with funds gained from public sector union dues. That’s a small minded analysis. The reason there are so many Republicans in office in State Houses like Ohio, and Wisconsin, and now at the Federal level, is because the entire country has watched our action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger fail to stop the bleeding in California. And the other states do not want to follow the path of California.

That is why there are collective bargaining reforms now after the last election. The ONLY reason union leaders want to negotiate now is because they know there are majorities in Ohio and Wisconsin that can actually eliminate these unions, and now they are scared. But they have showed NO sign of negotiating until we arrived at this point. They certainly didn’t look at the economic situation and offer ANY leadership.

The residents of these states put Republicans in office to get the costs under control. Nobody wants to become the next California, and we all will, if we don’t make major changes now. Those are the facts.

The original sin in all this is when President Kennedy signed through executive order to make public unions legal in the first place. Click here to read the history for yourself. That was a major mistake, and now must be undone, if we are to survive as an economically viable country in the marketplace of tomorrow.

So drop the emotion and get on board. There’s room for all of us. But we can’t afford public sector unions. They bankrupt states because it is not possible to always increase taxes to justify public union demands. So the whole concept has to be erased and rebuilt once the country regains the ability to control its own destiny, which it currently does not have.

If Arnold couldn’t make any ground in negotiations, there isn’t hope for anybody to. That is why Governors like Chris Christie, John Kasich and Governor Walker have emerged, because the public needs those types of people now, before it’s too late.

It’s much bigger than just politics. It’s about survival.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Hive Colony: Union Protests Ignore Rational Warnings

On this site are literally hundreds of hours of radio broadcasts not just from one host, but multiple hosts, and not always from the same station, although primarily from 700 WLW. Why? Well, I’ve been a “working man” all of my life. I’ve been on all sides of the labor issue, read many, many books and newspapers, but WLW has always been a good source of information. I’ve listened to WLW for three decades and most of the time they are right on. It’s not some right-winged conspiracy. They talk about the topics that people want to hear about, so if you want to know what society thinks about something, talk radio is a great finger on the pulse of modern civilization.

Listen below to Darryl Parks covering the S.B.5 Bill.

When these organized elements usually represented by unions and democrats express anger at talk radio, and Tea Party type people, they are showing their vast ignorance, and it is embarrassing to know those people actually vote. The reason I say that is they have an obligation to American Society to learn about the world around them, yet they don’t do it. They tend not to read books, or newspapers, unless its for the sports stats, and they are easily manipulated by corrupt union bosses that are bent in a socialist direction.

Tea Party types, conservatives, and people over the age of 30 unless they are working for a powerful public sector unions, tend to read other pages of the newspaper besides the sports page, they read books, they watch Fox News because Fox News represents their world outlook, and they probably listen to talk radio during part of their day.

I’m aware, because my stats show it, that there are thousands and thousands of people looking at this site every day, and half of those people agree with me, and the other half are scanning my work to see if they can poke holes in what I post. For those people I put up all these radio broadcasts and video. There are well over a thousand videos on this site and I’ve watched every single one of them at least once. I’ve read more books than a whole lawn full of protestors, and for the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written here, I’ve researched millions of words to get to the content. So I have no sympathy for ignorance.

While these union protestors drive around listening to FM radio and following the current pop culture music trends, and watching popular TV shows like Two and a Half Men and laughing like fools at the adolescent humor of that show, they are ignoring the vast wealth of evidence that has emerged about the unsustainable path that America is on, and which they are participating in by practicing open extortion.

Many of my friends, some of them are seen in these pictures taken at the Rally at the State House on February 17, 2011, read a lot too. That’s why we’re friends because we enjoy learning things and we spend our spare time talking about the things we learn. My friends in the Tea Party are informed, speak for themselves, and are generally grounded people. The reason the Tea Party does not have a leader, is because that is not what the Tea Party is. America does not have leaders! The Tea Party does not have a leader!

Unions do. When I look at union leadership it disgusts me because it’s too much like a “hive” mentality. Europe functioned for centuries with that same type of “hive” mentality, where there’s a king or queen, then nobility, then the workers. Union members tend to behave just like bees. Watching the union protests in Columbus reminded me of my observations of a bee colony, only the bees are much, much harder working. But the social structure is similar as well as the mentality.

The Tea Party Movement has been born because the people that don’t think with a “hive” mentality have been getting “stung” for years by the working bee union types that just keep scooping up the nectar of tax money and “coughing” it up for the queen, or whoever is their union leader. That money has then been used to buy political power that works against those original tax payers, so many of us have caught on to the scam.

American society was never intended to be a “hive” of any kind. It was supposed to be as the Tea Party is taking things, which is a society of individuals free of any queens or kings or leaders that are drunk on power.

That’s where the ignorance from those who love the “hive” mentality are perplexed, and call the Tea Party a bunch of “Tea Baggers.” They wonder how a leaderless society could function. Who initiates policy, creates law, and protects the poor?

Self-reliance is a gift we give ourselves. It’s the best feeling in the world in fact, to do for yourself and if you have something left over to help your neighbor, kids or friends. Leaders are not needed because there is a right way to do things and there is a wrong way to do things. If you know the difference, you don’t need someone to instruct you. If everyone does the right thing, like what you see in the Tea Party Movement, where everyone is generally good, non-violent, avid readers and up-to-date on current events, they might even be committed to a religion so they are spiritually grounded. What sets them apart from everyone else is that they know the difference between right and wrong, and they don’t need government to instruct them how to behave.

The welfare culture however took our nation into a “hive” like civilization and it weakened the sociology of America, much to the disgust of lovers of self-reliance. But because self-reliant people are good, and non-violent, they took a back seat.

For decades, and decades these “hive” lovers continued to ask for more, and more to where we currently are, and that’s financially strained. I can speak for myself, and I know my thoughts are shared by thousands of others, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of corruption. I’m sick of being lied to in politics. I’m tired of Public Relations Firms spinning situations against the tax payers. I’m completely sick of knowing more than the people around me and allowing the “hive” to rule, because they don’t know what they’re doing.

So the Tea Party isn’t going away folks. If you are one of those “hive” workers, I’d advise you to use this site to your advantage. Listen to the radio broadcasts, read the material, watch the videos. I put them here to help you learn how to be self-reliant. I’m offering to help you break away from a “hive” mentality to save you from yourself. You’d be advised to use the material to your advantage.

But if you want to continue to be in the “hive” because you think there’s safety in numbers, you are betting on the wrong horse.

Let me put it this way. If you saw a colony of bees building a hive on the corner of your house what would you do about it? You’d knock it down so it wouldn’t have the opportunity to sting you or your family. It’s not the bees fault though. They are just trying to live their lives and their commitment to their queen. Suddenly you come along and knock down their hive and everything they’ve worked for is destroyed, and they’ll want to sting you, of course. But you, as owner of the home, and caretakers of your family can’t allow the bees to sting your family. So you may feel bad about it, but you’d have to destroy the hive to protect your family.

That’s where we are in America. We cannot let the “hives” that have built their colonies on the house of our Constitution to continue. The humane thing is to help them become self-reliant people so they can survive on their own merits. But the hive is coming down, and there won’t be any queen bees in America’s future. We’ve given the hive a chance to live peacefully with the rest of American society and they always try to take over the house and sting anyone that gets too close. And it has to stop.

The first step to removing the hive is to remove the nectar that feeds it, and that’s tax money.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

S.B.5 My Testimony to the Senate: Protests Erupt but only one side is right

February 17, 2011 marked the third day of testimony in Columbus over Senate Bill 5. It has been a contentious debate, but the facts are all on one side. The union influence is centered completely on emotions and clinging to the past and they can’t argue any facts of a financial nature. Most of the people promoting the bill are people of reason, thought, business sense and tea party supporters. Doc Thompson covered the issue live as the protests escalated prior to testimony. If you want to hear the facts, Doc lays them out there for your convenience at around the 10 minute mark.

Below is my own testimony for the record that I’ll include here in its entirety. It can’t be stressed enough how important this bill is to Ohio and the future of our financial strength. As the union groups attempt to fluff their feathers to appear larger than they truly are while real working people continue on with their jobs, too busy to attend such protests, feel free to make your voice in favor of this bill known by sending your support to Senator Bacon at the email address displayed.

2/17/2011

kevin.bacon@senate.state.oh.us

Senator Kevin Bacon
Ohio State Senate
Columbus, OH

Re: SB 5 – For the Record

During the year of 2010 I was heavily involved in a resistance group to oppose the requested levy increases by the school district of Lakota, from South Western Ohio located in Butler County.

There are many reasons that I can see for the implementation of a collective bargaining reform bill such as Senate Bill 5. It is obvious to me and many of the voters that participated in defeating the Lakota Levy on both 2010 occasions that unions under the collective bargaining bill of 1983 have done what they accused business of doing, and that is acting greedily and knowing no limit to the impositions of their demands. Nor did they show any sign of caring what the cost off those impositions where to the tax payer. The result has been an unfair system that has formed between the public sector worker and the tax payer.

My focus of this testimony is on what I consider to be the most pertinent of the many benefits of S.B.5 and that is the elimination of “step increase” as a hidden cost that is deceiving communities all across Ohio. As much of the talk from Fire and Police Unions has centered on their lack of ability to strike, teachers can, and do. “Step Increases” are an ominous appeasement to those potential strikes that is largely hidden from the eyes of tax payers.

In October of 2008 the LEA (Lakota Education Association) threatened to strike and staged a demonstration against the school board. Their reasons for the strike were increased wages and benefits. In the small hours of the morning on the final day of contract talks a settlement was reached, and the LEA achieved its objective.

Two years later Lakota had an operating budget of $160 million dollars even with the declining revenue imposed under the Strickland Administration which favored allocation of state funds to poorer districts. Lakota saw a decline in state funding but through their property taxes, which saw approximately $11 dollars per $1,000 in home evaluation going directly to the schools, still maintained the large budget mentioned.

In the spring of 2010 again the LEA was pushing for a renewed contract and threatened to strike. They did this just months before a new levy request was being placed on the ballot in May. This was a reckless enterprise on their behalf and showed incredible arrogance in an economy that was already weakened. The residence of the Lakota District easily defeated that levy in May.

By August the LEA had announced that they would take a “pay freeze” in order to work with the school board on bringing down their costs as the announcement came from that same board that another levy attempt would be coming in November.

As I looked at the financial situation I realized that the reason the Lakota District was in trouble was because nearly 80% of their budget allocation was tied up in salaries and benefits, so it was obvious to me that the LEA should renegotiate their contract to fit the needs of the community. The average salary of a teacher at Lakota had been during much of 2010 $59,000 per year. As the new school year started that fall, those salaries on average had crept up to $62,000, and this was a baffling statistic. After all, the LEA had just agreed to a pay freeze.

I had loosely understood what “step increases” were but didn’t really give it much thought as to the impact on community budgets. I learned through the campaign that fall how devastating they truly are to financial forecasts. The reason is that often communities only consider the finances of their local districts. They don’t concern themselves with the affairs of their neighboring districts. However, the teachers unions do. The LEA is an arm of the OEA (Ohio Education Association) and they do have a statewide strategy that they impose district by district. It’s a game communities have been unaware was occurring, until now.

Knowing the game was larger than just the situation at Lakota I took my story to WLW radio in Cincinnati and engaged in many debates on the air hoping to get input from school districts around the region, and that’s how I learned about the terrible cost and manipulative nature of “step increases.”

As the facts that are known to many of the law makers that have graced Columbus for many years became apparent to me and a small army of tax protesters that were gathering in Southern Ohio and pockets all over the state, it became evident that communities were being selfishly misled intentionally and action would be needed to return real management power to the district where we elect members of the community to manage our resources.

School Boards under the current system have no choice but to just keep asking for increases in funding because they are so constrained by legislation lobbied and secured by the same forces that have collected themselves to protest this bill S.B.5 and the people who fund this activity have been manipulated and outright lied to regarding the intentions and motives of collective bargaining agreements.

This education funding issue that has plagued Ohio for decades is an unsustainable path, and collective bargaining is at the heart of the problem. I have planned to stand in the way of every single levy initiative for every district that wants my help until true reform is initiated from our State Representation. I consider any further property tax increases for any district in Ohio to be as good as throwing money on a fire. The money will not go to improving test scores for kids, or making children more comparable to students in the international stage. The entire nation is seeing the same story from its public education system, and it has failed in its current form. No amount of union rhetoric can hide that fact now. A majority of the voting public is now ready to admit it to themselves. Putting this bill on the table for discussion is a bold move by this legislative body and hopefully is a sign of things to come, for I do not believe if S.B.5 goes far enough. Many, many reforms will need to be implemented to give the State of Ohio the competitive advantage it needs to step out in front of the nation in education.

There are programs available that could save the State of Ohio a lot of money and make it a premiere state of education reform in the country. Representative Bill Coley from my district has started that process in the last session of congress with a technology bill which allows students to use technology to greater effect, and take away some of the “brick and mortar” costs imposed on school districts currently. There is also “School Choice” which is a phenomenal program utilizing all the best traits of competition to make education better, that will trickle down to the culture of the children attending those education systems.

But all those programs will take courage and they start by dealing with the type of resistance organized by groups like SEIU who have flown in protestors to lobby against this bill. They are applying their work to Wisconsin also where the governor there is also trying to reform their collective bargaining issues, only to be degraded as the villain from the Austin Powers films.

Such actions have taken our state through the collective bargaining process to extort millions of dollars from the intended target of those dollars and it has been to a loss of the entire state not only in being disingenuous to the tax payer, but to the competitive nature of the state as a whole. Over the next decade, the states which become swifter or most innovative will become the guardians of prosperity. Collective bargaining is a failed system that does nothing but help the people on one side of that bargaining, which leaves everyone else feeling depleted and used.

Innovation in most every category is available to Ohio ripe for the picking. But we have to have the courage to reach beyond the fence of collective bargaining to pick our harvest and unleash the true potential that resides among the true labor of Ohio.

Thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

Rich Hoffman

…………………………………………………………………………..

Now, have a look at the below video and compare the union comments to what you heard from Doc Thompson above and make a decision on your own. I can speak for myself; I support completely Governor Kasich and the Senators that stand behind Senate Bill 5. We can no longer afford to allow emotion and luxury to govern our actions.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com