America is proof that multiculturalism can work in the world as mankind moves toward an identity more akin to Earthlings as opposed to the national identities and religions known today.
The answer is that the civil rights movement is a power grab. Americans have always been good people that loved freedom and is a place where religious tolerance and slavery could actually be discussed. We had our Salam Witch trials which we’ve as a culture rejected. As an American culture we’ve rejected slavery. America did those things on their own, nobody else. So the time to feel guilty about it is over.
It is time to stop putting oil on those wheels and proclaiming them broken, beyond repair. We must not bend the greatness of our nation to these mindless radicals. It is the great responsibility of our age and it must be met with more than thought.
America may not be perfect, and it may take several decades to work out all the details of multicultural evolution, but no country has made as much ground as the United States have in the history of the world. The ones that point out those small imperfections are the same that wish to use imperfection for their own climb to power so that they can illusion their minds with authority.
1. What was your involvement with the Lakota Levy?
a. I am currently the spokesman for No Lakota Levy.com which is a group of residents and businessmen living within the Lakota district opposed to further property tax increases. For many years we all worked separately from our various positions, but when it comes to the business of defeating a Lakota Levy we pull our resources together to finance the campaign portion of such an endeavor and run a unified campaign. I handle the media contacts and campaign strategy in conjunction with a core group of approximately 22 motivated members at the front of the effort, each handles specific obligations from data collection, legal needs, financing, and content design. My specific obligations were to collect all that information and project it through the website of nolakotalevy.com and other media outlets.
2. What is your main reason for not supporting the levy?
b. The only way to sustain the education budget at Lakota is to stop the inflating costs. Education is going to have to get leaner, not larger. School Choice is going to force competition, so Lakota must adapt if it hopes to continue to be a choice school for students moving to the district. Online classes are proving to be more efficient for some forms of education, such as foreign language and mathematics. Blind obedience to older forms of education are proving to be devastating to our national culture, so throwing more money at an average, or outdated system is not wise, and the teacher contracts that we are currently obliged to at Lakota are inflating the budget in an uncontrollable way, the average teacher makes over $62,000 per year and the step increase obligations are increasing that budget each year. Real estate movement has frozen as a result of the Housing Bubble crash of 2008 and taxes need to actually go down to attract business and residential growth to the area, not up. Passing a levy would only make this problem worse and far less attractive. Potential business development and residential expansion will move to Franklin, Trenton and Monroe if taxes continue to increase which is not the direction we want to go to in Liberty Twp and West Chester.
3. You say that to pass the levy it would just be putting a band-aid on a much larger problem. Is this problem the mismanagement of state funds in your opinion?
c. My opinion is that education has grown to expect too much funding. It has become used to a large bureaucratic system that funnels money without question under the umbrella of education and those dollars are not getting children the education they need. The band-aid is a term to that describes the levy increase is only to pay for an inflated budget driven by step increases from a teachers union that told the press they took a pay freeze, yet the budget needs continue to expand because of those step increases, so the statements to the press and community were very deceptive. Throwing more money at the situation will not improve the educational lives of the children in the community. In fact there is no evidence that more money will solve anything. What we need is competition introduced to all school districts, through programs like School Choice. This will force school systems like Lakota, and Mason, and all others to bring down their per-pupil costs which are currently hovering around 10K per student. That’s a ridiculous sum that as a society we cannot allow that cost per student to increase to 11K or 12K in the coming years. Those costs need to go in the other direction so we can sustain education far into the future. Not just till many of the district employees currently in the system reach retirement. Our concerns are for the health of the district. Not the current employees.
4. With the levies not passing, what effect do you think this has on the West Chester community?
d. Unfortunately in the short run busing has been cut, electives cut, lay-offs of some of the newer teachers, who probably shouldn’t have been cut because they were new and full of energy. Sports have been cut, but all these cuts are really cents on the dollar. They are intended to impact the community negatively in order to secure future funding, and that is an unfortunate game to play. The healthy aspect of not passing the levies is that it has helped create the need for a bill such as S.B.5 which will give our school board the ability to control its costs. One of the primary complaints I’ve heard from the school board is that there is very little they can actually do, because the union contract is so restrictive. That kind of restriction costs an enormous amount of money in compliance. So because of the failures of these levies, we have been able to get advancements of programs like School Choice, and S.B.5 which will allow our school board to continue to manage Lakota as a highly sought after school district. The most devastating event that could have happened in recent history is when the teachers union threatened to strike in 2008, which immediately drove up the labor costs within the Lakota School district, and this has had a very negative effect on real estate that is cautious of such high taxes and the ability of the school system to remain solvent. I have been asked, as many in the No Lakota Group have, why I don’t run for school board to help solve these problems. Well, when S.B.5 becomes law I can think of about 50 people right off the top of my head that would then be ready to help run the school district properly, businessmen that are successful in the West Chester area. They won’t do it now because the unions are a radical group showing no flexibility or understanding of fiscal responsibility. I personally would not deal with such people, and many of the people I know won’t either. What we can do at this phase is deny more money to a broken system. That forces them to live within a budget. The district really should look at lowering their 160 million dollar budget to something below 120 million. We’re not asking them to do that. We’re asking them to work with what they have without increased costs. Just under 100 students were added to the Lakota School System after 2009 because the housing market froze. That lack of growth occurred well before Lakota failed a levy. It is a direct result of a poor housing market, and extremely high taxes. More tax increases is an insane and treacherous path that will force a decline in what we’ve all worked hard to build in West Chester and Liberty Twp. We need to drive our costs down instead of up and by voting no we are forcing that discussion to take place. We’re not taking away their money. They are choosing to respond to the small cuts instead of getting their payroll under control. The same amount of money is still flowing in their direction. And that figure will go down if they continue to make Lakota appear to be a bad district for sports, busing cuts and electives, driving residents away which will further lower the taxable income the district receives. The district must be responsible, work with the budget they currently have while keeping Lakota a desirable district attractive to parents while using S.B.5 to get their costs in line the moment it is passed.
5, Do you think the education or school system reflects on a community?
e. No, that is a popular myth. The school system is a reflection of the community not the other way around. The kids that go to Lakota are good or above average because the parents that send those kids to school care about their kids. Whenever parents take an active role in their kids those kids will perform higher. The school system will be good because the people in the community are good. Money has nothing to do with it. Things are good or great because of the people involved. Paying people well does not make something good. It only says you appreciate the work they do and you pay them more money so that they won’t leave and go someplace else. Lakota was a good district when there were cows next to the school buildings and there was not air-conditioning, because the residents that were attracted to live in the district are good people, and they still are. Because of that long-standing success Lakota has attracted people from other places within the city. But these are the first type of people who will leave and turn their backs on the district in the crises we currently face, because they falsely believe that money is the key to success. It is not. Success is a state of mind. And because Lakota has good people it will remain a good district.
6. Do you think with the school levies not passing people will be discouraged from moving into the West Chester community?
f. I think some of the parents that are looking for a great school system with a foot half in half out will be, and those types of people are the first to leave when something goes wrong anyway. They cost our community more with their short-term investment hoping to get excellent schools for their kids on the backs of the tax payer while not making a long-term commitment to the community. They usually move away when their kids grow up and downsize. I don’t have much sympathy for those types of residents. As a community we need to build a strong community with residents that are willing to invest in our district and maintain that investment, and not sell at the first sign of trouble. To do that we need to lower taxes. We need to lower our overall operating budget and still provide the services that other districts have cut to maintain their costs. We need to think outside the box and not allow ourselves to sink in obligation to union contracts that are outdated and forced upon the community through coercion. Coercion is exactly what the strike threat in 2008 was and that behavior has no place in our district. There are a lot of great teachers out there and we want them in our schools. We’ll offer them good pay, a nice community to teach in, and pleasant students with parents that care. Those are all benefits. But we cannot afford over 400 personnel that make over 65K per year. That’s way too expensive. The teachers union should have recognized this and renegotiated their contracts to bring their costs in line with the community at large that is considered statewide to be affluent, yet average just around 50K per year per working professional.
7. What are some positive aspects for the community with the levy not passing?
g. It is forcing the discussing of how we can cut costs and still maintain the high level of service that Lakota has built a reputation around. If successful, Lakota will be one of the first school districts of its kind to remain excellent while reducing their budget, which is a process that must happen. It’s not an option. Once we bring costs down for education then West Chester can explore the possibility of lowering tax rates and attracting growth back to the region from the imposing tax rates that we are currently experiencing. This should be the first desire of the school board, to provide a quality education and to do so within the allocated budget. Not passing the levy has stopped the blind obedience to union step increases by exposing them for what they truly are.
8. With the levy not passing, do you think Lakota schools are cutting appropriate aspects to fit with their budget?
H. Absolutely not. They should not have cut busing. That is less than 3% of the total budget. They should not have cut sports. Sports are less than busing as far as budget significance. They should not have laid-off any teachers. They should not have cancelled electives before they explored reducing their inflated labor costs. All teachers with tenure are not worth 65K per year. If we reduced overall payroll by 30% Lakota could have saved nearly 30 million dollars which more than solves the budget problems. But making such decisions requires true management understanding and making tough decisions, which are unpleasant, especially with a teachers union that is very contentious. After all, it was just 2008 that they flooded the school board meeting in October and threatened to strike. Once S.B.5 is passed, teachers will not be able to extort more money with such manipulative methods that are destructive to the community at large. If those employees seeking unreasonable sums of money wish to teach someplace else, they are free to leave. But they will not be able to strike and stop work hurting our children in the process. The problem starts when we have superintendents like Mike Taylor that feed the teachers union with comments saying “I don’t think teachers make enough money,” this coming from a former teacher himself that has obviously lost touch with the cost value of services in the private sector. The superintendent, reports to the school board. The school board reports to the community. All the teachers report to all above and what has been forgotten is who the manager of funds is. It is not the teachers unions that threaten a community with striking in order to drive up their labor costs. It is the community itself that has had to deny funds in order to stop the excessive bleeding of tax payer dollars that has been corrosive to further development of our area out of sheer greed. No, the cuts have not been made in the proper place. A real manager understands that the excessively expensive employees are better off to go someplace else while the hungry, appreciative employees that are in the business for all the right reasons come out of college every year and are there for us to hire. Labor is not in shortage so the advantage goes to the manager, the community. Our school board will need to begin thinking like managers of the community’s money instead of trying to hold back a wall of threats by a teacher’s union that wants more than any community should ever be expected to pay.
9. Is there anything else you would like to add?
I. It is unfortunate that the perception that passing a school levy is actually good for kids. This was created by union marketing and has no basis in reality, absolutely zero. What is good for our children and our communities is competition and options. The current level of school funding at 10K per student is too much and relies on broken models of tax collection from unconstitutional property tax acquisition. It is my conclusion after watching the behavior of education costs for over a decade closely and fighting 6 school levies that the union influence has been detrimental to community management of school district costs. The trend in the future will be less funding from the state so more finance dependency will have to come from the local communities all over Ohio. That means that the teachers unions will have to either become much more accommodating and realistic or must be eliminated completely in favor of a system dictated strictly off competition. For myself, I simply don’t want a single dollar of my tax money going to union activity; because I do not, or have ever support them. I think they are bad and devastating to the American economy and I think it’s the wrong kind of thing for any children to be exposed to. I’d personally like to see children striving to be much more self-reliant and competitive, which I don’t see happening in public education. But that aside, it is the costs that everyone in the community must consider, personal issues aside. And it is labor costs that are the most extraordinary part of the budget that must be handled. This should not be a difficult concept for tax payers to understand. This is exactly why sports teams have salary caps, so a team cannot spend above a maximum set budget. School systems need to have a funding cap that the community establishes and the school board must figure out how to live within that cap. For Lakota that number is somewhere between 150 million and 160 million, which is a lot of money to spend on educating 18,500 students. If that means Lakota has to drive the costs down to 7K per pupil or even 6K per pupil, then that’s what the district must do, and still meet the excellent rating of the community. If they refuse to provide this service, then School Choice will be implemented and parents can send their kids to Mason, or Little Miami, or Fairfield in order to get the services they want as parents. This is the reality that is arriving, and it is expected that Lakota will embrace this challenge and emerge as a leader, because failure is not an option. And neither is higher taxes. If they can’t think out of the box to drive down their costs, then they need to step aside so people who do think this way can take control and get the budget under control.
Now, to support some of what I put down here I point you dear reader into the direction of two articles. These two articles describe the problem of public school from two angles, but centering on a common theme. Public school has a monopoly over education, where it shouldn’t, and that monopoly exists to protect the financial structure of its employees and nothing else. If we ever hope to truly educate our children properly we will eliminate this monopoly in favor of real, competitive education that has genuine value and a benefit for the communities that support it.
New Report Shows Vouchers Benefit Public and Private School Students
INDIANAPOLIS — A new report by the Foundation for Educational Choice finds that out of the 10 “gold standard” studies examining school voucher programs throughout the nation, nine showed that vouchers contributed to the academic improvements for students who use them.
The report also reviewed all 19 empirical studies on how vouchers affect academic performance in the public school system, finding that 18 of these studies show vouchers improved public schools.
“A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on School Vouchers” reviews the studies spanning 20 years, including some recent ones. The empirical research consistently finds school voucher programs have improved the academic achievement of both the students who transferred to private schools and those who remained in public schools.
The research, by Greg Forster, a senior fellow with The Foundation, examines randomized experimental studies and other high-quality empirical studies evaluating school voucher programs conducted by researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University, Cornell University, Princeton University and the Federal Reserve Bank among other respected research institutions.
Forster, a senior fellow with The Foundation, says that test scores and graduation rates would have improved more dramatically if the voucher programs were offered to all students and not restricted based on income and other demographic factors, or capped to a certain number of participants.
“We are seeing some benefits thanks to vouchers, but we would see much more improvement with much more choice,” Forster said. “The more competition, the more pressure there would be to improve public education. With a lot more choice you will likely get improvements on a much broader scale.”
There are 26 school choice programs in 16 states and Washington, D.C. The first limited voucher program launched in Milwaukee in 1990. More than 190,000 students nationwide use public funds to attend the private school of their choice.
“Choice works,” said Robert Enlow, President and CEO of The Foundation. “We have known that for a while now. This review of all the research underscores it. What we need now is more choice for more kids to achieve more success.”
About the Foundation for Educational Choice
The Foundation for Educational Choice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, solely dedicated to advancing Milton and Rose Friedman’s vision of school choice for all children. First established as the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996, the foundation continues to promote school choice as the most effective and equitable way to improve the quality of K-12 education in America. The foundation is dedicated to research, education, and outreach on the vital issues and implications related to choice and competition in K-12 education
NH Supreme Court: homeschooled girl must go to public school against mom’s wishes
BY JOHN-HENRY WESTEN
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CONCORD, NH, March 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld a lower court order Wednesday that sided with the father of a homeschooled student and forced her into a government-run school against her Christian mother’s wishes.
The court made clear that it was not addressing larger religious liberty and homeschooling concerns and was basing its ruling only on the narrow and specific facts of the case.
“While [the case] involves home schooling, it is not about the merits of home verses public schooling,” stated the justices in their opinion.
“We affirm the decision on the narrow basis that it represents a sustainable exercise of the trial court’s discretion to determine the educational placement that is in daughter’s best interests.”
The court heard oral argument in the case on Jan. 6.
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney John Anthony Simmons, who represented the mother, who is divorced from the father, argued that the burden of proof was on the father to prove harm in order to change the schooling arrangement. Because no harm was demonstrated and the girl was acknowledged to be academically superior and socially interactive, even by the court, Simmons argued that the homeschooling arrangement should not have been changed.
However, in the original order issued in July 2009, Judge Lucinda V. Sadler reasoned that the girl’s “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.”
“Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children,” responded Simmons. “Courts can settle disputes, but they cannot legitimately order a child into a government-run school on the basis that her religious views need to be mixed with other views. That’s precisely what the lower court admitted it was doing.”
“The lower court held the Christian faith of this mother and daughter against them,” Simmons said. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court bypassed this issue and wrote this off as a ‘parent versus parent’ issue without recognizing the very real underlying threat to religious liberty.”
Nevertheless, ADF Senior Counsel Joseph Infranco said that the law firm appreciates the Supreme Court’s choice to limit “its decision to the facts of this case,” which should ensure that the decision “cannot be used as a battering-ram against religious liberty or homeschooling.”
The “ADF will be vigilant to make sure that it’s not,” he concluded.
“We are disappointed that this young girl is being forced to attend a public school over her mother’s, and reportedly her own, wishes,” said Michael Donnelly, the attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). HSLDA had submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the case.
“However, the NH Supreme Court confined its ruling to this case and these facts avoiding any collateral impact on the rights of other parents in New Hampshire who homeschool their children,” he continued. “While the lower court’s decision could have been read to create a presumption in favor of public education over homeschooling, the court emphatically rejected this notion.”
With all that in mind I thought about what President Obama said about Gaddafi over the weekend by saying that “Gaddafi needs to step down. He has lost the confidence of his people who means he should turn over power.” Well, Obama has lost the confidence of his people, at least a majority of them. Doesn’t that mean he should step down too?
I used to be ashamed of Bill Clinton and couldn’t imagine a worse president, but at least he had been a governor and knew some basic management skills.
I’m not crazy about either of the Bush’s. I think they wanted to be president for too many of the wrong reasons. The first clue that you have a bad president is that if a man gets a surge of power just by sitting in a chair, he’s the wrong guy. A president should not be enamored by power of any kind. In fact, the office of the president should be a step down to what they’ve accomplished in their private lives. The popular myth is that it’s the most powerful position in the world, but it’s really not. Ronald Reagan breezed through his presidency just on his ability to act and a single-minded ability to believe he was right and on the side of God. There are many, many, many more people in our nation more qualified for the presidency than Reagan was, but he could speak well. So he goes down in history as one of the greatest presidents in American history. His greatest gift was that he didn’t listen to everyone around him. He knew what he wanted to do and he did it, which makes him distinctly American. American’s are not naturally collaborative. I know that might bust the bubble of many that think very highly of Ronald Reagan, but those are the facts.
My favorite president in recent history is Calvin Collage. That’s my idea of a manager president. Everyone else has fallen short, and that covers the entire span of the 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt was my next pick for a great president, but he became too much of a monarch lover by the end of his presidency and had the fatal flaw of craving power. He could not turn away from the power, so much so that he became a progressive in order to run against his friend President Taft. Many of the presidents have done their share of good things, but not enough. Not what we should expect out of an American president.
But Obama, he’s an absolute joke. He does not represent me as an American. I mean look at his website. What are we supposed to be “fired up” about? What change? And what are we organizing? He’s the president. His message is one for children in school and people without wit to know better.
If he believes Gaddafi should step down in Libya because he’s lost the confidence of the majority of the people, which I agree with him on that point, then Obama should step down voluntarily and admit that the job of the presidency is too big for him. Maybe he could try again in a few years after he works as a manager of a McDonalds and gets some experience under his belt. Because he is an absolute embarrassment that makes me look at the decadent days of Bill Clinton with yearning. The only reason he wouldn’t do it is because he’s in love with his authority, no different from the cop that flunks his test and doesn’t belong on the force because he’s not smart enough to be a cop. This President isn’t qualified to be a president. And the people of America respect authority too much to admit it to themselves.
The superintendents are leaving the sinking ships because their true motives are revealed. They’ve always been about the money. They say it’s about the kids, but their actions speak otherwise. In Kevin Bright’s situation he still has the Stacy Schuler case that is coming his way and will be extremely embarrassing and he knows that once S.B.5 passes, the school board will be forced to make real cuts to the district, not cosmetic ones. There won’t be anymore levy increases, so he’s leaving to friendlier districts. What he doesn’t understand is that this movement that is occurring in Southern Ohio is growing north. He can hide from it, but he won’t escape.
It would be wise for these school officials to come clean now, and stop hiding behind children, and real estate values and reveal their true intentions before things become even more embarrassing. And for those teachers and administrators that are gaming the system thinking of leaving these districts for some friendly place like Kevin Bright is doing, good luck, because soon we’ll be there too. Enjoy it while you can.
Here Doc Thompson talks about Governor Kasich’s Ohio Budget and the further application of School Choice, which I support tremendously, because it creates competition in the education system. I am more convinced now than ever that the collectivism taught in schools by default has been devastating to our national economy, our political structure, and our personal identities and can be declared an epic failure. I have been open-minded about public education for the benefit of society. But now that I’ve seen the protests at the state level, and the way students have been conjured up to serve the needs of teachers unions in spite of whatever their parents might think, I am now prepared to openly speak against all the devices that are failing in American society so they can be identified and changed.
I came to similar points of view as Ayn Rand not by reading her. I came to her work late in life. But I traveled a path similar to her and arrived at similar conclusions. She, as I do, likes Nietzsche and understands without corruption what that philosopher was trying to say. She was an atheist where I’m not, but I understand her reluctance. I see spirituality in higher dimensional planes where she looked for reason in the observable world. But on matters of collectivism versus individualism I am with Ayn completely without pause.
Now that may seem extreme by let me tell you a brief story illuminating this fact. I have joined my share of groups, but I usually end up leaving them because of this whole collectivism issue. I hate it. Years ago I was a member, which I still distinctly support, but I was much more heavily active back then, called the Joseph Campbell Foundation. I spent my 20’s reading Campbell’s vast work and through him and his lectures, which I think I heard them all, I explored James Joyce’s work through the Skeleton Key and Ulysses, and much of Nietzsche’s work. But Campbell’s work put me on the path. Now Campbell was an intellectual individualist, much different from other intellectuals, so this is the reason he’s been successful on a level most only dream of regarding the field of comparative mythology and religion with sub categories in psychology, philosophy and art. Campbell was a maverick in many ways which is another way of saying he was an individualist. But, many of the people attracted to literature, and I run into this all the time, are liberal. So many of his fans were left-winged, so the moment he died, even to his warnings, they tried to turn Joseph Campbell into some collective savior, almost a religion.
So my words here, and the resistance to further taxes in schools, and reform such as what we are exploring in School Choice as heard by Doc’s interview are for the good of that great tree that is America. I see the insects that are eating the inside of our beloved tree need to be removed so the tree doesn’t die or split at the first big storm. And I have no emotion about the lives of those insects. They should not have attempted to set up a colony in our tree.
Little by little the subtle changes come until one day we will wake up and be the United Socialist States of America. 2012 is just around the corner so get and stay engaged as if our nation depended on it because it does!!!!!
U.S. Department of Justice ditches red, white, and blue stars and stripes.
Well, how interesting! It seems the U.S. Department of Justice has changed its website. Gone are the colorful red, white, and blue U.S. Flag decorations on the page,
Replaced by stark black and white.
And at the top of the page, is a rather interesting quote: “The common law is the will of mankind, issuing from the life of the people.”
Catchy, huh? Just one tiny little (too small to be relevant obviously) point –the quote is from C. Wilfred Jenks, who in the 1930’s was a leading proponent of the “international law” movement, which had as its goal to impose a global common law and which backed ‘global workers’ rights.’
Call it Marxism, call it Progressivism, call it Socialism — under any of those names, it definitely makes the DOJ look corrupt in their new website with Marxist accessories to match.
How very interesting that ‘they’ couldn’t find a nice quote from one of our Founders. People, we have lost our Republic. This is an example of the slow, methodical misuse of power our current government is doing as they lead us to socialism, and destroying our republic as we have known it.
Sometimes you get a nice note from the people who count, the ones that take a few steps to show the appreciation they feel by the work you do. I was contemplating which person this week would be the Warrior of the Week when Cyd and some others put together the article below and asked me to post it.
I’ve mentioned in many words on these pages why some leaders are better than others, and exactly what makes a leader, “good.” For a clear definition of what makes something of quality, and why some people are “better” than others I refer your inquisitive mind to the great book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That book is one of the best, most thorough works of philosophy on quality and leadership done since the pre-Greek age. The capacity to be, “the best” is within all of us. But certain traits certainly jump out as contributory factors.
Now, before anyone says that I don’t know what I’m talking I know quite a few school board members all over the state, and this is how I learned about this story. It’s not a secret. Such ceremonies are no different from the “hazing” rituals in college fraternities. The intent is to unify everyone into a “collective team.”
At a minimum, no school board member elected by the public should ever wear a pin or carry a sign lobbying the community for increases in taxes. Because in doing so they are publicly admitting that they do not have management control over the school system and are not able to do the job.
And a warning to Mr. North and all those like him. Be careful what you say to people. The difference now is that when a whistleblower says something to the paper, and it falls on deaf ears, there are now groups like this one and others that are emerging, that will carry the story. So hiding behavior under a rock or behind closed doors will no longer be a valid way to hide improprieties to the taxpayer. And there are plenty of leaks. Believe me.
Butler County commission signs off on FOP contract Butler County Sheriff’s Office deputies have new agreement. By Michael D. Pitman, Staff Writer March 18, 2011
HAMILTON — Butler County Sheriff’s deputies and supervisors will get a raise, but they’ll have to wait until next year. The Butler County Commission agreed Thursday to ratify the collective bargaining agreements for members of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 101.
The contract, which expires Feb. 9, 2013, had to go to a conciliator in November for the six items on which the union and administration could not come to terms.
“This is how the process is supposed to work,” said Sheriff Richard K. Jones, an opponent of Ohio Senate Bill 5 that passed the Senate and is in the House for debate. “We couldn’t agree, so we went to arbitration.”
Sgt. Jeff Gebhart, a spokesman for the FOP, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
According to the new contract, union members will get a 2 percent raise next year; $1,000 cash payment in lieu of a uniform allowance; and new top step effective in February 2012 to be set 2 percent higher than the current top step while deleting the lowest step.
The union also wanted similar pay scales for court services deputies and road deputies; the ability for supervisors to bid on positions; and a uniform allowance in 2010. The conciliator did not grant these requests.
“We want our people to have the best they can negotiate for; it’s not a battle,” Maj. Norman Lewis said. “But in these economic times, with the way the budget has been slashed, it’s a process that had to take place.”
Lewis said the collective bargaining process started in February 2010, but the six items of disagreement needed a conciliation hearing.
The contracts with corrections officers, corrections supervisors, clerical and dispatch unions are being finalized and likely will go before the county commissioners in ensuing weeks, he said.
Jones said the collective bargaining process works for the administration and the unions, and has worked well for the 34 years he’s been involved in the negotiations.
I would consider this a very important and timely film. One that contributes to our culture and it gives me great hope listening to the producer explain to Doc Thompson that the film makers are doing everything in their power to remain true to the original book. The last time a filmmaker spent that kind of time being authentic to a body of literary work it was a little film project called Lord of the Rings.
The Atlas Shrugged series will be divided into three parts the first of which is coming out this April. Hollywood will be watching closely how this film is received. It is entirely possible that the success of this film could change the direction of Hollywood for years.
The young people making films today are as lost as the films they are producing. The other day my wife and I were discussing whether or not we wanted to see the film Paul. I told her it looked a lot like ET to me. We’ll probably see it, but will come away feeling a hunger for more.
That’s why Atlas Shrugged has the potential to be more than just a movie. It has the potential to revitalize our American civilization at a time that many are asking the very questions that Ayn Rand offered in a time that nobody wanted to listen.
Go to the Atlas Shrugged web site and let them know you want a print of the film to be shown at Newport on the Levee. Also, contact that theater so they can set up a screening with the producers so we can help that film prove how powerful the viewings in the Midwest are. This will convince Hollywood to release the film on a wide release, which is of paramount importance.
Go to this link and just type in your zip code to cast your vote to bring this great film to Cincinnati, or whatever city you live in.
I’m actually amazed that Kasich’s approval rating is as high as 40 percent considering how bold he has been on many of his policies. There is no question that Kasich’s budget is going to be painful for many people. I would have to say that if I were governor, I probably wouldn’t do things much different from Kasich is doing. I personally wouldn’t think too much on the pain of the moment, because what’s right is right. It’s not Kasich’s fault that so many people have become addicted to public money. It’s like taking the bottle away from an alcoholic while they are trying to get drunk. Of course the drunk will be upset, and they usually protest that they are not alcoholics. I’d probably hire people to serve under me at good business wages so I could get the best people and not the typical “kiss ass” political climbers, I’d probably want to control the video of my presentations so they couldn’t be used against me in the future, and I’d probably be caught numerous times calling police that pulled me over, “idiots” because it would make me angry. I’m a very aggressive guy and I keep my eyes on the end result, and I see in Kasich the same traits.
I would say that Kasich understands like many people who are in leadership positions that a vast majority of any given group will be lost no matter how much you try to explain it. And those types of people don’t like to waste time explaining their vision to people who won’t get it anyway.
It was reported that Kasich’s approval rating is below the levels enjoyed by the last three governors when they were in their start of their administrations. The Ohio Poll registered 68 percent approval for Democrat Ted Strickland in May 2007, 49 percent approval for Republican Bob Taft in March 1999 and 61 percent approval for Republican George Voinovich in February 1991. The reason for this is because those governors spent much of their time pandering to the 47% and therefore accomplished very little as leaders. They mistakenly assume that the 53% will always be there for them, which is unfair because the 53% get overlooked as they are the good citizens that work hard to support the nation. Unfortunately the squeaky wheel does get the grease, and those squeaky wheels are that 47%.
People aren’t used to a governor that has a reversed position and targets his governorship at the 53% that understand, even if they don’t agree. It appears that Kasich isn’t the only governor showing these tendencies. Scott Walker certainly appears to be the same way.
The Overmanwarrior 