Tag: West Chester

Cabela’s of West Chester: The story of a family enhancing conservation through capitalism

 One of my daughters and my wife had a shopping day recently that carried them into Bass Pro Shops at the Forest Park location. I haven’t been there recently because it is moving to the Streets of West Chester and I have been excited for that switch. The store will be impressive and will be a tremendous asset to the destination experience at Union Center, Ohio. The government of West Chester is running the way things should in every population dense area. George Lang and his crew of trustees are creating incentives for businesses to evolve around and lowering the barriers of entry into emerging markets—which is one of the reasons that Bass Pro is moving from Forest Park to West Chester. There are much more lucrative options at the Streets location than at Forest Park—clearly.

The interchange entering the new Bass Pro will be quite extraordinary. IKEA is already quite a draw and will share the Allen Road activity with Bass Pro which will provide shoppers with a truly epic experience. I’m not much of a shopper, but I do enjoy going to IKEA with my wife and eating the Swedish Meatballs they have there. It’s a cool setup and I like to eat in their cafeteria sitting by the windows watching all the cool new development springing up around the Union Center location. Development when it’s done correctly is like a work of art—and the Streets of West Chester, the area around Allen Road at IKEA, and on up Muhlhauser Road to the Jags restaurant is one of the most exciting areas in Cincinnati and I enjoy immensely watching the creation of all the new cool projects. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the new Bass Pro location.

However my wife and daughter took my grandson to the old one and he had a wonderful time. At two years old he was discovering all the wonderful monstrosities that are featured in that store, the giant fish tank, the shooting range, the climbing wall, the huge selection of boats and pitched tents—for little kids and big kids alike, it is a destination of boundless adventure that is simply just wonderful. When I was a kid I had to get all my outdoor equipment from the Army Store in Fairfield, all my camouflage pants, my rappelling gear, compasses, canteens—all that kind of thing. I still love that store, but Bass Pro has been hard to beat. Their camping equipment is unmatched and whenever I go there I love their roasted almonds. So when my wife returned from Bass Pro she brought home to me a package of those almonds which made for a great snack.

As I was eating those almonds and thinking about the new location I was checking on the new Cabela’s store breaking ground at the Liberty Way location. I had just been looking over the construction at the Liberty Center site—another project I am excited for, and noticed that the new Cabela’s store was moving along in the 4th quarter of 2014 as it was supposed to be. Soon there will be standing an 82,000 sq foot log cabin complete with stone work and all the usual trappings that will give Bass Pro a run for their money just down the road. I am also a fan of Cabela’s and the magnificent store they have in Louisville, Kentucky. It will be quite a treasure to have two of those types of stores in my neighborhood as most communities salivate over having just one. People consider themselves lucky to have a Cabela’s store within a hundred miles of their homes, let alone four or five miles down the road. During the Holiday season if you happen to see George Lang, you should give him a big kiss on the forehead and thank him for keeping West Chester government small enough to stay out of the way of these kinds of developments—allowing them to emerge as profit margins often entice such creativity in business. When it is wondered why this particular point on the map is doing so well, and why there is such a concentrated amount of wealth in one area look at the government—the time it takes to get permits, the rules and regulations of the local bureaucrats and the tax rate–the answer will present itself. Look at areas where fiscal wealth is not present in such abundance and you will find local governments who have mismanaged their resources forcing people to vote with their feet—but pulling out their wealth and leaving.

Many don’t know the Cabela’s story, which is one of the great American success stories. Many don’t know what makes shopping at Cabela’s such a wonderful and fun experience—they just know that it is. So let’s take a moment to get to know the Cabela family—which is featured on many of the videos on this site and are worth watching. Knowing who they are will demonstrate even more articulately why the new West Chester store is such a miracle of capitalism and why I am personally grateful to know of its development.

The company that would become the massive sporting goods reseller and chain was started in 1961. Dick Cabela purchased US$45 worth of fishing flies at a furniture expo in Chicago which were advertised for sale via an advertisement in a local newspaper.[3] When his first effort produced only one response, he placed an ad in a national magazine, Sports Afield, which was more successful. Included with each order was a catalog of other products for sale by Cabela.[3]

As the business grew, Cabela and his wife Mary moved their operation to Sidney, Nebraska in 1963. Dick’s brother Jim also joined the business. From those modest beginnings, the company has since grown to a publicly traded corporation with over US$3 Billion in annual sales.[4]

On February 17, 2014, founder Dick Cabela passed away peacefully at his home in Sidney, Nebraska at the age of 77.

Founders Dick and Mary Cabela and Dick’s brother James Cabela retained 25% ownership of the now public company which trades under the stock symbol CAB.

About half of Cabela’s sales come from hunting-related merchandise with about a third derived from the sale of firearms, ammunition and accessories in 2012. Additionally, in 2012 30% of revenue came from direct sales (through catalog and online orders), and 59% from physical retail stores. The remaining 11% of revenue came from its financial subsidiary and credit card business.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabela%27s

Richard Neil “Dick” Cabela (October 8, 1936 – February 17, 2014) was an American entrepreneur, best known as a co-founder of Cabela’s, a leading outfitter of outdoor sporting and recreational goods.[1][2] He stated that his business was inspired by his bout with polio and a deep love of hunting and fishing.[3] He was also described as an “ardent supporter of the National Rifle Association, a vocal supporter of the Second Amendment, a hunter, and a staunch proponent of wildlife conservation.”[4]

The fruits of their many years of labor carried them to a level of success that enabled Dick Cabela and his wife to build a magnificent home in the tradition of their many stores, a real tribute to wildlife and capitalist enterprise. That home can be seen at the following link along with a descriptive article. It is quite something to see.

http://www.ezpics.com/clients/savides1/PDF/Cabelas%20House%20feature.pdf

What started with a few fishing lures in a newspaper ad became a multi billion dollar industry and it was all started by essentially three people in a family—Dick, his wife, and brother—and they started it just because they had a passion for the products they were selling. Dick at the head of Cabela’s has been one of the most vocal supporters of the Second Amendment and the NRA so his footprint into the kind of politics I support cannot be ignored. So it will be a great pleasure to visit the new Cabela’s store in West Chester.

It took a lot of creative power and tenacity to bring Cabela’s to West Chester, it took a government with as much hands off approach that they could—minus the infrastructure improvements that had to be made off I-75 and the county of Butler for all the stuff that had to go under the ground to make the Liberty Way developments possible. For each new store that is built at Liberty Way there is a story similar to Dick Cabela—which I will think about every time I visit. It is people like him that make America great—and exceptional. That is why it’s a real celebration to enjoy roasted almonds from Bass Pro and to relish the aisles of a Cabela’s looking for new shirts, camping equipment, and rappelling gear. People like Dick Cabela and his family are uniquely American in that they help the environment by making people appreciate it in the best way possible—as active participants through capitalist endeavor. The new store at Liberty Way will have a constant customer in me—I can’t wait!

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

West Chester Trustee Lee Wong’s East Avenue Adventures: Meet the prostitute Robin McDaniel

Now it all makes sense why Lee Wong, the West Chester trustee looking for votes in the upcoming November 2013 election, wants to build so many sidewalks and bike paths.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.  Apparently he frequents the solicitation areas around town where known prostitutes reside and he wants to extend their reach with a sidewalk network extending from the slums of Hamilton into the paradise of West Chester for his own convenience.  That is the only assumption that can be made after reading the report shown below from Wayne Gilkison to Gary Yates of the Butler County Common Pleas Court General Division.  Have a look for yourself. Lee Wong

The first question I had upon reading that statement was who Robin McDaniel was and why would Lee Wong even ask if she was “working.”  I imagined that after having a lifestyle in West Chester full of clean human beings who use deodorant, perfume, and vehicles with perpetual new car smells, a woman must really be something to evoke solicitation requests, at least according to the prostitute in her statements to Jeanna Jacobs.  Well…………………..as it turns out there was a major prostitution sting in Hamilton not long ago that was covered by the Hamilton Journal and several other news outlets and Robin was one of them.  Her mug shot can be seen as follows. Robin McDaniel

I thought this whole thing was a joke, but apparently it’s not.  This is the woman West Chester Trustee Lee Wong asked if she was “working,” and I doubt he meant washing cars, or cooking in a restaurant.  McDaniel sold herself as a sidewalk salesman for the world’s oldest profession, and she looks like she was there at the beginning.  After reading the statement by Gilkison it seems that Lee Wong wishes to save some gas money so the sidewalk sluts can provide solicitation closer to home, answering the question why Mr. Wong desires so many sidewalks built in West Chester.  It is the only assumption that makes sense.

Here were the circumstances of McDaniel’s recent arrest, along with several others reported by the Hamilton Journal:

HAMILTON — More than a dozen people were arrested during a prostitution sting operation Thursday by the Hamilton Police Department.

 

The HPD Vice Unit was assisted by patrol officers in arresting five men who solicited an undercover officer for sex in exchange for money and five women who offered undercover officers sex for money, Hamilton police announced today. In addition, one woman was arrested for “loitering to engage in solicitation” and two men were arrested on drug charges, police said.

 

Police said the following were charged with soliciting: Laurencio Juarez-Chavez, 33; Michael Doelter Jr., 19; Mark Napier, 39; Douglas Rieser, 46; Luis Gonzalez, 19; Heather Burnett, 29 (also charged with two outstanding warrants); Jamie Prater, 26; Debbie Agee, 46; Tanya Wilson, 53; Laurie Garrett, 37 (two counts). Police said Robin McDaniel, 41, was charged with loitering to engage in solicitation; Bryant Johnson Jr., 19, was charged with possession of crack cocaine; and Torriauno McCullough, 20, was charged with abusing crack cocaine.

 

http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/local/12-arrested-in-hamilton-prostitution-sting-1/nMws4/

What a stimulating crowd, and it’s nice to see that Lee was going into that neighborhood to check up on them.  He lives very close to me, and I can’t say that I’ve come close to driving down East Avenue in Hamilton except for a couple of times during the last decade where I attended funeral visitations close to that location, or to see Sheriff Jones.  I can count the times on three fingers.  It’s just not the kind of place a person goes to purchase a gallon of milk, or buy a newspaper off the newsstand.  Why would anyone go to such a place when they live in Beckett Ridge and have Jags as a restaurant nearly at their doorway?    Is it to solicit prostitutes like Robin McDaniel?  According to the McDaniel, that was why Lee was in that part of town and asking her the kind of questions he was.

After looking at Robin’s mug shot, I’m sure Lee wasn’t the only one to ask her if “she was working,” that night, which is even more disgusting.  A man would have to have a pretty wrecked sex life to even think about going out of their way to have any kind of interaction with a person who is obviously abusing themselves as much as that prostitute has.  A man who has must have their judgment seriously questioned.  It’s not against the law to be stupid, reckless, or even personally abusive.  It’s a free country and if people like Lee want to hang out on East Avenue scouting out the talent walking the sidewalks there—he can certainly do it.  It’s against the law, but what isn’t these days.  That doesn’t mean Wong should be a West Chester Trustee.  There are better candidates who exercise far better judgment, and they should get a chance.

Whether or not Lee Wong intended to engage in sex with the known prostitute on East Avenue by the name of Robin McDaniel, I can think of about 1 million things that are better to do at night than driving down East Avenue for any reason—especially living in West Chester.  Any man who does find themselves looking for some sexual relief in the bad parts of Hamilton have issues that are detrimental to themselves and are likely carrying over into their professions, and families—and that is simply reprehensible.  That being the case Lee needs help, but what he doesn’t need is another term as trustee of West Chester where critical decisions about the community’s future need to be made quickly—and correctly.  And that is pretty hard to do when desiring sex with East Avenue prostitutes is on the radar of desired recreational activities.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

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The “Egregious” behavior of a West Chester Trustee: Editing history to keep the public trust

It didn’t take a little bird to land on my window this time to inform me that there is something amiss in our community, again involving the West Chester Trustees. It appears a disrespectful indiscretion is deliberately being conducted regarding the transparency of the Trustee meetings as President Cathy Stoker after the August 28th 2012 meeting showed her intentions to append in the public record comments made during the June 26th, and July 10th meetings.

The controversy is over the construction of a crosswalk on Eagleridge road in Beckett Ridge to accommodate Trustee Lee Wong’s neighbor. The $5,000 project was initiated without a vote well before the trustees met to discuss the matter. The scenario is one that is typical in many small governments; where favors are given to those who are in the “know” and friends of people in high places receive the benefits. In this case Cathy Stoker and Lee Wong were caught colluding behind the scenes to make a simple crosswalk legally happen by building a consensus through the public meeting putting Trustee George Lang on the spot to approve the crosswalk before he had full knowledge of what was happening. It’s an old consensus building trick that disguises the intention, is legally worthy but is ethically challenged to say the least. Once Lang realized the depth of the maneuver, he put up a defense, but it was to no avail. Cathy and Lee are able to collude with each other since they are such like-minded progressive thinking politicians, and can out-vote Lang, which happens often. To review this case and watch the videos that is causing so much trouble, CLICK HERE.

Having disagreements are part of politics, and hashing out the truth through conflict can be very healthy. And part of learning that truth comes from the transparency of the public documents generated by the Fiscal Officer Bruce Jones who attends these trustee meetings so that the people of West Chester can reflect on what transpired in their community government. However, because of all the attention that the crosswalk issue had generated it appears that Trustee President Stoker has become concerned that some of her statements needed to be appended, which is a gross violation of public transparency. At the conclusion of the August 28th meeting Cathy instructed the Judi Boyko to work with Tim Jester and WCTV to append the June 26th Trustee meeting minutes responding to so-called erroneous statements made by Fiscal Officer Bruce Jones about the process surrounding the crosswalk incident.

The content of the “erroneous” statements are fairly minor and reflect disagreements with the politicians at play. They are of such a nature that Bruce Jones said to Cathy Stoker, “Furthermore at no time at the meeting o May 22 did you Cathy comment to the effect that you were out there watching traffic on Eagleridge. It’s not in the records.” Cathy’s response in the appended meeting notes were that she did indeed comment during that meeting to the effect she had watched traffic; as Mr. Jones himself admitted in his email to Mrs. Stoker on July 13 wherein he stated, “originally did not recall your comment about sitting in our car observing traffic at the intersection…I again reviewed the videotape and at the 43:15 minutes into the 5/22 video you made that comment.” The comments are those kinds of disagreements, all of which can be seen at the previous article I wrote on this matter.

The trouble is when a trustee like Cathy has a clear vote always in their favor with Lee Wong and a government employee who makes $140k per year like Judi Boyko to eat out of the hand of whoever sits in the presidents chair at a trustee meeting, seeks to append bickering records from public view because they know that people may catch the manipulation that is going on and start adding two and two together, deep trouble is not far behind. Clearly, the intentions of Cathy Stoker and Lee Wong from the previous article were to use public money to build a crosswalk in Beckett Ridge where Wong’s wife is a member of the homeowners association and there appears to be some bragging that has went on about how Lee being a trustee in West Chester could get a crosswalk put in for his friends and neighbors. The issue is not the merit of the $5,000 crosswalk which may or may not be needed; it’s the process that put it in play to begin with. Lee Wong, Cathy Stoker and Judi Boyko already had the whole project in motion before the May 22nd meeting was put to a vote, and that’s not how things work. Then when Cathy got caught in the manipulative scheme, she sought to manipulate the public records to cover her tracks, which is why she instructed Judi to work with Jester and WCTV to “append” the trustee notes.

When politicians get caught doing these kinds of things, it does make me very angry. When I had similar problems with the Lakota School System, after three votes by the community to reject a tax increase, the school system instead of forcing a 5% reduction in salaries and benefits among their unionized work force to balance their budget instead raised sports fees, cut busing, electives, and sought to undercut the work I was doing behind the scenes with No Lakota Levy to help pay the sports fees for children who most needed it. Their response to me was to stand outside Kroger by Lakota East and smear my name and the good work I was trying to do, which led to a very public spat that Cathy Stoker felt she was mandated to speak on. In The Cincinnati Enquirer Cathy Stoker said about me, “the language used by Mr. Hoffman is not only egregiously offensive, but reflects badly on the No Lakota group that Mr. Hoffman supports.” Clearly, Stoker is the kind of politician that seeks to hide her actions behind appended notes and polite backstabbing. I prefer to fight out in the parking lot and when these manipulative types find themselves painted into a corner, the try to sanitize history, and when someone gets angry about it, they call them “egregiously offensive.” What they really want is “shut up and take it!”

What is “egregiously offensive” to me are trustees who appear to be keepers of the public’s trust, as Cathy illustrated herself at my expense in The Cincinnati Enquirer telling me that I should hold my temper when I see the nasty political games that I’ve witnessed, only to allow the people who run the show like her to “append” documents, twist the facts, and attempt to cover up scandalous behavior with public consensus before everything hits the fan. These types of people hate transparency, they love it when nobody watches what they are doing, because it’s all too easy to cut deals and use public tax dollars like a child uses Lego building blocks to construct anything their imaginations can conger up. Nobody really cares about the procedures, the safe keeping of the public treasury because when they run out of money they just look for a tax increase or a new tax all together. It’s the looters life for those kinds of politicians.

For me, it’s not the comments between politicians resulting in the discussions from the various trustee meetings that are the problems. I expect conflict in a trustee meeting. I expect George Lang and Cathy Stoker to fight it out. I expect Lee Wong to call George Lang a rich suppressor who lives in big mansion while he lives in the lowly neighborhood of Beckett Ridge. (Yes, Lee actually said something to that effect) I expect those public representatives to have disagreements. To me, it is perfectly fine for Bruce Jones to call Cathy a liar, and to force Stoker to defend herself. That’s politics. It helps put the truth on the table. What I don’t like is a person who seeks to eliminate the opposition so that there is nobody to call them on their manipulative tendencies and collude with others for the benefit of the few. And manipulating public notes or altering them with chaos to cover tracks is disingenuous to the keeping of public records. It defeats the purpose.

To me calling people publicly who will do anything for money a “prostitute” as I’ve done on more than one occasion is far less “egregious” than telling a township employee to meet with the people at WCTV so that the record can be altered to cover up the betrayal of public trust. Yet that is how Cathy managed to get a crosswalk built for her friend Lee Wong without a proper vote or discussion beforehand. She conducted her meeting in an underhanded way to leave openings later for editorial manipulation in the chess game of politics. If she got caught, she’d say she really meant this, or really meant that, and if she got caught flat-footed, then she’d just have the records altered to reflect her version of reality. Yes, that is far more egregious than calling people a bad name, or even disagreeing with their politics. The open manipulations of the public trust, including the media who turn a blind eye toward these occurrences are all just a little guilty of “egregious” behavior that is in direct violation of the public trust. And those violations are never more evident than in a trustee president who wishes to append public comments, because if she weren’t trying to cover something up, she wouldn’t care to begin with.

____________________________________________

Rich HoffmanClick Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon 

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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The West Chester Township Trustees Play the Shell Game: Meet the pinball of Beckett Ridge

Step right up—gather around—the West Chester Township Trustees of Ohio under the presidential leadership of Catherine Stoker and initiated by Lee Wong are giving away $4,690.00 to anyone who can claim they have been hit by a car at intersections like the one at the corner of Eagleridge Drive and Eaglet in the community of Beckett Ridge. If an example of why government fails time and time again at all levels requires proof, the new crosswalk which now crosses Eagleridge Drive is the perfect example. It shows how good intentions end up consuming tax payer resources because the parties involved are functioning from a failed philosophy of collectivism as opposed to individualism. In the case described below it would appear that Trustee Lee Wong colluded with a Mr. Cho to arrange before a West Chester Trustee meeting to have a crosswalk built at tax payer expense and Trustee Stoker was in agreement. The two trustees used the West Chester Township meeting simply as a formality to play out their intentions and within 19 business days the concrete was poured and the lines painted for yet another cross walk in the community of West Chester.  The Township paid Jackson Construction, Inc., $4,690.00 for the job. 

The problem with projects like this crosswalk is that no matter how it’s looked at from any angle, whether it is from the politicians, the residents, the taxpayers, or to eyes from outside the community the situation appears to be well justified. During the meeting where Mr. Cho made his case to the trustees, he stood before them claiming to be blind from diabetes, desiring to live a full life by being allowed to walk around his community but couldn’t because he is was getting hit by cars all the time. He claimed he could not walk on the grass to arrive at the sidewalk on the west side of Eagleridge for some unknown peril, and that even if he did attempt such a thing the cars driving up and down the road would mow him down without concern. So he asked for speed bumps or some other measure to ensure his “safety.” The suspicion of the entire speech manifested when Mr. Cho showed up late for the public comment portion of the meeting and Trustee Wong personally identified Mr. Cho. Trustee Wong and Stoker then put Trustee Lang on the spot to ask for an exception that Mr. Cho be allowed to speak, which no fair-minded person could turn down. But after Mr. Cho spoke a woman who came with him also took to the podium which according to Trustee Stoker was very unprecedented, yet she encouraged it happily as though she already knew the content of the speech—which of course she did. The woman’s name was Ms. Bentley and she has children who attend Freedom Elementary at the top of Eagleridge which is one of the Lakota Schools in the area that has suffered from the busing cuts made by that school district to cover their extraordinary salaries leaving many children walking to and from school. Ms. Bentley stated that she was worried for the safety of her children—and who can argue that?

After listening to all the comments made by Mr. Cho, Ms. Bentley and Trustee Wong it painted a picture in my mind that Mr. Cho was simply a pinball in the dangerous pinball machine of Beckett Ridge, West Chester. Every time he stepped into the street he was being run down by vigilante motorists. Trustee Wong even stated that at times Mr. Cho had been hit by cars so hard that he ended up on the hoods of the cars that ran him over. As the proceedings went on during that first meeting occurring on April 24th of 2012 it became obvious to me that Trustee Stoker knew all the facts before the meeting even started and simply used the trustee meeting to build official consensus for a project she planned to use later as a bullet point to her work as a trustee. Building a crosswalk is simply too tempting for a politician who can spend $5000 of tax payer money on a blind man like Mr. Cho. Politicians after all must appear to have compassion for members of the community, which I believe Wong and Stoker do, but for all the wrong reasons. The problem here is not the compassion; it’s the obvious attempt by Trustee Wong to use his influence as a trustee to help his friend Mr. Cho with a personal problem that is the responsibility of the private citizen.

There are many options available to Mr. Cho. The street he lives on is a quiet boulevard. He should be able to walk down it with no problem. And when it comes to crossing the perilous Eagleridge Drive I sat at that intersection on my motorcycle during rush hour and counted 7 cars in a 15 minute period. Mr. Cho volunteered to paint the lines on the road himself so he can see well enough to paint; he should be able to cross Eagleridge Drive without any trouble. But then on the other side there would be a problem for Mr. Cho. Eagleridge has a tremendous curb that rises about 4 inches and would require Mr. Cho to step up and over onto the treacherous grass extending a few feet to the sidewalk beyond. God forbid he be forced to walk in the grass, for he might slip and fall, and get a boo-boo upon his elbow. Then he might sue the township for not providing adequate safety for him every time he leaves his home.

When I drive from my home to the Tri County area which is a ten-mile stretch of road I pass no fewer than 10 traffic lights on my way. Most of those traffic lights are the result of situations just like this crosswalk issue where a minority of public speakers came forward and spoke about how dangerous a particular intersection was, then over dramatized the situation for theatrics on behalf of the politicians involved. The politicians looking for easy political points and a pile of tax payer money at their fingertips often can’t resist the temptation to capitalize on such requests and over time, these parasitic politicians have given our society an overly regulated world with stop lights, stop signs, and cross walks at virtually every turn. The situation in Butler County is so extreme that it is now impossible to travel from west to east or east to west intersecting the very long road of By-pass 4 since the engineers of that redeveloped thoroughfare have taken a page from the progressive California playbook in trying to eliminate left turns completely—to save driver side impacts from crashes. The situation is insane on By-pass 4 as a result of pandering politicians and the safety addicts who speak at these public meetings. Little by little, these timid creatures of suburbia destroy the world around them with their requests to be insulated from all danger, which the pandering politicians are more than happy to oblige so they can pat themselves on the back with money they consumed from the public treasury to paint some lines on a road, and pour a little concrete so people like Mr. Cho don’t have to walk in the grass.

The crime here is in the politicians themselves looking to use township money to show off for their neighborhood friends exploiting handicaps so that they can be heroes at the expense of the unfortunate. The deal with Mr. Cho had already been worked out by Mr. Wong and Stoker before the trustee meeting even took place. The speech at the meeting was just the formality of building public consensus. The same behavior goes on in school board meetings where the decisions are already made by the board before the meetings ever take place. The public meetings are only designed to give the illusion of public transparency. That’s what is called in Washington politics a “back room deal.” And nobody ever questions it because it would be political suicide to draw attention to a blind man who simply wants the “freedom” to walk about his community and is just asking the local politicians to help him. But that’s not what is going on. Not only was the political process compromised in the creation of the crosswalk at the corner of Eagleridge and Eaglet by pandering to the few at the expense of the many, but the message to the community itself is wrong. Yet again a few, weak and feeble individuals have been allowed to dictate the shape and pace of our community, using compassion to disguise narcissism. Politicians use the weak and feeble to advance their social status with tax money to do the deed. In government, nothing happens as fast as this crosswalk did. The speed is the indicator that it was Trustee Wong and Trustee Stoker who desired to exploit Mr. Cho so that they could score political points not just with the community at large, but with themselves. Building the crosswalk to them is just the form of social justice that may open the gates of heaven using $5000 of tax payer money to purchase the ticket—and that is why the newest crosswalk in the community of Becket Ridge is one more example of tyranny migrating like a blob across the individual lives of West Chester citizens everywhere who surrendered a subtle freedom they didn’t even know they had till it has been erased forever.

Oh—and for those reading this who think this is like the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing, let me direct your attention to one final fact that reveals the strings of manipulation and who pulls them–the request by Mr. Wong for the crosswalk at Eagleridge and Eaglet in front of the West Chester Trustees took place on April 24th as stated. Yet six weeks prior there was communication with Greg Wilkens of the Butler Country Engineer’s office which said:

Greg, Thank you for the returned call re: crosswalk at Eaglet and Eagleridge, I understand the situation.

I asked Tim Franck to contact Matt and see what a crosswalk would look like with all its approach requirements and about how much it would cost. I know your staff is so busy so I hope you don’t mind me asking. If Matt can’t, no problem, please just let me know.

I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, but we took a long weekend and we are down in Clearwater, FL.

That communication was written by Judi Boyko West Chester Township Administrator.  Here is the actual email, just so it cannot be said that what has been stated is a fiction. 

 

Now, with what you have seen here, go back and watch the collection of videos above so you can listen to the West Chester Trustees for yourself.  Notice how Trustee Wong uses the standard progressive mode of class warfare when he can’t answer Trustee Lang’s questions.  Anyone who lives outside of West Chester would find it absolutely laughable that Wong would even attempt to describe Beckett Ridge as a community of less economic statues.  But, these are the standard progressive arguments no matter what the situation, and the facts speak for themselves. 

Mr. Cho in the end got his crosswalk. The cement was dry before the final meeting was concluded. It is my opinion that all the trustees were extremely nice about the entire ordeal, especially Trustee Lang. I can’t say I would have been so sympathetic. My suggestion to Mr. Cho, the self-professed pinball of the treacherous Beckett Ridge pinball machine would have been to wrap him in bubble wrap for his own protection so he could bounce off all those cars without causing injury to himself, or the cars.

  ____________________________________________________________

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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Yes Lakota is Misleading People: Painting over the dirt

Georgetta
voteyeslakota@aol.com
75.185.0.41
Submitted on 2011/01/20 at 11:14 pm
Evil prevails when good people do nothing. I am a good person and I am about good education. I am doing something: speaking out. Rich Hoffman is misleading people. Teachers teach children so they DON’T end up working themselves into an early grave and barely making payments on a lot in a trailer park. The good teachers will go elsewhere in order to make a living wage. Rich Hoffman raised children and his wife didn’t work. Apparently he is making too much money. Yet, I hear no one attacking him. Some of us have to have both parents work in order to put food on the table.

Georgetta here reflects many of the comments that I get from people who think just like her. The premise is this, that education is a right, they hide the actual numbers in the scribble of government bureaucracy, and if you show that you don’t support it, or if you even question their reasoning, they use “peer pressure” to shape the community to their will, just like kids on a playground. That’s the mentality. They end up sounding like children with their minds wrapped up in extreme assertions to make their points seem to carry more weight.

The first thing they do is attack you “the tax payer” and your ability to pay the increase in tax. They’ll say, “Public education was there for your children, but now that you don’t have children in the school, you don’t want to pay.” They do the same with business leaders, “We built the good schools and you provided the homes, and now you don’t want to pay.” What doesn’t get said is that as all this growth was going on, the LEA, the teachers union at Lakota, negotiated an aggressive contract in October of 2008 that was focused on wages and that contract is bankrupting the community because at the same time, indications were that state funding was on a decreasing trend. So the contract was irresponsible, and what is happening now, is the community is establishing the parameters of future contract negotiations, because we can’t trust school officials to do the job, otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten this far out of control.

These pro levy people will attempt to proclaim that nobody but them can look at the numbers and understand the situation. They sadly put out apologist groups to plead the case like what you will hear in the below interview. What they don’t want to discuss is why there is a financial crises. They simply discuss finance as if it were beyond their control. When listening to this interview ask these questions, if cutting only a million here, or there isn’t much because the numbers are so large, then why is it such a large savings that cutting busing to 9000 students will only save $600,000, then why cut busing? And how has Lakota done everything it can do before cutting busing. Did the LEA come to the bargaining table to renegotiate their contract? And how does the tax dollars stay in the district when the union spends the union dues on political candidates. One of the reasons the LEA wants its teachers to make so much is so that the teachers will want to pay their union dues without hardship. But nobody talks about any of that here. The sum of this discussion is that there isn’t an answer. These are nice parents that just want the system to work long enough for their children to get an education. Nobody wants to play the hot potato game when the music stops, and the music is stopping. All they can really do in an interview like this is paint over the dirt.

All businesses whether they are service oriented or manufacturing oriented have a responsibility to keep their costs in line. One way that businesses do that is to use the 10-80-10 rule as it’s applied to labor. That rule states that 10% of your workforce will be your typical “top” performers, and they will get the most dramatic increases, 4% to 15% depending on the situation. 80% of your workers are average, and will typically get a standard 2% to 3% increase, otherwise considered a “cost of living” increase. And of course every place of business has approximately 10% that are poor performers and they won’t get an increase of any kind. Why? Because those bottom 10% you want to look for another job, and you want them to leave so you don’t have to pay them. It gives you a chance to hire somebody that might want to compete for the top 10% percentile. If you manage things correctly, your bottom 10% are the kind of people that your competition is hiring at the middle 80%, and you want that so you can maintain a competitive edge.

What you don’t do is uniformly advance everyone in your place of business with some socialist “everybody is equal” policy like what we have in school systems, and unions advocate. That’s a disastrous concept and gives employees like Ryan Fahrenkemp time and the luxury of job security to participate in an evil deed like child pornography. I would argue from experience that if Ryan had to fear for his job, and didn’t feel comfortable hiding in the muddy 80%, he probably would have not indulged in his warped perversion while at school. He might have done it in hiding, or in his mother’s basement, but not with his students, and not with school equipment. And he certainly wouldn’t have been making 70K at only age 42 no matter how much experience he had with the amount of tenure he’d accumulated in a relatively short time.

I used Fahrenkemp as an example because he belonged in the bottom 10% and somebody didn’t do their job in the review process of weeding him out. And that didn’t happen because he was protected by the complicated process created by the OEA which the president of the LEA had been a big part of, and knew how to manipulate the system to the advantage of her members.

So I’d say to you Yes Lakota people, who say that I am misleading people. Who is doing the misleading?

I’d say you are, by telling the tax payers that the budget just “grows” on its own. That the school system had no way to deal with people like Fahrenkemp, and that all teachers are worth over 62K, and if the community doesn’t pay it, those beloved teachers will leave the district for another one.

I would say any teacher that would leave Lakota is only in it for the money, and those are personalities that I would rate low on a review, and may be tempted to put them on the bottom 10% anyway, so for them to leave would be desirable.

All the Yes Lakota people have to argue with is emotion,
• “The money is for the kids.” No it’s not, if it was, the LEA wouldn’t have threatened to strike in 2008 to get more money, and again in the spring of 2010.
• “We have to offer top pay for top teachers or they will leave.” No they won’t because the other districts are broke too and are getting ready to go through the same process Lakota is.
• “We have to protect property values by voting for the schools.” No you don’t. If taxes keep increasing that will kill real estate values anyway, tax payers in the district already pay $11 per $1000 assessment on their property.
• “I’m for education.” No you’re not. If you were, you’d keep the budget under $160 million. Throwing money at something doesn’t mean you’re for education. It means you don’t value the source of the money but want what the money can buy.
• “We have had explosive growth and must adjust to it.” Growth, like budgets can be controlled. If the cost is too high, growth will slow down, and growth will slow down because of the economy. Growth will also slow down from parents wanting to go to Lakota who aren’t willing to pay for the extra things they want, too. One of the reasons Yes People want sports and extracurricular activities is so enrollment will increase, so parents looking for those items can move to the district and participate cheaply. It’s all about job creating and getting parents used to programs that the district tax payers fund collectively. No different from colleges with NCAA programs that are nationally known for their sports, will see increases in enrollment. It’s always about increased enrollment so money can be justified.
• “The state is forcing us to all-day kindergarten.” No, the OEA lobbied to get all-day kindergarten passed, and the Republicans in the state house are getting ready to eliminate that unfunded mandate along with many other mandates lacking funding. So that anticipated requirement will be taken away from district budgets.
• “We have to spend $50,000 dollars to get the best superintendent we can get.” No, you are throwing money at the situation like you do everything else. It’s that kind of mentality that locked us into the contract with the LEA that is causing the current financial crises. Money does not equal quality. It seldom does. Money can be used to create competition, but it is useless without competition. If money is not getting you dramatic results, it is simply killing your budget.
• “Paying for a school levy keeps your money in the community.” No it doesn’t. The union dues collected by school unions are directly applied to liberal politicians that further perpetuate the bureaucratic mess creating expensive economic necessity. The OEA had revenue of over $62 million dollars in 2008. Where did that money come from? They don’t make any products that they can sell? Check the info for yourself here. http://teachersunionexposed.com/state.cfm?state=OH All that money comes from union dues, paid from the salaries of teachers that are paid exceptionally well by the local tax payers. The average pay at Lakota for teachers is 62K per year. So the money doesn’t stay in the community.

Those are just some examples of how the Yes Lakota people are misleading the good people of the Lakota District. And they will continue to treat the voters like the fools they believe they are as long as it works.

Get ready for the next levy announcement for May. They’ll do it because they don’t know how to do anything else but ask for more money.

And you Yes Lakota people go ahead and leave your comments. I’ll post them, and I’ll use them. People need to see your thoughts. For those of you wanting to see some of them, read the comments here. I am quite aware that there are many people at many levels reading all the posts I’ve put up here and you’re looking for a way to spin it to your advantage. For an example, have a look at the work David Little from Progress Ohio attempted. I’m happy to fight your sloppy facts with the truth and if you want to spin the community around and make them so dizzy they can’t tell which way is up or down, I’ll continue to prevent it, as I have. And I’ll do it because I love my community, and I want to see education continue to be an option for families in the future. But it won’t be in a form controlled by organized labor. Those days are over.

Don’t believe me; read this from your parent union the OEA, this is how bad the financial situation is. Even the union staff is threatening to strike and the union itself is participating in union busting strategies.

The Ohio Education Association and Its Goose

The executives of the Ohio Education Association sent a memo informing local presidents that if the union gave in to striking staffers’ demands, it would require an $80 to $90 dues increase per member. Such an increase would raise roughly $10 million. That sounded familiar to me, so I checked the archives and found this, in the May 8, 2000 EIA Communiqué:
Ohio Education Association in Severe Financial Straits. The last time the Ohio Education Association negotiated a staff contract, in September 1997, it resulted in a two-week strike, restraining orders against picketers, and a lot of bad publicity. That contract expires this year and it’s bad financial news all around for OEA, its members, and the staff. OEA recently informed its local presidents that the union is facing a projected deficit of $6.3 million for next year. The union is asking staff to accept benefit cuts totaling $4 million. The rest of the deficit would be eliminated through a dues increase of up to $25 per member.

“Specifically, and regrettably, we can no longer afford to sustain the current number of OEA employees at their current level of compensation and benefits and continue to provide the expected level of services and programs without significantly raising OEA dues for you and every other member,” reads a memo from OEA President Mike Billirakis and Executive Director Robert Barkley.

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2010/09/03/the-ohio-education-association-and-its-goose/

If our community is going to continue to be a “great” and “excellent” district, we have to get in front of this problem. Not avoid it by tossing more money at the problem. And the Yes Lakota people need to listen to the No Lakota People, because the solution is in good business strategy. The same tired old bullet points won’t be valid any longer. I’ll make sure of it.

Now, these video links exist elsewhere on this site, but I’ll put links here for your convenience. These are radio spots specifically dealing with education issues. Feel free to listen to the hours and hours of debate so you can form your own opinion about things. There are many radio personalities here, so the view points are varied. But the topics and discussions are fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sIDwFW6tFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxd5XO54o68
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPwhFbsTmww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXEIUPRRxAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r09fAoSAQhM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJETAE1iXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAX20OsiIS0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHPjBY8UY98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7f6iBfFxV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDvFo_v24Y0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG9vYWHO6OM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RynERHb3jBU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU57EDXLxtw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhAeyuLovtk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoviASrmQBw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDW98mhSyPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vtoC9QosaA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9zXhNdw_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrblE1gu4lU

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com