To the editor: Senior Citizens Day at the Ottawa County Fair was another fantastic success, thanks to the many sponsors, organizations and individuals who helped to make it so.

We would not be able to provide the entertainment, the food or the fun without the support of our sponsors. Thanks to the Ottawa County Senior Fair Board and the OSU Extension Office in helping us to bring more of the fair to the seniors.

Three of our regular fair vendors, American Legion-Post #114, Oak Harbor Boy Scouts Troop #316 and the Lions Club of Oak Harbor served nearly 300 sandwiches and drinks to Ottawa County seniors, giving seniors a real “taste of the fair.” In addition, Community Markets provided the sides to compliment the meal.

Other partner sponsors for our food included Hospice of Northwest Ohio, Otterbein North Shore Retirement Living Communities, Bankers Life and Casualty Company and Paramount Healthcare.

A thank you goes to Neidecker, LeVeck and Crosser Funeral Homes and Magruder Hospital for the coffee and donuts at the start of our day. Thanks also to Home Instead Senior Care and Heritage Health Care Services for our supply of water and milk.

A day at the fair is not complete without a little ice cream and thanks to the staff of Riverview Healthcare Campus for their Ice Cream Social that helped to cool us off from that wonderful July heat.

Entertainment is also important, and we had some great entertainers. Thanks to Kendra German, administrator of Riverview Healthcare, the “Harmonica Man” and Dave Ninke of DreamWorks Entertainment for adding to our successful day.

Moreover, what would senior day activity be without bingo? Thanks to the senior centers for their sponsorship of this event. Other contributors to our special day include Tranquility Products, Ottawa County Veterans Services, Comfort Keepers, Jim and Molly Sass and Judith Meyer-Hall.

A very big thanks also needs to go to the Ottawa County Senior Fair Board, especially to Tina and Jon, to Marcia at OSU Extension Office and to all the staff and volunteers who served under Senior Resources, including Woodmore National Honor Society and Genoa High School. The Senior Citizens’ Day at the Ottawa County Fair would not happen without all of you.
Dianne Martin Mortensen
Executive Coordinator, Ottawa County Senior Resources

A necessary sacrifice
To the editor: Our country is in a state of self-destruction. What will it take to turn this dilemma around?

We need to return to a moral-acting population. We are controlled by people who are more interested in self-gain than in improving the standard of life for all citizens. We are living in an age where every time our leaders pass new laws or ordinances, they are dependant on the control of big-time lobbyists. How much money is offered to the lawmakers and how do these new laws benefit the companies that hire these lobbyists? Is it all a ploy to get what they want at the expense of the working taxpayers?

The act of lobbying should be deemed unconstitutional. Our founding fathers had no intention of allowing such a dastardly act to take place. When NAFTA passed, we were told that it would benefit the American worker. It would open up new markets for our American-made products. Perhaps this could work if the balance of imported goods from other countries would be an equal balance of trade. In simple words, China would send us the same amount of products that they buy from us. This is no way near the reality. We are by far the losers in this deal.

When NAFTA was passed during the Clinton administration, it was not what it was told to the American public. The “real” reason it was passed was to bow to big businesses that wanted to get cheaper labor costs and in turn, make greater profits.

The Clinton administration held a closed-door meeting with senators and U.S. representatives to explain that if they would not pass this NAFTA bill, these same politicians would not be able to go back to big businesses for funds to build their election campaign bank accounts. If we don’t do this for them, we will no longer be able to knock on their door when we need money.

Remember, the average working person doesn’t give politicians enough to get elected. They need big business’ donations. We must write to our senators and congressmen and let them know that we demand the NAFTA bill be rescinded or we will rescind their tickets to Washington.

This is the only leverage we have. We do have the power. Let’s use it. Let’s make the products we use be made by Americans in America. We know that the prices of products will cost us more, but we also know that any man or woman who wants a job will be able to find one.

It’s a sacrifice we will have to make to get our nation strong again.

Larry Erard
Oregon

Education in trouble
To the editor: Public education is in trouble across America, and why not? Educators and parents are strapped with a 150-year-old schedule and financing system the Supreme Court found unconstitutional and Gov. Strickland and local politicians said they were going to fix.

Schools took summers off to farm. Ninety-eight percent of families were farmers. Corn was cut and shelled one ear at a time. Beans were a future crop. School buses hadn’t been invented. School started as three grades and is now escalated to 13 at enormous costs and public education was never free.

Educators are strapped with getting a year’s education into one-eighth of a year. Use first-grade math – one-half of one-quarter –180 one-quarter days. Our million-dollar institutions sit idle seven eighths of a year. Winter school when utilities are highest; pre-dawn starts that save daylight and waste energy and pollute. We install automatic light control but never think to run schools in daylight 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

My superintendent and principal taught school – they didn’t have to be attorneys, public relations officers and fundraisers. A paddle was their resource officer.

I went to a three-room, three-teacher six-grades school and my good teachers gave us a good education. After 70 years, I remember them all. We need to hire more teachers to use our idle schools, but cost-cutting cuts teachers and adds to their already heavy burden.

It was pointed out, a local levy would cost a $100,000 home $180, but I would like to point out, a $100,000 income, in my bracket would pay $17,000 home tax and scream. Every homeowner is in a different bracket. Divide your income into your home tax and get your bracket. The federal government has it right – a lenient tax on your real income, paid as you go, with many humane deductions.
Vincent Yancy
Curtice

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