To the editor: This November, Oregon City Schools will be placing a levy on the ballot. Our schools need it, our students need it and our community needs it.

As former Clay graduates, we have chosen Oregon as a place to settle and raise our family for the simple fact that we wanted our children (now ages 9 and 7) to have the education and opportunities that Oregon City Schools provided to us and allow them to establish a solid foundation and prepare them for college.

Oregon is a great community and has always come together to take care of our own…in good times and in bad. This is a time that the future of Oregon, our students, need the community to rally behind them and support the school levy so the teachers, staff and administration can continue providing a quality education to our students.

Please join us in voting yes for our schools this November.
Steve and Chrissy (Welty) Finch
Oregon

Excellence continued
To the editor: In these tough economic times, non seems exempt from the financial cutbacks and burdens.

Our schools are certainly no exception. The Oregon City Schools should be lauded for their fiscal determination to provide and maintain the high level of academic empowerment provided to each student, considering the massive loss of funds from the state of Ohio.

Oregon school officials have analyzed and found ways to make cuts that are least detrimental to our students and have still maintained high levels of education and opportunities for student involvement. Even with these cuts, the state continues to cut financial support from the school district. This is unfair not only to our students but also to the taxpayers.

None denies that but it is our responsibility to ensure that our future is bright and successful. The students of Oregon are that future. We must ensure that they have the teachers, activities and opportunities to maintain that excellent education and prepare them to be successful members of our society. The teachers in Oregon have been completing that task and need the resources to continue. We can’t risk the future – our kids.

Please vote yes for the Oregon schools and ensure continued excellence.
Amy and Marty Schloegl
 

Ash borer cleanup continues
To the editor: Wasps are not being used to control emerald ash borer at Pearson Metropark, as stated in an article in last week’s Press. Wasps are being used in other areas of Ohio, but not here.

The article missed the whole point of Metroparks message when it stated that “the fight against the emerald ash borer has not ended.” Actually, the fight has indeed ended. Nothing Metroparks is doing now is intended to control the beetle; we are simply cleaning up the mess it has left behind.

The insect has killed tens of thousands of ash trees in the Metroparks. With money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we are creating jobs by hiring staff and contractors to remove those dead trees within 100 feet of roads, trails and buildings where they pose a hazard to people and property. The vast majority of the trees will simply fall in the woods. This work is also being done at other Metroparks.

The next problem we are dealing with is controlling invasive plants such as buckthorn and honeysuckle that move in where ash trees were removed. At Pearson, we will be removing a large amount of these shrubs and other plants over the winter to allow native species to grow. We are also planting hundreds of trees, including elm.

A statement at the beginning of the article referred to trees cut by the power company. That has nothing to do with Metroparks current work at Pearson.
Scott Carpenter
Director of Public Relations, Toledo Area Metroparks

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