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To the editor: We need to support our Oregon School District this November by voting for Issue 1.
We want our two great-grandchildren to receive a good education just like my three children and four grandchildren received from Oregon Schools over the last 42 years. Our schools are our community’s best asset. In fact, we chose to raise our family in Oregon because of the schools. If we don’t support our schools now, the community, local businesses and all property values will suffer.
Nobody wants to invest in a community with a poor school system. The owner of a $100,000 home would pay an additional $180 annually if the levy passes. However, if it fails again you can bet property values will decrease. A modest 5 percent decrease in property value would equate to a $5,000 loss in value on that same home.
It will take homeowners 28 years to recoup their lost property values if the levy fails ($5,000/$180). Our local refineries and other businesses no longer pay inventory taxes to the Oregon School District (thank your state legislature for that). It is up to us to save our schools and preserve our community.
It is our duty to make sacrifices for the good of the community, the same as our parents and grandparents did for us.
Glenn and Doris Levy
Oregon
Ensuring success
To the editor: We as parents and grandparents of Oregon School District students are certainly aware of the valiant effort being made by our Oregon School District officials to maintain the excellent level of education offered our children and grandchildren.
With the current economy and all of the state actions that have caused the funding to be slashed from our schools, we are now faced with a challenge – a decision. Do we want our young students to be offered the opportunity to have a continued excellent education so they may be equipped to face and handle the many challenges in their future? Do we want successful businesses to remain in our school district and encourage other businesses to locate in our district so as to help the financial well-being of our school system?
If we maintain and encourage a successful business atmosphere here in our community, this type of atmosphere will, in fact, promote further a successful mindset with businesses looking to locate or relocate in this type of environment.
Success breeds success. We as residents of a very successful school district must show these companies that we are serious about maintaining and improving our educational opportunities. The success of our school system and our community will be determined by what we as residents decide.
The way that we do this is by casting our votes for the upcoming school levy.
We have found that success beats any other alternative. Our children and our community deserve success.
Bob and Betty Anderson
Former Oregon teachers
Dying traditions
To the editor: During my childhood and young adulthood, my parents would often have a bacon roast at their home. It is nicknamed “Hunky turkey.”
We sat around the fire laughing, joking and talking. The men would down shots of whiskey (to cut the grease). We’d take a slab of bacon on a long fork, hold it over the fire until the grease started running, then we would let the grease drip on bread. We’d add slices of tomato, bits of onion and salt. We’d enjoy eating our greasy bread while visiting with our friends and relatives. It was great.
Today, or farmers are raising lean hogs. That is better for our health. But today, we can’t find bacon roast. Even the good taste is gone. That has wrecked a fine old tradition.
I remember attending a cousin’s wedding reception in 1937. They had a Hungarian band playing and after dinner and they had a “bride’s dance,” where people could dance with the bride. They usually tossed a dollar into the hat to dance with the bride. Five dollar bills were also tossed in by close loved ones.
Today, it is so irritating to hear it called the “dollar dance.” A dollar bill was good in 1937, but today, a person should at least toss in a $20 bill for the pleasure of dancing with the bride
Louis R. Agoston
Toledo
Threshold of crisis
To the editor: We have been blessed by God to live in a wonderful community with an abundance of resources and recreation opportunities.
We have always been a community that cares for each other, sometimes with great personal sacrifice, and although we live in difficult and scary times, it is time for the people of Oregon to once again proclaim that our children’s needs are more important than our own.
Our schools are on the threshold of a crisis. Although Mike Zalar, school superintendent, and others in leadership don’t want to be alarmist, the cuts on the horizon if this levy does not pass have deep and lasting implications. Like all of us, the schools are trying to do more with less. The state of Ohio continues to send our district less money, even as costs continue to rise at an exponential rate.
We commend the efforts of the school district to make the cuts they have made to be relatively transparent to the students. If this levy does not pass, those cuts will no longer be transparent.
In our current age of divisive politics and polarizing issues, we find it hard to trust those in leadership to solve the problems of our community. It is now time to put aside those issues of the past and work into a preferred future. We are at a touchstone monument in the history of our community and it is time for us to do the right thing by supporting the children of Oregon, even if it is a sacrifice for us and our families.
Please, for the sake of our children and our community, vote yes in support of the emergency school levy. While it will cost all of us money, we must ask ourselves if we want to share in the impact of voting no. It will lead to a long-term erosion of our city. Like Toledo, Detroit and others, our property values will decrease, our quality of life will be hurt and, most importantly, our children will suffer. We urge you to remember our responsibility to care for them. The community cared for us, now it is our turn to do it for the next generations.
The Oregon Area Pastors Fellowship:
Pastor Doug Dean
Pastor Mike Przybylski
Pastor Randy Dickinson
Pastor Kurt Tomlinson
Pastor Brandon Williams
Pastor Thom Sneed
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