The time is right
To the editor: The time is right to support the Woodmore schools bond issue on Nov. 8.

The present elementary building and the wing on the high school have served the district well over the years, but the ever-present costs of maintaining old buildings and upgrading them to provide the best education experience for our students is a drain on our resources.

The time to construct new facilities could not be more favorable. Material costs are stable, interest rates to finance the project are at historic lows and the state is providing 32 percent of the cost of the proposed K-8 building. The auditorium that will be constructed to replace the Woodville facility will be a resource for the district and for the Woodmore community.

I urge you to visit the Woodmore  web site at www.woodmore.k12.oh.us for more information about the bond issue.
John Fletcher
Elmore

Service to seniors
To the editor: I would like to thank the Wood County Committee on Aging for the wonderful services they provide.

My mom, Betty Wykoff, used to attend lunches every day at the center. The meals were delicious and offered at a very low cost to all seniors. This was great for those who were not able to prepare a dinner at home and for those could not afford to eat out. She always had a great time interacting with people and made lots of friends. It gave her a social life rather than to sit at home alone. She was also able to have transportation provided to the center daily and to Kroger each week.

When my mom needed a walker for the first time, the senior center once again came to her aid. As the need arose, she was able to check out special equipment upon their availability. They were so helpful.

There were fun activities to participate in, such as Mystery Dinner, Wii bowling and many times, there were special speakers to share valuable information pertinent to the seniors. Once a month, there were birthday parties honoring those celebrating their birthdays with special entertainment and a bag of goodies.

Seniors never had to be alone on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They could sign up to go to the senior center for a wonderful dinner served to them. The staff is very professional and is always seeking ways to best serve the senior community.  

Later on, when my mother’s mobility became limited she was not able to go up to the center. We were then able to have WCCOA deliver hot meals at home – delicious food delivered “ready to serve” by friendly volunteers.

My mom just passed away this year at 97 years “young.” I can’t thank the Wood County Committee on Aging enough for all the love and care. The senior center staff always made her feel special and like she had something to contribute. They treated her with dignity and honor. No one can put a price tag on that.
Irene Wykoff
Wheeling, Ill.

Support urged for Mental Health levy
To the editor: I support the Sandusky County Mental Health Levy because I understand the serious need for more mental health care for our county.

I have been an active member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) since 1988. Working in NAMI, I learned that mental illness or brain disorders are much more prevalent in our community than most people realize, both in children and adults.

With adequate quality of mental health care, most persons suffering from a mental illness will lead a productive life, thus saving on tax-supported programs down the road. Our community can’t afford to go without good mental health care.

I urge Sandusky County residents to vote yes for the Mental Health Levy.
John Van Der Laar
Helena

Disregarding responsibility
To the editor: President Obama said the political correct words – crumbling schools.

Show me a crumbling school in Toledo, Mr. President. What you will see is hundreds of millions of dollars of beautiful one-year old schools equipped, maintained, staffed 365 days a year. But as first-grade math will show, 180 six-hour days, one half a year of one-quarter days, one half of one quarter, our beautiful new schools will sit there idle, almost all year.

Classrooms crowded for six hours will be vacant the next 18 hours and three and a half months more.

Where did broke Toledo get hundreds of millions for new schools? It cost Toledo 23 cents on the dollar.  Here today, gone tomorrow self-serving officials are glad to pass their exorbitant debts onto unborn generations.

It is reported that Woodmore officials contemplated a levy reaching to 2048. The next generation of taxation without representation – an utter disregard for responsibility.

How do we live on $20,000 a year while others struggle on $100,000? A question to ponder.
Vincent Yancey
Curtice

Greed at its worst
To the editor: The administration of Oregon Schools should be ashamed.

I am a homeowner in the Oregon Schools District and my children have attended school in the district since kindergarten. My husband and I both work full-time jobs in order to own our home and, of course, that means that we pay real estate taxes that benefit the school district. Since my children are now in high school, each morning I must drive them to school and then take a late lunch hour to go pick them up. Fortunately, I work in Oregon and have an understanding boss, who allows me to do this.

My husband and I together do not make annually what any one of the administrative positions pays. We have health insurance premiums deducted from our pay, with no raises to offset the increasing cost of premiums. Many times, we are required to perform extra tasks in order to help keep costs down for our employers.

Our jobs require us to be on the job five days a week for 52 weeks of the year. I work at a job that does not offer retirement. Each year, the school fees go up. This year, the lunch fees increased. The sport in which my children represent Clay High School is fully funded by ourselves and we must continue to bear the increases of gas and groceries and our utilities. We as a family have cut back in many ways, just as the school system has done.

With the school district making so many cuts, I find it shameful that the administration even considers these raises. If these people feel the need to sell their houses and move their families to new jobs, then so be it. I find it hard to believe that in this economy, raises must be given to “keep” people on their jobs. This is corporate greed at its worst.

Oregon Schools’ effectiveness ratings have decreased in the last few years. Instead of giving raises to people who are already making over-the-top salaries. Maybe that money should be used to bring back one of the classes that had been cut from the curriculum.

With the high price of gas, I understand that is probably not enough to bring back busing to the high school students. However, Oregon Schools will find it difficult in the future to get anything passed by the voters because of the distrust this issue with the raises has caused.

This is Oregon, not Ottawa Hills.
Mary Lee Grieshaber
Oregon

Misinformation
To the editor:
Dear Lake Township residents: Currently, erroneous information disguised as fact is being circulated throughout the township.

To set the record straight, on May 3, the Trustees passed Resolution # 55-11 authorizing the purchase and installation of a digital sign at the administration building. The eventual cost of the sign, which is designed to last 50 years, was $25,000, not $35,000 as claimed in the flyer being distributed.

The W-2 forms for the three Trustees filed with the IRS for the year 2010 have wage earnings listed as $15,998.04 not “over $18,000” as claimed in the flyer.

It should be further noted that the amount of Trustee compensation is established by Ohio Revised Code 505.24 and not by the Trustees.

All of this factual information is available at the Lake Township Administration building and has been discussed at Lake Township Trustee meetings.
Richard Welling
Lake Township Trustee

Advocating for youths
To the editor:  We are voting yes for Benton-Carroll-Salem Schools and here are a few reasons why.

B-C-S schools have provided a sound education to hundreds of children. They continue to look for ways to save money while providing youths with knowledge and skills to prepare them for their future. The schools are living up to their responsibilities. It is imperative that we provide them with the necessary resources.

We support the B-C-S schools because we are advocates for young people. Providing a quality education for our youth is basic to helping them learn, grow and prosper.

Times are difficult. We have experienced job cuts, wage freezes and increased expenses but we believe that the children of our community deserve a sound future. We are voting for B-C-S. We hope you join us.
Tom and Charlene Wilhelm
Fremont

Funding a gift
To the editor: The state of Ohio is offering Woodmore $7 million to build a new school with no strings attached. Given the current situation with the Ohio budget, it’s hard to imagine these funds will remain dedicated to school building projects for much longer.

In recent years, Genoa and Gibsonburg voters have seen the light and now have modern educational facilities that attract new families moving into the area. I understand that the average Woodmore homeowner will have to cough up an additional $200 per year, but I also understand what our homes will be worth in five or 10 years, if even a few families opt for the more up-to-date schools in our area.

What are the potential costs of keeping the old building? Mold from flooding and leaky roofs? What about liability if there is a more serious structural failure than just occurred? Two-hundred dollars a year or about 50 cents per day seems like a small price to pay to maintain our property values and have an excellent school we can all be proud of.
Mark Haar
Elmore

Ponder this
To the editor: Points to ponder:
All of our elected officials should be sent on term limits. No one should be representing anything more than eight years maximum. Being complacent is not an option (fresh perspectives are needed during a stale time).

Government – don’t tax me more to put the unemployed to work. (I already support the ones that don’t.) And you’ll get your raise when your performance is met, not when you want to write it in.

City government – what happened to your rainy day fund? How did it dry up?

All Americans should be paying taxes and Social Security, not just the working-class working man.

If I have to pay for my medical, so do you. We all need to do our fair share.

Keep the money in our country. Don’t send it overseas to bail out other countries that never pay us back. We have Americans that are homeless and starving here, too.

Transparency can only be transparent if it is put out to see. What you don’t see, you don’t know.

Bailing out big business is not an answer to an economic meltdown – not when millions of people lose their jobs because of financial greed and mismanagement.

If you want to stimulate the economy, send the check.

If you make more money, you should pay more taxes – it just makes sense. (Middle class -30 percent; wealthy 17 percent?)

Businesses are in the business to make money.

We are trying to squeeze the most out of a gallon of gas while the oil companies are trying to squeeze the most out of us. (Cut down on gas, supply and demand will drop.)

We now live in a time when we have billionaires, not millionaires.

How can companies make record-breaking profits during a recession?

If you’re going to trim the tree, sometimes the big branches from the top need to go first, while it still has a few good branches left to trim.
Connie Hieber
Genoa

Supporting kids & community
To the editor: We are all proud of the way our community came together and even received state and national recognition last year to rise above the devastation of the June tornado.

Let us do that again by coming together to vote yes for the Lake Local Schools levy on Nov. 8, 2011. Voting for our school shows not only confidence in our students and future leaders, but also strengthens the values of our community. It is many of these very same students who pitched in to help clean and restore our community to a positive place to live who are now facing the possibility that their future may be compromised due to the fact that the quality of the local school district directly impacts residential property values. The strength of the local school not only affects our property value but also the business site selection by companies. It also provides employment for community members and uses local services and materials when available. To continue to strengthen the value of our community, we need to support and encourage the educational and academic achievement of all students; not only the advanced and typical student but also the disadvantaged and special needs students. The students are the leaders of tomorrow and therefore, it is our responsibility to provide quality education for them.

Many ask why does the school need more money and that is easily answered. This is due to the fact that we will have a reduction in our state funding by $2 million over the next two years and yet as everyone knows, expenses for all services have and will continue to rise. Our local school board and administration have already cut $1.3 million from the budget while still maintaining a quality educational program of at least an Excellent rating and spending $8,357 per student, which is more than $2,000 less per student than the state average of $10,566. Others ask about the new school and because of state laws and regulations, no levy money can be used for the new school. The new high school is completely funded by insurance monies, private donations and a grant from the Ohio School Facilities Commission. Another positive for us is that the new school will be an added attraction and source of pride for our community. A positive yes vote does more than support a quality education for all of Lake students – it also provides an avenue to promote and ensure a better and more secure community in the future.
Opal L. Sherman
Walbridge

An excellent job
To the editor: I will be voting yes for the Lake Local Schools for many reasons. One, it is “for the kids” and our future. We need a well-balanced workforce to succeed. Lake Schools are doing an excellent job in educating our children, and have done so for many years.

Second, voters in the past supported the schools, so I could receive a quality education. They knew the importance of a well-educated community. I will therefore support the schools now so my children and the other children will have the benefit of an excellent education.

We all know how important education is to our community. Excellent schools make excellent communities. Lake Local School District has a core of dedicated teachers and administrators as well a very dedicated school board that have worked very hard and continue to work very hard to cope with the reduced educational funding we are receiving from the state. I encourage you to vote yes on Nov. 8.
Brad Delventhal
Lake Board of Education member

1,700+ reasons
To the editor: I would like to take this opportunity to ask you all to come out and support the Lake Local School District in the Nov. 8 election. You may ask why we deserve your support. In addition to the approximately 1,700 reasons that attend our school every day, I have a few more.

Did you know that Lake’s per-pupil expenditure (the money we spend as a district divided up equally among all students) is in the bottom 15.5 percent of spending when compared to the 613 other districts in Ohio? As a matter of fact, when you look at the last 16 years combined, Lake is in the bottom 9.3 percent of spending. This suggests that the economic crisis has caused other schools to tighten their belts, just like Lake has done. However, Lake was already running an efficient and lean school district.

Also, the last several years, the middle school and high school  have received the highest ratings they can receive on the state report card. This means that, according to the Ohio Department of Education, Lake is doing a pretty good job educating your kids. As a matter of fact, in the year following a tornado, the district managed to out-perform 63.1 percent of school districts in Ohio.

Voting for a school levy could be thought of like evaluating a product. Everyone likes to get great value for a great price. When purchasing most products, if you can get something in the top third in quality for the bottom 10 percent in price, that’s a great deal.

Finally, this levy will not allow the district to expand its means. This levy helps replace what the state is cutting from our budget. We hope you think demonstrated financial responsibility, our academic performance and our 1,700 students are enough to help us keep our current funding level.
Lee Herman
Principal, Lake High School/Middle School

Not again
To the editor: I attended school in the Oregon School System. We did not have:

1, The most expensive school buses.
2. The most expensive running track.
3. Teachers’ assistants.
4. Three buses on each route picking up children of different ages.
5. We didn’t pay to play sports or be in the band.
6. We didn’t have to pay rent for band instruments.

When the value of our homes fell 10 percent several years ago, we didn’t get a decrease in our property taxes as they did in Lucas County. It takes me more than two months of my income to pay my current taxes. Of that. 56 percent goes to the Benton-Carroll-Salem School System. Those of you who pay your property taxes as part of your mortgage do not realize that you pay a like percentage.

Threats to close two more schools are no threat at all as these schools are going to be closed anyway sooner than later, as I have been told this week. Passing of the levy will have no bearing on the fact.

I have a listing of B-C-S employees’ salaries, worked hours and days worked. It is for the year 2011 and the highest paid gets $101,626. In August, the administrators announced a freeze in their wages, but I have been told that person’s wages are now in excess of $107,000. It seems that the administration raised their salaries before they froze them. It appears to me that the present B-C-S administrators are more concerned with their salaries and students are second.

It was announced that Ottawa County has collected a million dollars in back taxes. The auditor’s office stated that $68,900 went to the B-C-S Board. Why haven’t we been too informed by the school board?

Remember, raising the cost of something doesn’t necessarily make it better. It just makes it expensive.
Ron Swope 
Rural Oak Harbor
 

A good investment
To the editor: One of the responsibilities of a board of education is to maximize the use of public dollars. The Woodmore Board of Education is very diligent in determining when to spend money and what kind of return we will get on our investment.

Recently, the board invested in an office building in Elmore and this has caused some controversy. I would like to take this opportunity to present the facts that caused our board to make this decision.

The purchase price of the building was $150,000, which was paid for with permanent improvement dollars. This is important.

We immediately saved $800 per month in rent, or $9,600 annually (forever).

We have a solid lease agreement that is paying $1,000 a month or $12,000 annually for 10 years.

If we take the $9,600 in saved rent ant the $12,000 in lease payments, we have an income of $21,600 annually to the general fund.

If we divide the $150,000 by $21,600, we get 6.94. So, we will have the building paid for using savings and income in 6.94 years. The $21,600 saved annually will still happen, at least until year 10.

Furthermore, we invested in fiberoptics, thus eliminating a T1 line that we were paying $400 per month to use. The $20,000 paid for the fiberoptics will be paid for in a little over four years – actually 4.1 years with savings.

Once again, we have created savings that can continue long after the fiber is paid for. Another plus to this investment is the money we receive in savings helps bolster our general fund, which keeps us off the ballot.

In 10 years, we save $21,600 + $4,800 x 10 = $264,000 saved. In the second 10 years, we save $9,600 + $4,800 x 10 = $144,000. In total, $408,000 or 2.7 mills will be saved.
Steve Huss
Board President, Woodmore Local Schools

A dire need
To the editor: The Woodmore School District is in dire need of a Pre-K grade building. Teachers are hopeful that the voters will consider voting for the bond issue on Nov. 8.

On days when we have a heavy rain or a long, steady rain, it interferes with the education of our students. When This happens, water seeps through the foundation or overwhelms the drainpipes and spreads across the floor. For the classrooms that are affected, the students and teachers have to move to another room, if one is available. In the past, we have had to crowd two classes into one room. We continued to teach lessons, but were very cramped with 40-plus students in one small room.

An additional problem can be seen with the electrical wiring in the 85-year-old building. In the second-grade rooms, it is not uncommon to pop a breaker when plugging in some of our basic equipment. We need to have a sufficient electrical system to meet the technological needs of the 21st-century school.

We recognize and appreciate the support voters have given to Woodmore Schools. We understand that budgets are tight in this current economy. However, our children’s education needs to be a top priority. Our students deserve the best educational facility we are able to provide.

We need a new building to ensure that our students, children and grandchildren are being challenged with the newest technology and taught in a safe and secure building. Please consider supporting the bond issue on Nov. 8.
Linda Fotoples
Stacey Martin
Janus Perkins
Woodmore Elementary Second Grade Teachers

The best way to go
To the editor: On Nov. 8, voters in the Woodmore School District will have the opportunity to vote on a new elementary school and an auditorium. I want to share some thoughts on how important it is that this levy passes.

In June 2007, the Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) inspected our buildings and said they would partially pay to demolish the elementary school and the Hetrick wing.

They have offered us $7,000,000 to build new. They will not pay for renovating.

Some have suggested we renovate because it is less expensive; on the surface, maybe. However, in the long run, you could easily invest several million dollars and you still have an old building.

Then, after a few years, you still have to build a new building and there is no assurance that state money will be available.

Erecting a new building means we can focus our Permanent Improvement money on upgrading the high school, textbooks, technology, etc.

I understand a new building is expensive, costing the owner of a $100,000 home $18 per month. But it is the best way to go at this time.

In fact, there is no better time than now to build.

Please vote. Thank you for your support.
John H. Fernbaugh
Superintendent

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