Ryan
I think that it would have been avirtual impossibilty to have handled the fianancing for a project that will take a decade with a single bond issue. This project had to phased. No way around that, given the need to keep schools running while construction was underway. So, while you could design the renovations for Horace Mann and Emerson in 2003, there would be no way to determine what the cost would be 5 years later. Worse still, phase 3 which would have required an 8 year crystal ball.
We were told there would be three phases. We could not be told what the costs would be, because there was no responsible way of giving an accurate figure. (During library bidding, both a Chinese corner on the steel market and Hurricane Katrina played havoc with RELIABLE construction estimates, based on approved designs). THe board has approached this responsibly.
Jeff
Issue 4
Moderator: Jim O'Bryan
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Jeff Endress
- Posts: 858
- Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:13 am
- Location: Lakewood
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Ryan Salo
- Posts: 1056
- Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:11 pm
- Location: Lakewood
- Contact:
Jeff,
I completely understand your point. I am not suggesting in any way that I expected exact figures, just more details. I know that most of the voters didn't pay any attention to anything, I can attest to that just from standing at the polls this morning. I think that they deserved to know right up front that if the 1st 2 didn't pass the state would not pitch in, this is popular now, but it wasn't during the first phase. They also should have known that the state funding isn't given to us until 2011, which allows a lot of time for laws and funding to interfere, and they should have also known right up front that the 3rd phase would be another increase.
Like I said earlier, I voted for the first 2 and will vote for the 3rd, I just feel their "secret campaign" could have been better handled.
I completely understand your point. I am not suggesting in any way that I expected exact figures, just more details. I know that most of the voters didn't pay any attention to anything, I can attest to that just from standing at the polls this morning. I think that they deserved to know right up front that if the 1st 2 didn't pass the state would not pitch in, this is popular now, but it wasn't during the first phase. They also should have known that the state funding isn't given to us until 2011, which allows a lot of time for laws and funding to interfere, and they should have also known right up front that the 3rd phase would be another increase.
Like I said earlier, I voted for the first 2 and will vote for the 3rd, I just feel their "secret campaign" could have been better handled.
Ryan Salo
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Ivor Karabatkovic
- Posts: 845
- Joined: Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:45 am
- Contact:
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Lynn Farris
- Posts: 559
- Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:24 pm
- Location: Lakewood, Ohio
- Contact:
Mr. Juris has a right to his opinion.
We are a highly taxed city. I applaud people that want to save our tax dollars. I am delighted our Gov. is doing something to help Senior Citizens regarding property tax and I pray that the state finally comes up with a better way to fund schools that is more fair.
Shawn, I am pleased to see that you are going to be on the Chamber board. It is nice to have a financial watchdog there. I think we need to have everyone's perspective. And you are voicing what a lot of people do say.
But I think Mr. Endress's post is also enlightening. It is extremely exciting to see what the schools are doing. But for someone that has been downsized, outsourced or forced to take early retirement and just wants to stay in the home they have lived in all their lives - taxes hurt and everytime we vote for more of them, we need to consider both sides of the issue.
So lets be fair, this may have been the most reasonable tax increase in a while - but Mr. Juris is speaking for a great many people who are fed up with taxes - many of whom didn't even realize their was an election yesterday.
We are a highly taxed city. I applaud people that want to save our tax dollars. I am delighted our Gov. is doing something to help Senior Citizens regarding property tax and I pray that the state finally comes up with a better way to fund schools that is more fair.
Shawn, I am pleased to see that you are going to be on the Chamber board. It is nice to have a financial watchdog there. I think we need to have everyone's perspective. And you are voicing what a lot of people do say.
But I think Mr. Endress's post is also enlightening. It is extremely exciting to see what the schools are doing. But for someone that has been downsized, outsourced or forced to take early retirement and just wants to stay in the home they have lived in all their lives - taxes hurt and everytime we vote for more of them, we need to consider both sides of the issue.
So lets be fair, this may have been the most reasonable tax increase in a while - but Mr. Juris is speaking for a great many people who are fed up with taxes - many of whom didn't even realize their was an election yesterday.
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." ~ George Carlin
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Shawn Juris
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Jim O'Bryan
- Posts: 14196
- Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:12 pm
- Location: Lakewood
- Contact:
Shawn Juris wrote:Well thanks Lynn.
Gotta love the way that civic and professional involvement in your community can be used against you when the natives don't like what you're saying. Heaven forbid there's a difference in opinion or a method is questioned.
Shawn
The entire Observer Deck is about civic discourse. Everyone on the board is dedicated to the discussion. we might not always be on the same page, we might never be on the same page, but we feel the discussion is the best way to reach a consensus. Of course the Advisory Board rarely agrees on anything, and that is always amusing.
For some reason you feel if the opinion differs from yours it must be an attack or wrong. The Board feels you have earned a right at the table, and we hope you always present your views, framed with whatever information you bring.
Shawn, you and I see Lakewood very differently but I will always fight for your right to voice your opinion.
Issue 4. Now that that is behind us, you will see us go after the schools and the way they spend money, come up short, and all the little problems that need to be aired. But we needed the schools finished. Without them done, the rest of the discussion is moot. Now if we move fast enough the operating levy might not be needed. If we think the waste is what we believe it is, the levy might not be needed.
But the schools had to be finished, and not with bake sales.
You make valid points, and I hope I do as well.
peace
.
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident
"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg
"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Lakewood Resident
"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg
"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama
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Suzanne Metelko
- Posts: 221
- Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:55 pm
Shawn, it's not your imagination. The deck has a perspective and either you're with it or you're wrong. Taxes are high, people aren't happy about it and regardless of the case that's made, perception is reality. If the perception is wrong, it will have to be fixed but until then...
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.â€
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Jim O'Bryan
- Posts: 14196
- Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:12 pm
- Location: Lakewood
- Contact:
Suzanne Metelko wrote:Shawn, it's not your imagination. The deck has a perspective and either you're with it or you're wrong. Taxes are high, people aren't happy about it and regardless of the case that's made, perception is reality. If the perception is wrong, it will have to be fixed but until then...
Suzanne
If there is no agenda, and no one compares notes on the advisory board, and we rarely talk as a unit. How is that even possible is my question.
There is no set discussion just many voices.
Taxes are high. I do not remeber anyone saying they were not high enough.
FWIW
.
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident
"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg
"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Lakewood Resident
"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg
"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama
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Dan Slife
- Posts: 99
- Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2005 5:58 am
- Location: Lakewood, Ohio
Shawn,
I'd be interested to hear your perspective, as former community chair of the youth master plan, how a negative vote on issue 4 would further the YMP vision of building a community where "all youth and families belong and thrive".
Please elaborate. Seriously.
After your disappearance from the youth master plan community meetings, following your resignation from the chair position, my CAT team was visited by a representative from Junior Achievement. She came on your request.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Youth Master Plan, you can check out the excellent YMP website constructed by John Guscott of the Lakewood Library Technology Center. http://www.lakewoodymp.com/index.html
CAT stands for Community Action Team. My group is concerned with education.
The woman from Junior Achievement made a brief appearance, arriving late and departing early. She promised to make every future meeting for the remainder of the program because the YMP was "important" to her and her agency.
That was over 2 months and 5 meetings ago... we haven't seen her since.
What's Junior Achievement?
From their website: http://www.ja.org/about/about.shtml
"Through age-appropriate curricula, JA programs begin at the elementary school level, teaching children how they can impact the world around them as individuals, workers and consumers. JA programs continue through the middle grades and high school, focusing on the key content areas of entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial literacy."
Entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial literacy?
Never mind the humanities, science, mathematics and art. With JA, Lakewood can capitalize on the expanding niche of telemarketing employment.
The rhetoric of "individuals, workers and consumers" also rings hollow with this Uranian gen x'er. In terms of demographic focus, this is a class specific change operation.
JA embodies the spirit of the times, a place at which we've arrived following the slow decline from citizen to consumer.
It's instructive that JA is molding "individuals, workers and consumers"
rather than, say a more upscale mix globally competitive professionals.
Worker= working class
For the uninitiated, work readiness is PC for service sector, low skills vocational training.
Here's the board of directors:
http://www.ja.org/involved/involved_vol_who_board.shtml
While not a charter school, JA is another form of private sector intervention(via supplementation) on the values, norms and pedagogy of traditional public and parochial educational systems.
However, although disseminating a curriculum of entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy in the class room, JA was not able to bring these values to the table at the Youth Master Plan, establish a stake and integrate within the community milieu.
The education CAT team has not seen JA or Shawn Juris since JA PR literature was dropped on our table, or in Shawn's case, well before.
Peace and God Bless the 'Wood,
Dan
I'd be interested to hear your perspective, as former community chair of the youth master plan, how a negative vote on issue 4 would further the YMP vision of building a community where "all youth and families belong and thrive".
Please elaborate. Seriously.
After your disappearance from the youth master plan community meetings, following your resignation from the chair position, my CAT team was visited by a representative from Junior Achievement. She came on your request.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Youth Master Plan, you can check out the excellent YMP website constructed by John Guscott of the Lakewood Library Technology Center. http://www.lakewoodymp.com/index.html
CAT stands for Community Action Team. My group is concerned with education.
The woman from Junior Achievement made a brief appearance, arriving late and departing early. She promised to make every future meeting for the remainder of the program because the YMP was "important" to her and her agency.
That was over 2 months and 5 meetings ago... we haven't seen her since.
What's Junior Achievement?
From their website: http://www.ja.org/about/about.shtml
"Through age-appropriate curricula, JA programs begin at the elementary school level, teaching children how they can impact the world around them as individuals, workers and consumers. JA programs continue through the middle grades and high school, focusing on the key content areas of entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial literacy."
Entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial literacy?
Never mind the humanities, science, mathematics and art. With JA, Lakewood can capitalize on the expanding niche of telemarketing employment.
The rhetoric of "individuals, workers and consumers" also rings hollow with this Uranian gen x'er. In terms of demographic focus, this is a class specific change operation.
JA embodies the spirit of the times, a place at which we've arrived following the slow decline from citizen to consumer.
It's instructive that JA is molding "individuals, workers and consumers"
rather than, say a more upscale mix globally competitive professionals.
Worker= working class
For the uninitiated, work readiness is PC for service sector, low skills vocational training.
Here's the board of directors:
http://www.ja.org/involved/involved_vol_who_board.shtml
While not a charter school, JA is another form of private sector intervention(via supplementation) on the values, norms and pedagogy of traditional public and parochial educational systems.
However, although disseminating a curriculum of entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy in the class room, JA was not able to bring these values to the table at the Youth Master Plan, establish a stake and integrate within the community milieu.
The education CAT team has not seen JA or Shawn Juris since JA PR literature was dropped on our table, or in Shawn's case, well before.
Peace and God Bless the 'Wood,
Dan
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Rick Uldricks
Suzanne Metelko wrote:Shawn, it's not your imagination. The deck has a perspective and either you're with it or you're wrong. Taxes are high, people aren't happy about it and regardless of the case that's made, perception is reality. If the perception is wrong, it will have to be fixed but until then...
I completely agree, Suzanne. Posting here can be an exercise in frustration. Either you agree with the established perspective or you are made to feel like you are part of the problem.
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Dan Slife
- Posts: 99
- Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2005 5:58 am
- Location: Lakewood, Ohio
Rick,
I would suggest that what some mistake as the slant of the deck is actually the challenge to clarify their perspective within the contrast of opposing views.
When the ability to clarify is limited by underdeveloped or unconscious ideological restraints, some may feel that the deck is "slanted".
The feeling of restriction or slant is often times self-imposed by the agent disseminating the message.
Dan
I would suggest that what some mistake as the slant of the deck is actually the challenge to clarify their perspective within the contrast of opposing views.
When the ability to clarify is limited by underdeveloped or unconscious ideological restraints, some may feel that the deck is "slanted".
The feeling of restriction or slant is often times self-imposed by the agent disseminating the message.
Dan
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Rick Uldricks
Dan Slife wrote:Rick,
I would suggest that what some mistake as the slant of the deck is actually the challenge to clarify their perspective within the contrast of opposing views.
When the ability to clarify is limited by underdeveloped or unconscious ideological restraints, some may feel that the deck is "slanted".
The feeling of restriction or slant is often times self-imposed by the agent disseminating the message.
Dan
Dan,
Thanks for the college-talk, and thank you for proving my point.
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Kenneth Warren
- Posts: 489
- Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:17 pm
Who exactly is the deck?
What exactly constitutes this "the vast ...... (wingnut) conspiracy" of invisible college graduates frustrating the silent majority?
Please name names.
It's campaign season. Vast overgeneralizations to make political hay will likely be the mode of the day.
It's put been put up or shut up from day one.
Why the whining over debate and divergent opinions?
Kenneth Warren
What exactly constitutes this "the vast ...... (wingnut) conspiracy" of invisible college graduates frustrating the silent majority?
Please name names.
It's campaign season. Vast overgeneralizations to make political hay will likely be the mode of the day.
It's put been put up or shut up from day one.
Why the whining over debate and divergent opinions?
Kenneth Warren
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Shawn Juris
Dan,
One of two things has happened throughout this post. Either I worded my objection to issue 4 poorly or my point was gradually misconstrued. Not mine to judge but for clarification, I am not opposed to improving schools. It's a foolish (but often effective) argument to attempt to attribute something like that to someone who is against an issue related to education. Politics 101 I suppose. What I was and am opposed to is increasing taxes further that will only be carried by property owners. They already have the 2nd highest in the county and the county isn't exactly a safe haven from taxes. Related to the YMP, I think that I always saw the objectives differently than others involved. Much like you, I wanted to have an impact and not just talk about it. The recent meetings have conflicted with my work schedule but I won't deny that it I thought the direction should have been different and wanted to step down to leave the majority to lead it through the next stage. So in my view, the YMP was to be a system that assessed and redirected resources when necessary to accomplish the agreed goals of the community. Think of energy not being created or destroyed in relation to funding. The dollars exist and just need to be moved to fit the need. I wasn't looking to create more expenses but maximize what we had. If we go through with all three phases of this taxing and the results (the end result of higher property values) don't follow, then what? We will have fantastic buildings, top notch equipment, terrorist prevention systems, holding cells, laser beams and whatever else has been promised which can't be afforded because there's no money left. The past discussions seems to support that we aren't going to get more commercial income and our solution has been to tax the residents who traditionally are seen as the top of the food chain, the property owners. I know, I know... if we tax the property owners the expense should be passed along to their renters. Not going to happen, it's difficult enough to rent a place let alone pay for the mortgage, maintenance, taxes, and improvements, there is no way a renter in this market is going to pay the amount needed for half a double.
To the second point, Junior Achievement has been highly recommended by several who have experienced it in the classroom or have volunteered in the past. As I saw it, it was a good fit with YMP. But I have admitted that I saw the goals differently. I suppose that it's not important to teach about career choices and budgeting/financial issues. The teachers saw it as beneficial but that was really about it. Maybe it's really more of the same issue that some in Lakewood feel that established, working programs aren't good enough. We need to start it from scratch and recreate the wheel. At any rate, I had referred JA to connect with the YMP to see if there was an interest. This was again what I saw the purpose behind the YMP, find ways that we can make things better. Find resources, identify if they fit and implement them. You're right that it doesn't address regular curriculum because that's what teachers cover every day. I have confidence that the BOE and teachers can handle math, science, etc. This again seemed to be an issue that there was quite a bit of dispute about in the meetings that I attended. The school handles the basic topics, all I was looking for was supplemental subjects that can broaden a student's base of knowlege to be delivered outside of classtime if needed or during if allowed. For what it's worth though, many of the topics covered by JA will be part of the core curriculum in the next couple years, so we can catch up later when the students parents have to figure out how they are supposed to afford their house.
One of two things has happened throughout this post. Either I worded my objection to issue 4 poorly or my point was gradually misconstrued. Not mine to judge but for clarification, I am not opposed to improving schools. It's a foolish (but often effective) argument to attempt to attribute something like that to someone who is against an issue related to education. Politics 101 I suppose. What I was and am opposed to is increasing taxes further that will only be carried by property owners. They already have the 2nd highest in the county and the county isn't exactly a safe haven from taxes. Related to the YMP, I think that I always saw the objectives differently than others involved. Much like you, I wanted to have an impact and not just talk about it. The recent meetings have conflicted with my work schedule but I won't deny that it I thought the direction should have been different and wanted to step down to leave the majority to lead it through the next stage. So in my view, the YMP was to be a system that assessed and redirected resources when necessary to accomplish the agreed goals of the community. Think of energy not being created or destroyed in relation to funding. The dollars exist and just need to be moved to fit the need. I wasn't looking to create more expenses but maximize what we had. If we go through with all three phases of this taxing and the results (the end result of higher property values) don't follow, then what? We will have fantastic buildings, top notch equipment, terrorist prevention systems, holding cells, laser beams and whatever else has been promised which can't be afforded because there's no money left. The past discussions seems to support that we aren't going to get more commercial income and our solution has been to tax the residents who traditionally are seen as the top of the food chain, the property owners. I know, I know... if we tax the property owners the expense should be passed along to their renters. Not going to happen, it's difficult enough to rent a place let alone pay for the mortgage, maintenance, taxes, and improvements, there is no way a renter in this market is going to pay the amount needed for half a double.
To the second point, Junior Achievement has been highly recommended by several who have experienced it in the classroom or have volunteered in the past. As I saw it, it was a good fit with YMP. But I have admitted that I saw the goals differently. I suppose that it's not important to teach about career choices and budgeting/financial issues. The teachers saw it as beneficial but that was really about it. Maybe it's really more of the same issue that some in Lakewood feel that established, working programs aren't good enough. We need to start it from scratch and recreate the wheel. At any rate, I had referred JA to connect with the YMP to see if there was an interest. This was again what I saw the purpose behind the YMP, find ways that we can make things better. Find resources, identify if they fit and implement them. You're right that it doesn't address regular curriculum because that's what teachers cover every day. I have confidence that the BOE and teachers can handle math, science, etc. This again seemed to be an issue that there was quite a bit of dispute about in the meetings that I attended. The school handles the basic topics, all I was looking for was supplemental subjects that can broaden a student's base of knowlege to be delivered outside of classtime if needed or during if allowed. For what it's worth though, many of the topics covered by JA will be part of the core curriculum in the next couple years, so we can catch up later when the students parents have to figure out how they are supposed to afford their house.