Trumbull commissioners must start doing their jobs

Trumbull commissioners must start doing their jobs
EDITOR:
There is no need to increase the Trumbull County sale tax, or to terminate county employees in spite of a projected $5 million budget short fall. Recently, state Attorney General Jim Petro said radical change is needed to keep the State of Ohio in the black. The same philosophy applies to Trumbull County. It is time the county got back to basics with wages and benefits for all the administrators and county employees.
Recent newspaper reports say that Trumbull County is paying maintenance director Tony Delmont in excess of $72,000, plus health care and pension per year. That is essentially paying him 72 grand a year to mow the lawns.
The wage and benefits packages through decades of collective bargaining abuse have spiraled out of control. Trumbull County commissioners' lack of diligence and apathy has driven the county to the point of bankruptcy. All the while the county commissioners have taken the attitude of Commissioner Tsagaris, when presented with the problems, "We owe it to the employees."
It is time for a radical change in the way Trumbull County does business. It is time for Trumbull County to return to basic service at basic wages.
Administration and the rank and file should be told that their salaries and wages will be cut in two. They will have to pay for half of their health care benefits. If they cannot pay your part of the premium, the county will obtain health insurance that they can afford. The county will cease paying retirement. A 401K with no county participation henceforth will pay pensions.
This approach allows county services to the citizens to be delivered uninterrupted at no additional cost to the taxpayers. It keeps the county from having to pay unemployment benefits. Finally, it keeps the hard working public servants employed.
If you do not have the intestinal fortitude to deliver the message, when Trumbull County goes into state fiscal emergency, state Auditor Betty Montgomery will deliver it for you.
Being elected to public office has a lot of perks associated with it. There are parades to be marched in, stores to opened, and babies to be kissed: a lot of good times. There is also some time when the job becomes unpleasant. This is one of these times. It is time for commissioners to step up to the plate and do their job.
THADDEUS M. PRICE
Warren
Mahoning County should make cuts, impose tax
EDITOR:
The first Mahoning county commissioners meeting after the failure of the 0.5 percent sales tax can be summed up by one statement from the temporary county administrator, who said that the county for the past five years did have a balance budget; it is state law. How did the county get to a balanced budget? By spending the surplus (savings) from previous years, which is now depleted. The main reason for the sales tax failure is the fact the county did not keep within its budget and refused through at least two audits to make changes to save money.
This is how to fix the problem.
The elected officials and heads of all departments must start today working 16 hours a day and six days a week to get a budget that would match the $9 million the county would get from the 0.5 percent sales tax (not $12 million), and then come up with $4.5 million in cuts (instead of $13 million). The cuts are needed because $3 million of the 0.5 percent sales tax goes to the local communities and because the county was spending $1.5 million over what the sales tax brought into the county.
At the last meeting of the year, the commissioners must pass the balanced budget and impose the 0.5 percent tax, with the money going to the local communities till the November election. This will allow the voters to see the county is living within the money given to the county.
If the tax is left to expire or is imposed and the budget not balanced, the county will remain even longer in the depressed economy we have now.
DAVID R. PIPER
Boardman
New definition of 'mandate'
EDITOR:
I wanted to write as a loyal reader to let you know how I feel about Republican attempts to characterize George Bush's election victory as a & quot;mandate. & quot; The truth of the matter is that the election illustrated exactly the opposite -- that the nation is bitterly divided and that no mandate exists for an extremely conservative agenda.
When Richard Nixon won re-election over George McGovern in 1972, he carried 61 percent of the popular vote and captured the Electoral College 520-17.
In 1984, when the incumbent Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale, he took 59 percent of the popular vote and carried the Electoral College 525-13.
Those elections, it is fair to say, produced mandates for Republican presidents, as well as political capital to be spent during their second terms.
But with 51 percent of the popular vote and a 286-252 win in the Electoral College -- in which President Bush won the decisive state, Ohio, so narrowly that the result was not clear on election night -- the Republicans are claiming an obviously nonexistent mandate. This is, of course, a political ploy intended to exaggerate the nation's level of support for the president's policies and proposals. But I think as a news organization, you have a responsibility to differentiate between the actual vote tally and the rhetoric of the Republican spin machine.
LINDA DICKEY
East Liverpool
X The writer is president of GMP Local Union 419, which represents workers at the Homer Laughlin China Co. in Newell, W.V.
Network tricks failed
EDITOR:
Congratulations to & quot;W. & quot; My faith in the American system is renewed.
The joke is on CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC. For all that they have tried to shove down our throats in the past several months, it did not work.
The majority of Americans displayed their intelligence Election Day, showing that they did not want a president represented by the likes of Michael Moore and his band of rabble-rousers. For four years the media has campaigned to defeat George Bush using their power of television to influence the public interpretation of reality by implications and slanted news. The news reporters have dismally failed to recognize that their jobs are to report the news, not make the news by creating controversy.
I was highly bemused by the network & quot;stars & quot; scrambling to determine & quot;what went wrong. & quot; The answer is that the American majority did not buy the baloney they were trying to sell. I applaud those who voted for George W. Bush. God Bless America.
BARBARA L. SNIDER
Canfield
I'll keep my tainted money
EDITOR:
I read with interest last Sunday that my local Catholic bishop, Thomas Tobin, & quot;was absolutely pleased that so many people at least used moral issues as a center for their vote. & quot; The unfortunate implication of his words is that those of us who did not support the re-election of George Bush are morally unsound.
This view was further promoted by the Rev. Let-Me-Try-Out-for-the-Taliban Witt, who has been sniveling in front of the Mahoning Women's Center for years. One gets the impression that the sight of a bare ankle would inflame this poor old soul to apoplexy.
I am sure that the tainted money of this Jezebel Catholic woman will not be welcome in the annual Bishop's Appeal, or the ambitious long-term building project fund. I will no longer offend the bishop with my check.
SUSIE SAULITIS
Mineral Ridge