Give Ohio workers a choice

Give Ohio workers a choice

Ohio public employees de- serve a choice about union membership. As an employee of YSU, I was forced for many years to pay union dues simply to keep my job. In many Ohio communities, school teachers, firefighters, police and others are in the same boat.

At a time when Ohio’s citizens need every cent they earn, many are compelled by law to send part of their wages — our tax dollars — to out-of-state union bosses.

Voting yes on Issue 2 will give public employees a choice. They can join a union and support it, or they can reject it, as their consciences dictate. The union bosses, of course, want to protect their cash flow and prevent that choice by saturating the air waves with misleading advertising.

Please do what’s right for Ohio by supporting freedom to choose. Please join me in voting yes on Issue 2.

Herbert K. McMath, Hudson

Collective bargaining is important

The purpose of this let- ter is to let the voters of Ohio know that Senate Bill 5 must go down to defeat to protect collective bargaining rights for workers that include those who are fighting for safer staffing levels, training, critical safety equipment, partners in high-risk patrols for people and safety officers in our schools.

Public employees did not go into their jobs to get a big paycheck. As a 35-year veteran retired Ohio school teacher, I can say this from experience.

We chose our careers to help people. Many of these jobs have taken years of extra training. Many of these jobs place the employees in harm’s way. And we, the citizens, benefit from this. Let us help our police, firefighters, teachers, nurses, and all public employees do their jobs by voting no on Issue 2.

In all my years of teaching, I never saw any board of education say, “We are going to give you all a raise.” If it had not been for collective bargaining, we as teachers would never had an increase in salary helping us to support our family and many other community activities

Marlin Spellman, Ashtabula

Protecting village 24 hours a day

The New Middletown Vil- lage mayor, council and police department are asking voters to approve a two-year 2-mill police levy. It will continue funding for 24-hour police protection at an average annual cost of $64 for the owner of a $100,000 home. It will generate $47,000 a year. The police department was awarded two Ohio Criminal Justice Grants in the previous years to fund 24-hour patrols for the first time in the history of the village.

During the last two years the village has observed a decrease in property and juvenile crimes and an increase in arrests for impaired driving, weapons, drugs and wanted persons. The proactive stance taken by the police department continues to provide the residents and businesses of New Middletown a safe community in which to live, raise families and succeed in business.

The police department provides a school resource officer who interacts daily with the children of our school district, mediating problems and concerns from within the school, conducting follow up programs at homes and creating a safe school environment for our children.

In the last two years the community has experienced an armed home invasion, kidnapping, armed robbery and meth lab, and a significant increase in drug activity, along with the unscrupulous criminal element associated with those crimes. Your support is vitally important in providing a professional police agency with a mission of protecting and providing one of the safest communities to live in Mahoning County. My office and the village police officers encourage you to vote yes on the New Middletown police levy.

Chief Vincent D’Egidio, New Middletown

Libraries are a blessing

After my husband retired from the U.S.A.F. in 1987, we returned to our hometown of Bristolville. It is interesting to think back and realize that one of the first places we returned to in Bristol was our public library. My husband and I grew up with the convenience and privilege of going to the Bristol Public Library, which is located next door to the Bristol Local School.

With each move that we made during our years in the Air Force, locating the nearest library was high on our list of things to do. We introduced our children at early ages to the services that the libraries offered.

Bristol was blessed to have an Andrew Carnegie building given to this township in 1912. The placement of the library in Bristol is conducive to the surrounding townships in northern Trumbull County, and many of our patrons live in these surrounding townships.

Bristol Public Library at this time is facing a decrease in funding from the state of Ohio for its operating expenses. The board of trustees of Bristol Public Library has decided to put a 1-mill levy on the Bristol ballot in November.

I’m writing this letter to encourage the residents of Bristol Township to support the library levy (approximate cost, $30 a year per household) by voting yes in November.

Donna J. Holko, Bristolville

What’s the word for all this?

For quite a while now I have been searching for a word to characterize the economic, political, and military mess our country is in. That word is shame.

Belated shame on our previous president for lying to us and getting us into two unfunded wars. Current shame on President Obama for his slow extraction of our troops from Iraq and for escalating the quagmire in Afghanistan. Continuing shame on the party of no, the Republicans, who have thwarted every economic initiative proposed by Obama. A lesser amount, but still some shame applies to many gutless Democrats who have failed to back up Obama.

Shame on Republican governors, especially Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio, for their union-busting legislation.

Shame on that poor excuse for a senator from Kentucky, minority “leader” Mitch McConnell. Here is a man who proclaimed from January of 2009 that his sole priority was not working to reduce unemployment, ending our wars, building a better tax structure, but to make Obama a one-term president. And how about some shame on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, who would like to emulate his counterparts in Ohio and Wisconsin in deconstructing public education and other public services in Pennsylvania.

Big-time shame on the super rich, the big banks, Wall Street, the big untaxed corporations like GE, all of whom have no conscience and continue to accept huge bonuses and have Congress in their back pockets. Lastly, shame on ourselves for electing to Congress and state legislatures the kind of people who got us into our mess.

Frank Frankovich, Hermitage, Pa.

The waste of a greenhouse

The greenhouse in Board- man is scheduled for demo. It seems to me that it would be an ideal place to produce food, year round.

With the increase in gas drilling, it could be feasible to make a deal with a drilling company to drill a well and provide the fuel needed to heat the greenhouse in cold weather. Opening the greenhouse would provide jobs and produce food such as herbs, spices, tomatoes and other crops and flowers.

Schools could start agriculture classes and county jails could provide cheap labor. With world population increasing, tillable land in a few years will not provide the food needed.

Bruce Wilkins, Boardman