Rethink or abandon plan to revamp Poland schools

Rethink or abandon plan to revamp Poland schools

I recently submitted my resignation after 10 years as chairman of the Poland Village planning commission. However, I would be delinquent if I left the position without sharing my perspective on the recent proposals of the Poland schools.

The administration has placed a bond issue before voters to build new schools, and they are clear that their intention is to abandon Union Elementary and the Middle School if it passes. The administration argues that although they have not properly maintained the current buildings, they can be relied upon to responsibly plan and build new ones at great expense, while incurring a large debt at a time of declining enrollment. This plan is poorly reasoned at best from a planning and historic-preservation perspective.

Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable once wrote, “what preservation is really about is the retention and active relationship of buildings of the past to the community’s functioning present. The accumulation is called culture.”

There is no place in Poland where our history and culture mesh with our present like Union and the Middle School. Poland children, including William McKinley, have been educated in those buildings and their predecessors for two centuries. The details of that history can be found in Dr. Zorn’s “Triumph and Tradition,” a book the present administration seems not to have read.

There are no realistic adaptive uses for school buildings of that size, and the Mahoning Valley is littered with abandoned schools for which no useful purpose could be found. Poland voters should be aware that the probable result of the administration’s current plan would be the eventual demolition of both schools.

I would suggest that the bond issue before the voters this fall shows a profound disrespect for the value of our historic buildings and the physical fabric of our community. The administration ignores the consequences of their plan from a planning and preservation perspective.

The bond issue, if passed, will set us irrevocably on the path to a drastic change in the culture of our community, and to the eventual demolition of Union and the Middle School.

This has never been a community that abandons its history or its traditions so casually. This plan should either be drastically rethought or abandoned.

J. Michael Thompson, Poland

Atty. Thompson also is president of the Mahoning County Bar Association

Adjunct faculty forced to resort to government aid

When I saw The Vindicator headline about YSU faculty salaries on July 12, I once again hoped that the true picture of faculty- salary inequity at YSU would be portrayed.

Recently retired from 10 years of teaching for YSU in the capacity of adjunct faculty, I wish to comment on the deplorable circumstances of adjunct faculty that are not mentioned in the article.

YSU floats on the backs of the adjunct faculty who collectively teach about 60 percent of classes. Yet adjunct faculty do not share in the raises, benefits, opportunities or representation in contract negotiations afforded to other categories of employees at YSU. In fact, options for adjunct faculty not only failed to improve, but worsened when their wages were capped at a maximum of $9,600 (with master’s degree), their hours were capped at a maximum of six per semester, and many were forced to then seek such employment at more than one university, resulting in much inconvenience, travel expense and commuting time.

The pay for adjunct faculty at YSU is embarrassingly low, and has not even been reviewed since 1991 (and it was low then). Students are shocked when they are informed of this, as 1991 is prior to when the traditional student was born!

A recently hired adjunct faculty member shared with me that in her previous adjunct position in another state, the pay (although still low and without benefits) was double that which is offered at YSU.

Nationally this is not only a largely unexposed problem but clearly a justice issue. A recent national news item reported adjunct faculty earn so little that 25 percent receive governmental assistance along with minimum-wage workers to supplement their rock bottom pay.

Another article this year in the New York Times correlated the gigantic increase in university tuition in the past few decades to large increases in administration costs, positions and salaries (not to hugely increased faculty wages in any category).

If we’re going to talk about faculty salary, let’s present the whole picture, including those who teach the majority of classes for a fraction of those salaries reported as less than their counterparts in your article.

Karres Cvetkovich, Youngstown

Has world gone wacky with fracking, pot issues?

I can hardly believe that the authors of the misguided Community Bill of Rights are returning for a fifth time for a ballot issue.

Where is our society going? Have we lost all sense of direction – or just common sense period? It’s bad enough that some of the adult population mixed with some younger people are walking around half stoned on marijuana, now there is a strong movement out there to legalize this junk so we can all walk around stoned on the happy plant.

It is very obvious that the proponents of this undertaking have spent far far too long in the phantom zone and should return to reality, but most important it is our job, the voters, to send a strong message to these people that this is unacceptable in our society. It’s bad enough that drugs play such an important role in our state and country, but to open up the door even more is insane.

Should this appear on the November ballot it is our duty to vote no and send a strong message to the happy plant people that we are not interested.

Jim Eidel, Beaver Township