Twinsburg School District Asking for New Levy

My local school district has been conducting forums to explore public reactions to a new school levy of either 4.9 or 6.9 mills. Summit County has reduced property values during this recession period by more than 10%, so this impacts a bit on how much revenue is collected by schools and local governments.

Personally, my taxable property value was reduced by $7,620, decreasing my my annual property taxes by $234. Small potatoes overall, but multiply this by all property owners in my school district and it is significant. If schools ask for a 4.9 mill levy, they will collect about $281 a year from me or about $47 more than I paid in 2010. The 6.9 mill proposal will increase my taxes next year by $396 or $162 a year more than I paid in 2010.

Bottom line: the 4.9 mills proposal will not raise enough revenue for the schools unless drastic and permanent cuts are made and there is still no guarantee that they won't come back for another increase in two or three years. I would support the 6.9 mills proposal if the school district would do the following:
 1. make modest and permanent budget cuts this year,
 2. do not go for any loans this year in anticipation of future revenues,
 3. promise not to ask voters for any additional levy or bond issues over the next five years.

Using Public Lands to Develop Clean Energy?

More from President Obama's State of the Union:

"I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes.  And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, working with us, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -– with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year."

The Federal Government owns nearly 650 million acres of land - that means almost one third of all the land area of the United States qualifies as "public land". Public lands include National Parks, National Forests, and National Wildlife Refuges. 

So what kind of development are we talking about - thermal, wind, natural gas? Every state has some public lands, but most of the acreage is out West, so I'm guessing that's where the focus will be. 

State of the Union - the morning after

I watched the State the Union address last night and spent three hour this morning studying the enhanced version on YouTube. The enhanced version had President Obama on the left side of the screen and the slide presentation on the right. I'm sure the slides were meant to clarify his talking points, but they also called attention to details that merit further examination. For example, Obama believes that eliminating the Bush tax cuts is fair. The slide that accompanied his address shows that someone earning $40,000 to $50,000 would pay $909 more in taxes and someone earning $1,000,000 a year would pay $103,835. The reality of this example is that the lower middle class family would actually pay 20% more in taxes once the Bush tax is repealed, but the millionaire would only pay 10% more! Granted the rich millionaire would pay more in actual money, but the 20% increase in taxes would hurt the salaried working stiff a lot more. Washington would get a heck of a lot more tax revenue to pay for new spending programs and the working poor would continue their downward economic spiral. I have to ask, where is the fairness in this?

Fair tax?

I'm not opposed to everyone paying the same tax rate, possibly 20%, with the following exception: the first $25,000 of personal income and capital gains should be tax free. This would help low income workers, the young, and seniors on fixed income. Even workers earning up to $100,000 would see a slight benefit.

WiFi Access to TV Shows

Through my Apple TV device I have access to movies and TV shows available on Netflix and iTunes. I subscribe to Netflix online and rent individual titles from iTunes, so I know that accessing entertainment online is not impossible. I am also able to view current TV shows via DishNetwork online the day after they are broadcast on satellite TV. So when are we going to be able to watch shows in real time on our computers, tablets, or smart phones? Or when are we going to be able to purchase services from any provider online, whether they're our local satellite provider or not?

Financial Mess

Just heard Chris, Democratic apologist, on TV say that once the Bush tax cuts go away the national debt will start receding. I had to make note of that somewhere, so I wouldn't forget it. I can't believe that anyone seriously believes that higher taxes alone will bring a reduction of our national debt, so it is okay to borrow another trillion dollars. The only problem is that in three months we will need to borrow another trillion. At this rate in another five years the interest alone on our national debt will equal our GDP.

Double Rainbows over Pittsburgh

My dear Aunt Eleanor passed away last week. I wanted to share this eloquent and incredibly touching eulogy that one of her grandchildren, Rebecca, wrote and presented to us all at the funeral service.

As requested, here is a copy of Becca's eulogy to my mom:

Hello, I wanted to first thank you all for coming and for all your prayers that you have said for Ammy during these past few months. These past few days to say the least, have not been easy for me or any of the family but one thing was not surprising was how many people came to show their love at the funeral home. As someone who has known Ammy my whole life, as I’m sure many of you have, I know what an influence she has been for me. So when I have people come up to me and say “I’ve known your grandma for 50 years…”(twice as long as I’ve been alive) it makes me think “wow how lucky this person must be to have known her for so long and what an impact she must have had on their life.”

I know my grandma had a lot of people she really loved and who really loved her in return. Growing up I looked forward every Christmas to be allowed to tape Christmas cards to the wall of my living room. As they arrived each day and I would go out and be so excited about how many there were…until I got to Ammy’s house and saw how many she had! These past few months especially when we would go visit Ammy we always made sure to say “I Love You” and wait for her to say it back before we left… even though just hearing her say it one more time would never be enough…I think she got the message though because during this last stay in the hospital she finally at one point said “I LOVE YOU ALL!” as if that would stop us. As you leave the service today there will be a basket with some of the stars that Ammy made and we would like you, the people who mean the most to her, to please take one home with you so that you can always be reminded of the love that she had for each and every one of you.

One thing that will always remind me of Ammy are her precious moments. I have to admit that I have been in Ammy’s house a million times and seen her precious moments that she has in her china cabinets a million times but it wasn’t until recently that I really started to think about them and why they are so important to her. I guess I should have just looked at what they are called.

Precious Moments….the moments we have with the ones we love are never enough. They are precious and should not be taken advantage of. You should never put something off until tomorrow because you never know if there will be a tomorrow. Enjoy every precious moment you get to spend with the ones you love, whether it’s a child being born, grandchild or even a great grandchild in Ammy’s case, a birthday, a graduation, a wedding or even just those simple moments when you’re sitting in your grandmother’s kitchen helping her make a million cookies or decorating two trees for Christmas with her special beaded ornaments that sparkled or had pictures on them and her homemade German paper stars. We are all so thankful that Ammy was able to be a part of these precious moments in our lives, especially Eva who was with her the smallest amount of time, but held such a big place in her heart. Ammy always found a way to make all the important events in our lives special and for that we will forever be thankful. And by the way, once this is all over, the race to the cookies in the basement is on!

I would like to share some of the things that remind us some of those precious moments that Amy, Lee and I had with Ammy. Some things that will always remind us of Ammy are half eaten bananas, cherry 7-up, geometric shape building pieces, magnetic bingo chips, clip on earrings, the Hallmark three angels and post it notes. One thing that Ammy was well known for was writing you a post it note when you did something that she did not approve of…We would come home from school and find post it notes all over our rooms telling us to clean them up and put this away and “why is there BBQ sauce in your bedroom?!?!” and if there wasn’t post-its available then a paper plate would always suffice. One thing we all know is that if heaven doesn’t have it together up there, God will be finding a lot of post-it notes.

Ammy always meant what she said and no one was going to change her mind. One time she told Amy one too many times to clean her room and if she didn’t clean it she would throw all her stuff away! Needless to say, Amy didn’t clean her room and came home to three garbage bags full of everything in her room! We knew not to mess with Ammy after that.

One inside joke that Ammy and Lee will always share is Lee going up to Ammy and tickling her elbow. Lee learned the hard way what happens when you mess with Ammy. One Christmas Lee got a present from Ammy wrapped of course in her beautiful wrapping paper and when he opened it he found another box, and then another box, and another…after several boxes later he found a note that said “why are you looking for your present here?” It became a yearly challenge for the two of them ever since.

Every Christmas I will always remember Ammy sitting next to me in church in her black coat (which for some reason she never took off) and after the service being told to run up front (since we sit in the back) and find the best poinsettia for her. Even after it got too hard for her to go to church these past few Christmas’s we always made sure to get her one and bring it home and surprise her. One Christmas Eve tradition that will always remind us of Ammy is eating wafers with honey and leaving a piece for the angels. I guess we know which angel we will be leaving it for this year.

One thing that my husband always says to me is “you are just like your mother” and now as I’m getting older I’m learning that that is probably true and probably not a bad thing, I know that my mom learned from the best and that Ammy’s love and unwavering support and wise words of advice (whether we wanted to hear it or not) made me a lot of who I am today and gave me the confidence to go out and reach my dreams knowing I always had someone there in my corner. You only get a handful of people in your life who you know you can count on and I was lucky enough to have Ammy be one of those people.

My sister said that Ammy is the strongest person she will ever know. I couldn’t agree more. She has always been a strong person, she had strong opinions but loved us even stronger. She kept a positive attitude and never gave up even after all she went through with cancer twice. She is always someone I will always look up to because I understand what it feels like to have found your high school sweetheart and one true love and eventually marrying them and starting a family.

True strength to me is having that person taken from you too soon and to have to live the next 22 years waiting to see him again. There is no doubt that we are going to miss Ammy more than we will ever know. There is also no doubt in my mind that Ammy will be looking down on us and believe me, she will find a way to let us know if we are doing something she doesn’t approve of…but I know someone who has missed her for a long time now who wants a precious moment of his own. So Pappy, give Ammy a kiss from all of us! We love you!