Labor Day

May you all have a nice weekend.  Labor Day doesn’t make much sense to me though.  Don’t really know why.

Welfare to Work

And old acquaintance of mine (in internet years) has something that I think might be valuable to read when we consider the Projects in town here.

Welfare to work - Ten years later…again

He references two articles, the first his own, and the second, an interview with Georgia’s Commissioner of Labor Michael Thurmond

And here’s a link to the front page of his blog, Drifting Through the Grift. 

 

The New View

Well, if you’ve picked up a Villager, like we all do and rapidly search for anything about Windham, because we’re navel-gazers like that, you’ve seen that after eight tries at passing an income tax increase, the Council has changed gears.

Like some of us *ahem* have been saying for quite a while.

Personally, I believe that if the Council could guarantee that every penny of the Income Tax increase would go directly to the Police Department, it would pass. The problem is that as it is now, the increase would go directly into the General Fund which is used for every other program in the Village save Water/Sewer business (unless there’s a shortfall there, which is another story entirely). Some in the Village have a mistrust in the Council, and consequently refuse to hand over their money to the General Fund without any kind of definite direction as to the use of the increased revenue. Each time that the issue has arisen, the drumbeat from Council’s direction is “It will go to the Police Department, trust us.” – Source

How hard would it be to split off the Police Department from the General Fund? What would be involved in setting it up after the same fashion as the Water/Sewer Department? Would that open up new avenues of increasing the revenue? That’s the type of creative thinking we’re looking for.  Same source as above

So now we have proposed a 4.something mill property tax levy.  This solves a lot of concerns, but raises a couple of others which we will be looking at over the next few months.  Hopefully we can have a clear picture of the tax landscape before the voting takes place in November.

A Taste of what I think is funny

Admit it, you’re either laughing hysterically or are really scared right now.

Via b3ta stuff

A Week of Good Thoughts

Suppose we start this very day To live our lives in a different way;
Suppose we vowed and constantly tried To help those in trouble on life’s wayside;

If we showed by our deeds a hint of His love

Wouldn’t earth be a bit more like heaven above?

ON MONDAY: Look for a smile today and return it with one of your own.
Give someone faith and hope, it’s such a beautiful loan.
ON TUESDAY: Gather a thought that’s kind, one that’s sincere and deep.
Be sure to pass it along for such are too precious to keep.
ON WEDNESDAY: Forget yesterday’s sorrows, mistakes, sadness, and pain.
Lift your heart with hope as flowers to sun and rain.
ON THURSDAY: Offer a word of comfort and prayer to help someone in need.
A little thoughtful gift, some flowers, or a smile makes us all rich indeed.
ON FRIDAY: You shall not pass this way again, so do any good you can do.
Don’t put it off till tomorrow or the chance may be lost for you.
ON SATURDAY: Today will soon be a memory so don’t let it come to an end,
without a smile, without a song, or just a word from a friend.
ON SUNDAY: Don’t let worry and care depress you, or brush your joy away.
But arise and give thanks to God above, for His love and another “Blest Day.”

“...let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his
own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Phil 2:3, 4).

Source

Aww crud.

Tonight was the Village Council meeting and I completely forgot about it.  Sure, things have been quite busy around the house and all, but that’s really no excuse.  It just slipped my mind.

Anyway, there are a couple of issues that continue to nag at my mind.

1.  Has anyone heard anything about that whole Fire Department Agreement that was such a vitally important issue last November lately?  Why is it suddenly of little importance?  Was it being overemphasized or is this a resolved issue?

2.  Hey look, the schools around here seem to be improving and no one wants to talk about it.  I think its a great thing that we’ve more than doubled our scoring from last year.  Is it the pinnacle of scholastic achievement?  Not by a long shot yet, but considering the multitude of factors outside the schools that enter into the problem, any turnaround is a good one.

3.  The Police Department in town is doing very well for being vastly underfunded.  In my jaunts around town, a cruiser is regularly seen driving here or there.  Visibility is an important piece of the puzzle, and I’m glad to see that being continued.

4.  The tax issue that continues to be raised and continues to be voted down.  I commented to a member of council prior to the election that if it doesn’t pass at this time, there has to be something going on other than simply not wanting to raise taxes.  I believe that a clear case was made by the Villager in the days prior to the election that would have sufficed to sway enough voters to pass the issue.  The problem is that the issue did not pass.  My conclusion is that there is another reason why the tax isn’t passing rather than the realization of need.  Of course, that’s pretty much the same conclusion that was stated three election cycles ago, but pishposh.

5.  I’m beginning to think that the future of this town does not lie with attracting new business.  In our area, one of the greatest “growth industries” is construction.  Specifically high-end housing construction.  I know its an impossibility but wouldn’t it be great to have the Council claim eminent domain over Maple Grove parkway and transfer ownership to some high falutin’ construction outfit?  Let’s put some $200,000 homes right in the middle of Windham rather than what’s there now.  Sell the lots for $50,000 a piece like they’re doing in Garrettsville right now.  The draw would be a quiet neighborhood on an out-of-the-way road basically in the middle of nowhere.  What a great place to get away from mundane business life?  Come to Windham!

Ahh to dream. 

Before We Judge Others

Heavenly Father,

Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry, and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity.

Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, showing patience, empathy, and love.

“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them . . . ” —Matthew 7:12

Source

Oops

Isn’t it nice to know that us little folks aren’t the only one’s to make mistakes?  The big guys do it to.  Sadly, this is during a war, when reporters are supposed to be held to a higher degree of trust.

Reuters calls the doctor, take 2

and

Extreme Makeover - Beirut Edition

 

*cough cough*

 

Number one in the preseason poll

Yeah, I know it doesn’t mean much, but hey, its still a number one ranking. 

On the lighter side...

Waitress gets own ID when carding patron

WESTLAKE, Ohio - A bar waitress checking to see if a woman was legally old enough to drink was handed her own stolen driver's license, which was reported missing weeks earlier, police said.

"The odds of this waitress recovering her own license defy calculation," police Capt. Guy Turner said Monday.

Maria Bergan, 23, of Lakewood, was charged Sunday night with identity theft and receiving stolen property. She was arrested at her home in suburban Cleveland and was jailed in Westlake to await a court appearance.

The 22-year-old waitress, whose name was not released, called police last week and said she had been handed her own stolen driver's license by a woman trying to prove she was 21. The woman, who became suspicious of the delay as the waitress went to call police, fled the Moosehead Saloon, but her companion provided her name.

The waitress said she had lost her wallet July 9 at a bar in Lakewood.

The victim also had a credit card stolen. The stolen card has been used to make $1,000 in purchases, Turner said.

Twice in five days

Well, the lovely little vista most of us call home has made the front page of the Courier twice in the last couple of days.  Under other circumstances, we’d be proud.  When does football season start again?  Tell me the volleyball team is expected to be good this year.  I’ll take anything else at this point.

First off, I think its a good thing that The Honorable C. James Moore^TM went to the Commissioners to try and get some help in the Maple Grove/projects/huge problem that we have in town.  We need all the help we can get in this area.  Even with a fully staffed police department like we had a couple of years ago, we would still have to depend upon mutual aid and county assistance.  You don’t disperse a 70 person crowd with four or five officers. 

Of course, the paper was quick to point out our financial difficulties of late and use them as a reason that some of these things are taking place.  The Mayor was even quoted as saying that we only have one full-time officer on patrol at a time. 

“Hi guys, wanna do some badness type things tonight?”

“Yeah man, lets get in a scirmish, yea, even a throwdown.”

“Where should we go?”

“Hey, I hear that Windham place only has one cop around, lets take our bad selves over there.”

Yeah, not necessarily the best quote to have in the headline article of the local paper.  Of course, I doubt all that many folks who do the badness-type things really read the Record-Courier, so no foul is going to be called right now.

Anyway, even with the recent financial problems, this is not some new problem that’s only cropped up since we had to reduce police hours.  I recall reading a Landlord’s Meeting record from 1994 that discussed the issue of having private security to patrol the area and give aid to the local police.  Once again, that’s going to be discussed.  Let’s hand it to a committee, because committees fix things.  Sure they do.  Don’t wait on the Owners to do al that much except for talking about it, because they’d be taking more money out of their pockets. 

One thing that would be valuable for the Owners to do is a *real* background check.  Not the mandated bare minimum “hey, no felonies, right?” check, but a serious looking into.  You can get online and find out just about anything you want to these days.  I’ve seriously thought about doing it, but then realized how much that would cost.  Yeah, it ain’t cheap.  It would be able to weed out more of these morons that keep getting shipped to us. 

*note – saying morons does not necessarily imply that every person living there is a moron – just that the ratio in the Maple Grove/Project/Problem Area is higher than in most places*

Then came today’s (August 1) paper.  Whee.  There’s another tax issue on the ballot.  Yeah.  I do have to admit though, its about time that they address the  issues that we’ve been crying out about since last October.  Replacing officers.  But…

Enh, that’s enough for now.  Catch you later.

Kinda Interesting

I wonder how Windham would compare?  Maybe I’ll have to track down county by county rates somehow.

Unemployment Rates by State

Its a comparison of the average 80’s rate, the average 90’s rate, and the current rate.

Its on the ballot

Interesting, we get to vote on raising the minimum wage in November.  Not sure yet how things will go, but this view isn’t mentioned so much.  From Marginal Revolution

How to Unemploy Immigrants

In a shocking op-ed in the NYTimes two well known liberals, Michael Dukakis and Daniel Mitchell (a former price-control Czar), acknowledge that the minimum wage creates unemployment.  Nevertheless, they are in favor of raising the minimum wage.  Why?  Because it will create even more unemployment among immigrants than among natives.

The mean-spirited, Machiavellian nature of their op-ed is chilling but I will give Dukakis and Mitchell this, their logic is impeccable.  The minimum wage creates unemployment among the low-skilled.  As a result, the minimum wage tends to create disproportionate unemployment among teenagers and young African Americans.

Similarly, since many immigrants have lower-skills than natives, Dukakis and Mitchell are correct that a well-enforced minimum wage will put immigrants out of work reducing the pull of the American economy to workers in foreign countries.

I wonder if the NYTimes would have printed an op-ed that advocated minimum wages as a way of creating unemployment among African Americans and raising white wages?

(Long-time readers will know that the original proponents of the minimum wage had in mind exactly that so Dukakis and Mitchell are true progressives.)

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 85% Conservative, 15% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Ethics: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

I hear...

…that it would be an excellent night to stay out of the projects.

Advice needed:

So what do you tell your six year old daughter in this situation?

Her:  Mommy, I’m scared because I had a bad dream and I can’t forget it.

Mommy:  What was your dream honey?

Her:  I forgot.

And how do you tell her anything without laughing?

Council hits the "redo" button

From the Forum

Linkage.

Hat tip to The Voice.

There's gotta be a way

How can we get in on the bidding process? 

Alternative fuel business may be area’s future

Monroe Energy LLC of Greenford is looking at four Mahoning Valley sites for an ethanol/bio-diesel plant that could start turning corn and soy into fuel within two to three years. One site is in Lordstown. This one plant, though itself will only employ about 40 to 100 workers, has the potential to spawn 2,000 support jobs. And there is demand for many, many more such plants.

…

Hopefully, Lordstown’s recent income tax increase will not scare away the Monroe plant. Lordstown already failed to capitalize on The Andersons Inc., which owns a fertilizer distribution business on Muth Road. The company is building its second ethanol plant near its hometown in northwest Ohio. Ethanol helped drive The Andersons Inc. stock from $8 a share in 2001 to $91 a share in March.

…

It is imperative that Ohio, and Trumbull County in particular, prevent Wisconsin, western states and others from taking the lead. Mahoning Valley leaders should consider an alternative fuels summit to capitalize on the state’s close gubernatorial race to solicit support from Columbus. And Ohio leaders should capitalize on this being a battleground state in the next presidential election to solicit federal help.

This window of opportunity will be small. We can wallow in sorrow over Delphi and GM. Or we can rise to the challenge, battle for the next economic trove, and resume our position as a world leader.

You get to keep more of your money

That’s what the term “tax cut” really means.  Not, “they’re giving us our money back” or “they should spend it somewhere else”.  We give our money to the government, when they don’t use it all, they should return it, not find new ways to spend it.

State to accelerate income tax cuts

Rather than transferring money from an expected budget surplus to the state's Rainy Day Fund, Ohio is returning money to residents by speeding up income tax cuts.

Beginning Oct. 1, the Ohio Department of Taxation will cut personal income tax rates by 8.4 percent, double the annual amount called for in the tax reform package instituted last July.

The cut would be in addition to a 4.2 percent cut in tax rates in January. Ohio's tax reform package called for a 21 percent income tax cut phased in over five years.

According to a release from Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, the 8.4 percent cut would average about $390 per Ohioan.

Independence Day

The words that declared our independence over two hundred years ago remain as relevant today as ever.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed…

…We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The Declaration of Independence