Even though I was not part of the committee, I do want to thank you for trying to make a difference. People aren't interested in cleaning house. It is obvious by the poor response to my Dress 4 Work plea; we are living in a community filled with have's, not have nots, and are clueless as to how bad it is for some folks. The Voice signs have finally come down. Now, we are just waiting for the bids to be opened on Pearl Harbor Day. How ironic.
Real estate agents are standing by, waiting to plant "For Sale" signs. A real estate agent told me that this morning. When I was canvassing Ward 3 during the Primary, there were many Republicans on my list who moved, were moving, or were thinking about moving.
I was hoping the Election would have turned out differently. Maintaining a blog and website is time consuming and costly, but my work would have been done after the Election. I guess not. I will continue to hold our elected officials' feet to the fire. I hope you do the same. Thanks again.
Elaine
12 comments:
Here's something that I have heard no one talk about. The practice of candidates being allowed to cross file.
At my poll I saw the democratic campaign workers make a concerted effort to tell voters that there were only 3 democrats running for school board. Proceeding to say: "Vote for Cappucci, Lebowitz and Cooper."
Their statement of course is true... BUT does it mislead, or confuse voters.
Do the people that enter the polls intent on pulling the lever straight republican (or democrat) really understand that their straight ticket vote includes votes for the two "democrats" (or republicans) that crossed filed?
Does anyone think the cross filing practice should be abolished or better yet the straight party option removed from the ballot?
Dick Saunders
Have you thought that perhaps a reason for the poor response to your dress 4 work plea was its infamatory headline?
Dress 4 Work Oh yeah, definitely an "infamatory headline."
The fact that you don't have the courage to sign your name indicates to me that you are one of the clueless "have's" here.
Elaine
Very coincidentally after our election yesterday I overheard a gentleman at Panera talking about the Mt. Lebanon High School project. I stopped to ask him what his thoughts were and they were not much different than mine. Nonetheless, perspective coming from an outsider to our situation here was affirming.
A graduate of Mt. Lebanon, attorney and professor of education administration, he told me that he and his wife moved to Upper St. Clair four years ago to get more house for the money and lower taxes by comparison considering the cost per square footage in Mt. Lebanon.
He compared our school board’s thinking about our future elaborate building with the great steel mill structures in Pittsburgh. When the bottom fell out of the steel industry around here there had been no planning for that scenario and so the workers had no alternatives for earning a living. There really had been no vision for competitively positioning our workforce or local industry. I remember quite well at that time how our region severely lagged behind those that were already engaged in high tech service industries. In fact, in 1984 I entered a training program in Atlanta and was amazed to see help wanted signs posted. Driving from the airport I was impressed to see large buildings under construction. The whole area was booming. Pittsburgh was dying, corporate headquarters were exiting in a steady flow and help wanted signs were nowhere to be found.
Fast-forwarding to 2011, one thing that we can all count on is that change is constant, particularly when it comes to technology. This gentleman firmly believes that technology will drive our educational system and that as the cost for our current traditional education model becomes unsustainable, and it will, forced change will follow. The demand for cyber schools will increase and parents seeking the best available educational option for their child will see a whole new world of opportunities open up, and it won’t matter where they live.
As a parent, if you have the choice between the traditional model of bricks and mortar for public institutions where your real estate costs, like those in Mt. Lebanon, continue on an upward trajectory or cutting edge cyber schooling that is available no matter what community one lives in, what choice would you make?
In addition to technology driving our educational system, the other issue that this fellow believes will be facing us all will be a voucher system. Over time, the political climate will force the voucher issue and it may be the best solution in the end. Vouchers could be used for cyber schools as well. His opinion is that if Mt. Lebanon wants to remain competitive a smart move would be to establish our district as a hub of excellent cyber education.
Being at the polls on Tuesday was a great opportunity to find out what our neighbors are thinking. Unfortunately, they are thinking of leaving the tax burden here and the staggering increases we will endure are yet to come. The problem is when they sell their house, a buyer will look at the tax bill and adjust the price they offer downward. People only have so much of their income to spend on housing. So, the buyer will lose wealth as they settle for less and the lower fair market value will reduce the tax revenue generated from that property. The debt being incurred by our current School Board and thus future tax increases necessary to repay it places us on this slippery slope to economic decline with decreasing property values and less money in the coffers to maintain what we have.
Those of us who worked hard to change the course on Tuesday know it. How painful will the process of change be? I guess we’ll find out.
-Charlotte Stephenson
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Pennsylvania is one of only 16 states that permit straight party voting in some form. Concerning those 16 states, NCSL says, “With a few exceptions, the straight-ticket option is available in all elections, including primaries, and applies to all offices on the ticket, including federal, state and local races.” As of the November, 2012 election, Wisconsin, one of the current crop of 16, will eliminate straight party voting. Amongst the 34 states that do not permit straight party voting, Washington State does not register voters according to political party.
A slight digression: Yesterday a correspondent posted on this Blog that 30% to 40% was the “norm” for voter turnout. Those figures need to be qualified just a bit. In Mt. Lebanon, voter turnout varies according to the “glamor” of the election. Here are some numbers from the Allegheny County Board of Elections, for Mt. Lebanon General Elections:
2007: 25,933 Registered Voters, 8,363 Ballots Cast, 32.27% Turnout
2008: 27,139 Registered Voters, 20,388 Ballots Cast, 75.12% Turnout
2009: 25,887 Registered Voters, 7,560 Ballots Cast, 29.20% Turnout
2010: 26,089 Registered Voters, 14,976 Ballots Cast, 57.40% Turnout
2011: 25,687 Registered Voters, 9,378 Ballots Cast, 36.51% Turnout
So it is possible to get our “Shropshire sheep” electorate to the polls, given the proper motivation – and a legitimate choice. As to Cross-filing: It may be smart politics, but it cheats the voter by presenting a logical contradiction (the “Demopublican”) as a choice. Then again, in Mt. Lebanon, the difference between the two major parties is almost nothing.
Richard Gideon
The only folks who were transparent about their political party affiliation were Mr. Cannon who only filed only on the R ticket and Mr. Cooper who only filed on the D ticket; that is why poll workers were behaving the way they were. Neither political party was able to recruit five candidates to run, probably because folks aren 't interested in being attacked by wagging tongues from special interests if they try to clean up the school board's mess in a district that is run for the politicians, staff and special interest groups rather than for the kids. The only thing that seems to be for the kids is the size of the teachers contract and the number of paid vacation days in the super's contract. I am bringing up the super's paid vacation days because the board tried to sneak those past us by using the phrase, "in the form presented." If it hadn't been for Bill Matthews we would not know the super's raise was over 5% - to be paid for in a budget increase limited to 1.4% by Act 1.
As to political parties being a factor, Mr. Sanders, the school district was built by a 100% Republican Board for about 85 years. The district was a leader nationally until we elected too many PTA members to the board and now we are number six in the state - not a bad ranking but if we had school board members and parents who were more interested in doing what is right for the kids instead of the special interest groups we would not have voted to fire Dr. Sable and would not have sued seniors to investigate a sitting school board member. Fortunately, the board member who might have stopped both actions chose not to run for reelection but she left scars behind and that will take a long while to heal.
We still need to rid ourselves of two other board members who stabbed their running mate in the back so they could win reelection but that is not likely to happen as long as they grease the special interest groups. In the end, the interest groups will most likely continue to get their way at the expense of the children and eventually the home values in the community. Parents will eventually realize they elected a dysfunctional board who looked our for their own political interests and the interests of employees instead of the children.
In the end you get the government you vote into office.
Another great comment from "Max Tax" was emailed to me. Here it is.
Your poll is interesting.
I don't think there can or will be a return to the former bastion of Republicanism that we once were for some time.
Understand that the taxing policies of the current crop of elected officials will be sure of that. It's interesting that those who argue for taxing people out of their homes (BOSN) are the same people that would claim to fight for the middle class. They are the same that think that, by increasing property taxes, only wealthy people will be able to afford to move into Mt. Lebanon. What they fail to see if that something has to give. If you take 10% more of my income away via property tax, then I have less to spend on other things, including my mortgage. Once that realization hits home, home prices MUST decline relative to other areas just to be competitive on a mortgage payment.
Say a buyer has $1000 a month they are prepared to spend on a home. In Mt Lebanon you might pay $400 a month in property tax on a $200,000 home. Increase that to $450 a month and all of a sudden potential buyers can afford $50/mo less home for their money. This equates to thousands of dollars of market value. Instead of looking at a $200,000 home, they can now only afford a $170,000 home. In Peters or Cranberry Townships those same buyers can afford $1000 a month on the same salary but only $300 a month might go to property tax. This means on the same salary they can afford a much more expensive home, about $30,000 (for that $150/mo tax payment difference) more to be exact. So in Mt Lebanon they can spend $200,000 but in Peter's they can get $230,000 for the same monthly payment.
What people who don't mind the taxes argue is that those who move in here will buy the house for $230,000 AND pay the tax at the same time because they can AFFORD to do so. What they fail to realize is that same person can AFFORD to look or move somewhere else as well.
It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy too. The more we tax, the lower home prices will go. That's just basic economics. The first law we must all remember is this:
The more we tax something, the less of it we get.
There is some clean up to do after the election. Since I voted for James Cannon as well as our write-in slate, I hope to fit this in with the topic at hand, although it does refer back to a previous post regarding my personal statement:
“Bill Hook” stated: “Mrs. Stephenson should fit right in with the dysfunctional board because she didn't answer the questions.” November 6, 2011 8:14 PM
Mr. Hook – given the malicious and libelous e-mails which I have been in possession of and which were personal attacks on me and others associated with the Cannon campaign, and knowing that 501© 3 organizations according to IRS regulations are not to participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates, I made the personal decision to not legitimize the PTA’s dealings by responding to their attempts to skew the opinions of the electorate. So, I wrote my personal statement according to what I thought was important and not what the PTA deemed important.
In fact, according to the Pennsylvania PTA statement of policy “The organization or members in their official capacities shall not, directly or indirectly, participate or intervene (in any way, including the publishing or distributing of statements) in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office, or devote more than an insubstantial part of its activities to attempting to influence legislation by propaganda or otherwise.” Please know that our PTA and PTSA representatives circulated these malicious e-mails.
Tell me this - knowing these facts, would you have responded to the PTA’s questions?
-Charlotte Stephenson
Mrs. Stephenson defined a problem. Will she solve it?
Bill Hook
I heard that another 501(3)c pulled a similar stunt this election. It is no secret that I didn't vote for Joe D., but something going around my ward is that the youth sports alliance did the same thing to Joe. My guess is that it had something to do with the rec bond that Linfante is bringing up again in January.
Elaine
So who enforces these policies? WHat is the procedure to have them investigated and what are the penalties.
Dick Saunders
Mr. Saunders,
I believe it is the responsibility of the Internal Revenue Service and PTA organization to enforce the policies mentioned in my previous post since the policies are their own. I have my own ideas about investigative procedures, enforcement and penalties, but if you or any others reading this have information please post.
Thank You,
Charlotte Stephenson
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