Dan Bratka's career has been one of service to our community and country.   

A lifelong Logan County resident, he has served the Logan County community in many capacities: as West Liberty mayor, Bellefontaine city councilman, deputy sheriff, municipal court prosecutor and assistant Logan County prosecutor, Tri-County Regional Jail executive director and in private law practice.

Dan has served our country, retiring from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as Lt. Col. with 35 years of service.

A common pleas court magistrate for almost eight years, Dan currently serves our community as judge of common pleas court.

His accomplishments convince us that he is the individual most qualified to serve the Logan County community as judge of common pleas court.

On Nov. 6, we will vote to keep Judge Bratka as common pleas court judge.

Joe Hughes
Linda Hughes
Bellefontaine

The West Liberty-Salem district is asking for approval of a bond issue that would, with the assistance of the Ohio School Facilities Commission:

Replace leaking roofs and dry-rotted windows.

Replace obsolete and inefficient heating and air conditioning systems.

Repurpose instructional space.

Meet minimum state guidelines for security and technology.

Convert the current auxiliary gym to MS/HS dining.

Expand the current elementary dining area.

Construct a new auxiliary gym.

Repurpose the cafetorium.

Separate student and parent drop-off traffic from bus traffic and provide better access to Highway 68.

All of this information has been addressed in a number of forums and formats. What I feel has not been addressed are a number of very relevant issues.

Maintenance:

The dry-rotted windows are the Pella brand. This is a premium brand with a premium price. I find it hard to believe windows of this quality have dry-rotted unless they were incorrectly installed or maintained. If they were installed incorrectly why are we not pursuing a remedy against that contractor? It would seem more likely, given that these windows are wood, that proper maintenance was not accomplished resulting in the dry-rot. Why wasn't action taken to correct this before it was too late and what will be done to correct this lack of maintenance in the future?
Likewise, prior to construction of the building there were many discussions about the choices of roofing for the buildings. Maintenance, repair and replacement schedules were part of these discussions leading to the choice of the type of roof. Why weren't the maintenance, repair and replacement implemented instead of allowing the roof to deteriorate? How will this be corrected in the future?

Repurposing, expanding and conversion:

I believe the question must also be asked as to why we would convert an auxiliary gym to a dining area and build a new auxiliary gym? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to construct a dining area and retain the existing auxiliary gym? Couldn't such a dining area have separate space for elementary students solving two problems with one action?

Assistance of the Ohio School Facilities Commission:

As for the assistance of the Ohio School Facilities Commission, I believe it was their assistance that helped create a number of problems that this bond levy is proposing to correct. For instance, the repurposing of the cafetorium is proposed. Who designed this space with multiple levels and almost no handrails? I've seen a number of people fall and it would be interesting to know how many accidents it has created over the years. What will be done with this space?

Another example is the very poor design of the access to the school building with commingling of student traffic, parent drop-off traffic and bus traffic creating safety problems. Anyone familiar with the design of a school system should have been able to advise the district of a better design. But even given the poor design most of this problem could be corrected by use of simple barriers or gates with proper staffing, safe driving habits, common sense, courtesy and timely enforcement against those that fail to use the prior methods. More access to an already busy highway is not the answer.

Enrollment:

I have heard that there is insufficient space for the number of students enrolled in the WL-S School District, especially in the elementary area. I may be biased but here again the elementary room size met the approval of the Ohio School Facilities Commission. Common sense should have dictated additional room in case of enrollment growth, to say nothing of the use of technology, but no extra room was apparently allowed. I have looked at the enrollment numbers provided by the Ohio Department of Education on their Web site for the district and there has been some increase, about 231 students spread across 13 grades (K-12) since the 1990-91 school year. But the enrollment trend for the last two school years has been downward. If ODE's numbers are correct the highest enrollment was reached during the 2009-2010 school year. If open enrollment is creating an overcrowding problem the solution is apparent and easy for the board of education to remedy at no cost. Expensive expansion should not be undertaken without firm demographic studies to support such expenditures.

In summary, the proposed levy is based on property values. This millage type levy if approved will provided a specific amount of money to the school district, in this case approximately 14 and a half million dollars.

The WL-S School District has a traditional income tax (uses the same income base as the state's income tax) of 1.5 percent. Of the approximately 610 public school districts in Ohio only 22 districts have an income tax of 1.5 percent. Four of these use the earned income tax base which excludes all other types of income that would be taxable under the traditional income tax base (interest, dividends, capital gains, pensions, etc.) which provides a tax break for those folks on a fixed income, i.e., retirees. Only 19 or approximately 610 public school districts have a rate above 1.5 percent and one of those is an earned income tax base. What all this boils down to is that the WL-S School District should have adequate financial resources, because as the income of the district residents increase so do the taxes paid to the school district. This was the case for many years prior to 2008 when, financially, things got tough for all of us. The question is why didn't the WL-S School District set aside money or actually accomplish some of these projects while more funds were available?

Flyers circulated in the community infer that now is the time to pursue this project due to low interest rates and availability of state funds, but as Mr. John Hance stated in his letter to the editor of this paper, "The WL-S School District is not in a stable financial position and has been 'getting by' only through reductions in teaching staff and other critical positions." This position is confirmed by the Superintendent's Message on pages one and two of the West Liberty-Salem Local Schools Tiger News which states in part, "Since the 2008-2009 school year, the West Liberty-Salem Board of Education and administration have been actively responding to a decrease in revenue at both the state and local levels. Driven by the recession that began in 2008, the district has had to make many cuts; most of these have been in programming, staff and by not replacing retirees. To date, the district has implemented nearly $760,000 of reductions in total operations."

Residents of the WL-S School District can rest assured that if this levy is passed it will only be a short period of time before the district is back again requesting additional funding to maintain the additional space and to correct the problem created by this construction due to insufficient planning.

Hope and faith is good but in the words of Benjamin Franklin, "He that lives upon hope will die fasting." It does not appear to me to be the right time to approve this levy.

Rick Benge
West Liberty

I have been active at the state level with the Ohio State Bar Association. The board of governors of the State Bar Association has unanimously recommended a vote against State Issue 2 in the upcoming election. This proposed constitutional amendment seeks to reform our redistricting process. There is no question that the current process of creating legislative districts is flawed and change is needed.

The problem with the current issue is that it inappropriately involves the Ohio judiciary in the political process. If you read the language of Issue 2 it would require the Supreme Court and Ohio Appellate judges to appoint members to a commission which would then draw the legislative district lines. This is a clear conflict of interest with the principle of separation of powers. The job of judges is to be independent and interpret the laws and the constitution. It is not the function of the judiciary to set the game rules in how politicians are to be elected.

There certainly would be a better way of creating a commission without involving the judiciary. One big problem with Issue 2 is that the very courts which would help create the redistricting process may be forced to rule upon its validity or constitutionality at some later date. This puts them in a very awkward position. For all of the above reasons, I am urging a vote against Issue 2.

Kraig E. Noble
St. Marys

Our campaign signs were stolen from our yard and the right to express our political views are both valued. Someone trampled on both.

The campaigns of Romney and Ryan, Jim Jordan, Josh Mandel, Dan Bratka, Keith Faber and Judge Kennedy spent good money for those signs to promote the election process. This letter proves that stealing their signs did not give these candidates less endorsement.

Citizens — Please vote.

Don K. Miller

Virginia Miller

Zanesfield

The presidential campaign is about many facets of our lives including the economy, the quality of American life and the safety of our citizens. The problems this country has today with the economy can easily be resolved by giving up our quality of life, infrastructure or safety but that just wouldn't make any sense. The president is responsible for balancing all the national and international issues while keeping us healthy and safe.

The reason manufacturing jobs have left this country is because the wealthy CEOs decided that they weren't making enough money, we can only assume that they didn't have the vision to see what it would do to the economy here at home. Please remember that no one gave us any price breaks when they moved the manufacturing jobs from the USA to countries that may pay $1 an hour or less, they put the savings in their own pockets, all of it. I don't understand how a small group of one percent has convinced so many people that handing them money and keeping them rich will somehow make the middle class strong, it just doesn't work that way. I don't know about you, but I'm proud to pay my taxes and certainly have spent most of my life paying a whole lot more than 14 percent in taxes. In fact, my tax rates have affected the quality of my life. I don't think that someone who's making $20 million a year is going to have trouble paying a rate of 35 percent without affecting the quality of that life. I tried to find the reason Americans move their money to Switzerland and the Cayman Islands and found it has nothing to do with earning more interest, in many cases the investor has to pay these institutions to handle their money. The only reason to move money overseas is for the purpose of secrecy, that's it. There is a reason that the Republican candidate refuses to show us 10 years of his tax returns, he's hiding something and there is no other reason. How can anyone vote for a candidate who refuses to show us 10 years of tax returns when he forced his running mate to hand over 10 years of his tax returns. How pompous can a person be?

I've researched Romney's term as governor of Massachusetts, don't believe that he worked across the aisle with the Democrats as there was much divisiveness at the capital. Romney issued some 800 vetoes and the Legislature overrode nearly all of them, sometimes unanimously. He wasn't as successful as he claims, during his term as governor of Massachusetts as the job growth rate dipped from 36th to 47th in the country. Only Louisiana, which was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, saw a bigger decline in its labor force than Massachusetts during Romney's tenure as governor. He is not a job creator, never has been. By the end of governor Romney's term, Massachusetts had lost more than 40,000 manufacturing jobs - a rate twice the national average. Governor Romney failed to protect good jobs in Massachusetts and actually outsourced state jobs to India. Romney raised taxes on the middle class, but pushed through a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited 278 of the wealthiest individuals in MA. State spending increased every year while Romney was in office and he left behind a $1 billion deficit for the next governor. There is a story that he didn't like running into folks in the elevator at the capital and had one elevator reserved only for him to go directly to his office, no one else was allowed to use it. Pay attention to how he actually feels about the American people, he doesn't like us.

Please don't take a chance on losing our Affordable Healthcare Act which won't completely kick in until 2014 which is when we'll see everyone with insurance and the cost of healthcare being reduced. It has to come down, those of us paying for healthcare are paying for folks who don't have insurance and can't afford to pay for it, that's just not fair.

We can't afford not to listen to president Clinton, he's been telling us that we are headed in the right direction and that no one could possibly have resolved all of our issues in four short years and he's the expert. Please remember that Bush created most of this debt by making bad decisions that put us in jeopardy. President Obama is trying to keep the country growing and is succeeding at the expense of the debt. We're going to have to work at this but the budget can and will be balanced under President Obama. He's been working hard for the middle class and deserves the opportunity to finish the job.

As a group of reasonable folks, I think that centrist Democrats and Republicans could work in unison to force election reform, shortening the length of time and limiting the amount of money that candidates can spend. It sickens me to think how much good this money (some estimate a total of $2 billion) could do in this world where people are actually starving to death. We might also work on reforming Congress because they're the reason, along with unbiased media, for the divisiveness in this country. We should enact term limits for both houses of Congress, take away pensions, take away their elite insurance program and control their salaries and vacations. They work for us, let's remind them of that, part of the job is working in a bipartisan environment.

Finally, believe that Gov. Romney will reduce taxes for the wealthy and leave the middle class to pick up the balance. When polls had him behind in this race, he just changed what he was saying and expects folks to accept the changes without question. He's offering all kinds of tax relief that deduction reforms could never pay for. When he is so unwilling to explain his plans for us a president how can he be trusted? Small businesses, or any business for that matter, don't hire employees based on their tax rates, they hire new employees as business dictates. Romney wants to return to the policies that gave us a home mortgage crisis, a stock market crash and insured that the rich stayed rich at the expense of middle class America. He keeps saying he was a very conservative governor but has now moved to the middle in order to get votes. His choice of Paul Ryan should tell us that he's pretending to be moderate while actually believing in the policies of the extreme right. I don't think we know who he actually is.

President Obama has spent his first term protecting the average American, let's not let a small group of people with a whole lot of money take over this country again. We know how that ended. He's been able to keep most of his promises, especially healthcare reform. The president has given us a very popular Affordable Healthcare Act which is completely paid for. Don't let anyone tell you that government is taking over healthcare, that's just ridiculous. He's having a problem getting the unemployment rate down to a reasonable rate but he's fighting the wealthy folks who are still moving jobs overseas and Congress for a new jobs bill.

In the end it's important that you vote, no matter who you are voting for.

Charlene File

Bellefontaine

Now is the time for the West Liberty-Salem Bond Levy. There are urgent repairs needed for our roof, windows, doors and HVAC systems. Furthermore, we will improve technology and ensure added security. In addition, we have historically record low interest rates, 71 percent state share that we know will decrease next year to 68 percent and will cost the district over $1,000,000 more locally.

West Liberty-Salem has attained the "excellent" rating from the state based on academic achievement. We have outstanding administrators, teachers and staff members. It is paramount that we maintain and upgrade our facilities with the same level of integrity.

Operating money has been greatly improved with the reductions made by the district over the last three years and recent tax revenue has improved and shows that our local economy is growing again.

These reductions have had minimal impact on student offerings and have allowed the district to have a positive balance five years out according to our most recent five-year forecast.

Each open enrollment student provides the district $5,704 in tax revenue from the state. This year the district has received a total of $700,000 from open enrollment. This helps to make up for revenue lost to students open enrolling out and attending private, home or charter schools.

This revenue helps our school district continue to operate. The district does not take all open enrollment students, only the number of students that help to fill our class sizes for optimum cost benefit and class size.

The board ensures that our resident students receive optimum class size.

By having open enrolled students, they actually help increase our course offerings, that we could not provide if we did not have enough students.

Education has become a competitive environment. Much like universities, the quality of our educational programing facilities and student academic and extracurricular offerings is reviewed by families to determine if our school district is where they would like to send their children.

In order for WL-S to continue to be an attractive district, we must continue to invest in our school.

We must keep WL-S strong and provide a positive and safe learning environment for our children.

Please join me in protecting our investment and securing our future by voting yes for WL-S on Nov. 6.

Patrick Adams

WL-S Levy Committee Chairman

Cable

A well-known auctioneer from Salem Township was the master of his craft. We attended many of his farm sales over the years. Believe it or not he worked for both the seller, who hired him and his patron, the buyer. Certain words or phrases were used to communicate to the buyers that the auctioneer expected more bids before the item sold or that the item was more valuable than the current bid. One such phrase was, "Help yourself, help yourself." Everyone knew this meant if you bought it somewhere else you would pay more. Or if you waited to buy it later you would pay more. You get a deal if you buy this item.

In Salem Township the Fire/EMS levy, the Road Levy and the West Liberty-Salem Bond Levy are all items like we described above. Are you paying out money? Sure you are. But you are also getting a deal. Your taxes are paying for a local infrastructure investment. The money isn't going to someone else. You benefit directly and indirectly. If you wait to buy it later, it is almost certain to cost more.

How many days do you not drive your car somewhere? Busses drive the roads to get students to school and back. The school district is one of the largest employers in the area and spends millions of dollars each year through the local economy through the operating budget. If the roads are closed or school is not open for more than one day who do you think hears about it? The needs are real. These levies are an opportunity to invest in your community by investing in local infrastructure. When you consider how to vote on these levies remember the words of the auctioneer "Help yourself, help yourself."

Howard Wilkins

Township Trustee

Cable

Stephen Lapp

School Board Member

West Liberty