Dear Editor,
I was proud to be part of the majority vote approving Brad Geiss’ motion to end the collection of all student activities fees at the recent Merrill Board of Education meeting. I do believe it was the right thing to do and is fair for all.
I’m writing today, however, to offer a clarification to my comment which was published in the FOTO News article. The writer did a fine job reporting on the meeting and I do understand the newspaper’s need to condense commentary due to space constraints. But sometimes the meaning behind the comment can be misunderstood in the process.
In the discussion regarding how the district might offset the $90,000 they expected to collect from these activities fees, I suggested they look to areas such as professional development, travel and non-sick day substitutes, commenting they need not eliminate all professional development, but could use in-house training or teleconferencing, instead.
As the new school year begins, I wish all of our students, teachers, staff and Interim Superintendent Anderson a very successful year.
Kind Regards,
Loretta Baughan
Merrill
Editor,
Our $14.4+ Trillion debt causes our job creators concern about where this country is headed financially. Most are sitting on the sidelines not doing anything until they see some certainty in policies. These policy changes must change direction of our National Debt from one increasing to one decreasing!!
Tax reform in the form of a “Fair Tax” that closes ALL loopholes and sets rates that everyone would pay. This would increase tax revenue by eliminating ALL deductions individual or corporate.
The recent debt actions are a beginning towards getting this issue under control. It’s headed in a down slope direction.
This will create certainty in the minds of employers and will cause job growth. Sooner it is implemented the sooner we’ll see movement.
Does it work?? Look at Canada just a few years ago they were in similar straits we are in. They acted and are headed upslope as we speak. Added to their financial issues they have adapted a very aggressive Energy policy developing their oil & gas resources. Walla, they have economic growth.
These are similar things being promoted by “We the people” in the Tea Party.
Our Democratic friends in Congress and the White House wanted us to adapt a $4.5 trillion increase in debt through 2013 (to get Obama through reelection) and a $2.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years to resolve our financial crisis. This to me is like peeing in the ocean and expecting to cause a tsunami!
Thanks for your time.
Regards,
Chuck Bolder
Merrill
Editor,
“I’m with the Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW), and I’m here to help you” are words of joy to Democrats, and words of despair to many grassroots Republicans. The results of the Holperin/Simac contest in the 12th Senate District reaffirmed this feeling many have toward the RPW.
Many Simac supporters had been through the recall process with Kim, standing in the cold, wet weather many days collecting signatures to recall Jim Holperin. Then here comes the RPW to rescue the recall effort, even though the grassroots recall effort didn’t need saving.
Through its wisdom, the RPW then hires an out of state firm to provide people of questionable character to collect signatures without telling the local recall effort already in place. We all know that this action by the RPW almost stopped the recall election.
But why stop there?
The RPW then recommends campaign staff to Kim Simac. One would assume that the RPW would recommend only the best and brightest in an election of this importance, and that every effort would be made to run an aggressive campaign to unseat Holperin. WRONG!
Normally you would have “vetted” your candidate to discover any issues that your opponent may use against you, such as taxes. Not the RPW provided campaign staff. After the issue of taxes is pasted all over the media to their surprise, they decide to not aggressively address the issue. The people of the Northwoods care if you paid your taxes or not.
The staff decided that all “mainstream” media would be bias against them. Rather than simply leave it at this, they go further and insult and demean the media. Now the media should not feel special in this area because it is hard to find anyone who did not feel this way after dealing with the staff. “People” friendly the staff was not.
Now most campaigns struggling with cash flow issues would welcome debates and forums with the incumbent. Again the staff surprised everyone. Rather than accept these opportunities to reach large numbers of voters to share Kim’s background, ideas, and goals they instead chose to hide. This just intensified the claims: “you just can’t trust Kim Simac.”
Now the RPW will tell you that the staff was young, and had never run such a campaign before. They are right. That’s why it is not right to blame the staff alone. The Republican Party of Wisconsin took control of this campaign and deserves the lions-share of blame.
Failing to follow a simple rule: “all politics are local” resulted the loss of a winnable seat to the Wisconsin Senate.
Kevin Stevenson
Merrill