Teacher's salary her business
4/6/2010I find your putting Toledo Public Schools employees' salaries on your Web site deplorable ("Some in TPS make more than $100,000," March 29). Even though I am a public employee, what I make is ultimately no one's business.
I have to pay great sums of money for continuing education, license fees, and fingerprinting. The amount of time we teachers spend on uncompensated tasks we take on outside school is not taken into consideration.
You are going to lose readership among our teachers. Shame on you for inflaming an already fragile relationship between the Toledo Federation of Teachers and the administration. I would like to see a similar site for all employees of your tabloid.
Cheryl Nelson
Brinton Drive
There is no way for citizens to fix the Toledo Public Schools budget or the City of Toledo budget. These two bodies know they can get more money from residents by taking it.
Wait until you see your trash fee next year. No matter if we vote for the TPS income tax, it will go to a higher rate and next it will be a levy. Things will go on as usual, and employees of these two groups will get their raises and more perks. Both cry wolf and try to scare people into voting to give them more money.
Keep giving and they will keep taking and planning their next assault on your wallet.
Harold Stanley
Scottwood Avenue
According to the Web site City-Data.com, here are some statistics:
2008 Toledo population: 293,000-plus.
2008 Toledo households: 118,663.
Median household income: $34,157.
Average wage: $18,804.
Median state household income: $48,023.
TPS and city budgets, 2010-2011: $660 million.
Cost to each household: $5,562.
The average Toledo household earns about 70 percent of the state average. Maybe it should make 70 percent of what the average police officer or teacher makes.
Why is it so hard for the unions to realize that although people respect them and their jobs, residents have no money? While I sympathize with their belief in their contracts, maybe they should sympathize with the people of Toledo.
Jason Craig
Perrysburg
Taxation without representation: That is what former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner and Mayor Mike Bell believe in. Refuse collection is taxation without representation.
Why can't they put it up to the citizens of Toledo? Mayor Bell, as well as former Mayor Finkbeiner, thinks the residents of Toledo are dumb. Senior citizens don't get a break anymore. It's just give, give, give.
If this mayor would put some of these things to a vote, we might vote for them.
Carl E. Polzin
Fleet Road
As one who is riding out this not-so-perfect storm our city is having and as a longtime resident, I plead with Mayor Mike Bell, when it has ebbed, to demand from our city departments that more muscle, money, and time be put into our ever-declining neighborhoods.
For many, especially the elderly, a good neighborhood and a sense of community are what keep us aboard.
If not, many will jump ship.
Joyce Douglas
Fleet Road
Never would I have thought that my first letter to the editor would be about an obituary.
On Mar. 27, I read the autobiographical, three-col-umn obituary penned by and about Lee Pete shortly after I digested a few pages earlier the related news article about his demise.
Mr. Pete's testimony is the finest, most inspirational, most wit-and-wisdom-laden, piece that I have read in more than 30 years of reading The Blade. The harrowing adventures, simple joys, and understated pain of a life well lived were written with sincerity. It made his story come to life and the words leap off the page.
Mr. Pete, although I never met you or heard of you until your demise, you have positively changed my life.
Robert Nagle
Sylvania
In the aftermath of the dogged pursuit and tainted conclusion of President Obama's health-care drive, I have been perusing my American history recollections and cannot find a better metaphor for the exercise than the Vietnam era assertion: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
Jerry Carter
Rambo Lane
The health-care legislation has passed. The Democrats have won. But what happens in 10 years, when President Obama is out of office and most of the Democrats who voted for this bill are enjoying their guaranteed pensions with their own health plan that taxpayers are not eligible for?
The Medicare savings from eliminating fraud will never materialize. If it is there, then why haven't we gone after it before? We will have thousands of new Internal Revenue Service agents to make sure we all have insurance, while they are on the government plan we don't have access to.
And what happens when the money that was double- counted to make this so-called plan balance needs to be paid?
One of President Obama's goals is immigration reform. That will add another 12 million people to the health-care system, costing $30 billion more, which was not scored in this plan by the Congressional Budget Office.
Has the government ever run anything, ever, on budget?
Most people opposed to this plan are not against needed health-care reform, but oppose another bloated, unmanageable government program.
David Ringenbach
Northwood
Many people have written letters in support of the health-care reform legislation.
Many say that they cannot afford their medications or treatments and that the act is good because now they will have these things paid for.
Just who do these people think is now paying for their health care? The government? They would do well to remember that the government gets its money from people like me who pay taxes. These people would therefore have me pay for their health care.
I am more than happy to work hard, save my money, and pay my own way. I expect others to do the same.
Kevin Decker
Whitehouse
It is not the function or responsibility of the federal government to provide health care to citizens. Nor is it the government's job to provide food, homes, clothing, or transportation.
There is no historical precedent that suggests government involvement in financial matters does anything but produce layers of bureaucracy, waste, inefficiency, corruption, and more deficits.
This is a shameless scam to get more and more citizens - and noncitizens - dependent on the government, so they will vote for the politicians who give them free stuff.
Ron Krueger
Liberty Center, Ohio