What's the BOE connection?

To the editor:

With election day only days away, there are a few questions I still need answered in order for me to make a fair and balanced decision regarding who gets my votes for Washington County Board of Education:

First, which candidates are former Washington County Public Schools (WCPS) employees (i.e., former teachers and/or administrators)?

Which are parents of WCPS students and/or members of the business community? 

It is important to me that we have a Board of Education that is balanced and fairly represents key perspectives. 

With the departure of Ms. Ober and Ms. Wagner, we are losing two members who advocated on behalf of the parents. What perspectives do each of the candidates bring to the table?

Second, which candidates have family members (i.e., a spouse, siblings and/or children) who are currently employed by WCPS? 

Since employee salaries and benefits make up a sizable portion of the annual budget, we need to ensure that the Board of Education is balanced. 

Having this information now can help us all avoid a potential conflict-of-interest situation later.

Harry N. Wood
Rohrersville

McCain, Obama on tax policy

To the editor:

In the 2008 presidential election, there are major issues to be discussed. One that is important to me and all Americans is taxes. Taxes are an everyday addition to what we are spending. Everyone must pay taxes on food, clothing, and just about everything that is bought. Both presidential candidates have strong opinions.

John McCain, the Republican nominee, favors the idea of tax cuts. He wants to keep income and investment rates at their current level. Most Americans like his idea to double the child deduction to make it $7,000. If Congress votes on this, McCain says a three-fifths majority should be required before raising or lowering taxes.

John McCain knows this is important to all Americans and wants to deal with this very thoroughly.

Barack Obama would stop income taxes for seniors who make less than $50,000 yearly. He realizes that some Americans have “cars they can’t afford to drive.” He is helping working families by proposing a tax credit for working families.

Each candidate believes in his own plan for America. Now it is time for Americans to vote for the best candidate that suits their own opinion and is right mentally and, more importantly, spiritually to run this great country.

Kathleen Kidd
Williamsport
Heritage Academy
Ninth grade

Smithsburg's special season

To the editor:

For anyone who does not follow the Washington County Junior Football League, something special happened this past regular season.

The Smithsburg Jets A-team finished the regular season with a record of two wins and eight losses. What is special is obviously not their won-lost record, but rather the fact that the team played eight games. 

Usually a junior league team will consist of 20-25 players. For various reasons, by the time the season ended, the Jets fielded a total of 14 players for their game against the Boonsboro Titans. 

In case anyone is wondering, it takes 11 players to field a complete football team which left Smithsburg with just three substitutes.  This has been the case for the Jets almost since the beginning of the season.

At one point this season, due to injuries during a game, they were down to 12 players. The truly remarkable thing about this season is not that the Jets managed to finish the season. The truly remarkable thing about this group of young men is that they never gave up. 

They played every game as though they expected to win, and with a couple of exceptions, they were very competitive. It is a testament to the players and the coaches that they did as well as they did.  

I have enjoyed watching them play this season, and I hope the lessons these exceptional young men have learned about perserverance and self-sacrifice will stick with them for the rest of their lives.  Well done, gentlemen.  Well Done.

Dan Rishell
Smithsburg

Early voting is OK with LWV

To the editor:

The League of Women Voters of Washington County believes that all citizens should be encouraged to vote. Therefore we support Question No. 1, which authorizes the General Assembly to enact legislation that will establish early voting sites and allow voters to vote by absentee ballot without having to give a reason.

Early voting and voting by absentee ballot without having to give a reason will allow persons who, due to work hours, long commutes or other reasons are unable to vote during the time allotted on election day.

Monda Sagalkin
Director
League of Women Voters of Washington County

No socialism for this voter

To the editor:

I am a foreign-born citizen who has been in the United States, working two jobs for 17 years and have been an Independent the whole time.

I have been watching with amusement the letters to the editor by the Democrats. They seem to be cutting and pasting from the same standard forms and repeating the same talking points word for word. Isn’t that a bit dishonest?

My reading of the Constitution states that the Congress holds the purse string and not the president. So, why would the Democratic Congress give $700 billion dollars of money stolen from us working folks and give it to Wall Street?

I mean, don’t the billionaires have enough money already? The housing market has crashed in New York and other large cities where people making $10 dollars an hour are in $600,000 homes.

Why should we pay for their homes; we are the poorest state in the country. I thought Jay Rockefeller and the Democrats were supposed to represent us in West Virginia not New York. This bailout means our money is going to wealthier states.

Thank God Shelley Moore Capito voted against the bailout! John McCain and Obama.

I will be voting for John McCain, Shelley Moore Capito and Jay Wolfe. To do otherwise would be to return to the socialist dictatorship and state-run media that I left behind.

Prema De Soto
Gerrardstown, W.Va.

The dirt on slot machines

To the editor:

The report card on slots in Maryland has finally been completed by our own University of Maryland, Baltimore County Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, and the grade is a failing one. The report, entitled “An Analysis of the Impact of Introducing Video Lottery Terminals in Maryland,” provides the citizens of our states with a crucial study of the impacts — good and bad — of slots as proposed in Question No. 2.

First, the revenue projections made by the Department of Legislative Services a year and a half ago are most likely grossly overstated, and based upon faulty economic assumptions.

Second, slots will, in all likelihood, double the number of problem gamblers in Maryland. I believe Question No. 2 will create almost 100,000 new problem or pathological Maryland gamblers.

Third, slots will directly negatively impact at least two present sources of state revenue, the lottery and the sales tax, leaving us with potentially $90 million less revenue a year from these sources.

Fourth, and most importantly, the potential social costs the State of Maryland faces are real and substantial. Broken homes, crime and addiction, and more could total as much as $627 million a year, making Question No. 2 potentially one of the most damaging and costly issues ever placed before the voters.

Marylanders United has done a full report for anyone’s review. We urge you to read the report, reach out to the institute to discuss it and consider its findings.

While we wish that every Maryland voter would have the opportunity to read this report, the truth is they probably will not get the chance.

But the more people who hear about the report, the more people will learn important information about the slots amendment, as proposed in Question No. 2. This is a net loser for Maryland and people deserve to know the consequences of this vote.

Scott Arceneau
Senior advisor
Marylanders United to Stop Slots

Obama backers' tactics don't help him

To the editor:

In recent weeks, activities by supporters of Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign have been very unsettling. National newscasters have reported instances of voter-registration irregularities in eight states, including Maryland.

People have reported that individuals paid by ACORN have encouraged others to register to vote dozens of times. Such activity was reported on Mike Huckabee’s show on Saturday, Oct. 18, by two people who admitted having registered to vote as many as 70 times.

Locally I have seen dozens of McCain-Palin signs defaced. In one case, a Bush-Chaney poster was attached to a McCain-Palin poster and placed in a tree. Underneath the sign was an Obama-Biden poster.

In the first case, registering people to vote multiple times is fraud. In the second case, defacing McCain posters is both reprehensible and illegal. But these are not the most unsettling things I have heard of during this campaign.

The most disturbing thing I have read about in this campaign was printed on page B6 of Sunday’s Herald-Mail. The case in point has to do with the operators of a hotel in Prince Georges’s County where the owner of Colony South Hotel and Conference Center received threatening calls after posting McCain-Palin signs on their marquee.

The endorsement was taken down and posters supporting Sen. McCain were displayed. The nature of the threatening calls was not revealed, but the calls are unacceptable.

One community activist is quoted as saying, “In Prince George’s County there are no Republican elected officials and voters are overwhelmingly Democrats.”

The article concludes with the astounding conclusion: That to post a sign for a Republican candidate in a largely Democrat county was disrespectful and in essence likened to thumbing one’s nose at all Democrats in the county. Such skewed logic mocks the election process.

Fraudulent voter registration, vandalism and thuggery should not be part of American politics and I seriously question the rationale for such acts. The individuals involved in any of these acts do little to promote the campaign of Senator Obama. In fact they do the opposite.

Steve F. Lemonakis
Smithsburg

Can't policy be applied sensibly?

To the editor:

One recent Friday night, Jefferson High School came to play soccer against Boonsboro, a well-coached team in Maryland.

However, it was one of those real autumn days, with the junior varsity game starting with temperatures in the high 60s and the mercury for the varsity game moving to the low 50s.

But, lo, if you waited until the second half of the varsity game to fetch a jacket, you could not go to your car to get it and return without paying again, even though I had a receipt. Surprise!

And the gatekeepers were polite; that is the Washington County Board of Education’s policy, they said.

But then, I was watching a woman who was taking a wheelchair-bound grandparent of one of the players to the car to keep the elder person warm and she was informed she, too, would have to pay on return.

They just drove away, not seeing the end of the game. Wow. Seems as if the Washington County Board of Education has good reason for the policy but there should be a sense of proportion.

Reuben Cohen
Shepherdstown, W.Va.