Letters to the Editor
Quid Pro Quo Geauga Style
On Sept. 13, Bill Seitz, state representative, District 30, Cincinnati, and attorney with the law firm Dinsmore and Shohl, was a featured speaker at the legal education conference “Improving Your Probate/Juvenile Court Practice” hosted by Geauga County Juvenile/Probate Court (Judge Tim Grendell).
From public records received from the Probate/Juvenile Court, I learned that Rep. Seitz commanded a speaking fee and expenses, billed to the Geauga Probate/Juvenile Court on Sept. 20, 2019, to be paid by Judge Tim Grendell’s Juvenile Court Special Projects Fund. The amount billed for payment was $3,763. The agenda shows that Mr. Seitz spoke for 60 minutes on the topic “Juvenile Court Jurisdiction, Rules and Procedures in Delinquency and Unruly Cases and the View from the Legislature.”
While there were other speakers on the agenda, none apparently commanded any fees. Was he the only attorney available to speak on this topic? Why would he be chosen for this topic when, according to his law firm bio, juvenile law is not listed as one of his areas of practice? Did he charge the lowest fee? Is $3,763 a reasonable fee for Geauga residents to pay for a one-hour presentation?
Or, was Rep. Seitz invited to participate and receive this payment because he introduced two pieces of legislation into the last two Ohio budget bills — one in 2017 and one in 2019 — that, had they passed, would have directly benefited Judge Tim Grendell? Could it be that this was Rep. Seitz’s ‘thank you’ for introducing the legislation?
As a little background: In 2017, legislation HC 1793, budget amendment, and HB 218 would have expanded judicial powers over parks, and, in 2019, budget amendment HB 166 would have changed the way courts pay their bills (removing important oversight from county auditors).
Was this a payback? Why would Geauga County foot this bill? Is this really what the Special Projects Fund should be funding?
In my opinion, there are more worthy ways to spend public money as it was intended from that fund.
Is this Quid Pro Quo Geauga County style? Follow the money!
In my opinion, Geauga residents should be outraged. I know I am.
Barbara Partington
Munson Township
A Great Country
On Nov. 14, 2019, I celebrated my 100th birthday. How do you say “thank you” to so many good people of Geauga County and beyond?
Thanks to my family and friends.
Thanks to the Maple Leaf and Chesterland News newspapers for sharing stories about an old veteran’s life.
Thanks to all the people and groups that sent me certificates honoring me on my 100th birthday. This includes Diane Grendell, Ohio House of Representatives; Judge Timothy J. Grendell; Larry Householder, Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives; David Joyce, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives; Geauga County Department of Aging; Geauga County Veterans; Chester Township Trustees; Chester Township Police Department; Chester Township Fire Department; and St. Anselm’s Church “Young of Heart Club.”
I received over 190 birthday cards from all over the United States! And, thanks to Jim Kish and the West Geauga Local Schools. I received another 100 personally created birthday wishes from students at our elementary schools.
I pitched a “No Hitter” at the Cleveland Indians last home game of 2019, Sept. 22. (It doesn’t
matter that it was an “Honorary Veteran’s 1st pitch” event!)
The bad people always make the news, but the good people is why America is such a great country.
Thank you all for your kind wishes.
Anthony J. Roman
Chester Township
Importance of Fire Department
On Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, I had the opportunity to witness the efforts of the Chester Township Fire Department along with other departments put out a fire at a building on Route 306 in Chester Township.
While watching the firemen on the roof working to put out the fire, the danger to the firefighters and the perils facing them was apparent.
It made me think back to the passage of a fire levy by only 12 votes exactly one year ago. It is too bad there were not more witnesses to this event. I feel this event should remind everyone of the importance of our fire department and the need to support it.
Joseph H. Weiss Jr.
Chester Township
Return Wasted Tax Dollars
Chardon Schools wants more money again. Chardon Schools’ enrollment is down. Two school buildings have been decommissioned and sit idle, with no attempt made to sell or renovate either.
According to information disseminated for last November’s failed attempt to pass the levy brought back and passed this spring, 79 percent of the revenue generated by our property taxes and handed to our school district is wasted on wages and benefits. It never gets to the students or the buildings. No enterprise can survive that level of expense on personnel.
According to my tax bill, 64.7 percent of all the money we are assessed every year for our taxes is wasted on our school system with its grotesquely skewed spending on wages and benefits. That is why, according to the latest card sent out by the pushers of this boondoggle — if what they say is even true — we now have leaking roofs, failing plumbing, failing heating systems, and outdated fire, safety, security and electrical systems. Money that should have been spent on maintenance and upkeep has been funneled into the pockets of teachers and administrators.
These twisted priorities need to be changed before we agree to waste even one more dime on this band of parasites. Again, why should we spend more money on new buildings when enrollment in our schools continues a downward trend begun years ago? Maintain what we have.
There is another, more serious problem. Once we taught that all men are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights; and that among those fundamental rights are the rights to life and liberty. We built our country on this principle, but still had to fight our Civil War to extend the right to liberty to all men.
Now we use the same logic that rationalized slavery to deny the right to life of our unborn. ‘They’ are not really human. ‘They’ are not advanced enough, not ‘evolved’ enough, to share the same rights as the rest of us.
Instead of teaching that all are created equal with the same fundamental equal rights, we teach ‘evolution,’ with its emphasis on survival of the ‘fittest’ and its built-in concept that some are inherently better than others and, therefore, should be at the top of the social food chain.
Every instance of bullying; of individual murder or mass murder; of tyranny, whatever its philosophical root, whether due to monarchy on through the dictatorships of socialism, fascism and communism; starts with the false assumption that one individual or group of individuals is better, more ‘evolved’, than any other and should, therefore, dictate how everyone else should live; or when and why they should die.
Change what we teach, return to what we used to teach; and we’ll change and eventually minimize or eliminate the problems we face: just as we had been doing before the perversion of our schools began to accelerate back in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The time for change is now. Vote down Issue 21, change the school board and begin to return the outrageous 79 percent of our school tax dollars wasted on teachers’ and administrators’ wages and benefits to the building and maintenance budgets from which they were stripped.
Do the maintenance, repair, and any updates on our buildings that should have been done all along.
Douglas Parr
Chardon Township
