County Board of Mental Health
Anyone serving on a board must be willing to question. It is fundamental to the health of the board and to the mission of the enterprise. Board members serve exclusively to benefit the constituents. Financial interests, personalities, and business or political motives must be set aside.
Every dollar spent, every contract issued, every employee and every objective. Avoidance is inherently malfeasance. All board members must be clear of purpose and disallow undue outside influence, to the best of their ability. All available facts must be used, all the time, without exception.
Many of the issues now battering America can be traced back to weak, “rubber-stamping” boards. From trouble with school boards and their lurch-to-the-Left to corrupted non-profits and corporations that are adopting policies that run counter to their own interests and those of their customers, board negligence is, I argue, at the very heart of most of today’s biggest issues.
I could write a book about failed boards. In fact, many have been written. The failures of derelict boards are storied and universally awful.
Questioning status-quo or new considerations on a board can be nerve-wracking and even treacherous; however, it is critical. In fact, I will go so far as to assert that anyone unwilling to question is not well suited to the role of board member.
Strong boards challenge and are more likely to get more things right. That is a universal truth, difficult conversations included.
We worked through issues with County Board of Health, are grappling with difficult questions with Board of Elections and face real difficulties on school boards. Regional “NOACA” is comprised of a board that seeks to override local governments in five counties, including Geauga, potentially robbing us of our elected/representative government. Yet, the county board of mental health suffers badly, publicly from an unwillingness to question. It’s difficult to determine how much of it comes from the board itself and how much comes from knee-jerk public opinion, but it is counter to the interests of the people of Geauga.
Recently, programs of the County Board of Mental Health have been called into question, as is the fundamental role of the board. It is with grave dismay that we see a strange outcry at every turn. This is harmful, counterproductive nonsense. If a member of the Board of Mental Health at any point expresses a desire to not consider any and all elements of any program, vendor or employee, I call for their immediate resignation.
All over Ohio thinking/non-conforming board members are under attack for not being “woke”/Left. On the County Board of Mental Health it appears this role is filled by Skip Claypool. He seems to honor his role, questioning, yet is met with loud public outcry at each turn. He is doing his job. Anyone not questioning or avoiding answers should not be on their respective board.
To those trying to silence him, I suggest addressing the issues and arguing your point rather than promoting un-questioning rubber-stamping.
Jonathan Broadbent
Newbury Township
NOACA Response
I would like to comment on the letter to the editor on March 2, 2023: NOACA Disrupters.
My husband and I attended the meeting in Middlefield. This meeting was touted as an interactive meeting. Instead, it was a Zoom presentation and the only interaction was texting answers or questions.
Many people were interested in this because they don’t want or need “a program on climate change” or “equity” in our county, others just wanted to know what was going on. There was some laughter and comments to what was being said, however, no one was unruly or got out of control.
There was a comment about the “ex-county commissioner” “egging” us on. I am insulted by that. I have my own mind and so do the others. Anyone was allowed to attend this meeting. There seems to be negative comments regarding this “ex-county commissioner” all over the paper. Get your facts straight before you make accusations.
There was a comment about “safety officers were there as room decorations.” There were three police officers in the room. I spoke to them. They informed me that only one was there for the meeting. The others showed up because they were in the area and dropped in to see what was going on. The reason they did not do anything about the “disrupters,” as you call it, is because there was no need to do anything. Nothing harmful was happening.
It is important that everyone reads up on what NOACA is trying to do to our county. There are groups from all counties that have gone down to the NOACA board meetings in downtown Cleveland to protest this “climate change” “equity” initiative. The public is invited, so they say, and yet no one is allowed to talk or present once they get there.
NOACA is poised to do great harm to our county if allowed to continue. For more information go to NOACA…in Lake and Geauga Counties – Lobbyists for Citizens.
Sharon Madger
Hambden Township
Chardon High School: A Saddam Spider Hole?
Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz and Auditor Charles Walder voiced concerns over the surplus of general funds held by Chardon Local Schools ($24 million).
Mr. Flaiz continued his concerns about the lack of attention to school repairs and updates. “I’ve been to the high school. It’s absolutely terrible. The design, the safety and security of it is absolutely unacceptable. The condition of a lot of (it) is not great. But you have the money to fix a lot of those problems, so that’s where I’m confused.”
What does BOE member Tod Albright think about this? Is Chardon HS a “Saddam Spider Hole?” Is CHS becoming an orphanage?
Charles Silberman, in “Crisis in the Classroom” (1970), had the answer: “It Is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere — mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, of pleasure in creating, a sense of self. The public schools . . . are the kind of institution one cannot really dislike until one gets to know them well. Because adults take the schools so much for granted, they fail to appreciate what grim, joyless places most American schools are, how oppressive and petty are the rules by which they are governed, how intellectually and esthetically barren the atmosphere.”
Does this represent child trauma, terror and torture? John Taylor Gatto, the 1991 New York State Teacher of the Year (Author of: “Dumbing US Down and Weapons of Mass Instruction”) states: “It is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell to the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows you no privacy and even follows you to the sanctuary of your home demanding that you do its ‘homework.’”
In 1901, homework was legally banned in parts of the U.S. “The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning,” by Etta Kralovec and John Buell, provides the evidence. Homework should be: clean your room, assist with home chores and repairs, etc.
David Hancock
Chester Township
Secretive Logging, Collusion
Thank you for your articles on 3/9/2023, “Parkman Twp. Resident Raises Questions over Logging Activity,” by Brian Doering, and “Why Upstream Matters,” by Tami Masuoka.
Two of the most secretive public entities in NE Ohio — the City of Akron and Geauga Park District — have withheld information from Geauga citizens about logging in our headwaters.
The director of the Geauga Park District, John Oros, has the gall to say the observant individual who sounded the alarm about this affront is all alone in his concern. I am thankful for people like John Augustine who have the courage to speak up to protect our vital watershed.
Logging in Headwaters Park may not grossly affect the recreation that seems to be Director Oros’ only focus. Logging does have the potential to cause long-term damage to the delicate ecosystem of one of the last relatively intact watersheds in Ohio. These are the headwaters of rivers that drain to Lake Erie.
The City of Akron bought up thousands of acres of land in Geauga and Portage counties back in the 1960s for the purpose of protecting water in reservoirs for the city’s (primarily industrial) use. They no longer need the extra water. Now, evidently, Akron feels free to use that tax-free land as a cash-cow.
Akron politicians are unrestricted by any potential protest from Akron citizens because this watershed is not in their city or even in their county. A few years ago, when Akron started logging around LaDue Reservoir, there was protest from a number of Geauga citizens who were stymied by Akron’s political machine from stopping the logging, but the attention did keep the worst of the bad logging practices at bay. This time around Akron was even more secretive about the logging plans and it seems they have had collusion in this from Director Oros and the Geauga Park District board of directors.
Is this what we want from our park district?
Kathryn Hanratty
Chardon Township
Mercy is Greater Than Judgment
The latest battle in this nation’s culture wars — the fight over how to decide issues involving transgender youth — has come to the Chardon school system. That struggle has arisen in Chardon over the question of whether the district ought to discontinue its membership in the Ohio High School Athletic Association because of that association’s policy on transgender participation in high school sports.
Before making sense of this question, it seems to me that certain basic facts about transgender experience ought to be settled. A good deal of confusion surrounds these facts, and until that confusion is dispelled, little progress in resolving this question can be made.
At the last school board meeting, an audience member in favor of discontinuing membership asserted that there are “biological males” and “biological females,” and that the former are “much stronger than” the latter. She continued, “That’s the fact, that’s the way it is, that’s the way God made it and that is not going to change.”
What struck me about this statement was its complete erasure of any mention of transgender persons. If it’s a fact that biological males tend to be physically stronger than biological females, it’s also a fact that sex, a biological category, is different from gender, a social category. It’s also a fact that gender doesn’t necessarily align with sex. In the vast majority of the world’s population, these two categories do align, but in a small percentage of persons, they do not.
This absence of alignment is not a matter of perversity. Such persons are not trans on a whim. Nor is it a matter of social fashion or susceptibility to media buzz or submission to parental or medical coercion. Often youth who understand themselves as trans do so from a very early age. Whether they are younger or older, they come to identify themselves as trans not as a choice but as a necessity. They feel it in their bones that they are trans; being trans feels as natural to them as breathing. I say this not as someone who is himself trans, but who has listened closely to the moving stories of those who are.
The danger of erasing any mention of trans experience from discussion of social issues — whether it be the designation of bathrooms or participation in high school sports — is that you eliminate an entire category of individuals from consideration as human. Moreover, when you deny their being, when you dehumanize them, you leave them open to attack, verbal and, in some cases, physical. You also leave them susceptible, in the face of such attack, to depression, self-harm, substance abuse and suicide.
I’ve always been taught that mercy is greater than judgment. We should feel compassion, not disdain or hatred, for the vulnerable and marginalized. We should also offer them support rather than neglect or rejection. Until we respect the worth and dignity of trans individuals, we won’t be able to resolve the issues confronting us that involve transgender persons.
John McBratney
Munson Township
Chardon Schools Fiscally Responsible
During the February 2023 meeting of the Geauga County Budget Commission, the budget commission deemed Chardon Schools’ general fund “too large.” Mr. Walder said his message to the board is “we don’t know what the plan is, so unless we’re given it, we assume there isn’t one.”
Why would the budget commission not know what the plan is? The treasurer for the Chardon Schools Board of Education submitted the five-year forecast before this meeting, as part of her report to the budget commission. This five-year forecast explains exactly what the plan is. It would be reasonable to expect the members of the budget commission had reviewed this information before the meeting and before calling out the district. It seems evident they did not read this information, which would have answered their questions.
Then Mr. Flaiz added, “Your revenue exceeded your expenses by $5 million, so you added ($5 million) in cash to this fund. . . I’m not going to be as nice as Chuck . . . The rising balance is alarming.”
Mr. Flaiz is obviously unaware — even though the five-year forecast included with the school’s report to the commission explained it — that this revenue will be reduced every year beginning in 2026-27, possibly sooner depending on what happens with state funding or if another huge expense is necessary to fix our aging buildings.
My experience with Chardon Schools financing goes back to 1981. There is a clear history of levies being turned down by voters. Yes, it’s true the schools are in better financial shape now. What in the world is wrong with that? Would it be better if they were cutting classes and teachers, freezing salaries and not buying buses and books as they were just 10 years ago?
In fact, they are replacing roofs, installing new windows, updating restrooms, upgrading the elevator at the high school, encapsulating the tunnel at Park Elementary and so much more, all while stretching the tax dollar and avoiding a future levy for as long as possible.
It would seem Mr. Flaiz does not remember it took Chardon Schools six tries to pass an operating levy between 2008 and 2013. The district was actually afraid it wouldn’t make payroll for the month of December 2013. Under the leadership of Supt. Hanlon, and the teamwork of staff, the schools are in good financial shape — the best in 45 years! And now they are being called out because they have too much money. It boggles the mind.
Here are a few facts about school finance that are important to understand here.
Every two years the state of Ohio votes a new budget that directly affects schools. The state’s allotment for the cost of educating a child for a year is currently $7,299. Of that amount, Chardon gets about $1,600 per student because we are considered a “wealthy” district. The actual cost to educate a student in Chardon is $11,700. Local property taxes pay the difference.
The Chardon school district has repeatedly been told by voters to live within its budget. This “carryover” allows Chardon Schools to avoid asking for a levy for within the life of the current five-year forecast. With the history of lack of support for levies, it seems prudent to do this.
That gets us back to the budget from the state of Ohio. Every two years a new budget is set by the legislature and the governor. Schools are at the mercy of this budget cycle, because it is never sure they will continue getting the same amount as the last cycle. The legislature (in HB 1) is currently talking about cutting taxes — and guess who will be directly affected? Our public schools.
I hope Mr. Walder and Mr. Flaiz will consider the huge implications of their words before they make statements that create even more distrust than public schools are currently dealing with. Their misguided accusations are ill-considered and unfair.
Madelon Horvath, former Chardon teacher, BOE member
Sheldon and Pat Firem (Mr. Firem is a former school psychologist, BOE member)
Richard Bair
Judson and Beverly Elliott
Kim and Martin Greene
Anne Ondrey
Shirley and Joe Schellentrager
Diane Stocker
John McBratney and Elizabeth Cline
Kris Firth and Jay Taylor
Rosalind Kvet, former teacher
Patrick Cataldo, former Newbury teacher, president of GCRTA of Geauga County
Bonnie and Glenn Pisching
Catherine and Elbert Whitright
Barbara and John Hanson
Cheryl Sekura, former Cleveland school teacher, member of GCRTA
Jean Paine, former teacher, member of GCRTA
