Zucal Election and New Philadelphia's Budget

     There is something you must understand about this year’s election.  It is totally about money.  Forget all the rest of the lies and fabrications you have been hearing, it’s the money, the city budget.  It’s about pay increases for the City of New Philadelphia employees, maintenance workers, police and firemen, elected officials like the mayor, auditor, treasurer, city council, city council president, even appointed administrative members like the service director, water superintendent, all of them with the exception of the park director and the law director who have declined such raises. 

But there is more.  The New Philadelphia school department wants more money, this time admitting it is for salary raises.  When I say more money, I mean lots more money. 

Interestingly enough, there is a common thread that runs through this whole scenario, and that is John Zucal, Ward Two City Councilman, a position he has held for the past four years.  Zucal not only sits on city council, he is also principal of the New Philadelphia Central Middle School.  He is the brother of Jim Zucal, New Philadelphia service director, and husband of Wendy Zucal, the Director of Schoenbrunn Village and the Dennison Railroad Museum.  These connections give me cause for concern. 

Where does his interest and loyalty reside, with his personal priorities or with his constituents?  As Dr. Phil has often said, the best indicator of future performance is past performance.  So how does that apply in this case?  The Times-Reporter, on October 18, ran an article of what Zucal considers to be his goals.  It is an interesting recital.
 

He has, according to the article, worked with city, state, and local people to develop a strategic plan to improve the quality of life in New Philadelphia.  His plan, he reported, would be paid for from income that would not come from New Philadelphia residents.  Interesting thought.  Could this be the three percent bed tax that was hotly debated in city council?  If that is the case, how is Zucal’s demand that the bed tax be used to help finance Schoenbrunn Village, a state run operation, or the Tuscarawas County Visitors and Convention Bureau, a Tuscarawas County operation in which the city has no obligation nor financial interest.  He wants to use bed tax money for grants to businesses outside the city.  His proposals give 80-plus percent of bed tax revenues to businesses totally outside New Philadelphia. 

     Mr. Zucal wants budget reform.  That sounds good but what has he done in the past.  He is pushing for pay raises for administration officials which amount to 2.75-percent this year and made retroactive to January 1, 2013.  A previous retroactive pay raise was made for the year 2012.  If passed, it will be the second time that retroactive pay raises have been granted with the blessings of Zucal during his tenure. 

The list goes on.  He takes credit for bringing natural gas companies to New Philadelphia.  I am aware of one company, Piedmont, which has been distributing gas since 1988, but am not aware of any gas or oil company drilling or pumping within the New Philadelphia city limits.  Am I missing something?

He does say that we need budget reform in New Philadelphia.  We all agree with that.  But his reform seems to be a reform that will continue to force New Philadelphia finances into bankruptcy.  His current proposals include a new fire station, pay increases for members of city council to $10,000 a year, promises of pay raises for all department heads.  The list goes on.

He just doesn’t get it.  There is no money.  The mayor doesn’t get it.  Most of the city council doesn’t get it.  The city is on the verge of going broke and he wants to increase salaries, grant more benefits to city employees who are making more money from city employment than the citizens of the city who are paying the taxes  City revenues are down.  Last year’s ending of the death tax cut the budget for 2013 by two million dollars.  But Zucal doesn’t get it.  He still proposes spending that we just can’t afford.

Why this interest in Zucal?   Because he is one of the four city councilpersons up for election this year.  If reelected he will continue his current, and past, spending agendas.  The way city council is made up now, the other ward councilmen seem to be under the thumb of Mr. Zucal.  Councilmen from wards three and four, who generally follow Zucal’s lead on legislation, are coming back for another four years as they are running unopposed.  This almost guarantees three votes Zucal on issues he proposes. 

The councilperson from Ward One is an unknown factor, but if Zucal is reelected, there will be a sure three votes on spending, Zucal, Maurer, and Lautenschleger, with another possible vote coming from the new councilperson from Ward One..  That will lock in the votes on legislation with those who lack the understanding of being good stewards of taxpayer money and continue the spending of tax dollars which has driven New Philadelphia to the edge of bankruptcy.

If you don’t think that we are in a financial crisis, then explain the issue on the ballot that is requesting a 3/4-percent increase in your New Philadelphia income tax, a proposal supportred by Mr. Zucal, who by the way, has offered no suggestions on how to cut back on city expenses.  Oh, yeah.  Zucal also backs the 7.2 mill increase in the New Philadelphia school tax.

Get involved.  Tell ‘em “No” to increased spending.  Tell ‘em “No” to increases taxation.  Tell ‘em “No” to more money for city officials.  Tell ‘em “No” to Zucal

Gun-grabbers promise protection they can't deliver

 

By GREGORY KANE | OCTOBER 17, 2013 AT 8:52 AM

                      

When a group of thugs dragged Alexian Lien from his SUV on Sept. 29 and savagely beat him, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was nowhere to be found.
Neither was President Obama.
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, reputed to be a presidential aspirant, wasn’t on hand to protect Lien, either.
It should be pretty obvious what Bloomberg, Obama and O’Malley have in common, other than protoplasm.
We’ve been hearing from all three since the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., on the matter of America needing more gun control laws.
Bloomberg, Obama and O’Malley were among those calling for laws that would limit the magazine capacity for firearms.
The argument of gun controllers goes like this: There really isn't a need for guns with magazines that can fire large numbers of rounds, because only crazed killers would want to kill that many people.    
Lien should have been armed with a gun that had a high-capacity magazine as he drove on New York City’s Westside Highway on the afternoon of Sept. 29.
No one wants deranged killers mowing down large numbers of people with weapons that have large-capacity magazines.
But I want people that are attacked by members of, oh, I don’t know, say a motorcycle gang, to have enough firepower to defend themselves, too.
So I wasn’t in favor of the proposal to ban guns that had large-capacity magazines. My argument was simple:
People like Bloomberg, Obama and O’Malley really shouldn’t be in the business of telling the American people how many attackers they might have to shoot.
A six-shot revolver would have done Lien little good in defending himself. But a semiautomatic handgun with a magazine capacity of 15-20 rounds might have come in real handy.
The gun-grabbers use logic similar to their “no one needs to shoot that many people” argument when they talk about banning assault rifles. No one, they claim, needs an assault rifle.
Whether a person needs an assault rifle depends strictly on how many people are present to do him harm.
I don't know if those Korean-American merchants that had to defend their lives, homes and businesses during the 1992 Los Angeles riots had used assault rifles, but they'd have been darned well justified if they had.
Los Angeles police, for whatever reason, provided no protection for those Korean-American merchants.
So they decided to protect themselves, and made many Americans proud to be Americans when they did.
According to news reports, there were undercover New York City police officers among the biker thugs that attacked Lien. They were of no help, either.
The gun-grabbers assure us that the cops will protect us whenever we need protecting, but the incidents in Los Angeles 21 years ago and on New York City’s Westside Highway on Sept. 29 prove what a world of delusion they’re living in.
Cops can’t protect us in every situation. In Lien’s case, a cop might have been one of the bikers trying to smash his SUV window.
Citizens have to protect themselves. That’s why we have a Second Amendment in the first place.
When elected officials like Bloomberg, Obama and O’Malley advocate and sign laws designed to restrict the gun rights of law-abiding citizens, they’re in essence cutting a deal. They’re making us a promise.
They’re telling us that we don’t have to fret about protecting ourselves, because they and their big, bad, brave police force will protect us.
But the likes of Bloomberg, Obama and O’Malley are lying when they make such a promise, and they know darned well they’re lying.
They’re also writing a check with their mouths that they know our bodies won’t be able to cash.

GREGORY KANE, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

Excessive Tax Increases Coming To New Philadelphia

This is going to be one of the most important elections we have had in recent memory.  What happens this November will set the standard of living in New Philadelphia for years to come.  I know you have heard it before, but this year is different, really.

For one thing, issues on the ballot will affect your standard of living in ways you could never imagine.  The proposals include a city income tax as well as a school proposal.  Already the county has raised your country property tax by three percent, and when you total them all together the result is a big bite out of your income, a really big bite.

Let’s start with something simple, Tuscarawas County real estate tax.  You won’t find this one on the ballot, but you are going to find it on the bill from the Tuscarawas County Auditor next spring when your real estate tax bill comes.  You have probably received the notice already.  If you didn’t notice, the market value for your house has been increased.  It doesn’t mention the tax increase in so many words, but look out, it is going to be a real shocker.  The market value of your house has been increased by three percent.  Keeping the math simple, that means that next year the cost of your real estate tax alone will increase.  To figure out how much, look at your real estate tax for last year and multiply it by 1.03.  The figure you come up with is your new county property tax.  If, in the box on the lower right of your real estate bill, the amount due is $500, remember that is only for half a year, the tax is increasing by about $15.  It’s not much, only $30 a year.   There is not much we can do to prevent it since it is a state law and you know how much we can do to affect that.  By the way, folks who rent are going to pay this tax as well.  Trust me that the property owners you rent from aren’t going to absorb that loss.

Also on the ballot is a proposal to raise the city income tax by 3/4 percent.  That will kick your income tax up to 2.25%.  If your reportable income is $30,000 a year, your city income tax will jump from $450 to $675 per year if Ballot Issue 1 is enacted.  But then, as the advocates of the issue figure, it’s only a $225 increase.  What they don’t say is that there will be $225 less in your grocery budget.

Then comes the big one, the levy for the New Philadelphia Schools who want to add a 7.2 mill increase to your taxes.  The current tax rate is 49.2 mills, or 49.2 cents per thousand dollars real estate evaluation.  Should this levy pass it would increase the school taxes to 56.4 mills.  So for a property valued at $40,000 by the county, a resident who now pays $1,968 a year in school taxes, will be paying $288 more a year for a total of $2,256 in school tax.  But wait.  His house evaluation has increased by three percent, which raises his school tax by the same amount, to a total of $2,324

So if you live in a house for which the county has valued at $40,000 and have an adjusted income of $30,000 a year, voting for increasing the city income tax increase and the school levy will boost your taxes to almost $3,000.  And this, believe it or not, is on top of the increase in the sales tax, which is 6.75% on all you buy except for food you take home. 

The politicians will tell you we need these tax increases to make the city and county run.  I think we need that money to feed, clothe, and house our families.  Isn’t it about time we say no to those elected officials who are supposed to be looking out for our good but instead spend our money on their pet projects, on city employee wages, and expenses that don’t help us?

Vote in this election.  Vote no on the spending bills.  Make government live within their budget as we have to live within ours.  Tell ‘em no!

 

Goverment Shutdown Without the Panic

Jewish World Review Oct. 4, 2013/ 30 Tishrei, 5774

Who Shut Down the Government?

By Thomas Sowell @www.tsowell.com

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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.

There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for ObamaCare.

This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the Congressional Record.

As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States . All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.

Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.

ObamaCare is indeed "the law of the land," as its supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its Constitutionality.

But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.

The hundreds of thousands of government workers who have been laid off are not idle because the House of Representatives did not vote enough money to pay their salaries or the other expenses of their agencies — unless they are in an agency that would administer ObamaCare.

 

Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who — if anybody — "wants to shut down the government." But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare.

The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he wants a "clean" bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media keep repeating the word "clean" like a mantra. But what is unclean about not giving Harry Reid everything he wants?

If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run ObamaCare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility.

You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government.

 

When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting or withholding money, that is simply a bald-faced lie. You can check the history of other examples of "legislation by appropriation" as it used to be called.

Whether legislation by appropriation is a good idea or a bad idea is a matter of opinion. But whether it is both legal and not unprecedented is a matter of fact.

Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.

Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt. But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.

None of this is rocket science. But unless the Republicans get their side of the story out — and articulation has never been their strong suit — the lies will win. More important, the whole country will lose.