Infrastructure Week recognizes workers

DEAR EDITOR:

Infrastructure Week from May 18 to 22 is a timely reminder that roads and bridges aren’t just concrete and asphalt. They are economic lifelines. All over Ohio, a well-maintained county road connects a farmer to market, a family to a hospital, and a student to school. When infrastructure fails, communities bear the cost in damaged vehicles, delayed emergency response, and lost economic opportunity.

Ohio’s county engineers, elected by their neighbors and accountable to their community, plan, build and maintain many thousands of miles of roads and thousands of bridges across the state. We stretch every tax dollar, balance competing priorities, and keep our communities moving safely. Yet aging infrastructure and growing demands strain these systems daily. Sustained investment at the local, state, and federal level is essential.

During this Infrastructure Week, let’s recognize all the local workers who maintain our highway infrastructure, including our townships, villages and cities. I would especially like to recognize my staff of engineers, management and highway crews who work quietly and tirelessly to maintain our 456 miles of county roads and 372 county bridges.

DAVID DeCHRISTOFARO, PE, PS

Trumbull County Engineer

Supporting end to property taxes is bad

DEAR EDITOR:

Ohioans please do NOT sign the petition for a referendum to End Property Taxes

When you went to cast your vote on Election Day you may have been asked to sign a petition for a constitutional amendment that would abolish all property taxes in Ohio. Here is why you should NOT SIGN.

Legislators have many good options to provide property tax relief. As you know, paying taxes is giving government our dollars to buy the things we need and cannot do ourselves, as listed below.

If this referendum were to pass there would be disastrous consequences.

1. Public school revenue has been cut drastically by the state, while increasing voucher funds; hence property taxes have been making up the difference. This has been the main source of funding for Ohio’s 1.5 million public school students.

2. Townships would be hurt the most, as they cannot levy income or sales taxes and rely soley on property taxes. It is their main source of funding

3. Police, Fire and EMS rely on property taxes, as do our roads and cemeteries

4. Local libraries rely on property taxes for more than half of their funding

5. Mental health, addiction, developmental disabilities, public safety, elderly services, children’s services, community colleges, parks, and others all rely on real property taxes

Eliminating property taxes would devastate the public institutions of which we all depend.

Because the state has continually cut the funding to public schools we have seen our property taxes rise to support them. One easy fix is for our legislators to put a halt to the one billion tax dollar giveaway to the voucher program which robs public schools of funding and gives our tax dollars to families who already had their children in private schools. We are actually subsidizing private and parochial schools with voucher tax dollars. If public schools were funded equitably as demanded by the Ohio Supreme Court, numerous times, and which legislators have ignored, we would not be paying such high property taxes. Our legislators need to do their job and fund public schools.

(Information was obtained from Policy Matters Ohio and the Statehouse News Service.)

SUSAN OLIVE, Ed.D

Niles

PACE meeting elder care challenges

DEAR EDITOR:

Ohio is facing a looming care crisis. By 2030, nearly 3 million Ohioans will be aged 60 or older. This demographic shift isn’t far off, and it’s going to have a real impact on how we care for seniors across our state.

Most Americans prefer to grow older in their own homes and communities, surrounded by friends and family, and older Ohioans are no exception. That’s where the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) comes in.

PACE provides comprehensive medical and social services to seniors who still live in their community, giving them the chance to age safely and independently while maintaining access to critical health care resources.

Despite the programs’ numerous benefits, government red tape is keeping Ohio seniors from accessing the care they need.

Too many older adults face barriers when attempting to enroll in the PACE program, creating delays that often increase the risk of falls, emergency room visits and other health crises.

Buckeye PACE was pleased to welcome staff from the office of Sen. Jon Husted to our Youngstown center recently to discuss how federal policy can help streamline the enrollment process and expand access to the PACE program. We look forward to working with Sen. Husted and other lawmakers to keep Ohio’s seniors happy, healthy, and independent.

CHELSEA ROMANOWSKI, MSW

Provider Liaison

Buckeye PACE

Make time for God in our busy lives

DEAR EDITOR:

Grandparents and/or parents, have you come to realize how important it is to prioritize teaching your children and/or grandchildren about the greatness of God? Are you caught up in the busyness of schedules, errands, work, and their sporting events that you have neglected leading your family in time with God’s Word? That is why the passage of Judges 2:10 hits home: “And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel (America).”

The book of Judges tells the story of what happens when we turn away from the living God. Yet, this turn does not happen all of a sudden. In Judges 2, we are given a clue as to what happens and how it starts to unravel.

After a generation that said they would serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15), another generation arose. This generation did not commit to the way of the Lord. Instead, they did not know the Lord. They did not have a relationship with Him. Why?

They did not even know they work the work He had done for Israel (or America).

The latter point speaks to the importance of passing on the greatness of God to the coming generations. That a generation did not know the works of the Lord, at least in part, because the prior generation had not prioritized passing on the faith. May we heed that warning and not turn from God but to Him.

How are you passing on the faith to the next generation? Did your family fail to pass it along to you? What is one way you can make this a priority today for your family?

Never too late for God still loves you, but doesn’t always love what you do!

If we keep back the gospel of Christ and do not bring Christ before the family, then the Spirit has not the opportunity to work.

Learn the lesson. If we want to be delivered, from every inward and outward foe, we must look to a higher source than ourselves. We cannot do it in our own strength.

We pray to God so that His mission and purpose may be fulfilled. How is your GPS working?

MIKE JONES

Kinsman

US Dept. of Education must not be axed

DEAR EDITOR:

I’m outraged by Donald Trump’s wrecking of America’s education system. Clearly, his plans come from the infamous Project 2025. The first line of the chapter on education reads, “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” And, wouldn’t you know, the author of Project 2025’s education policy, Lindsey Burke, is now the deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at, you guessed it, the Department of Education.

The Education Department’s mission is to ensure equal access to education for 68 million Americans by administering federal funding, providing student loans and preventing discrimination through enforcing civil rights laws. The department also collects student data to improve the quality of education.

The administration has ignored the fact that it takes an act of Congress to eliminate a federal agency. First, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the department, then his administration withheld billions of allocated dollars without congressional approval and slashed half its 4,000 employees. More recently, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that the department’s responsibilities would be reassigned to other cabinet departments, effectively shuttering it.

Please urge your members of Congress to block the destruction of this congressionally created agency.

LORALEE DAILY

New Franklin

Different rules for leftists like Kimmel

DEAR EDITOR:

Jimmy Kimmel’s dry, biting skit about first lady Melania Trump, with the punch line, “You got the glow of an expectant widow,” was a big hit with the vulgar, depraved liberal populace. It didn’t take long before the left came to Kimmel’s defense. As a victim, the Right wanted Kimmel axed from ABC.

I recall a similar incident involving Roseanne Barr, when she uttered a remark about Michelle Obama’s “gal-pal,” Valerie Jarrett. Roseanne was quickly shunned by Hollywood and had to bid adieu to her sit-com.

Will Kimmel suffer the same fate?

JAMES COLLINS

Newton Falls

Just a thought on the chickens in Champion

DEAR EDITOR:

I grew up in rural northern Indiana. Around 1968 my sister won a Muscovy duck in a catch a greased pig contest. (A story for another time/)

As we lived in town and our grandmother had a farm, we took the duck to live on grandma’s farm.

Well, the duck kept relieving itself on the sidewalk leading into the house.

Grandma warned us and warned that the duck needed to stop.

We didn’t listen to Grandma.

Well, one day Grandma invited all the Grandkids for dinner. Roast duck was served.

Just food for thought.

MIKE FLAUGHER

Hubbard

Administration makes us wonder

DEAR EDITOR:

We are all familiar with the line, “Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner still wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” but many do not realize that that famous line in our National Anthem is actually a question.

Considering the destructive and incompetent decisions being made by our administration and the cowardly silence of our Republican representatives, it appears that the answer to that question is “NO.”

THOMAS BRENT

Struthers