What is Wrong with This Picture? --- The Case for School Vouchers

Let's do the Math.  It costs the Kingston School district and other NY State school districts around $15,000 to $20,000 per year to educate each child in their districts.  On the other hand, it costs
$3000 per year to send your child to local Catholic elementary schools.  What is the reason for this
$12,000 per year discrepancy?  There are 2 big reasons.  1) Uncontrollable increases in teacher union contracts including automatic step raises for all, benefit increases, pensions, plus percentage contract increases and 2)  Administrative overhead expenses.  Let's face it.  Education only requires a committed teacher and well-disciplined, enthusiastic children in a safe building.  How are we going to get Our education system back?  We are going to propose a small change to the New York State Constitution that will :"allow school vouchers to education our children".   These vouchers will then give each New York State parent or guardian a voucher of about $3000 or $4000 for each of their children between the ages of 5 to 17, to send their children to the schools of their choice, including public, private and parochial schools.  We will end up with drastically lower education bills and a superior, vibrant and competitive education system, which will put students first and teachers second.
Any volunteers interested in working on this project, let me know.

Use Rail Trail Grant to Complete Hudson River Walkway

The Cuomo $2 Million grant for the Trail came too quietly and too quickly without much taxpayer debate. On the other hand, the Perna trail where the new homes are to be built near the Kingston Point was only funded half-way (at least a million dollars short) by Cuomo. Therefore, there will be no Hudson River - Kingston Point trail this Summer and therefore there will be no new Kingston Point homes this Summer. Let's apply the $2 Million Rail Trail money to the Kingston Point walkway, so Mr.Perna can begin hiring construction workers at the new homes on the Hudson. Is this a good idea or a bad idea?

Kingston School Board Promotes Poverty not Prosperity

The Kingston School Board is kidding......right? The Kingston Area is reeling with 9.4% unemployment, which is a full 2 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. We are closing 4 elementary schools and we are stilling giving teachers raises and raising taxes and on top of that you want to start universal pre-K. Please come to your senses and realize that you are destroying the ability of the Kingston area to attract serious businesses that will pay decent full time wages so families will want to settle here. Studies have shown that the positive effects of Head Start wear off around the 3rd grade. Universal Pre-K will siphon school funds away from basic reading writing and arithmetic and will put another burden around the necks of family and business taxpayers. Kingston School Board members, please start looking at the big picture. You are destroying the Kingston area, making it a 2nd rate community, whose product is poverty and not prosperity.

Unfair Committee Power Issue

I agree with the Ulster County Legislature minority on the unfair Committee Power issue. However, we citizens of NY State have been living with this unfair "Committee Stopping Votes on Laws" for a long time. For example, Assembly Speaker Silver (majority party) appoints the Assembly committee chairpeople. He basically tells them (and other majority lawmakers on the committee) what to do, otherwise these committee chairpeople will be removed. Therefore, if NY State citizens propose a reform bill such as "repeal of the Triborough Amendment", it will never be voted on in the Assembly, since it will die in committee. This says that the full body of the Assembly will never get a chance to vote on the bill, and we local voters will never get to see how our local assemblymen vote on the bill. Therefore, we citizens will be deprived of information on the true voting record of our assemblymen. Therefore, the majority leaders in the NY State Assembly and Senate have more power than the will of the people. Most reform ideas take several years to build a majority. With majority leaders appointing committee chairs, they have the ability to stop reform and citizen wishes.  To add insult to injury, the only way to change this unfair committee power system is for the majority party in the NY State Assembly to propose and pass a rules change.  Any bets on how likely that will happen?  Maybe the courts should be involved?

New York State School Voucher Amendment

NY State is in a downward economic spiral which keeps the state close to the bottom of 50 states in being attractive to economic expansion. This year again, the outflow of people moving out of NY state is greater than the amount of people moving here. As you know, every 10 years, NY State loses more population relative to other states and therefore has fewer and fewer members of the House of Representatives. People and businesses continue to leave NY State, because the municipal and school taxes are too high. What does this say? It says that relative to the other states, NY State is getting poorer and can expect less clout in Congress. If our state is getting poorer and we will be getting less federal funding, we cannot expect increases in state aid to our local public schools. Therefore, what is the solution? We must consider an open competitive education environment where innovative private, parochial and charter schools are allowed to compete with our present public schools which are dominated and being milked dry by the powerful grip of the NY State Teachers Union. You will continue to see the obvious evidence of this destruction of our public schools by the excessive salary and benefits that our public school teachers receive relative to the ability of NY State homeowners and businesses ability to pay the taxes. What is the evidence? Many school districts are closing schools, increasing class size and laying off teachers. Therefore, we must get busy on a simple amendment to the NY State Constitution which allows our state to fund education with parental school vouchers, which can be used to pay for their children's education at the public, private, or parochial school of their choice. Competition among public, private and parochial schools will drastically lower our school taxes and will allow NY State to become a more attractive and affordable place to live, work and raise a family.

FDR Was Against Government Unions

Regular people, such as teachers, firemen and postal workers do good things for society.  However, as FDR forcefully said that people who work for the government should not form labor unions.  FDR said, "All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management."  Public unions have pitted workers against citizens with the outlandish contract settlements, which include unheard of "automatic pay raises" for all workers independent of individual performance and no layoff clauses.  These public union contracts are currently bankrupting the postal service, cities, towns, counties and yes NY State.

Pseudo Democracy in NY State

The Kingston Freeman published an excellent editorial on Feb.9, 2013 on Pseudo Democracy, where the secret, rushing the enactment of new state gun laws by Governor Cuomo and the state legislature was roundly criticized for violating all normal governmental steps that we learn in school civics classes.  The Freeman expressed the total frustration that many NY State citizens have about our NY State government.  In calling for the Repeal of the Triborough Amendment, we citizens are told by our elected assemblymen and senators that this repeal has no chance, since Shelly Silver and Cuomo are against it.  Again, what happened to legislative hearings where citizens get a chance to push their wishes?  NY State government operations including the way the latest Gun law was pushed through secretly makes us New Yorkers feel like we are living in a state in Communist Russia.  I am sorry, but it is true.