You may call the Owego Pennysaver Readers’ Column at (607) 687-2378 24-hours a day, or e-mail comments to readerscolumn@stny.rr.com. We reserve the right to revise or reject any message.
Spring is here! Please help with how your cemetery looks this spring and summer! Ask if you can volunteer to help clean up the grounds. Many cemeteries do not have the financial means to pay for full time maintenance employees. Nichols Cemetery in Nichols is having a cleanup day on April 18 at 9 a.m. Please bring rakes, garden tools and gloves. Boys and Girls Scouts, and any organizations are welcome to help! All help would be appreciated. The rain date is April 25.
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I made a call about some people in Nichols that had several dogs tied to trees and weren’t being cared for. The person I spoke to did not do anything, and this winter they froze the dog to death. I don’t know about the rest of the taxpayers around here, but I’m getting just a little bit fed up with paying people to not do their jobs. If anybody has an idea of how you can make this end, I wish they would call it in or something. It’s just gotten to be too much.
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Help! I’m trying to find the first BC Open television announcer’s name. I can’t remember. I have a bet going on. Please help me.
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I live on Gage Road in Owego. Thursday morning my lab Jennie was hit and killed. The person who hit her didn’t have the balls to stop and let me know. This was a hit and run. Jennie wasn’t my dog. She was a family member. My porch light is always on and my house light is on when I let my dogs out. He had to have known which house it was, there are not many out here. I want to thank the man that did stop in the road and notified me that my dog had been hit. This is awful and you should be ashamed of yourself!
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I just wanted to mention the nice things I purchased for a friend of mine. I bought him a beautiful deer antler key change and a deer antler candleholder. They weren’t the typical fake man made deer antler products. They were 100 percent the real thing! He also had made up some real nice Christmas ornaments, many styles of necklaces, antler and driftwood ornamental pieces, art, etc. His name is Tom, his number is 625-3989. If you like real natural antler products he is the man to call.
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I have a simple solution for the Cal Harris ordeal. Have him take a polygraph test from numerous different polygraph people and that way he can prove for once and all that he is innocent. I don’t think I have ever heard him say that he would take a lie detector test. Cal, if you’re innocent, prove it!
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I’d like to give a huge thank you to the Tioga County Lions Club for having the tie dye social this past weekend. It was a wonderful get together, the food was fabulous, and I think everybody shared a wonderful fellowship. It’s really nice this club takes care of people who are vision impaired, and have other types of handicaps. It was a really great outing.
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I’m sick and tired of hearing about Cal Harris. You’re innocent until proven guilty and that’s that. That’s the way it’s supposed to be in this country.
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I am calling on Cal Harris’ innocence. No body plus no weapon equals innocent. When he does get found not guilty I will meet him at the sidewalk in front of the courthouse and I am going to take him to an all you can eat dinner. Go Cal! You are innocent.
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This is the man that made the complaint about the red bows on the bridge. I know you’re supposed to take care of things. I read the column on the response. Am I really supposed to come down there when the snow and the ice is up against the bridge and colder the devil out? I was waiting for it to get warmer. Today is Sunday, toward the end of the month and it’s really nice out. I could have come down and taken them home, cleaned them up and put them back up towards Christmas. Thanks a lot for your comment. I was just waiting for warmer weather.
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I read in last week’s Pennysaver, the comment about the Harris trial. The question is, why do they have to be so graphic in their description? It really turns me off.
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The 30 percent budget increase at the Tioga Central School district is too high of an increase for taxpayers at one time. While I would not like to see education and sports cut for the children, they have to be willing to cut out some items such as the swimming pool. I’m sure there are other items that can change as not to make it such a high increase. If not, my vote will be no. Meet us half way.
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I’m looking for a Stanley cleaning products dealer. If anyone knows anyone that is selling the Stanley cleaning products could you please leave your number in this column?
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Someone mentioned in this column about St. Pat’s turning into a charter school. Could you please tell us what a charter school is?
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I’m confused. With the hundreds and perhaps thousands of crushed cars shipped out of the New York harbor, why hasn’t it been brought up that this is how Michelle Harris’ body disappeared? Don’t car dealerships have to keep records of what is crushed and shipped out? Probably considered a tax write off. Why hasn’t a question been brought up by the prosecution regarding the disposal of crushed cars? It is a possible solution to the missing body.
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The genius has done a lot of studying and complaining about the highway department, yet I understand he doesn’t drive. I think he’s an angry old soul who enjoys seeing his unintelligible complaints in print.
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The school superintendent has done it again. With all his schooling and architectural knowledge, he has made the west section of the new middle school look like a motel 6. The rest of the school has two roof peaks that serve no great purpose except it jacks up the cost of the building. Can anyone comment on this?
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I see it’s no good calling the Tioga Sheriff’s Department about kids who are being bad and stuff, because a couple were out here shooting pellet guns and they were called. They never showed up. About three weeks ago they were out here at 4 a.m. smashing snowballs off trailers, getting in people’s cars, slamming doors and then hiding. They showed up, took their names and that was it. Never went to the door to talk to their parents or anything. Right now kids are there and parents aren’t home, probably drunk.
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To the person who said Election Day was changed because people drink on St Patrick’s Day. People drink every day of the week and that’s a sad comment on the American way of life. With all the problems we have here that we change the Election Day because people drink. Maybe we should be looking into why these people are drinking so much.
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The Owego Apalachin CSD is in the process of increasing your property taxes by 3.95 percent. Shouldn’t the District cut your cost of collecting and remitting monies for the Teachers Union Political Action Committees first? This is immoral in principal! OACSD taxpayers should not be expending a penny for support of Union PACS. Another savings, the District should stop providing the highest paid teachers both a generous pension program and the equivalent of a free 401(k) or 403(b) [no employee contribution required]. The District knows where the fat is and has no plans to tighten any belt. In the real world only 401(k)’s are offered.
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I am a victim of a domestic abuse. I was brutally attacked in my own home without warning. My abuser is my husband. He gave me two black eyes, broke my skin open, bloody swollen nose, multiple bruising and a mild concussion. He never spent anytime in jail. He is only charged with harassment (A VIOLATION) due to the fact that he did not break any of my bones or put me in the hospital. That is New York state law and it is sad. People wonder why victims of domestic abuse do not press charges? Well this is part of the answer. Why would a frightened victim press charges if the abuser would not be jailed? Order of protection is just a piece of paper. That doesn’t make me feel any safer. I have also noticed a few people wonder why he hit me. As if there should be a reason! I guess some people are still living in the 1940’s when it was acceptable to give a woman a good beating in front of her children just because she has an opinion. I feel my abuser is getting away with a crime.
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The Owego Apalachin School District will receive a 7.7 percent increase in state aid for the 2015-16 Budget. On top of this they are proposing to increase local taxes by 3.95 percent, another $626,447. The proposed school budget for 2015-16 is $1,313,225 over the current year’s budget. Can our property owners really afford this? Continuing down this road will put more and more properties in the Owego Apalachin School District at risk of foreclosure. After six years of state aid reductions, it appears our Administrators, with the support of the Board, are preparing to go back to spending as usual. Not because it is needed – but because they can! This Administration needs to present and the Board needs to assure that this $1.3M increase in spending will go to fund programs and services for the students and not to sustain already high salaries, benefits and waste. Ask your Board members to show you how many new teacher’s aids, teacher’s assistants, and courses will be added to benefit the students.
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The Millennium pipeline is going back into “open season”, which means an intention to expand and the need for more compression stations. Expanding the pipeline will mean higher average pressure and velocity. This means more risk. Remember the Millennium pipeline leak from bad welding? Stay tuned.
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Attention Chesapeake Royalty Owners! Confused about the $11 million class action settlement? Weekly Royalty Owner Teleconferences on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., dial 1-800-868-1837, when prompted access code 412135#. Have questions? Visit Royaltyripoff.com.
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Tioga School District at a glance: New York State 2 percent Tax Cap in Tioga School district is actually a negative 1.49 percent, but the budget requires a 25 percent increase in its tax levy in order to close the $900,000 budget gap, yet a 1 percent increase in its tax levy brings in just $30,000 in new revenue. To date, most New York State rural school districts, overall, have produced budgets under the cap, doing so with reduced “mandatory” state aid for the previous seven budget cycles, which have produced many cuts in spending. Districts have been using their diminishing designated reserve funding for increased fixed expenses, yet they too are arriving at the same place where Tioga has arrived. Consider and count Tioga as being the “poster child” for what all other rural districts are facing. In New York State and especially the over burden forgotten Southern Tier region, all rural districts are on the same path of diminishing district reserves and State Aid with tax cap revenue constraints. With ever increasingly higher expenses, every district school board is or will be facing the same dilemma; Sooner rather than later.
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Social Security is not broke or doomed, but simply needs to be better funded by ending the free pass given to the wealthy. Simply eliminating the cap on income subject to the FICA tax, currently set at the first $118,500 of earned income, would make the system fully able to pay all promised benefits for the next century or more. Extending the tax to cover unearned income — basically capital gains (a tax that only impacts the wealthy) would allow for an expansion of benefits.
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Dear USA: No more wars for you. You’re on war timeout for the next 100 years. Now fix your bridges and give people jobs. Thanks, God.
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“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” Carl Sagan
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This is just an observation. Lately there were two emergency calls to Southside. One was a structure fire where Campville was called before Owego. I thought that was odd. The second one was medical and Owego was called for the vehicle and Campville was called for medical personnel. Is the Town of Owego Fire / Medical trying to justify paid personnel by padding call hours?
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A renowned scientist in an off-camera moment last week on CNN made the statement, “Global climate change is a hoax, but it won’t go away because it represents a $22 billion industry now.” And there you have it. All about money, control, and not much else; but the low information voter won’t do their own homework and actually learn the truth. Instead, they will continue to swallow the pabulum with no question.
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Why does the DMV require truck drivers licensed in New York (CDL holders) to “be able to read and speak the English language well enough to: 1. converse with other people; 2. understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language; 3. answer questions from officials; and 4. make entries on reports and records”? Obviously so that they can drive safely, driving 40 ton (or more) vehicles on our highways and not be a hazard to traffic and/or pedestrians, etc. Why, then are some states giving the CDL exams in Spanish or other non-native languages, knowing full well that it will and does cause problems? Why are the legislatures too timid to state, “Want to drive a truck in the U.S.A.? You need to learn English well enough to pass all of the tests, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER DRIVER had to do.” This is getting nuts, dangerous and frustrating. If the nitwits in Albany or any other state capitol had a family member or loved one killed by a non-English speaking truck driver, fully licensed by some “sanctuary, all inclusive, come one come all” state, you can bet they would be raising a big stink and have their lawyers right on it. Wake up, you idiots, this is still the U.S.A., not the United States of WHATEVER. Laws and rules are NOT SUGGESTIONS! Beam me up, Scotty. Way up.
