Readers’ Column for the week of January 29, 2023

You may call The Owego Pennysaver Readers’ Column at (607) 687-2378 24-hours a day, or email comments to readerscolumn@stny.rr.com. We reserve the right to revise or reject any message. 

 

I need to make out a will and I don’t know how much they cost. Is there any assistance out there that can help me out? Is there anyone that can give me a phone number or somebody to contact?    

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I wish the state the DOT would put the traffic signal back the way it was at Price Chopper. We have to stop on 17C for two minutes and nobody’s coming out of Price Chopper.   

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This is for all the Eagles fans out there. Fly Eagles Fly, on the road to Victory, fight Eagles fight, score a touchdown 1 2 3. Hit ‘em low, hit’ em high and watch our Eagles fly. Fly Eagles fly, on the road to victory. Eagles, E-A- G- L- E- S, go Eagles! 

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I just want to say, I was so grateful to read the article from the Village of Owego Mayor Baratta, in the Jan. 15 Pennysaver regarding all the DRI projects that are going on. I would really appreciate seeing that same kind of report from our county legislators to find out what they are working on.

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These grocery stores really need to put a limit on their good sales. The shelves are always bare on these items. I have to start getting rain checks on all sale items. Everyone else should, too. Maybe they will put limits on the items then.

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Village of Newark Valley residents, rumor has it that the person carrying the petition attends the village meetings. Stop by the next one and find them to sign it! The village has to stop with the corruption and thoughtless decisions for the taxpayers. 

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I have the solution to the school (sports teams) mascot controversy. Simply go back to what school is for – to learn, not to play games. Players are held up to other students as “heroes” for running around after a ball; my idea of a hero is the firefighter who runs into a burning building to save a life. Some college and university coaches, who spend their time searching for talent, make a larger salary than the chemistry or biology professor who is instructing the student who may finally find a cure for cancer, or become a brilliant heart surgeon; actually benefiting mankind. It’s time to start growing up as the adults in the room, and promote academics to our kids.

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To the mayor of Newark Valley, since you insist that two full time clerks are needed in your office that deals with roughly 400 homes, yet the town only has one part time clerk and has no problem keeping up, you would think you’d be able to update the board meeting minutes on your website. Last update was in September. That is ridiculous; isn’t there a law about this and keeping them up to date? Time to start looking out for the taxpayers.

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Very Interesting! See what the Bible says will happen to the Euphrates River. Take notice of when the prediction was made and what time period that it will happen. Now check out the current news regarding the Euphrates River. 

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On Saturday, Jan. 21, I was awakened at 6:30 a.m. to the sound of the Village of Newark Valley snowplow. When I looked out the window I was amazed. There was only a dusting of snow, about 1/4 of an inch. This is bad policy. The plowing was unnecessary and only achieved additional cost for the Village. But we shouldn’t be surprised. When the Village politicians are willing to spend $167,000 of local money on windows in a building that no one lives in, and are not willing to repair its own sidewalk, you have to wonder who they represent; themselves or the residents of the Village.

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With all the recent talk in here about the Village of Newark Valley, you would think the mayor would open his eyes and try to look out for the people. The next meeting is Feb. 7. Taxpayers should get to the meeting and tell the mayor what we really think.

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Anyone who thinks solar panels “attract” sunlight needs to be punished and then sent to bed without supper.

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About the Village of Newark Valley – they don’t plow for the over 66 houses on Main Street (not counting businesses and churches), the State does. We should at least get a tax break. And what’s up with the tar and stone on the village side streets? Looks terrible, that’s meant for the back roads.

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I would like to know why we are paying certain companies for garbage AND recycling when they are both picked up together in the same garbage truck? When questioned I was told there are people that actually pick out the recyclables at the base. Really? Someone picks around my dirty cat litter and food garbage to save a gallon jug or a couple tin cans? I don’t get it.

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“We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.” — Albert Einstein.
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Remember the “I Love NY” slogan. That has gone down the drain. We had a governor who legalized marijuana. But you cannot smoke. Now we have a governor that is chasing New Yorker’s out so fast that your head spins. But it’s okay for the illegals to come in. According to her, not the mayor. She’s banning things we have lived with for years to make a better environment. Our gas, oil, wood, etc. They are covering our land with hazardous solar panels (made in China), soon they will make us drive electric cars with lithium batteries (made in China). Right down to banning paper bags. This crap needs to stop. She was elected to serve the people, not strip them of everything. Do something constructive, like getting food, shelter, and gas prices down so families can provide for themselves. Raising our family we worked hard, and it was worth it. Take gardening, we raised all our own vegetables. The solar farms are destroying the earth under them so you won’t be able to grow anything. This is better for the environment?

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New York State’s Education Department has released the school year 2022 teacher salary data. For the 14th year, OACSD has had the highest teacher salaries in the Southern Tier (about 60 districts). Why? You will never hear the OACSD Board of Education speak of this. Never will the damage to students or taxpayers be mentioned. The academic performance of OACSD has improved considerably for the past five years, so is there a correlation between student performance and teacher salary? No and no. On first glance the data suggests OACSD salaries are not that much higher than some others. That is not the case. When the youthfulness of our teacher’s union, local cost of living, and other unique factors are considered, OACSD salaries take 1st place by a substantial margin. Consider that all Tompkins County districts have a very appreciably higher cost of living, yet OACSD exceeds all theirs. How has this bloated compensation been accommodated without increasing property taxes for two years? One way has been a considerable reduction in teachers and staff. OACSD has, for some time, gone without a Public Relations Officer. This will never be addressed in a public session and will get worse as the BOE is changing and has changed its behavior and governance charter to be ever more opaque. This can be verified at https://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/pmf/. Is this excess damaging to students and taxpayers? Yes. Will this be noted in a BOE meeting? It hasn’t for 13 years, why change now?

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I see that the same or another “enlightened” individual who flunked Earth Science has a thesis about solar panels and global climate change. Solar panels are supposedly “attracting” sunlight and thereby contributing to global warming. In case you missed the memo, it isn’t all warming that’s going on, but that’s a larger topic. Solar panels receive exactly the same amount of sunlight as the ground that they cover. They don’t “attract” sunlight any more than an umbrella attracts rain. Does your roof “attract” more rain or sun than an empty lot the same size as your house? Even the large solar farms out in the desert using mirrors to reflect sunlight to a concentrator only receive as much sunlight as the ground that the mirrors cover. Like the solar farm, for you to collect more sunlight than what is falling on your solar panels, you would need reflectors placed around them to divert light from “there” to your panels, in essence STEALING the sunlight that might have hit elsewhere, for your benefit. But the bottom line is that the amount of sunlight that is hitting the Earth is the same over every square foot that it shines on at any given elevation, season or weather, even if you divert it with mirrors to some other patch of earth (like your solar panels). Your thesis that solar panels “attract” sunlight and somehow contribute to global climate change is junk science at best, and rubbish of the worst kind. If you are interested in the links between solar panels and global warming, you need to do a lot more research. The use of solar panels is reducing the amount of fossil fuels used to generate electricity. Fossil fuels release huge amounts of CO2, methane, chlorine, sulphur, and other pollutants into the air when they are burned, which actually DOES contribute to global climate change by messing up the atmosphere. I believe that in 2022, solar generated electricity exceeded the amount generated by fossil fuels for the first time, and on that point alone, there is a valid argument that solar power generation is combating global climate change, not making it worse. 

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I did not attend the recent Binghamton school board meeting but I understand things got out of control. I wonder how many of these people speaking and complaining about SRO’s in schools have had experience working in a school setting. I speak from 30 plus years of experience working in a classroom. Yes, there are counselors and social workers, but there have been many times when they are not able to deal with the issue and they are grateful for the assistance of an SRO. 

 

National and Political Viewpoints

So it turns out Joe has illegal documents that he stole 15 years ago while he’s a senator. Huh, I wonder if he has any more regrets about that, and I have a hunch since he hid in his basement during the whole political campaign against Trump, I’d check out his basement for some documents too. He had to be doing something down there besides eating ice cream. 

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How dare you Democrats criticize Republicans for investigating! For seven years all you’ve done is investigate Donald Trump and you still got nothing, and you’re still doing it with your phony Jan. 6 investigation and all the other bull. Let me tell you, nobody cares about sending Hunter Biden to jail. We’re after Hunter Biden’s laptop because the big guy is going to jail. It’s there in black and white.   

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The Monterey Park shooter used a MAC-11 assault pistol. For those who aren’t familiar, the MAC-11 resembles the infamous Uzi. It was designed to do one thing – spray as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible. For the umpteenth time, nobody needs these weapons of war. They belong in military arsenals. But, wait? What’s that I hear? Ah, yes; it’s the predictable response from the gun-worshipping crowd – “See? Gun laws don’t work! That weapon isn’t legal in California!” Correct. That’s why a federal ban is necessary. As long as these weapons are legal somewhere / anywhere, they will make their way into the wrong hands.  Oh, and let’s dispense with the “good guy with a gun” myth. It was an unarmed young man who tackled and disarmed the Monterey Park shooter. I’m tired of the people who say, “We need to ban books, abortions, and drag queens! It’s urgent,” and in the next breath, “Gun laws don’t work! Bans don’t work!”

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In response to the person last week that said Trump having documents is a crime and yet President Biden’s is a gaffe, I would like to enlighten you – they’re both crimes.

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“We’re the only developed country in the world that unconditionally allows civilians to own military-style assault weapons, that allows “open carry,” that lets gun manufacturers openly buy politicians (thanks, SCOTUS). As a consequence, we’re also the only country in the world where the leading cause of death for children is being blown apart by bullets. America has just a bit more than four percent of the world’s population, but, with more guns than people in our country, we have more than 40 percent of all the civilian guns in the world.” — Tom Hartmann, January 23, 2023

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Being that the democrats have defined our OACSD Native American depiction of Appeal to the Great Spirit as a vile expression of hate speech we need to change our mascot to reflect our western, non-Native American, heritage and honor of the NEW Dem Social Justice Warriors and revisionist historians. We shall replace the OFA Native American with a Drunken cowboy seated on a drunken horse. We will call it “Dem/SJW Power & Progress” and tell our children that is what you shouldn’t be. Think Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou. It’s hard to offend a drunk. 

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“This speech [for Lynnette “Diamond” Hardaway] had all the sincerity and grace you could possibly expect from a man who buried the mother of his children at the 16th hole of his golf course. And the crazy thing is, I bet he thinks it went great. I bet he feels like he just won a Soul Train Award.” — Jimmy Kimmel

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The democrats have found a way to rid themselves of Joe Biden and Hunter – plant secure documents in his garage in Wilmington, Delaware and pretend you know nothing about it. It is more and more evident that he has been used as a puppet, anything to beat Trump.

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War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. — John F. Kennedy

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The Republican leadership in New York’s 3rd Congressional District wants George Santos to resign, but they have no authority to remove him from office. Even the voters cannot do this because New York is not a state that allows recall elections, although 21 other states have this provision. This is something to think about.

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Representative Bill Foster (D-IL), an award-winning physicist who holds a PhD from Harvard, trolled Santos today in a way that powerfully demonstrated the current difference between the two parties. In response to the news that House speaker Kevin McCarthy has put Santos on the House Science Committee, Foster tweeted, “As the only recipient of the Wilson Prize for High-Energy Particle Accelerator Physics serving in Congress, it can get lonely. Not anymore! I’m thrilled to be joined on the Science Committee by my Republican colleague, Dr. George Santos, winner of not only the Nobel Prize, but also the Fields Medal, the top prize in Mathematics, for his groundbreaking work with imaginary numbers.” Heather Cox Richardson. January 20, 2023.

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First time in 100 years the republicans didn’t nominate a speaker in the first ballot. They finally succeeded in 15 ballots over four days. Democrats Hakeem Jeffries and the minority received more votes than Kevin McCarthy did in the first 14 ballots. Democrats want to govern, republicans are all about themselves and don’t care about policies that would benefit Americans. In short, republicans are no longer a functioning political party. 

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The Proud Boys are right about one thing, it’s ridiculous that Trump’s not in prison. This is from Amanda Marcotte of Salon.