Readers’ Column for the week of February 19, 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.

Congratulations to the students, staff and their supporters of the Owego Apalachin Music Department for the superb performance of Mamma Mia! The auditorium at the school was packed for the final Sunday afternoon performance. The atmosphere reverberated with happiness and enthusiasm as loving parents, families and local residents applauded with resounding appreciation after each musical performance. Tribute and gifts were given to the many who assisted with this play, as it had quite an extensive cast and required creative scenery, costumes, sound, music, dancing, fantastic vocals by the acting students, etc., to pull it off in a most professional way. The standing ovation lasted ‘forever’. The quality of these students certainly shines through along with their parents, teachers, and other mentors, and I am sure they will go on to greater heights in the future.

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I would like to give thanks to the Owego Pennysaver. Your article, Helping a Friend in Need, was so touching. And thank you to all who are working so hard to put this benefit all together for AJ and Michele, and to all those who have opened their heart and wallets to help them through each day of their fight to stay alive. They are both beautiful souls and have fought this awful cancer, side by side. May God Bless you all!

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For all you tinker bells that want to ban football for kids under 12 years old, why don’t you just move to California or something? Leave people alone. Let people decide what they want to do with their own children? We don’t need you to govern our lives any more than you already do. Go away!

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Come on, you can speak! Anyway, check your tax payment, when you make your payment you are supposed to get a senior citizen exemption. Imagine that! Nobody told us anything about it, 85 years old and they owe me back pay! Think about it.

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Thank you for responding to my pendulum clock comment. My husband currently has it running, but I certainly appreciate the number.

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Last night I went to the OFA play, Mamma Mia, I’ve gone to their plays for years and I have to say this was the best one I’ve ever seen. The dancing was at a professional level. All the wardrobe changes were remarkable, so many and so quickly. The best of all was the level of their singing. It was topnotch! The scene where they danced in scuba fins made me laugh out loud. Congratulations to everyone involved for a first rate production. 

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People of New York State, I just want to let you know that when you get those papers from your insurance company they are going to cancel your policy because siding is missing, that’s all part of that code enforcement that tyrant Cuomo started. You should take your money and put it in the bank every month because they are trying to control you and your money. You don’t have to have siding on your house. The house will burn with or without that siding on there. It’s to keep your house topnotch so they can nail you for every tax dollar possible. Please listen to me!

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I would like to say, the gentleman that takes care of RIVERSIDE CEMETERY in Apalachin is doing the best job I have ever seen. He is a hard worker. The cemetery never looked so nice. Great job!

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To the person that keeps bashing the village board members. Please feel free to run for office. I would love to see you on the other side of the table and see what you have to say to the village residents. Maybe you should move from the village, because all you seem to do is criticize. I personally think they are doing the best they can. So please come to the meetings, I would love to hear from you and your input.

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Per New York State law, our OACSD Board of Education annually creates a budget calendar so people may have visibility into and participation in the district’s budget development. Unfortunately this calendar is hidden from public view and no public notifications made. See if you can find Waldo, at www.oacsd.org/. There are also no videos of past business meetings. This includes the 9 a.m. business meeting that no one can attend. For what purpose? At each meeting the BOE wastes money to have a policeman at meetings. Further, the BOE says nothing over the course of the meeting. They simply unanimously approve all resolutions without comments or questions. One has to ask if the BOE meeting agenda is even read prior to meetings. No meeting minutes and no videos, why? Yes, BOE members are elected and receive no pay, however this does not remove their requirement for due diligence. It is not an honorary position; it’s for the children. OACSD performance has been improving for many years now, due to a capable superintendent and invigorated staff. Unless our BOE instills itself with a standard of excellence and transparency it will be only a matter of time (many years) before OACSD regresses to its past mediocrity.

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If you want some good entertainment come to a Village of Newark Valley board meeting. 

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The OACSD Homepage, oacsd.org, reads like an advertisement and endorsement for Google Play and the Apple Store. It has tiny images of OACSD’s Native American mascot. They should be larger as we honor Native Americans. Unfortunately, the Board of Education gives us no insight into their position on the forced removal of our mascot.  Perhaps we will find out after the election of new BOE members in May?

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To the rather sad and unhappy individual in the Village of Newark Valley that is still complaining about the municipal building windows, now to the ladder factory removal project that took place six or so years ago and that was a public health safety hazard. Possibly if that building were next door to your home you’d feel differently. You continue to drive the elected people into the ground that are, in fact, looking out for you. If you don’t like the job they’re doing, find others to do the job. Elect them out of office; some, if not all, would gladly give it up! And 7.9% isn’t half bad, let alone the 5.49% that was passed. How did it get to 5.49%? The deputy mayor you are bashing is half the reason as to why it ended up at 5.49%, along with the help of the residents who stated their concerns without 45 minute off the rails commentary you typically perform for us in the audience. Take into consideration the two trustees on the budget committee suggested that it should be over 10% at the first work session meeting to go over the budget. Why don’t you stop complaining and get involved? You made it clear in a meeting that you weren’t interested in getting on the board, but instead insist on being the “constant complainer.” You also haven’t attended the last two meetings. So either be involved or stop hiding behind this column, we already know who you are!

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It’s nice to see residents showing up to the Village of Newark Valley Board Meetings. I believe attendance is on the rise because we are tired of the same old tax and spend, and not feeling we are getting our money’s worth. We can continue to complain about how things are done or not done, but we need to keep attending meetings and not become complacent like the Village does in dealing with the issues we bring up. I write all the time about how things are done, used or maintained, and will continue to do so until I see a change. We can’t dwell on the past, money spent on windows or the ladder factory and whatever. Our focus should be on what we can change today and tomorrow! We need to get the point across that the Mayor, Trustees and people we employ work for us, not the other way around! 

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I’m looking for someone to help with chores on our one horse farm in Berkshire. Soon my husband has to have both shoulder joints replaced and will be recovering from each one for about six weeks. We are in our mid-sixties and I can’t do the tasks my husband usually does during that time. Please respond to this column if interested. 

 

National Political Viewpoints

Has slow Joe Biden ever taken responsibility for anything in his life? Everything that happens to the country, to him, is somebody else’s fault. Have you ever noticed that? He didn’t even take responsibility when he lied and embellished on his resume. Anything, not his fault, it’s somebody else’s. 

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If Donald Trump is guilty until proven innocent, why are democrats or anyone else innocent until proven guilty? Isn’t that sad?

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I was just wondering when they are going to raid Obama’s home with 30, armed, FBI members to look for classified documents? This is just a thought.

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How can anybody be so dumb as to believe the lies that Joe said in his recent speech? I would take that speech of his and use it for the vegetables in my garden.

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A train derails in Ohio spewing-forth carcinogenic vinyl chloride, and pothole Pete Buttigieg, our transportation secretary, says nothing about it. Balloons are being blown out of the sky almost daily, but our esteemed president, the big guy, is nowhere to be found and maybe that’s a good thing. The Biden idiotocracy continues. 

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So, 162 democrats just voted to let illegal aliens vote in Washington D.C. elections. You’ve got to be kidding me! And they say our democracy is being threatened? Yeah, it’s under threat from the democrats.

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There is a shooting at Michigan State University and all the democrats can do now is their gun control B.S. It turns out the shooter had been arrested several times, and in 2019 should have been put away for five years for guns but because of a liberal judge he was let out. So the problem is liberal judges, democratic judges, not putting people in jail that should be put in jail. I don’t care who you are; if you are a bad guy you go to jail and you serve your time. Do you get it democrats?

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How anybody can think Biden is doing a wonderful job is beyond me. I guess there is no hope for some people and their politicians and the beliefs that they have. Biden showed nothing but lies at his State of the Union, but I guess some people want to believe lies. I feel sorry for them.

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If the unemployment rate is 3.4% and “minimum” wage keeps increasing, why do we have / need so many food give-aways? Is it that our population is unable to feed themselves and their offspring? How out of touch / clueless are those reporting that folks are resorting to going to dollar stores to buy food for a dollar when nationwide “dollar” stores have been charging $1.25 (since the current administration came into office). BTW – that’s an increase of 25%. However, I went to school when they actually taught math.

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Loyal democrats keep being mushrooms as their leadership feeds them manure and keeps them in the dark. About as brainless as mushrooms. The 3.4% unemployment rate is largely due to, once again, children, people GOING BACK to the jobs they had before COVID. Additionally, the layoffs during COVID had caused a bloated unemployment rate, not to mention the shut down of shipping and other good paying jobs by this bunch during the first year of their administration. A great many folks have given up entirely on seeking employment due to it being so lucrative to sit home on welfare. The jobs added number is largely misleading, as many of these ARE NOT BRAND NEW POSITIONS, and are part-time. They are positions that already existed pre-COVID and/or have been reduced from full-time to part-time. Bush’s “fuzzy math” has nothing on this administration.

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In response to the person who thought the SOTU was a clown show and how could people stand to watch it; obviously he did.

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There are 276,000,000 vehicles registered in the U.S.; that does not count the millions of new and used vehicles at dealerships large and small, scattered all over the landscape. I have a question for EV proponents; where are all of these suddenly going to end up if everyone is required to have an EV by a certain date? Has anyone addressed the possibility of converting existing vehicles? I sure haven’t heard anything about it. Also, is it really a good idea to make us dependent on unfriendly countries for the materials for batteries? Aren’t they, with few if any regulations, going to endanger the planet / ecosystem with their increased mining? Is there a firm solution for battery disposal for a huge increase in spent batteries? 

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“Pentagon waste is a longstanding issue in desperate need of meaningful action. Last November the Department of Defense once again failed to pass even a basic audit, as it had several times before. In fact, independent auditors weren’t even able to assess the Pentagon’s full financial picture because they couldn’t gather all the necessary information to complete an evaluation. In some ways, that should have been devastating, the equivalent of a child receiving an incomplete on an end-of-year report card. No less alarming, the Pentagon couldn’t even account for about 61% of its $3.5 trillion in assets. Yet the last Congress still approved $858 billion in defense programs for fiscal year 2023, a full $45 billion more than even the Biden administration requested.” “Wasting Away at the Pentagon.” — Tom Dispatch, February 14, 2023.

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What do Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Vladimir Putin, and Donald T-Rump have in common? They’re all megalomaniacs, and we know from history how millions of people have suffered because of their maniacal conquests and atrocities. So, before you cast your vote / support for T-Rump, consider the consequences of having a megalomaniac ruin our country once again. He had his chance, and we all know how badly that turned out. So please, for the sake of our country and democracy, don’t let history repeat itself.   

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Some say our billions in aid to Ukraine are unaffordable. Like everything else from the Biden regime, the amount is a lie. Much of this aid is in the form of charging the Ukraine for the services of our existing intelligence agencies. The CIA, NSA, and armed services are absolutely giddy about all the on-the-job training and experience the war provides. Although it appears that much of the weaponry is top of the line, it is not. Some are top of the line, some near the end of their shelf life, i.e., artillery shells, and some totally very old and unneeded. The U.S. has 6,000 Abrams tanks. 3,700 are in storage for use in the current circumstance. No plans exist for U.S. Panzer divisions to stamp out those annoying Canadians and Mexicans. Illegal immigrants are the invasion, courtesy of Biden Inc. and the Mexican Cartels.

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Every time I read this column someone is calling Donald Trump a liar. Please refresh my memory and tell me what he lied about. And if you want to hear about Joe Biden’s lies I apologize, as I don’t have enough ink in my computer.

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I have to agree with last week’s caller that said Biden is doing a great job; that is if you like 11% inflation. People can’t make ends meet, but people are saying he’s doing a great job? I don’t get it.

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There are currently 7-plus million eligible people capable to be working who are not. They are not on any list as Unemployed. There are currently over 4-plus million unfilled open employment positions. At the same time our Congressional Budget Office points to increased spending on Entitlement programs as one of the main drivers of our current and future deficits. Connect the dots. The prediction this past week (Feb. 25, 2023) from the CBO based current legislated expenditures will add $19 trillion to our national debt over the next decade, $3 trillion more than previously forecast, as a result of rising costs for interest payments*, veterans’ health care, retiree benefits, and the military. The new projection is a $1.4 trillion gap in this year’s expenditures between what the government spends and what it takes in from tax revenues. If not addressed by our current President by policy and legislatures in spending, over the next decade, deficits will average $2 trillion annually as tax receipts are unable to keep pace with the rising costs by taxpayers. New York State numbers make the same scenario to be applied for our state budget, eligible workers, jobs and entitlements. We will be subjected to a lot of rhetoric in the coming two years. As Ron Reagan pointed out during the Carter Administration, “Are You Better Off?” And now, will you be better off in 2024 by having your vote to support these types of policies and spending?