All at once I got a funny feelin’
That something around here was goin on wrong
Hmm
So you know what I did Jimmy?
What?
I got up and I began to look all around for my baby
Was that it?
That was it, you know the woman had packed up and gone
Oh lordIF IT WASN’T FOR BAD LUCK
Ray Charles
I think everyone understands that taxes are a part of life and I think everyone also believes that most public officials try their best to conserve resources when possible.
Having said that though, what troubles me most about the Whitehall School system is that there has always been very little effort put into a.) watching the taxpayers dollars once they’re in the public coffers and b.) the effort that is made is so cavalier it borders on the bizarre. It would be actually funny at times if it wasn’t for the damage it was doing to the community as a whole. The school board cannot shake their belief that the taxpayers’ pockets are endlessly deep.
What is going on now in Whitehall, with the closing of numerous businesses and the inability of people to sell their own real estate, is that the powers that be in the school district and town have made Whitehall too expensive to live in and there is very little effort being made to do those things to bring people into the community.
What is needed to spur the town forward is a dramatic decrease in the costs associated with living in the confines of Whitehall’s taxing districts. Every year the town stagnates more and taxes are increased, so what we’re all seeing in the demise of Whitehall is a natural outgrowth of years of poor stewardship and planning along with out of control spending combined with a lack of vision. The one thing that Whitehall needs most: a dramatic decrease in taxes, is the one thing that those who are mainly responsible for the tax policy of the community cannot even seem to entertain.
A small example illustrates my point. A few weeks ago, I wrote of the sad vandalism to the playground at the Whitehall School — a child’s slide appeared to have been deliberately broken. The presence of high-tech cameras at the playground, paid for by the taxpayers, were apparently irrelevant to this.
Recently, a reader snapped some photos of the school’s response, which does not involve any actual repair – instead, the school has apparently simply used plywood to render the entire slide – not just the damaged center section – unusable. Perhaps something more permanent is planned – but if so, why not fix it in the summer, when school is not in session?
Courtesy of taxpayers, the Whitehall school system treats students to amenities you’d expect to see on the Queen Mary 2, including tennis courts and an indoor swimming pool. Now the school is funding a complete overhaul of the auditorium as well, despite well-documented plummeting enrollment.
Leaving aside whether large capital improvements are necessary, how can the school board be trusted to undertake projects – with our money – when they can’t even properly fix a broken plastic child’s slide or identify the culprits with high tech security cameras?
Oh yeah?
Lord have mercy
I, I, I, I can understand it, it made you feel like you wanna holler a little bit
Made me feel like I wanna
Aahhhhhhh-ow!
Yeah man, when I run into that situation, makes me wanna cry a little
bit like this
Ooh-hoo!IF IT WASN’T FOR BAD LUCK
Ray Charles