Ms. Allyson Westover

President

Field Board of Education

Ms. Westover,

Perhaps you should have followed your own instincts and refrained from responding to my letter to the editor in the Record Courier.  Your charge that the TEA Party “made the decision” to disseminate information to the public with distorted facts, figures and misleading information regarding the districts financial forecast is a blatant lie.  I will not stand by and have you accuse the member of the Portage County TEA Party, who are residents of Brimfield and Sufffied, who volunteered to spend hundreds of hours of their personal time, to meet with the Board, the Superintended and the Treasurer, of intentionally misleading the public. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

These people have more dedication to the school system than you or your Board will ever have. These people are CPA’s, and businessmen and businesswomen who committed their time to allow you and your Treasurer to explain your forecasts and your finances and you could not do it.  If you can’t explain your finances so a CPA can understand them, how do you expect a common citizen to understand them?  Our members told the public the truth about the schools finances - you just don’t want them to know the truth.

Furthermore, your statement about our singling out just Field schools is also untrue.  I just spoke to the Waterloo Superintendent this week and our members have meet with the Waterloo School Board and the Superintendent numerous times in the past year. We are closely engaged with the Crestwood Board and Superintendent right now.  We have had numerous discussions with the Aurora School Board. The fact is our members are engaged with their communities as much as we can possibly have the time to be engaged all over the County.

As for your questioning the fact that the TEA Party was asked to write a proposal for a levy that would be approved by the public, I was asked to do so in a private meeting on January 12, 2012 with a key administrator from Field School who called me and requested that meeting.  Why you did not know about it says alot about the disfunction of this Board under your leadership.  In that meeting I was also asked to tell the Portage County TEA Party members in the Field District to vote for the levy on the Ballot in the March Primary.  I explained at that time, that I do not tell the members of the Portage County TEA Party what to do in their communities, they tell me what they want to do. They did the work to understand the facts and only they can decide what they want to do with their tax money.  Which they do by voting.

This is the mistake that you, and many others in the county, consistently make about the TEA Party.  We have 2,200 Totally Engaged Americans as members who understand that freedom and liberty come with the personal responsibility for the governance in their community. That means going to local government meetings, taking the time to understand the issues and the finances involved, and contributing to the discussion about what is best for the community they live in.  Our members are doing that, and we encourage all citizen to join us, but our members make all the decision about what action our group takes in their community. The groups in Brimfield and Suffield make the decisions about Field School Levies, I do not.

In your letter, you note that Field Schools suffered a 10% cut in operating budget over the past two years, but when we put forward a proposal to back a levy to make up those cuts with new taxes, the Board didn’t even consider the proposal.  The Ohio Department of Education representative, Mr. Hardin, stated that he felt that the Field District was funded at about 88% of what it should be, our proposal would cure that with a 10% increase.  He also said that the Field District had a student teacher ratio of 17-1 when the state average is 22-1 and that adjustments needed to be made.  We proposed a 5% pay cut to save teacher jobs and provide better services for the students, but the Board will not even propose it, because they want to protect the senior union employees at the expenses of students.  The tried and true union tactic is to take away all the special programs, and busing, and charge for sports and other activities to “blackmail” the community into giving into their demands for more money.  So, much for caring about the children. It is all about greed.

As far as me attending Field School Board meetings, I gave several years of my time and money to the Field Schools and I attended dozens of meetings only to see greedy union interests destroy the system. From all accounts, the Field School Board meetings have become nothing but union rallies at which regular citizens are treated with disrespect and intimidation tactics and you and your Board do nothing about it.  Mr. Kettering started openly laughing at one of our members who was trying to make at statement at a recent Public Board Meeting in an attempt to intimidate him.  You, as Board President, did nothing to reprimand him or bring order to the meeting. The three of you have created this atmosphere of distrust and division in the community not the TEA Party.  I have asked our members to stop going to your meetings because it is just a waste of their time. 

This Board is not and never has been open to community involvement in solving the financial issues. Your message has consistently been, we want more of your money and we will do whatever it takes to force you to give it to us. The community message has been -  it is our money and we are not going to give it to people we do not trust to spend it appropriately.  It comes down to a matter of trust. You don’t have it and the TEA Party does.  Your actions are driving this District into state receivership for no reason other than your inability to engage with the community in an honest manner and put all issues on the table including wages and benefits.  Since you are not interested in solving the problem, you should resign so that citizens who are interested in doing so can get the job done and bring the students of the Field School District the education they deserve and that the tax payers have paid for them to receive.

Tom Zawistowski

Executive Director
Portage County TEA Party

Portage County TEA Party PAC

March 6, 2012 Primary Endorsements

(Click on the 2012 Canditates Link to the Left to View Videos)

Republican Endorsements

President - Rick Santorum

Senate - Josh Mandel

State Central Committee - Jamie Callendar

Ohio House 76th District - Matt Lynch

County Commissioner - Roak Zeller

County Recorder - Kevin Fowler

Democrat Endorsements

Sheriff - David Doak

County Commissioner - Jon Barber

Issues

AGAINST Field School Distrit PERMANENT Levy

AGAINST Waterloo School District PERMANENT Levy

Portage County TEA Party PAC

4682 State Route 43 • Kent, Ohio • 44240 • 330-474-3878 • 330-673-4672 (Fax)

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 7, 2012

60% OF PORTAGE COUNTY TEA PARTY PAC ENDORSEMENTS WIN

Kent, Ohio -  In the primary elections on March 6, 2012, 60% of the candidates endorsed by the Portage County TEA Party PAC won at the polls.  Republican Candidates Josh Mandel for US Senate, Matt Lynch for Ohio House 76th District, and  Kevin Fowler for Count Recorder, were winners along with Democrat David Doak for Sheriff.  The group also endorsed against the Field and Waterloo School Levies, both of which were defeated.  

Portage County TEA Party Executive Director, Tom Zawistowski, summed up the election by saying, “We congratulate all the candidates who ran for office, not just those who won. It is a tremendous act of personal sacrifice for these citizens to have the courage to participate in the election process. We thank them for stepping up.” He continued by saying, “We are also thankful to our PCTEA members who not only endorsed these candidates and issues, but put their time, money and effort behind those endorsements. Finally, we want to thank the citizens of Portage County for coming to our candidates nights, viewing the candidate videos on our website, and trusting the Portage County TEA Party endorsements once again." He concluded by adding, "This is a monumental election year for our nation and the Portage County TEA Party will be bringing just about every candidate to our community throughout the summer and fall, so that every voter can be an informed voter in the 2012 elections.”

The TEA Party is not a political party but a grassroots cultural movement.  The movement is educating American citizens about the Constitution and the uniquely American form of self-governance that has made our country so successful.  Through this education, the movement is attempting to re-define what it means to be an American citizen, by encouraging individual to vote, to run for office and to attend government meetings in their area so that they can participate in their self governance.  The acronym TEA stands for Totally Engaged Americans.

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Portage County TEA Party

4682 State Route 43 • Kent, Ohio • 44240 • 330-474-3878 • 330-673-4672 (Fax)

Editor                                                                       February 14, 2012

Ravenna Record Courier

126 North Chestnut Street

Ravenna, OH  44266

Dear Editor,

As your readers know, the Portage County TEA Party recently submitted a proposal to the Field School Board that would restore cut services and produce a balanced budget from now until 2016 and beyond.  This proposal was a direct result of administrators and citizens linked to the Board coming to our organization and asking us to tell them what it would take to get a levy passed by the community.  We put forward a proposal that asked both citizens and district employees to share the sacrifice to bring the community together in a way that was fair to all parties and benefited the children.  That proposal was rejected by the Board without a single word of discussion with our members or leadership.

Our organization, meaning our leaders in Suffield and Brimfield - not just me, provided detailed information concerning our proposal to the Publisher and Editor of this newspaper, but apparently there was not enough space to print the numbers, graphs and charts we provided to make our case. So, I will take a few paragraphs here to sum up what the Board rejected. Our Brimfield and Suffield members met to vote on our position concerning the current 7 Mill levy that will be voted on this March 6th. They voted unanimously to reject that levy which would be a 30% increase in property taxes, include 8% raises for teachers and staff, and would be a permanent “forever” levy that citizens will never get to vote on again.  It was not until after that vote was taken that our alternate proposal to the Board was discussed with our members.

Let me be clear, it is no easy task to get citizens who just voted unanimously against a tax increase to be open minded enough to consider a tax increase. However, we explained that the District had suffered real income losses due to the cutbacks in state and federal spending.  We suggested that it would be a show of good faith for citizens to step up and make up for those losses by passing a 2.4 mill five year levy that would generate $883,000 per year. This would be a 10% increase in property taxes. This would take the average home owner in Fields School Districts property taxes to about $2,500 per year with about $1,600 of that going directly to the school. However, this was only part of the solution.

The next step was to ask the Board to open the contract and negotiate with the teachers, and staff at Field Schools to agree to a 5% cut in pay across the board - which by law is the only action the Board can take.  A balanced budget also required a complete pay freeze for five years.  Our organization did a survey of home owners in the district in January.  That survey showed that 45% of all homes had suffered between a 10% and 25% loss in total household income over the past three years.  It further showed that 40% of those households had at least one person unemployed for at least three months since 2008.  Finally, it showed that 42% projected that the value of their home had decreased between 10%-40% since 2008. These were the people we were going to ask for a tax increase and for whom the Board wants to take money for an 8% pay raise! 

Finally, our proposal said that if the teachers and staff agreed in writing to the 5% cut and five year pay freeze, that we would work not only to get citizens to pass the 10% tax increase, but also to renew the 7.3 mill levy that would come up for renewal in 2013.  We understand, nobody wants to take a pay cut.  Nobody wants a tax increase either. However, if we care about our kids education, everyone needs to be reasonable and responsible and give a little.

Unfortunately, the union controlled Field School Board does not believe in sharing the sacrifice.  They claim that our proposal is “neither doable or viable” despite the fact that they have complete legal authority to take this action. They say they are “more than willing to listen to viable solutions from the community” apparently as long as the community just agrees to give them what they want. They forget the Golden Rule - he who has the gold makes the rules.  It’s the tax payers money and we make the rules. The last levy failed 70%-30%. The March 6th Levy will fail by a similar amount.  The tax payers, of which the TEA Party is just 10%, have spoken loud and clear. So, what does the School Board announce along with the rejection of our proposal?  “If the levy fails on March 6th we will put the same levy on the Ballot in June.”  What is the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.  Who is the unreasonable party, the TEA Party or the Union controlled School Boards in our county and our state?

Tom Zawistowski

Executive Director 

Portage County TEA Party

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - January 3, 2011

PORTAGE COUNTY TEA PARTY ANNOUNCES CALENDAR OF PUBLIC MEETINGS

Kent, Ohio -  The Portage County TEA Party announced today that it will host eleven non-partisan public meetings during the course of the year to allow Portage County citizens to meet, in person, nearly all of the candidates running for local, state and federal office this year in Portage County.  In making the announcement Executive Director Tom Zawistowski said “Everyone knows that 2012 is going to be a momentous year for our nation. However, the quality of life of all citizens is affected not just by who is president, but also by those who represent us at the state and local level. It is critical for citizens to have the opportunity to meet and question every candidate before casting their vote in either the primary or the general election. Part of the mission of our organization is to create those opportunities and we invite all citizens to attend these non-partisan public events regardless of their party affiliation. This is particularly important for citizens who are registered as independent and who represent the majority of registered voters in our county and our state.”  

The schedule starts on Tuesday, January 10th were the Sheriff and primary candidates for County Recorder will speak and take questions from the audience.  That meeting will be held at the Maplewood Career Center at 7075 State Route 88 at 7:00 PM.  The other meetings listed below will be confirmed once facilities are locked in for those dates. The tentative 2012 schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, January 10 - Sheriff & Recorder Primary Candidates

Tuesday, January 24  - 76th Ohio House District  Primary Candidates

Tuesday, February 7 -  Portage County Commissioners Primary Candidates

Tuesday, February 21  - 13th Congressional District Primary Candidates

Monday, April 23 - Clerk & Recorder Candidates

Tuesday, May 22 - Commissioners Candidates

Tuesday, June 12  - Ohio State Representative Candidates

Tuesday, July 10 -  Ohio Senate & Court of Appeals Candidates

Thursday, August 9  - US House of Representative Candidates

Tuesday, September 11 - US Senate Candidates

Monday, October 1 - Local Levy Issues

The TEA Party is not a political party but a grassroots cultural movement.  The movement is educating American citizens about the Constitution and the historical body of knowledge that our founders relied upon to create the uniquely American form of self-governance that has made our country so successful.  Through this education, the movement is attempting to re-define what it means to be an American citizen by encouraging individual participation in governance at all levels to more closely align government with its traditional role as originally defined by the nation’s founders.  

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