Paine’s Patriots 1203

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Check out the latest video of “Paine’s Patriots“!

Join Fred Boggess and Terry Mikkelsen as they discuss the different levels of government that are employed in the United States. This is episode 1203 which focuses on the role of the federal government. How it was initially conceived, how it performs currently and ideally how we would like it to be structured in the future.

“Paine’s Patriots” highlight the relevant topic of the day while informing the public with a perspective of making for a stronger and wiser electorate.

Paine’s Patriots

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, a pdf version for you to easily view and print!

Paine’s Patriots 1201

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Check out the latest video of “Paine’s Patriots“!

Join Fred Boggess and Terry Mikkelsen on an analysis of the Super Tuesday election results. Local and regional politics from the 2nd Congressional District down to the Highland County Recorder. “Paine’s Patriots” highlight the relevant topic of the day while informing the public with a perspective of making for a stronger and wiser electorate.

Paine’s Patriots

More exciting than the Daytona 500 or the Oscars!

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Yeah, we all have our odd interests.  This one focuses on the Campaign Finance Reports for the Highland County candidates.  I alluded to this in the previous post.  We could examine a myriad of comparisons, such as how much each candidate has in the coffer or where all their money comes from.  But today we’ll look at where the money goes.  Most, if not all, of the candidates have made mention at one point or another about how important it is to “shop locally”.  So now we will see how each candidate stacks up in spending their own money in Highland County, Ohio.  I thought about listing them in order by percentage, but there are some candidates who have yet to hit their spending stride.  So, we’ll just go alphabetical in each race and I’ll add additional data to help clarify the percentage number.  (The percentage number is the number of dollars, not number of transactions, spent within Highland County vs total expenditures.)  Ready?  Let’s go!

 

Highland County Treasurer

Gary Heaton – filed 02/14/12
1 transaction = $45.80
100% within Highland County

Ben Teeters – filed 02/21/12
5 transactions = $3353.87
50.97% within Highland County

Vicki Warnock – filed 02/22/12
5 transactions = $1435.68
58.89% within Highland County

Debbie Zile – filed 02/23/12
17 transactions = $2995.09
75.43% within Highland County

 

Highland County Recorder

Richard Counter – filed 02/15/12
8 transactions = $2702.20
59.78% within Highland County

Chad McConnaughey – filed 02/21/12
36 transactions = $3996.20
57.68% within Highland County

 

Highland County Commissioner

Steve Cowdrey – filed 02/16/12
17 Transactions = $977.04
32.24% within Highland County

(Tom Horst was not required to file since he had received or spent less than $1000 – ORC 3517.10)

Brenda Losey – filed 02/17/12
1 Transaction = $3.80
100% within Highland County

Randy Mustard – filed 02/23/12
22 Transactions = $2926.67
84.27% within Highland County

Josh Patton – filed 02/17/12
3 Transactions = $1091.17
28.87% within Highland County

Shane Wilkin – filed 02/23/12
5 Transactions = $2566.31
74.84% within Highland County

 

Now we have a nice baseline.  We’ll see how these numbers compare to the post-primary reports and the pre-general reports.  There are also some other areas that we could examine that the experienced politicians should be aware of, but we’ll pass on this round and see if they clean up their act.

ps – I am always supportive of anyone who runs for any position that is truly committed to representing the people.  If you have any questions, please ask, and I’ll do my best to assist you to be the best candidate that you can be.

Know Thy Audience

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When presenting, it is extremely important to know your audience. I’ve talked to groups from Kindergarten to Senior Citizens. It’s obvious that you can’t present your materials and thoughts the same way to all groups. Some politicians have taken it too far and only say what they think the audience may want to hear and sometimes even bending their beliefs to fit the situation.

But now we need to expand this just a bit more. We as an audience or bystander need to understand the message being delivered AND how it is being received. The delivery is being tailored to an expectation. This can be very obvious and probably won’t fool those who pay attention.
How about the reactions of the audience? Think about this: a debate has been setup for the presidential candidates. The event is sponsored by the local Republican Party. Obviously everyone will not fit into the venue, so the party has tickets to give away. They give them to the “rank and file” members. Now when you see them on TV and the crowd goes wild for a certain candidate you can see how that might influence unknowing watchers. Rank and file members are known for cooperating with the party wishes. They definitely would not cheer for the candidate who used to belong to another party. Without knowing the audience, you might think that the general public is really in support of one candidate, but that may not be the case.
Think this all sounds too far fetched? It is exactly the scenario that took place in Florida just a few days ago. The game of politics is very broad and is played by many on all sides and all parties. (local politics can be just as ugly).
So how do we guard against these games and keep them from wrongly influencing us. We stress that candidates need to stay true to their convictions and not flip-flop. That is the same advise we need to abide by. Don’t vote for a candidate based upon likability or electability. Make sure that the candidate shares your same moral values, has a strong work ethic and you can believe in what they say. It’s a little more difficult to get a true representation of a national candidate who is a bit less accessible, but there is no excuse for not getting to know your local candidates. I need to meet with just one more candidate to complete my mental vote for the primary. If you need help getting in touch with any of your candidates, your local board of elections office is a great place for public information on each of the candidates.

For those interested, campaign finance forms will probably be the topic of the next entry. Stay tuned and thanks for reading! (sorry for the lack of formatting, I’m writing this on my iPhone, otherwise it might be another week before I could write)

A Democrat and I agree

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I ran across this video on youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9ixJ4fizYU&

Rep_Robert_Hagan_HB369

Be sure to endure the first minute or so because then it gets very interesting.  If he didn’t specifically reference redistricting, you would think that he could have been referring to our local government.  Some may refer to it as “And then I realized a lot of stuff is done before we actually get here.” and “All that stuff kind of gets taken care of in committees or in a talk with president of council, who is in talks with other council members.”  Mr. Hagan and I call it back door deals and I’m tired of it!

I hope that all of you are taking the time to see what is really going on with our local politics.  Everyone seems to agree that our national political system is wrecked, but we really can do something about our local governments.  We need to keep abreast with the current local officials and the candidates that are coming up.  Stay tuned for more updates, but come to the meetings and find out for yourself.

 

Hillsboro City Council – 2nd Monday of the month, 7PM at the new fire department on N. East St.

 

Hillsboro City School Board – 3rd Wednesday of the month, 7PM at the Fawley Building (at the old high school property on W. Main St.)

 

Highland County Commissioners – Each Wednesday, 8:30AM at the county administration building – 2nd floor / commissioners office.

A very blustery day

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Drew_Hastings_Oath

Despite the weather, the city road crews did an outstanding job on keeping the streets cleared today for Drew Hasting’s swearing in by Ohio Supreme Court Justice Terrance O’Donnell.  In attendance were just about all the local elected officials you could think of, and a good thing too, because a point was made to call them all out.  Which brings us to political game #8:

Be sure to recognize all notable persons in attendance to each of your functions.  Also call out those whom you “think” should be there giving you the opportunity to note their absence.  Be sure to have excuses beforehand for your friends who were unable to attend.

Contrary to what others may say, it was actually Judge Kevin Greer who introduced Justice O’Donnell.  Justice O’Donnell gave a great speech which centered around our great country and how we are able to vote.  Being able to go to the polls and peacefully transfer power from one individual to another with simple words rather than guns is truly amazing.  But then the crowd was almost admonished, using political game #14:

Shut down your opponents or those who may question your actions, by stating how it (the election) is over and now it is time to work together.  This makes it look like all those who may question you are simply trying to cause discourse or mayhem.

Next, Drew took the oath of office with simple eloquence.  I appreciated the lack of fanfare and the respect given for the event.  Drew seemed very reverent and true to his word.  Hopefully, he grasps the significance and importance of his oath even though it was administered “under God”.  Though he may not believe in God, ignorance will not save us when it comes time to give an account of our life to God.  Our words are one of the most powerful things that we actually own.  They cannot be taken away, but we give them away to be meaningless when it is found that our words are not truthful.

Finally, Drew, now Mayor Hastings, gave his acceptance speech.  Nicely filled with topical political rhetoric, while keeping the jokes to a minimum (two, maybe three).  He became extremely emotional, much more than I had ever seen before, about how the government has messed up this country.  While I agree wholeheartedly, I whish we could see that same passion about Hillsboro and Highland County government.  Hold those responsible to actually be accountable, but that would go against political game #3:

Never bite the hand that feeds you.  You are only in office because those already in office WANT you in office.  You now have many debts to repay.

The only other thing that drew question is if we will see the new SSD and other new staff unveiled tomorrow as initially promised.  Mayor Hastings noted in his speech that we would see this in the coming days, which contradicts the media reporting from the previous week.

So, let Day One of the new Hillsboro begin.

Happy New Year!

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With the start of a new year comes all those things we plan to do or change.  Usually one of those things is our finances.  As I was sitting down to update our financial outlook for the year, I thought of those who might struggle in this area.  I want to share with you a little spreadsheet that my wife and I have been using (and refining) over the past few years.  No, its not some secret tip that’s going to make you rich, but it should help keep your head above water.  It also has an amazing way of showing how much money can get “lost” when not properly accounted.

http://www.around-hillsboro.com/source/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2012-Budget-share.xls

Let me give you some explanation as to how I use this.

Overview – Shows all the categories that you spend money.  At the top is your family income.  This should be after tax dollars – the real money that you have in your hand to freely spend.  This can be difficult for some who allow the government to take too much taxes out of their paycheck.  It might be nice to have a hefty check come to you at tax return time, but I would rather have my money now to spend and not give out 0% loans to the government.  I’ve put in some dummy numbers so that you can see how it works.  Most importantly, the final number at the bottom should be ZERO.  This means that you have allocated all of your money to specific areas to do work for you and you didn’t allow it to get lost.  (There is a category labeled “Blow”.  This should seriously be utilized.  You occasionally need to be able to buy an ice cream or other such treat from time to time without the fear of writing a bad check.  Also, the budget is like a diet.  If you create it to be very strict, you will resent it and not stick to it.  Having the Blow account allows for some spontaneity and freedom.)

January – If you look at the first month, you can see that I again added some dummy numbers.  The numbers at the bottom should be all ZEROs for each week – you allocated all of the money from each check.  (I get paid weekly while my wife gets paid every other week, that is why the income numbers at the top are different each week.)  Also the numbers at the far right should be all ZEROs when you are complete.  This shows the “balance” for each category.  Maybe you won’t have exactly $50 left from your third check for “doctor”.  You can put $25 in there and then see at the far right that you need to add $25 more before the end of the month.  Some items are less restrictive, such as “gifts”.  You may not have any birthdays or anything come til May or June and need to fund the “conferences” heavier because you are going to New York in March.  You can do that.  The “gifts” will accumulate into the next month. So in January you should have funded $84 into that account, but since you didn’t when you look at February you see that you now owe $168.  Only the last four categories have this option, as the things above them are not optional.  You must buy groceries each week, you must pay the mortgage and gas bill each month, etc……

Non-Regular Expenses – Items such as daycare do not have any formulas or dollar amounts regularly assigned to them.  I put in the amount that I would write a check for, so in this case $100 for each week.  Some weeks there may not be school, so I don’t create a formula which might show bad numbers.

A helpful tip…..First fill out the items that must get funded each and every week.  Things like gas for your car, groceries, etc….  then fill out the bills that are due towards the beginning of the month such as gas, water and phone.  After that, it is much easier to fill in the remaining blanks.

Lastly, many of the items contain formulas to help in arriving at the appropriate numbers.  Feel free to alter any of the category names, but be careful in adding or deleting rows/columns as it may break the formulas.  (Those who are comfortable with spreadsheets will alter at will with no problem.)

I hope that all of you have a wonderful, prosperous and joyous year to come!  God Bless.

Day 1 – An unintended adventure

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So I decided to start this blog for one reason so far – I want to be able to tell my side of the story without the cencorship that has taken place in the past.  For some reason, the truth gets twisted and I’d like to set the record straight.  Also in the process, I’d like to dig deeper on some of the pertinent issues that are happening right now.  Sometimes we get glipses of an issue, but it can get lost in the vaugness of the informer or the isssue gets lost in the other news that’s going on at the time.

So my adventure started today (Wednesday 12/28/2011) as I attended the Highland County Commissioners’ regular meeting at 8:30am.  Minutes were approved for the previous meeting along with minutes from a meeting on Thursday, December 22.  I wasn’t the only person surprised by this “unknown” meeting that took place.  Someone questioned the Thursday meeting, which two of the commissioners responded was necessary because of all the things going on with the Wednesday meeting they were not able to finish in one day.  They said that the meeting was never adjorned and that Thursday was simply the continuation of that meeting.

I still had not said anything up until this point.  I would guess that maybe ten minutes had passed while we were all waiting for additional information from other departments so that the meeting could continue.  Idle chit-chat consumed the time.  During this time I was replaying the events from the prior week’s meeting in my head, trying to figure out what business was not taken care of and if anything was ever mentioned about having to extend the meeting to another day.  I couldn’t recall any such trouble and I specifically remembered leaving the meeting between 9:30 and 10:00 am that day as all agenda items listed had been addressed.  At this time, I specifically chose to address Mr. Wilkin as to not look like I was trying to get into a fight with Mr. Horst (whom I was originally challenging in the primary election) and I didn’t ask Mr. Shaffer because he was not in attendance of the Thursday meeting.  I asked Mr. Wilkin what agenda items were not accomplished on the Wednesday meeting which required the Thursday meeting.  I didn’t receive a direct response to my question.  I then told him that I really just wanted to know how I could be informed of when these meetings were to take place so that I could attend if I so desired.  I was tag-teamed by Mr. Wilkin and Mr. Horst about how the meeting was never adjorned and so Thursday was just a continuation.  I reiterated my point – how do I know when to come back for such a continuation.  I even used the example of should I come back at midnight, simply to emphasis my point that I have no idea at what date and time they may decied to meet again.  This seemed to really upset Mr. Wilkin.  After more excuses and justifications were drilled into me, I finally said,

“I don’t know the law well enough to say whether or not you are breaking it, but you certainly are breaking the spirit of the law.  I simply want to know how to find out when meetings are going to take place.”

Of course I recieved more excuses and justifications, including how it’s been done before (not adjourning meetings and continue at another date/time).  I was even told that I was offensive for insiuating that improper actions were taking place.  I allowed them to have the final say as I felt that I had banged my head against the wall for long enough.  They didn’t see any fault with what they were doing and I wasn’t going to change thier mind.

Somehow, this discussion got distorted in that I was concerned about the budget or the bonuses that were recently approved.  I don’t know how this happened, but my only concern at that point was being able to be informed about public meetings (whether they are regular meetings, continuations from previous meetings or special meetings).  I only much later asked the auditor about a question with the bonuses that was posed on the internet about the Department of Jobs and Family Services.  I got the information that I was looking for only so that I could report back on those findings and stop more misinformation from being spread.  (To make it quick, they didn’t get a bonus because they are not paid out of the general fund, but rather through federal monies, but they also receive step pay increases which the other county workers that recieved bonuses do not get.)  The fun part is becuase I had to goto work, I have no idea if they adjorned today’s meeting or not.

One last point for the day.  I attended the special Hillsboro City Council meeting this evening.  The agenda, of course, was to authorize the Mayor to allow fire and EMS vehicles to service the townships even after the current contracts expire on December 31, 2011.  This was no surprise.  However, what was surprising was the fact that the ordinance they were about to enact had no specified time period.  There was a blank in which they were to fill in before passing.  Well, the future mayor was not in attendance, so how could proper discussion take place about how long he might need to get proper contracts in place?  If he had been consulted before hand, I would have expected that the time frame would have already been written into the ordinance with some explanation as to how that date had come to pass.  As it stood, the president of council simply threw out the arbitrary number of 60 days, of which there was no discussion, the three reading rule was waived and the resolution was passed.  My solution would have been to ask the guy who would be taking over in a few days how much time he thought he would need.  He says he needs 180 day (hypothetically), present that number to council.  They say this has been going on for long enough and it needs to be wrapped up in 60 days.  But this lack of discussion only leads one to assume that either behind closed door deals are taking place or that council is ineffective and only does what they are told to do.

I want government which represents the people.  Stop playing political games!  Stop worrying about how you are going to get re-elected!  If you just do your job and do it well, I’ll vote for you time and time again.  You won’t have to throw a bunch of money into a campaign, your record will speak for itself.  Ineffective, money hungry, power hungry individuals are not welcome here.  Changes are needed and we can start here in Hillsboro and Highland County.