Speak Out 3/31/15

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Animal shelter

change needed

They need to hire people who are kind and considered for the animal shelter. The people that are there now are very rude and hateful. They clam they have too many animals, but they are hardly ever open and when they are and you go there they chase you off if you don't have a appointment.

Short stick for

male teachers

In your article, "R1 Teacher Wins State Award," it is noted from the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that only 19% of elementary teachers are male and they are "seriously in demand." This has been repeated over and over many times, but why is it that local schools have certified male teachers apply for elementary teaching positions and never get hired and on many occasions never even get called for an interview. Something is wrong somewhere! Even in the Poplar Bluff School district there are certified male teachers already working in the district that the district won't even give the time of day to be one of their teachers. Administrators need to wake up and quit being biased and discriminatory against male teachers qualified and certified to teach in available elementary teaching positions. Looks like they overwhelmingly favor women for these positions and that is discrimination when you have qualified, certified males at your disposal and you constantly overlook them! It's not just in the Poplar Bluff School district either, all the other area public school districts are following in the same path of discrimination too. So, are male elementary teachers really in demand?

Blame rate

hike on Kaplan

Kaplan and his "consultant" are telling us how bad the financial situation is with our Municipal Utilities Department. So bad, in fact, that our rates are going to be raised at least 20% over the next few years because the cash reserves are so low--Kaplan goes on to tell us that he has spent $2.3 million (from the utilities department) on automated meter readers. He states this will eliminate the meter reader's salaries of approximately $113,000 per year. At that rate it will not only eliminate jobs but it will take approximately 20 years to recoup the cost of these automated meters. Everyone knows (perhaps not Kaplan) that these meters will be obsolete long before they are paid for. This doesn't take into consideration the cost of installation and upkeep of these new "little jewels." If the utilities department had that $2.3 million back along with the $4 or $5 million owed to the department to repay the loan after the sale of City Cable and maybe even the $200,000 that Becker still owes us -- doesn't appear we would need to raise rates after all.

Applaud dad

for discipline

Yes, I'm calling about the dad arrested for child abuse. I'm 73 years old and it was just a known fact when I went to school if you got in trouble or you got a whipping at school you got one when you got home also. Nowadays they don't want 'em booked at school and they don't want you to whip 'em at home. Of course those people have got jobs you know that they wanted to do to arrest somebody or something, but that dad ought to be applauded instead of arrested. When I went to school and for years after, we never heard of no school shooting. Teenagers shooting and going to school shooting. We didn't have to have security at the gym all the time and we didn't have to have security at the school house and on the buses and I think the father should be applauded for discipline. That's what children need.