SanTan Sun News,10-17-15: opinion

Opinion

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Oct. 17 - Nov. 6, 2015

43

Community Commentaries

Why the CUSD bond is necessary possible to buy a textbook for $75. CUSD Our committee, “Yes for Chandler has done an outstanding job navigating Students,” has been diligently making seven consecutive years of budget cuts. efforts to educate the public on the need Despite these cuts CUSD continues to for the bond measure for CUSD. As the produce an outstanding product and election date rapidly approaches, I want provide educational opportunities for to take this opportunity to advocate every student regardless of ability or need for the necessity of the bond. This bond or socioeconomic standing. Passage of this measure will not only bond will help encourage benefit our students by perspective businesses to providing essential funding relocate to this area. Both for additional classroom the Gilbert and Chandler space, maintenance repairs chambers of commerce and technology upgrades, endorsed the CUSD bond. but it will also allow the Both realize it makes citizens of the CUSD district financial sense to invest in to invest in the community education. at large.

Residents of the CUSD The message of the district have a unique bond has been very opportunity to let it be straight forward, it is known where our priorities about “Buildings, Buses lie. It is time we viewed Jim Bishop. Submitted photo and Computers.” This $196 the state budget as a moral million bond will provide document. The budget $80 million for additional classroom should be a direct reflection of what we as space, $54 million for maintenance and a society value and honor. No state in the repairs on existing facilities, and $40 nation experienced a higher percentage of million for computers and buses. CUSD education funding cuts than Arizona has has not asked voters to pass a bond since over the previous seven years. Education 2010. This bond will cost the median continues to be the one major area of the homeowner less than $1 a month. Every Arizona budget that has not recovered to registered voter in the CUSD district (this pre-recession levels. Do we really believe includes many Gilbert residents as well) our community and Arizona as a whole received a ballot after Oct. 8. This ballot will be competitive in attracting future must be mailed in by Friday, Oct. 30, to business to our state when we won’t ensure it is received by county elections invest in the future? An Aug. 14 article before Tuesday, Nov. 3. in the Phoenix Business Journal detailed Why should you vote “Yes”? The the story of 3,000 high-paying jobs that simple fact is this bond is a necessity. bypassed the Phoenix area. These 3,000 Arizona is now 50th in the nation in perjobs paid twice the average Arizona wage. pupil funding according to the latest The owners of these companies stated the U.S. census data. The majority of cuts to main reason they chose an out of state education have come on the capital side location was a deep concern for the low of the budget. The capital portion of the level of education funding in our state. budget pays for new school construction, Please vote “Yes” on this crucial bond long-term maintenance and technology, measure for CUSD. When you receive your or simply put, “Buildings, Buses, and ballot, open it, mark it “Yes” and mail it in.

Computers.” CUSD receives one-sixth of the capital funding it received in 2007. In Thank you, 2007, the state funded CUSD for capital Jim Bishop expenditures at a rate of $500 per student, Yes for Chandler Students in 2015, it is $75 per student. It is not even Facebook, www.yesforchandlerstudents

BY JIM BISHOP

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Top-rated Tennis Center leads list of healthy City amenities and adaptation to site; excellence The United States Tennis Association of court surface and lights; ease of (USTA) recently awarded the Chandler maintenance; accommodations for Tennis Center its prestigious Featured players, spectators and press/officials; Facility Award, the highest honor for aesthetics; graphics (including the use any tennis facility, public or private, in of signs and landscaping); amenities the country. such as casual seating It was a true for spectators, privilege to receive food services and the award, and social areas; and the it exemplifies facility’s participation the quality of in USTA programs. If recreational you’ve thought about facilities and taking up the game, amenities that cities or want to pick up a and towns provide racket again after a residents. Healthy layoff, the Chandler communities mean Tennis Center has strong communities, everything you’ll need and it is another to get in the game. reason why Information about Chandler continues the center, youth, to thrive. teen and adult Serving for many group tennis lessons, years as mayor and recreational leagues, Mayor Jay Tibshraeny. Submitted photo as a member of tournaments, special the city council, I workshops and drophave placed a focus in play can be found on providing the best recreational online at www.chandleraz.gov/tennis. amenities and programs that our Providing more opportunities for budget would allow. Some of those residents to get out and be active projects include the Paseo Trail, gives families the chance to live skate park, pools, sports fields and healthier and more productive lives. community centers. We are also And Chandler has done a tremendous nearing a decades-old policy goal to job in providing great places to play. build one neighborhood park in every The Tennis Center is just one example residential square mile within the City. of the amenities that allow our The Tennis Center was built in 1996 community to thrive. during my first term as mayor and renovated last year. Located within Mayor Jay Tibshraeny’s term expires Tumbleweed Park, the facility features January 2019. He can be reached at jay.

15 post-tensioned concrete courts. In tibshraeny@chandleraz.gov. addition, tiered concrete seat walls and a large hitting wall were added during the facelift. Additional landscaping was also installed. It’s a beautiful setting.

The USTA judged its award on criteria that included the overall layout

BY MAYOR JAY TIBSHRAENY

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44

Opinion

Oct. 17 - Nov. 6, 2015

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Letters to the Editor

Vote ‘No’ in CUSD bond election

It’s time to rethink wars and conflicts

Here we are, one year after the single largest property tax increase I have ever witnessed. It was in large part due to bond and override initiatives instituted by the Chandler Unified School District.

Not surprisingly, I received a pamphlet from the Chandler Unified School District for an election on Nov. 3, once again asking for a “Yes” vote for a $200 million bond initiative.

This bond initiative would once again increase our property taxes by an additional $150 per year for the next 20 years based on a $250,000 assessment of your home’s value, as explained in the pamphlet.

Bob Rice, CUSD board president, was previously quoted as saying approximately half of the 60 percent

Thanks to the Kim Davis affair for providing me the opportunity to say that I object, on religious grounds, to our country going to war for political, economic and/or ideological reasons (e.g., in Vietnam and Iraq). There was once a way to refuse to participate in such wars, viz., conscientious objection. Obviously, this method of refusal did not stop the war; millions of Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans died in this conflict. This included many of McNamara’s Project 100,000, called “the Moron Corps” by other soldiers because it was made up of recruits from urban ghettos and Southern rural back roads who had previously failed to meet the armed services’ physical and mental requirements. And then President Nixon oversaw ending the draft as an effective way to undermine the antiwar movement; he thought affluent youths might stop protesting if they did not have to fight.

As for our invasion of Iraq (without a declaration of war), I looked for ways to protest against or refuse to support or contribute to that fiasco, that colossal hoax. One idea was to buy a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and read it in its entirety. I found that, according to the criteria for determining if a war is just or unjust, the invasion of Iraq was unjust based on religious grounds. I wrote my findings to the Most Rev. Bishop Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, and asked him if he could on religious grounds denounce our invasion and occupation of Iraq. His reply came down to this:

tax hike last year should be returned to the taxpayers in future years by way of lower taxes as others build near the schools.

And this was not true: “We appreciate the extra sacrifice for the children of Chandler and to those people we pledge to use the funds prudently, to provide the best education system possible and in doing so be a positive factor in attracting new businesses, more jobs, higher property values and lower future tax rates.”

I urge all of you to vote “No” prior to Nov. 3.

Bob Pascente Chandler

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The church respects the legitimate autonomy of the state and does not interfere in its activities...The church exercises an important pastoral and catechetical role.

After countless letters, including several to Sen. John McCain, and fruitless and frustrating poorly attended vigils on street corners with a candle in my hand, I asked myself, “What else can I do?” I remembered that some Vietnam protestors had said they would refuse to pay the portion of their taxes that they believed contributed to the war effort. I wonder today what ever happened to those people?

What to do? Millions of Vietnamese, millions of Iraqis dead, maimed or displaced (some even tortured).

Countless American youths left suffering from irreparable wounds, both physical and mental. Can I, like so many others, just refuse to think about them?

George Johnson Chandler

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Making it a Joint Effort Fun Run Saturday January 9, 2016 at Kiwanis Park Join the fun at the inaugural Making it a Joint Effort Ortho Fun Run/Walk. This run has an event for everyone, including a 5K or 1 Mile Run/Walk and a 100 Yard Dash, so bring your family and friends! The fun starts at 8am.

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5K Run/Walk

1 Mile Run/Walk

100 Yard Kids’ Dash

Through Dec 13 $30.00

Through Dec 13 $25.00

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After Dec 13 $35.00

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