Elena 
I got a chuckle out of Obama telling the people in Ohio to get out and vote earlier for this election. Although apparently 1000 of my fellow citizens have been doing just that every day since early voting started, I am amazed that so many of them have such a grasp of the numerous issues and candidates on the ballot at the state and local level, that they felt confident enough to vote. Or are these voters just voting for president and blowing off the rest of the ballot?
I am still struggling to understand some of the issues on our local ballot. For example, our mayor wants to lease our sewer system to an outside source and then use the profits to provide scholarships for Akron students to attend college. I thought it was a good idea until I found out that the language excluded homeschoolers, and charter school students. I guess they figure we don’t use the sewer system? or that since we have been paying property taxes for years without any benefit of the local schools we’re use to flushing our money down the tube. It seems HSLDA did encourage members to call the majors office and get homeschoolers included in the deal, but charter school kids are still excluded. So I’m voting against it. I’m pretty confident our water/sewage bill would go up under this plan anyway and that’s another reason to vote against it.
I’m not totally clear on issue 2, or 3 although I sort of think I should vote against Issue 1 and for Issue 5. I’m definitely voting against issue 6!
I’m still working my way through the list of other candidates for other offices. I know I am voting against Judge Teodosio because she is pro-abortion.
I am also voting against Mary Stormer who is running for Clerk of Courts.
Back in 2004, my husband went to speak in front of the school board so that we could get Calvin on the Firestone Swim Team. Ms. Stormer, who was a member of the school board at the time, was not present that evening.
Many weeks later, the school board took up our request. Here is what I wrote from that time:
Monday, I got a call from the local reporter who told us that they WERE going to discuss this at the meeting and wondering if we were going to be there. That’s how we heard about it. No one from the school board or the superintendent’s office invited us to attend. But we went anyway.
The whole experience was surreal. This board, who heard Mr. Pete speak for 5 minutes weeks ago, and who hadn’t questioned or spoken to either of us since, started talking about our situation, right in front of us as if we weren’t even there. They asked no questions, we weren’t allowed to speak. It was just weird.
It was also insulting. One board member said participating in the sports program was a privilege, and not a right. I was wondering how come paying property taxes to the city for almost 20 years and having a business that pays taxes to the city for the past 10, as well as enrolling my student into their sponsored digital school didn’t bestow on me some privileges. I guess it gives me the continued privilege of watching that house payment money go into escrow to pay the property taxes every year.
Another board member, who I don’t remember even being there when Mr. Pete gave his 5- minute speech, opined that if the digital students didn’t want to sit next to her students in a regular classroom, then they certainly didn’t want to run with them across a soccer field. For the record most of the kids I have met in the digital academy are going there because they weren’t cutting it in the regular class room setting. One of Calvin’s classmates was in class one day and out the next, because she had given birth the night in between. Calvin has walked to the bus stop with some of his buddies after school, because the free bus pass is the only way they have of getting back and forth. I gave one of Calvin’s friends rides to his public housing apartment on more than one occasion because it was too wet or cold to wait for the bus. Clearly these aren’t students with a superiority complex, but kids with other problems that this academy helps them address.
She also said that there were other opportunities for kids to play in the community. Well that’s true until 8th grade. After that most of the community opportunities dry up because they believe the high schoolers will play for their high school teams. While there are other opportunities for elite players outside the public schools, those are costly. Her suggestion that the kids play for those was akin to Marie Antoinette saying, “Let them eat cake!”
That school board member, was Mary Stormer. Ms. Stormer is now running for Clerk of Court. In her position paper she wrote:
My compassion, hard work and a true sense of the common good are the foundation from which I will stand up for the people of Summit County. Large budgets and governmental bureaucracy never cloud my vision for the service I believe our institutions should provide.
Compassion is not the first adjective that springs to my mind when I think of Mrs. Stormer. I didn’t think she was very compassionate for my son or our family when she declined our request without even talking to us about our situation first. And it was clear that she has an elitist ideal of what providing services is all about. So I’ll take a pass. This is my chance to say, “find another opportunity Ms. Stormer, preferably in the private sector where you won’t have much authority over the lives of people that you ‘serve.'”
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