Editor's note: With the fiscal woes facing the Carroll County Board of Education, officials have had to slice about $3.5 million from this year's $107 million budget. Some people have suggested cutting certain extracurricular activities and reducing the number of sports programs instead of slicing instructional expenses. We have been asking readers if they want school officials to cut some extracurricular activities and sports programs and leave money for academic programs intact. Here are some of their replies:
From: Melvin Jeffery
Hampstead
I do not think sports or extracurricular activities should be cut.
They provide an outlet and a learning opportunity.
Maybe then parents can contribute toward the cost of these activities.
Crime would increase if these activities are cut, and then wewould still pay.
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From: Mrs. George Vasbinder
Eldersburg
Yes, extracurricular activities should and must be cut.
A good education -- the three R's -- are critical to all pupils, while sportsand other activities are participated in by only a small percentage of the pupils.
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From: Debra W. Kiley
Westminster
Certainsports programs could be cut: 9th-grade programs; reduce cheerleaderand JV squad sizes.
Cut programs with travel -- play only county teams, no Central Maryland Conference or Monocacy Valley Athletic League games for a year or two.
Why? In the big picture, our studentsneed to know academics 20 years from now more than they need to be able to run or throw a ball in a competitive setting.
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From: Leroy Colley
Hampstead
Close down, shut down all sports and use that money to teach the three R's.
Slice all salaries back to $20,000 a year, and grant a 3 percent raise each year.
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From: Jan DiSantostefano
Westminster
I do not believe that funds should becut from extracurricular activities in the educational system.
The school system not only provides learning of knowledge, but also develops social skills. Sports activities teach good sportsmanship and working with others in a team relationship.
Clubs provide a way to explore a special interest, provide community service and develop a camaraderie with fellow students. Activities such as band, newspaper and yearbook staff enable students to have hands-on experience in a particular field which they may pursue later.
All these activities supply a positive way for teen-agers to spend their free time.
TAKE PAY, NOT SUPPLIES
From: Robert C. Bruce
Westminster
A great many educators favor taking furlough days to balance the budget over cutting programs which directly impact on student instructional programs.
I am one educator who would rather lose a few days pay than my school's material funds. However, I do believe that asking county employees, including teachers, to take furlough days or decreases in payis asking a single group to bear the burden for all taxpayers.
Ifwe believe taxation should be fair and equitable, then charging employees furlough days or decreasing their pay to balance the budget is a form of additional taxation.
The burden rests with all taxpayers, not just those who happen to work for the county government. I alsobelieve that if business is bad, then you need to cut back. If General Motors' cars are not selling, then they need to cut jobs or downsize their operations.
Education is booming in Carroll County. The need for all services that schools provide is expanding. Therefore, while I always see a need to look for fat in any budget, I resent the belief by some that education budgets have lots of fat.
Even thoughcuts are being made without impacting directly on basic instructional programs, we are decreasing our ability to deliver a quality program to students.
Servicing more with less is unacceptable to me as aCarroll County resident, parent, taxpayer and voter.
CITIZEN RIGHTS VIOLATED
From: Bruce K. Schrier
New Windsor
The Carroll County commissioners have quietly passed temporary legislation (T-80 extended by T-91) which, in the name of "public safety," severely restricts the rights of landowners in the county and further compromises theland values and options of many of our hard-hit farmers.
Among the provisions of this legislation are the following:
1. Certain (large) mineral-rich zones are defined, with no regard to terrain or property lines, which presumably overlie deposits of stone which can be quarried.
2. It is dictated that land in these zones, and within half-mile radii of these zones, cannot be subdivided or divided into off-conveyances -- even when those off-conveyances are permitted underother county law.
The legislation is devastating to landowners inthe affected areas, and it sets ominous precedents for government excursions into the rights of citizens in general.
Specifically, as it now stands, landowners within those half-mile radii will never be able to exercise their off-conveyances; therefore, the portion of their land values contributed by development potential has been totally eliminated.
The land can only be used for agricultural or mining purposes from this time forward. Clearly, this lowers precipitously the value of the land either as collateral or at the time of sale.
In addition, since the development value is gone and permanent ag easements are based on the difference between development and agricultural values, the potential for selling an easement and putting the land in permanent agriculture is also abolished.
With this legislation,the county has done everything to the farmer by fiat which is done by his/her choice in the Permanent Ag Program, but without compensating him/her a single penny.
In the case of our farm, we have been told that we cannot sell the house and barns with less than 67 acres, we cannot have a right of way across that 67 acres to access the remainder of the property for farming or development, and we cannot exercise on that remainder the seven off-conveyances which we were guaranteed at the time we purchased the property.
The price we paid at purchase was determined in part by the presence of those development andmineral rights, which the county is summarily snatching from us.
A permanent replacement or extension of T-80 must be enacted by the county commissioners on or before Feb. 27. The proposed permanent formof this which the planning department has prepared has not been madepublic, but is thought to incorporate most of the same restrictions.
The members of the planning commission will be voting Jan. 21 as to whether to recommend this "solution" to the county commissioners; if they do so, there will be much pressure on the commissioners to accept their permanent recommendation, even though the solution is a dangerous abrogation of individual rights and violates one provision ofthe Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Carroll citizens must stop this encroachment into their rights or risk the likelihood ofever-increasing encroachments in the future.
Concerned citizens should quickly make their views known to the planning department and its commissioners, as well as the county commissioners.
WE NEED OUR OWN POLICE
From: James Davenport
Hampstead
I have followed theCarroll County Police Study Committee with great interest.
However, after being involved in two previous police study committees in Carroll over the past 13 years, I have little reason to believe that this committee will fare any better. I will elaborate in further detail.
In 1979, I conducted an independent pro-active study while a member of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department which examined the costs between the expansion of the Sheriff's Department and the current Carroll County Resident Trooper Program.
I couldn't understand whya growing county close to Baltimore would not have its own law enforcement agency while many rural counties had one. I also questioned how long Annapolis would continue aid to the resident program.
At the time, I'd returned from California, where I'd worked in conjunctionwith a 1,000-member sheriff's office as a military police supervisorwhile in the Marine Corps. I knew how it was supposed to work and believed the same system that successfully works around the country could work in Carroll.
It was because of this study that I learned after "baptism by fire" of the politics involved in the program and in the county. My intention was not to attack the state police, but to show the taxpayers that a locally run alternative existed. I was met by staunch and fervent opposition by troopers and politicians.
Seeing that nothing would change, I have spent the last 12 1/2 years witha large county police agency wherein I was involved in more studies.
Knowing of my continued interest in the possibility of a police agency in Carroll, I was invited by the League of Women Voters to participate in another law enforcement study involving what I had done previously. Politics also closed that study.
Long before Sheriff Sensabaugh and his favorable views toward expansion were known, and between the time of my first study until now, one constant has prevailed -- one high-profile politi
cian who then as now believes only in the Carroll Resident Trooper Program and the state police.
That person also sits as a member on the current police committee. Newspaper articles saved by me over the last 13 years reflect his vehement stance against a law enforcement agency locally operated within Carroll.
I am not a politically motivated person and have been a police officer for almost 18 years, so I don't profess to have all the answers,but Carroll County should have had its own police department or expanded sheriff's office 10 years ago (when more fiscally feasible) thanthis hastily planned committee.
I would have to say it was hasty as the newspaper reported that an important member (Judge Smith) wasn't even apprised of the meetings.
There is truly no question that there is a price to pay for policing Carroll County, and I don't really care if they want to (merge) troopers and other police officers toform this new department, as we need a locally operated law enforcement agency in Carroll County.
Even with our own agency, we will still have the support of the state police helicopters and their crime lab, so this can be done and should be done.
As previously stated,I have sat at meetings and at forums and have shared my views with political candidates at fund-raisers, including you, Mr. Dell, but have seen no change. The current sheriff and another member already havemade their negative views known.
With such opposition already in place, I see that little will change in this current study. I know itcan work, and Carroll County will eventually have to have its own agency, as the cost of the resident program is already prohibitive and we shouldn't have to rely on the state to police Carroll.
The studies done by Dr. Ashburn, myself and others reflect the need, but government so far has been unresponsive.
Obviously, I'm not on your committee, but this is the view of an informed taxpayer.