Must honor the oath
Today I am asking Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman to honor the oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. It's time for the both of you to stop, take a stand, and not be afraid of losing support of your party. Is not honoring your oath of more importance?
How can you sleep while seeing every day the things that Trump is doing to destroy your freedoms and bring you closer to the Soviet style of government as you sit by and do nothing other than keep a closed mouth and follow blindly in his demonized shadow? Next November is just around the corner.
TITUS ARNOLD
El Dorado
Insulting to teachers
The Democrat-Gazette editorial Sunday was predictable but disappointing. To suggest that the Arkansas Department of Education is the savior of the Little Rock School District stretches the imagination. But what is most disappointing was the cheerleading you performed for the discarding of the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association. You wrote that the move "will make it more possible to focus on educating students, instead of jumping though union hoops."
How demeaning and insulting. What do you think teachers do every day? They are not writing lesson plans for union activities, purchasing school supplies out of their own pocket for union rallies, nor are they arriving early and staying late to configure new union hoops for administrators to jump through.
They show up every day to teach. Some children are easy to teach, and others are not. My wife did it for 34 years, from low-income schools to magnet schools. Now retired, she still shows up at schools of various grade ratings to help colleagues teach and to tutor.
Why? Because she knows teachers make a difference in young lives. She was a proud member of LRCTA because it represented the interests of teachers and students.
When administrators abandoned the best literacy programs they had going like Reading Recovery it was the LRCTA that spoke up. When administrators embrace a publishing company's latest teaching gimmick, it's the LRCTA that asks why are "teachers left out" of the decision-making process. And when administrators want teachers to give up planning time so they can supervise playground time and save the district a dollar on aides, it's the LRCTA that says "stop that nonsense." LRCTA gives a voice to teachers who are working hard to educate our children.
Here's the assignment for the editorial desk. Before you write the next condemnation of Little Rock teachers, go visit a classroom. Better yet, be a substitute teacher for a day or a week and manage 20 6-year-olds and teach at the same time.
RON BLOME
Little Rock
An unreasonable tax
An article last month in the Business and Farm section of the Democrat-Gazette stated the Arkansas Assessment Coordination Department, although having no taxing authority, has recommended that assessments of typical poultry houses be doubled from $4.50 to $9 per square foot. The article goes on to say the General Assembly was not involved in the decision to raise the suggested rates, and the authority to raise taxes belongs solely to the county tax assessor.
The notion a newly constructed and/or updated older poultry house can be appraised using only the cost basis is clearly flawed. These buildings are built and equipped for the single purpose of growing poultry, and if used for any alternate purpose, the value drops substantially. Depreciation starts when the first flock is placed, yet the tax burden, which is too high to start with, is not reduced accordingly. Assessments are increased when integrator-required updates are made, even though income levels remain flat. This taxing model simply makes no sense.
Many communities across this country would be overjoyed if blessed with multimillion-dollar capital investment and job-creating enterprises such as these poultry facilities being built in Arkansas. Red carpets would be rolled out, ribbon-cutting ceremonies held, and incentives offered to reduce taxes rather than double them!
Some might say schools and other institutions need this increase in tax revenue. I suggest that view is shortsighted and does not consider growth in student enrollment, in the many businesses benefiting from serving this industry, and the exponential growth in the overall tax base. Let's not kill the goose (in this case, the chicken or turkey) that lays the golden egg.
Please contact your assessor and ask that a more reasonable tax level be considered.
BILL MAINER
Branch
Humanitarian crisis
I spent around five months in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1990. There was never love between the Turks and the Kurds. This is what happens when you slice up the largest empire in human history and ask a culturally unique people to accept nationalism over tribalism. Things have changed greatly over the last three decades within Turkish politics toward a more conservative slant (some led by more conservative religious types).
All to say this: Donald Trump's decision to give Turkey the green light to invade the Kurdish people will end in a horrific massacre. We cannot act fast enough to stop what is about to happen to hundreds of thousands of Kurds in eastern Turkey and northern Syria. Many will die, and the humanitarian crisis we are on the brink of creating will be one of the worst in modern history. But I hope I'm wrong.
LUKE KRAMER
Little Rock
Editorial on 10/18/2019