RH Jones responds to Dave Speas and Paul Boyer

From RH Jones, September 10, 2006

Subject: Re: Dave to Bob

Dave and Paul,

Thank you both for sending me your thoughts on my message. I disagree, and think that John Curry was correct in his interpretation of the IRS law and that ORTA can endorse candidates. I think your lawyers were overly conservative and wrong in their interpretation of law in this case. Lawyers are human and can be wrong. I am human and could be wrong in this case, but I don't think so. My Kent State College Prof., Dr. White, instructed me years ago that the law is what people interpret it to be. OEA, OFT the FOP and other unions do it, certainly ORTA can.

In my busy life as an active teacher, I always would follow the leadership of my union because I had faith in their ability to aggressively lead. This was why I paid dues and joined. At that time, I felt that they acted in the best interests of public school teachers and me. My union, The Akron Education Association, was the first one in the state to gain HC for their dues paying members. Many members did not want the HC. They wanted the money in their pay checks instead. The vote was close but, thank God, it passed and we got our HC coverage including dental, eye and ear! Our AEA leaders lead. The AEA still endorses public school friendly politicians as I write this.

I am not knocking the hard work of anyone at my ORTA. In my view the hard work at the present moment should be retiring the political party that has caused us some many problems over the past 15-yrs or so. We can't work with them; they are wanting rid the state of public education. After November, of course, there will be some GOP still left around but hopefully, they will be voting in the minority. The GOP majority have sent my tax dollars into the greedy hands of those running "for-profit" schools and that is not right in my thinking. They feel that we are a part of big government. I feel we are doing, and did, a hell of a good job with what little we had. We did it cheaply and I think that public education free-to-all is still a bargain.

I will stand tall by opinion,

RHJones