About This Blog

The purpose of this blog is to give an accurate account of what is said during Public Comment at Mantua Township Trustees meetings.



Trustees' decisions are in the official minutes, available on request from the Mantua Township Fiscal Officer, Jodi Thompson, at 330-274-8443. The Township charges 10 cents per page. FAX, 330-274-8447. E-mail, fiscalofficer@mantuatownshipohio.gov. The minutes are also posted on the website after they have been approved. That means that there is usually a two-week lag between a given meeting and the minutes being available to read on the website.

Since meetings are the first and third Thursdays of the month, there is a three-week wait during months with five Thursdays.



Other items of interest or the writer's opinions will be included from time to time, clearly identified.



This is not a forum or chat room, but a source of information, so it is closed to outside input.



During the time I have been doing the blog, the posts have expanded to become very detailed accounts of the meetings. Doing that is time consuming, to say the least, and I am going to try to return to the public comment focus, with background and perspective (and the occasional pointed editorial comment). Such additions are usually enclosed in brackets. However, since some extended accounts of the meetings reveal significant things--and character--better than I could by commenting, there will probably still be a fair amount of semi-transcript. (Sigh.)

My thanks to the readers who have found the blog, and to the ones who from time to time tell me that they value it. You have encouraged me when the tedious work of keyboarding has made me wonder why I am doing this. Then you have reminded me, and I am grateful.

Principles

Two ideas guide and support me:

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
______Attributed to Edmund Burke

GOOD PREVAILS.

Those ideas are also the reason I have been doing the blog since late February 2011.

I have discovered that a transcript is almost impossible to do and that verbatim accounts are usually not absolutely necessary. When in doubt, I check against a recording.

Thursday, May 31, 2018

A Memorial Day Interlude

[Blogger:  This year, the American Legion asked Mr. Kowalchick, the Chapter 193 (I may have that number wrong) fiscal officer, to be the speaker.  Rather than mouthing a lot of high-sounding platitudes, Mr. Kowalchick talked about the history represented in the township's cemeteries by the names on some of the stones.  I am not going to try to recount any of that, other than to say that every was since the Revolutionary War is represented in our three cemeteries.  What I want to do in this brief post is to recount what Mr. Kowalchick said in his closing, and I thank Ray Corbett for getting these four items so you could see them, too.]

Mr. Kowalchick said he wanted to leave us with four statements.  Here they are.

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us the freedom of religion.

It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to assemble.

It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the VETERAN, NOT THE POLITICIAN, who has given us the right to vote.

And, just to repeat what is on Dave's last sign board:

Lest we forget.  Lest we forget.