Our state needs health-education standards

Readers should urge their representatives to support the Health Education Standards Bill, which would require the Ohio Board of Education to develop and approve health-education standards. Ohio is the only state without such standards and they are essential for schools and teachers to help children maximize their potential.

Gov. Mike Dewine's Recovery Ohio plan believes more health education in our schools K-12 is the best way to prevent the health crisis facing our state. Imagine communities in which young people will advocate for themselves because they are aware of key concepts in health promotion and disease prevention; they correctly analyze the influences in their lives and will discriminate between valid and questionable information; they possess positive communication, decisionmaking, goal-setting, self-management and advocacy skills.

As of this writing, the bill from Republican Sen. Stephanie Kunze and Democratic Sen. Vernon Sykes and a corresponding bill from Rep. Beth Liston, also a Democrat, do not have numbers. Contact the Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance for more detailed information. June Farrell, Pickerington

Raising severance tax would benefit roadwork

Gov. Mike Dewine is proposing an 18-cent increase in the gasoline tax; an increase that will affect all Ohioans. A great source of revenue that those in power refuse to consider is the severance tax on oil and gas being extracted from Ohio lands. Ohio is practically giving away our state’s resources, with one of the lowest severance-tax rates in the U.S.

Ohio’s severance tax is 10 cents per barrel on oil and 2.5 cents per 1000cf natural gas. With a barrel of oil selling for $60, the rate is 0.17 percent! Ohio’s tax rate on natural gas is 0.9 percent! Oklahoma’s rate is 7 percent and West Virginia’s 5 percent. So the governor wants us to pay 46 cents tax on one gallon of gasoline while the drillers pay 10 cents tax on a barrel of oil.

A tenfold increase of our severance tax would generate 10 times the current revenue. In 2018, the severance tax yielded $60.8 million for Ohio, of which 90 percent goes into the Oil and Gas Well Fund. A tenfold increase would have given the state $608 million. Former Gov. John Kasich repeatedly tried to raise the severance tax to 6.5 percent but was turned down by legislators.

Ohio is leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table while the only roads the drillers build go to the bank. James Cripe, Westerville

Club has been a good steward of community

I’m upset that the Ohio History Connection is trying to use eminent domain to close down a 110-year-old gem in our community — Moundbuilders Country Club.

MCC members are regular hard workers, deeply involved in our community, raising tens of thousands of dollars annually for charity. If we as a community don’t step up, this community asset will be gone. The Ohio History Connection doesn’t care about our town, it just wants to have some fancy designation feather in its cap. If you’ve gone by Moundbuilders Park on Route 79, you know that few people visit there because the grounds are poorly kept, trashy and crime-ridden. MCC has been an impeccable caretaker of the octagon mounds since 1910 for the public to enjoy.

This is just a government ploy to use eminent domain to grab something it wants. It doesn't care that we may lose a special place in our community that we are all proud of. This is another overreach of authority by the Ohio attorney general’s office. This scares me, as it should anyone.

The AG’S office is saying that your property can be seized any time it deems it a necessity for the public, not for what is required for the public good. These grounds are not needed for a bridge, roadway or utility right-of-way. No, the Ohio History Connection wants to create a park it can’t begin to care for, not to mention the plummeting of local homeowners’ values this would cause.

Cathy Ford, Newark

Poorly drawn districts misrepresent the state

I respond to the issue of gerrymandering in Ohio’s 16 congressional districts.

Ohio Republicans top the Democrats by only a few percentage points, so why are there 12 Republican representatives to four Democrats? It should be more like 10 to 6 or 9 to 7 Republicans over Democrats if the districts were drawn fairly.

Marcy Kaptur, D-toledo, is the longestserving woman in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives. She should be praised an supported for bringing up the issue of the gerrymandering of Ohio’s House districts.

Lois Whealey, Athens

Will the media hand Trump a second term?

When Donald Trump became a candidate for president, the media gave him an extraordinary amount of coverage — so much that it helped him win the Republican primary. Now that he is president the media continue to mention every comment he makes. Case in point was Thursday's front-page article "Sneak attack in Lima," about his negative comments about John Mccain. The comments have no significance other than to point out once again what a horrible person he is. We already know that.

While every word of the article might be accurate, his base still claims the media are biased against him. Every time another factually correct but negative article is published it only gets his base excited. So publication of stories mentioning his quotes, no matter how vile, disgusting, rude, juvenile or repulsive, will only strengthen his support.

Why do the media want to give him a second term? Joseph Irvine, New Albany

County labor hall would find work for people

There should be a temporary labor hall in each county of each state where the homeless and needy go to find and be sent out to work. The office would have a vehicle to drive the workers to the work sites for a wage of $6 an hour for an eight-hour day, and the office would pay them daily and the money would come to $48 a day.

The person could feed and clothe himself and rent a cheap room for the night, out of the cold weather.

This would be unskilled labor work — governmentmade work — so that each village, city and county could keep cleaned up and the people could work on

recovery after each weather disaster.

To reach everyone from ages 18-70, each county would have an Employee Service Office where the staff uses computers to search for work for any person. Those looking for work could pay $100 out of their paychecks at about $15 a week.

Getting everyone to work should be a big government plan. A job solves a lot of problems.

Rex Lee Roberts, Gallipolis

Falsehoods diminish reputation of NRA

Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, infamously said that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. He seems to be right, especially if the people are told only the lie and never the truth.

The editorial cartoon by Bill Schorr in the March 3 Dispatch proclaimed the weary lie that the National Rifle Association buys senators.

We NRA members gladly contribute money to candidates who already have the common sense to support the Second Amendment, the founders’ wisdom that protects all the other amendments and the Constitution itself. Our money does not buy votes — it backs courage.

On the other hand, I am waiting for a cartoon that features the three oligarchs — Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and Tom Steyer — who collectively reportedly contributed $100 million to the 2018 campaigns of candidates who would further infringe on our God-given right to protect innocents from murderers. Where is that cartoon? Fair news is balanced news.

Jim Lyle, Columbus