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Guest Column
Editorial
Building Fund Millage
Needed In W. Bloomfield
Kerry's Wild Analogy
A Reason For Alarm
F
S
riends, I hope you'll join me
in supporting West Bloomfield
School District's Building and Site
Sinking Fund.
At the Greater West Bloomfield
Chamber, our goal is to bring business
and community together. One cannot
grow and prosper without the other.
Whether you are a business owner or
resident, we all benefit from a thriving
West Bloomfield. When we work together
to build a desirable residential
community, a strong business
climate follows. It's a win-win
for everyone.
The fact is new home buyers
want to purchase and reside
in a community that has a
vibrant learning environment
and well-maintained schools.
The quality of the public school
system is a critical factor when
prospective home buyers are
evaluating a community to
live in. We want them to select
West Bloomfield.
On Tuesday, May 7, the residents of the
West Bloomfield School District will be
asked to approve a 1.25 mill Building and
Site Sinking Fund (BSSF). This millage
has my support.
The goal of a Building and Site Sinking
Fund is to allow the district to fund neces-
sary building and site repairs, including
upgrades to safety and security systems,
through a mechanism outside of the
General Fund. The district's General Fund
dollars should be focused on growing and
improving educational programs for our
students, now and into the future. If the
sinking fund does not pass, urgent repairs
will need to be paid out of the General
Fund, which takes away precious educa-
tional funding. Without a BSSF, major
repairs to our buildings may be postponed
until the need is so critical that the quality
of learning is impacted.
The millage will provide the school
district approximately $2 million each
year for the next 14 years. This
proposal will cost a homeowner
with a home market value of
$200,000 approximately 34
cents per day.
A sinking fund is not a bond;
there will be no debt and no
interest payments. This is a
small individual contribu-
tion that will enable the West
Bloomfield School District to
continue to operate on a com-
petitive basis with the finest
schools in Michigan.
I encourage all who believe in the
importance of quality education to visit
the school district's website, www.wbsd.
org, to learn more about this initiative.
Everyone needs to get out and vote YES
on Tuesday, May 7. One vote can make a
difference. Please join me in supporting
this proposal and show that this is a com-
munity that makes education our first
priority in West Bloomfield.
❑
Steven Tapper is immediate past-president of
the West Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce.
Greenberg's View
The
endless
marathon
hame on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
for drawing a moral equivalency between
the Boston Marathon bombing victims and
the 2010 deaths of Turkish citizens aboard the Mavi
Marmara ship. It was an unconscionable comparison
to make for an American statesman.
The marathon victims were innocent prey of ter-
rorists who investigators identified as two ethnic
Chechen brothers from southern Russia, living in
Cambridge, who were increasingly enamored with
radical Islam. The April 15 incident on the streets of John Kerry
Boston, killing at least three spectators and injuring
260 others, was a blatant act of premeditated violence. A campus police
officer also was gunned down in his patrol car in the bombing's after-
math. The FBI continues to investigate the motive for the attack and any
potential ties to domestic or international terrorist groups.
The Mavi Marmara deaths in May 2010 were indisputably a byproduct
of an act of self-defense by Israeli naval commandos. The ship was part
of a Turkish-flagged aid flotilla seeking to break a lawful maritime block-
ade of the Hamas-led Gaza Strip. Nine Turks were killed in the fighting
when Israeli commandos, armed with paintball guns, boarded the ship and
were met by club- and metal-wielding members of the so-called "Turkish
Humanitarian Relief Foundation." That alliance is an Al Qaeda-linked
Islamist organization, according to the Zionist Organization of America.
So don't confuse it with legitimate Islamic relief causes.
Following the sea battle, Turkey withdrew high-level diplomats from
Israel and shelved deals with Israel's military.
On March 22, at President Obama's urging, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu partially apologized to Islamic-centered Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, no friend of Jerusalem, for "opera-
tional errors" committed by Israel during the raid. Netanyahu also con-
ceded to allowing more humanitarian goods into Gaza and to compensat-
ing the families of the Turkish dead.
That wasn't enough. Erdogan insisted that Israel halt its naval blockade
of Gaza despite the Palestinian territory being ruled by a terrorist organi-
zation.
During an April 21 press conference in Istanbul, Kerry addressed U.S.
efforts to broker conciliation between Turkey and Israel, once historic
allies bound by their Ottomon Empire roots and pro-Western policies.
He expressed sympathy toward the families of the Turks lost aboard the
Mavi Marmara and said America understands such tragedies, likening the
deaths to the murder and mayhem in Boston — where terrorists detonat-
ed bombs amid civilians along the marathon route.
"I have just been through the week of Boston, and I have deep feelings
for what happens when you have violence and something happens and
you lose people that are near and dear to you," Kerry said. "It affects a
community; it affects a country. We're very sensitive to that."
His remarks demonstrate a perfunctory reading of violence at best and
an outrageous moral compass at worst.
Turkey would have been better served hearing Kerry underscore the
urgency of renewing diplomatic ties with Israel for the betterment of the
entire Middle East. Sadly, he didn't have the resolve to brand as "terror-
ists" the weapons-wielding resisters making illegal sea passage en route
to Gaza.
Kerry also should have urged Erdogan to cancel, not merely postpone,
his planned visit later this month to Gaza City, whose leadership clings to
a charter seeking Israel's destruction.
Obama cracked open the door to improved Turkish-Israel relations.
Kerry, however, did nothing to widen the opening.
❑
J
36
May 2 • 2013
steveOgreenberg-aricom
Ogeritrarow ■ r