oints of view >> Send letters to: letters@thejewishnews.corn 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