Close to 40 people attended the Mansfield Tea Party’s October 7 meeting at the Waterford on Trimble Road. Event Coordinator and Founder Marianne Gasiecki had a full agenda with a handful of guest speakers.
The first speaker, Barbara Walter, is the Treasurer for The Committee for a Safer Mansfield. Walter introduced the Mansfield City Municipal Levy which will be on the November ballot. The Levy will provide the 78 additional emergency services employees needed to reach their authorized level. It would also either remove or turn back on the 766 street lights currently turned off by the end of the year, which is the deadline Ohio Edison has given the city.
The levy would also pay for additional demolitions of abandoned homes as the current funding can only cover 100 of the 1500 needed.
Since 2008 over 82 percent of the Street Department employees have been laid-off and the levy would bring back some of those necessary positions. Mark Abrams, who has been with the City of Mansfield for the past 19 years, was present to answer questions about the levy along with Walter. Abrams attended the meeting on behalf of Mayor Tim Theaker.
“I would not be here asking you to support this,” explained Walter, “if I didn’t feel it was very important…We need to take our city back.”
Though the Tea Party has been disappointed in the past over Representative John Boehner’s “folding” under pressure regarding the presentation of Continuing Resolutions, Gasiecki reported that Boehner seems to be holding firm with some new strategies and wants Tea Party members to let him know they support his efforts.
“When they [politicians] do something right, we need to show support,” said Gasiecki.
The most current pressing issue for the Mansfield Tea Party is the Common Core repeal bill by Representative Andy Thompson which will have sponsor hearings this Wednesday, October 9, at 3 p.m. at the State House, Room 313. Gasiecki invited Tea Party members and anyone else interested in stopping the Common Core program from “infiltrating” public schools to attend the hearings and show support of Thompson’s H.B. 237.
Tea Party member Dianna Greenwood attended one of Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor’s talks last Tuesday and shared what she learned with the Tea Party. Part of her talk centered on the Medicaid expansion and Taylor expressed that Governor John Kasich is against ObamaCare but wants Medicaid expansion. “So really he wants his cake and to eat it too,” said Greenwood.
Regarding the Common Core program, Greenwood said the Lieutenant Governor kept saying it was just a set of standards and the state and local communities will set curriculum. Greenwood pointed out to Taylor that a section of the stimulus bill allows the federal government to come in and take over education through Common Core, but Taylor did not respond directly to Greenwood’s comment.
Mansfield Tea Party meetings take place on specified Monday evenings at 6:30 p.m. at the Waterford. Anyone interested in attending can contact Marianne Gasiecki at (419) 961-4439. For more information, visit their website at www.MansfieldTeaParty.com.
“I would not be here asking you to support this if I didn’t feel it was very important…We need to take our city back,” said Barbara Walter, the Treasurer for The Committee for a Safer Mansfield
