The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1291324
A-4 Wednesday, September 23, 2020 The Press-Dispatch EAST GIBSON Submit East Gibson news items: Call: 812-354-8500 Email: egnews@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Five Generation Pictured: Margaret Kreigh, of Muskegon, Mich., formerly of Pike County, is holding great-great-grandchild Briella Warren; standing (l to r): father Josh Warren, great-grandma Patricia Shouse and grandma Angela Roach, all of Paris Crossing. Oakland City University hosts blood drive COVID-19 antibodies could help patients By Grace Miller Students, faculty and mem- bers of the Oakland City Uni- versity community donated blood to the Red Cross on Thursday. At this time, the Red Cross is testing all blood donations for COVID plasma antibod- ies. Bastin said that if a per- son tests positive, it means that they have come into con- tact with the virus, devel- oped antibodies against it and recovered from it. These tests do not diagnose a donor with any illnesses, including COVID-19. If a donor's blood test comes back positive for the COVID plasma antibodies, the Red Cross will contact them to donate. This plasma can be used in therapies for people who currently have COVID-19. The antibody test was one reason Tom Schirr, a gradu- ate of OCU, donated blood on Thursday, along with the time working best with his sched- ule as a referee. He had do- nated three gallons of blood by the time he was finished Thursday. Paul Bastin, with the Red Cross, said their goal for the day was 15 units of blood, and the drive brought in 12. Donors were mostly stu- dents. Ariel Phillips, also with the Red Cross, said seeing so many young people coming out was great since that is not the case everywhere they go. Bastin and Phillips said that there is always the need for donated blood, especially O negative, which, as Phillips described it, is the superhe- ro blood that can give to any other blood type. O negative donor Heather Hose, the Ac- ademic Success Coordinator at OCU, enjoys donating be- cause she said her one small action can have a huge im- pact. As a universal donor, Hose knows that her blood type is always needed, and she is willing to donate to save lives. Another OCU student, Kay- leah DeVries said that she al- ways wanted to donate to help other families since some of her own family members suf- fered from medical issues. She wants to do what she can, even if only to help one person. Student Haley Pennycuff's reason was simpler. "Just, I like to donate," she said. Oakland City Council considers mobile home ordinance By Grace Miller On Tuesday, some members of the Oakland City Council considered changes they may make to the city's mobile home ordinances to condense and combine them. Butch Corn, the building in- spector, said that he wanted to change the section of the 2014- 12 ordinance that states that the building inspector alone determines if a mobile home is acceptable. Corn said that he believed the decision should be made by the majority of the common council instead. The building inspector would bring his findings to the council and from these recom- mendations, the council would make their decision. Corn said that the new ordi- nance should include a time- frame extension clause, grant- ed by the common council for citizens, in cases where ex- treme circumstances arise, such as delays related to COVID-19 or late deliveries. "I just want to have it where it will be fair to the people," Corn said. Councilman Charles Co- chren agreed that if a problem arises, there should be an ex- tension available. Cochren suggested the new ordinance say that the owners have 60 days to replace a mo- bile home and 30 days to get it fully hooked up. Councilman A.J. Cooper said he would like a 60/60 policy, thus allowing for a little more time. Councilman George Armes brought up the idea of park model homes, to which May- or James Deffendall replied that he believed that they would have to have a specific place for such units. Cooper said, with the current rulings for mobile homes, the park homes would not be able to be in a close space, since units are required to be on 8,000 sq. ft. lots. Deffendall said he would check with other communities to see how they handle parks and park homes. He said he wants to make sure that the new ordinance states that units must be a certain number of feet off the property line and away from unattached buildings. He al- so wants to ensure that the new ordinance specifies the difference between a mobile and modular home, in addi- tion to stating the old mobile home ordinances will be void- ed to eliminate confusion. Attorney Roman Ricker will look over the old ordinances and council's notes to come up with a plan and recommenda- tions. Deffendall said that he has and needs to look at ordi- nances from other communi- ties. The council would like to have one more meeting be- fore taking the mobile home ordinance to an official coun- cil meeting. In this meeting, they will look over Ricker's recommendations and obser- vations from other communi- ties. Student and volunteer Emily Schnarr takes Kayleah DeVries' temperature as she checks donors in at the OCU blood drive last week. Ariel Phillips prepares Haley Pennycuff for blood donation. Commissioners reaffirm zoning By Janice Barniak Commissioners unani- mously reaffirmed their vote in favor of adopting a zoning ordinance last Tuesday after attorneys representing an- ti-zoning clients threatened litigation on the grounds of an alleged open door viola- tion last week. Today is the last day for commissioners to respond to the complaint filed with the public access counselor, who will rule on whether there was a violation by Sept. 30. The violation was based on the commissioners having sent a venue change to the classifieds department of The Princeton Daily Clarion in- stead of to the reporter they knew covered the meetings. Because the commission- ers missed the deadline for publishing the notice to the public and decided not to pub- lish, the notice was deleted. The reporter did make it to the Aug. 18 commissioners' meeting that certified the ordinance, however, as she called commissioners to find out the location. Attorney John Molitor said that because of the alleged violation, he and his clients were unable to be fully in- formed of the meeting. Commissioners, Thurs- day, stressed the many meet- ings of the planning commis- sion beginning in 2017, with a two-year hiatus between 2018 and 2020, when it was brought back in light of a wind turbine company wanting to build lo- cally. Commissioners say on Aug. 14 they shared the legal no- tice by posting notices sever- al places, and that reaffirm- ing zoning is in no way an ad- mission they violated Indiana code, but was to "placate re- monstrators," in the words of county attorney Jim McDon- ald. Political signs are not up for grabs Stealing political signs is still theft, Gibson County Sheriff's Office wanted citi- zens to know this week. The office posted the re- minder publicly that removing political signs could result in a charge of criminal conversion if the person is caught. If the sign obstructs the view of traffic, for example, or is in a place it shouldn't be, people can call the coun- ty highway department, their city street department or Indi- ana Dept. of Transportation to take care of the sign. Heritage Viewpoint By Jude Schwalbach Why 'A PLUS' would be better than yet another federal education bailout The Senate last week rejected a $500 billion "skinny stimulus" proposal addressing the coronavi- rus pandemic that included $105 billion in new federal education spending. The latter is a sum double what is spent annually by the federal Education Department on K-12 schools. The proposal would have contin- ued a failed legacy of ever-increas- ing federal education spending. Although it's true that schools will need resources to make sure classrooms reopen safely, Con- gress can help achieve this goal through flexibility, rather than massive new infusions of taxpay- er cash. In the past 55 years, the feder- al government has spent $2 trillion on K-12 education alone through the Elementary and Secondary Ed- ucation Act. Yet, these federal pro- grams have yet to achieve their in- tended outcomes, such as closing the achievement gap, which re- mains a four-year learning differ- ence today. Increased federal education funding would likely exacerbate existing problems, such as cum- bersome regulations and hidden costs. Better policy would be to build upon existing reforms that return education autonomy to the states. For instance, Congress could build on the flexibility provided in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which— among other temporary deregula- tion measures—provided waivers to states allowing for testing flex- ibility. Conservatives have long sup- ported the policies in the Academ- ic Partnerships Lead Us to Suc- cess ("A PLUS") proposal, which would allow states to opt out of fed- eral programs under the Elementa- ry and Secondary Education Act. Under A PLUS, states could as- sume complete fiscal control of $26 billion spent annually on programs authorized under the Elementa- ry and Secondary Education Act, and could use the funds for any state-authorized education pro- gram, such as education savings accounts for families, or for pur- chasing additional personal pro- tective equipment for schools. A PLUS requires states to up- hold all federal civil rights laws, to disclose their fiscal controls and accounting procedures, and to pro- vide an assurance that they will ad- vance education opportunities for the disadvantaged. States must also demonstrate how they will be accountable to taxpayers and parents. States that adopt A PLUS could shed many of the hidden costs and onerous regulations incurred by federal micromanagement. While the cost of compliance with federal regulations is unknown, the mas- sive growth in administrative staff since federal intervention began in- dicates a hefty price tag that great- ly outpaces the nominal 8.5% share of education financing controlled by the federal government. For instance, Benjamin Scafi- di, the director of Kennesaw State University's Education Econom- ics Center, noted in "The Not- So-Great Society" that between 1960 and 2016, the number of pub- lic school administrators grew by 137% , even though the student body grew by just 40 % nationwide. At the same time, The Heritage Foundation's Jonathan Butcher found that "federal money pays for 41 percent of the salary expen- ditures at state education depart- ments in states that contain more than 70 percent of the nation's K– 12 students." For example, feder- al funds pay for more than half of the salaries at Florida's state edu- cation agency. Those more recent findings build on data from a 1998 federal commission led by then-Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., which discov- ered that state education agencies spent 48.6 million hours complying with federal regulations so that on- ly "65 cents to 70 cents of each fed- eral taxpayer dollar spent on edu- cation reach[ed] the classroom." The federal foray into educa- tion has driven up hidden costs and hampered states with bur- densome regulations. According- ly, Congress should return feder- al dollars to the states "without burdensome strings attached" as the Hoekstra commission recom- mended. A PLUS would do just that, re- storing fiscal autonomy to the states dramatically, reducing fed- eral regulations and red tape. States that adopted the propos- al could implement their own ac- countability measures and direct education dollars to where they are needed most. Such a "right-sizing" of the fed- eral government's involvement in K-12 education would shift deci- sion-making and accountability away from Washington and clos- er to the primary stakeholders— namely, parents. No longer bound by cumber- some administrative costs, states could consolidate their funds and redirect them toward education ini- tiatives that meet the needs of lo- cal families. The current crisis has made clear that one-size-fits-all solutions don't work, and that states and lo- calities need more autonomy and less federal micromanagement. The policies contained in A PLUS would restore community control of education to families and would allow more education dollars to reach the classroom. That means more existing dollars in the hands of school leaders, bet- ter serving them—and American taxpayers—than another federal bailout.