|
Dear Oakwood Residents:
As president of the board of trustees of Wright Memorial Public Library, I am extremely proud of this wonderful resource our community shares. Each time I visit the library to check out books by my favorite authors or participate in programs such as the Big Read, I am reminded that this is a very special place in Oakwood. Our community is fortunate to have a library that is recognized nationally for its excellent services, programs and staff.
I write this letter to share some of your library’s recent accomplishments and to ask for your support of the library’s five-year .94 mill replacement levy on the May 8 ballot.
Your YES vote will assure the continuance of critical operating support to maintain the library’s current services.
In the last 15 months the library board and staff have acted to strengthen the library in many ways. Highlights include:
Creating the Library Advisory Council of more than 30 volunteers to provide expertise in finance, marketing and facilities management. The Council has endorsed the levy.
Surveying Oakwood residents to learn their expectations and assessments of the library. We found that many Oakwood residents use the library frequently and are highly satisfied with current programs and services. Survey results will help the library set budget priorities and update its strategic plan.
Reducing staff and material expenses to maintain a balanced budget.
Enhancing services with new programs such as BookLetters, a periodic email to patrons announcing new titles of interest.
Forming a committee of volunteer experts to assess our unique building and develop a plan for needed maintenance and improvements.
Like most public libraries in Ohio, Wright Library receives most of its revenue from the state personal income tax. Wright Library receives 83 percent of its operating revenue from the state and these dollars have not increased since 2004. The current operating levy that you are being asked to replace provides 13 percent, and the remaining 4 percent comes from fines and other sources such as the annual book sale. (Wright Library is not a recipient of estate taxes.)
What is a replacement levy and what does it mean to you and your budget? The current levy provides $227,000 per year and will expire at the end of 2007. The replacement levy will generate approximately $291,000 a year for a five-year period – the current levy income, plus an additional amount to cover inflationary increases in the coming years. If you are the owner of a property valued at $200,000 you will pay just $59 a year, only $1.08 more per month than you are currently paying.
Please contact Ann Snively, the library director, at 294-8572 or me at 299-1448, if you have any questions or comments.
On behalf of the Wright Library board of trustees, thank you for your support. Make the “Wright” choice! Vote YES for your library!
Judy Thompson
President, Wright Library Board of Trustees
And you thought changes in Oakwood required notification, citizen input or city council approval! Be warned! Apparently not.
A construction change to Oakwood Avenue is scheduled for May, and neighbors affected were not informed nor given any opportunity for feedback. Is this Oakwood?
Let me inform the neighbors of what is going to happen in their neighborhood. Left-hand turn lanes heading both north and south on Oakwood Avenue are scheduled to be inserted at the Schantz Avenue intersection. This will reconfigure traffic flow and parking for both north- and south-bound lanes. A yellow line will direct traffic to a reduced single curb lane in both directions, thus making room for the center turn lanes. “No Parking” signs will be installed and an undetermined number of parking spaces will therefore be eliminated. Any remaining parking spaces will be marked with painted white lines. I am sorry, at this time, I do not know what problem these changes are trying to correct.
With these changes in mind, possible ramifications for neighbors to consider include: increased speeds, fall leaf obstruction, commercial look to a residential street, stopped buses blocking traffic flow, and reduced on-street parking. I welcome citizen input and therefore will schedule or get the city to schedule a neighborhood meeting to provide more information.
An action plan and a possible petition will be generated.
For now Oakwood residents should be aware; the city can and will make major changes without citizen input.
Concerned Citizen,
Harvey Lehrner
I dated this letter 3/26/07 because I wrote it on Monday and wanted the readers to know I had limited information.
Since then City Manager Norbert Klopsch and City Engineer Kevin Weaver said they would schedule a meeting on April 10 or 11 in city chambers and notify only the adjacent neighbors.
We recently received an e-query from a student, Chris Lockhart, currently attending Antioch College and who also has lived in Oakwood for six years – not quite long enough to have earned his “Oakwoodite All-Access Laminate,” but time enough to have heard all the rumors and scuttlebutt about this place. He is currently writing “an extensive research paper on living in Oakwood…I am trying to get a definite perspective on how people live here and how others perceive us living here. We’ve always been dubbed “the perfect community.” I thought I could get a diverse perspective and the more different age groups I can get information from, the better,” Lockhart wrote. He gives his e-mail address as lockhartc03@yahoo.com should anyone want to respond. Here are the questions:
In your opinion, describe what living in Oakwood means to you.
Why do you think that Oakwood receives a “smug” perception from non-residents?
Describe the East (Smith School) side versus the West (Harman) side of Oakwood relating to one’s status.
What makes Oakwood’s school system consistently perform as one of the best in the state and nation?
To what extent of Oakwood’s affluence has it had on the success of the school system.
Explain Oakwood’s urban myths. Doffing a shirt will get you a ticket? Underage drinking and the parents who ignore it? Deer hunting at will? The ghosts in the junior hallway at the high school? What really happened at Frankenstein’s Castle? Any others?
Is Oakwood really “the perfect community”? Why or why not?
Does living in Oakwood create the desire to become someone you’re really not? Why?
Following are my own answers:
1. Living in Oakwood when young means being brought up in small town America, away from the crime and accompanying social ills that go with it. Oakwood is both suburban and urbane. Although the hoop and stick have long been hung up in some forgotten corner of the garage, some adult males who grew up here still wear their childhood knickers underneath their business attire.
2. Oakwood has had a longstanding reputation for being smug, insular and egregiously upscale. It is best described as being a combination of Peyton Place, The Stepford Wives, Desperate Housewives, Mayberry R.F.D. – and a shark tank – interspersed with deciduous trees. Oakwood’s “smug” reputation comes from the combination of great schools, diligent police and fire protection, an average two-minute emergency medical response time, a socially active and activist populace, and parents who are very-concerned-about-their-children’s-welfare-not-to-mention-future. The community has been perceived as safe, cozy and womb-like for those living here, hence the term “The Dome.”
3. The East versus West side issue is simple – there are larger, more expensive houses and estates on the west side of Far Hills – about 700 or so in total; The East side of Far Hills has about twice as many homes (1300) and according to county records, the most concentrated group of housing units to be found in Montgomery County. Another way of putting it is that the West is termed the “dinner” side and the Eastern half is the “supper” side of town. Harman is clearly the “elite” school, and is filled with natty little overachievers coached by equally natty, hovering, helicopter Moms who seek to relive that victory climb to Smith College through the lives of their progeny. The Smith School contingent is mostly a genetic bouillabaisse begat by aspiring upper middle-class white collar execs and perspiring blue collar proles –both with maxed out charge cards.
4. Oakwood’s school system performance is due to the pay scale worked out between the administration (immovable object) and the teacher’s union (irresistable force). This results in quite generous pay and benefits packages – in-turn resulting in a literal Pick O’ the Litter hiring situation. Talented teacher-candidates shed their careers at lesser schools nationwide as they e-mail their resumes from far (Moose Jaw, Alaska) and yon (Oakwood Avenue) whilst others genuflect on bended knee towards the Board of Education building to crave the board’s indulgence for a private audience and formal review. If students do not make the Honor Roll, the children are smote by their parents with foam-padded whiffle-ball bats, or whipped with Kitten ‘O Nine-Tails, brine-soaked shoe strings and other kinder-level lashes. As for the teenage lads and lasses, they have a block put on their Starbucks charge cards, resulting in much wailing and gnashing of teeth from double mocha, fat-free latte withdrawal symptoms.
5. Oakwood’s affluence having an influence on the educational system? Simple. TAXES.
6. Urban myths? Shirt-doffing in public: Yes guys, mowing the lawn without a shirt will get you a ticket if police drive by and spot you. However, stick-em nipple covers that can serve as beer or martini coasters or table leg gliders afterwards can be found at the local hardware store; Underage drinking? Parents often ignore underage drinking – mostly because many are too busy drinking themselves. The March issue of the OHS student magazine The Dome had a front page cover titled “Living with Alcoholic Parents.” Is that edgy social commentary or a cry for help? There is a contingent of parental Neo-Puritans who have deemed it their business to stick their noses in everyone else’s business, thereby assuring that their children become virtual pariahs at school if and when there ARE student drinking parties; Deer hunting: There is no deer hunting allowed in Oakwood UNLESS you are a Ted Nugent wannabe with a compound crossbow and can drive your pickup truck to Xenia to get licensed by the Ohio Department of Extermination and Taxidermy - and then it’s invitation only; Ghosts? Never heard of them in the junior hallway. There are plenty of others; “Frankenstein’s Castle” is a stone tower above Paw Paw Camp in Hills and Dales Park that features a now-sealed-up winding staircase to the top of the tower, once offering a great view of Community Golf Course. It was closed in 1965 after a young couple was struck by lightning while at the top of the tower. The girl was badly-injured, the boy was killed. Tragic.
7. Oakwood is not the “perfect” community – no place is. But looking back and taking a tally, it comes darn close. There is a soft white underbelly to the town and it occasionally needs some poking and prodding. I just done that.
8. The desire to become someone you are not only happens when entering Dorothy
Lane Market on a Saturday afternoon. One begins first by grazing and a-noshing on every free food sample in sight, all the while schmoozing with acquaintances while having a saucy $60 bottle of Chardonnay conspicuously turned label-up in your shopping cart and paired with a ripe brie. Otherwise, you are perfectly unassuming yuppie scum.
top of page
|
