Dr. Lois Jacobs for School Board
Dr. Lois Jacobs is the right choice for the Tulsa School Board (District 7).
Her vision for public education is simple – she wants to see results and that should be reflected in test scores.
Jacobs is running against incumbent Matthew Livingood, an attorney who pushed TPS into paying for an expensive lawsuit to try to shut down successful charter schools in Tulsa. He has been a parrot for the agenda of the liberal Oklahoma Education Association. He has opposed giving families more choice in education, even though he went along with approval of charter schools after his lawsuit went nowhere in the courts.
Jacobs thinks competition promotes improvement. She wants to lower administrative costs in light of decreasing state funding.
Jacobs thinks it would be wrong to saddle Tulsa taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in new property taxes.
Jacobs completed a BS Pharm DDS from The University of Iowa. After completing her residency at Iowa, she completed her Pharm D at OU. She was director of Dental Anesthesiology at the College of Dentistry and Medicine at ORU.
A popular lecturer, she has written test questions for national boards and taught courses for the Oklahoma State Board of Dentistry.
She is an accomplished, conservative academic.
It is unusual for such a respected professional to volunteer to serve as an unpaid member of a school board. Jacobs will serve with distinction and bring a fresh perspective to a school board that has drifted way far to the left.
That’s why the Tulsa Beacon endorses Dr. Lois Jacobs for Tulsa Public School District 7 on Feb. 9.
Hypocritical gambling policy
Imagine that state government would endorse an unhealthy behavior and then raise taxes to help those who fall prey to that destructive practice.
That is what is happening in Oklahoma with legalized gambling.
According to the state website, “Gambling in the State of Oklahoma has changed dramatically over the past years. Today, it is more accessible, more accepted and more glamorized than ever before. Gambling has become part of Oklahoma’s landscape, culture, and economy with horse tracks, the lottery, and casinos available statewide, with more than 100 plus tribal casinos now in operation. Studies show that the incidence of compulsive gambling doubles in areas within 50 miles of a casino?”
In other words, under the leadership of Gov. Brad Henry, the state has approved an entire industry that hurts Oklahomans.
Even though the state gets very little from gambling proceeds, it has funded help for those gamblers who have lost jobs, cars, marriages, homes and families due to the proximity of so many casinos and the availability of a state lottery.
The website continues: “Oklahoma provides services to adults and adolescents with gambling related disorders/problems. Gambling disorders include pathological gambling, problem gambling and relative or significant other of a person with a gambling problem.”
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health has contracts with nine – yes, nine – gambling treatment programs. It operates a 24-hour toll-free Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700.
This is like the state giving free cigarettes to school children and then agreeing to pay for lung cancer treatment. Or it’s like giving free vodka to alcoholics and offering free liver transplants.
Gambling will be the lasting legacy of Henry, a former deacon in a Baptist church. His leadership will be remembered for his outstanding hypocrisy.
Vision 2025 - wasted tax money
With Tulsa’s sales tax slipping every month, citizens should reflect on a missed opportunity to avoid police and fire layoffs that happened in 2003.
County voters approved a 13-year sales tax of .6 of one cent in 2003 for Vision 2025. This was a county sales tax for municipal projects, including the downtown arena for Tulsa.
As Tulsa lays off public safety employees, imagine how the tens of millions of dollars generated by Vision 2025 could be used for policemen, firefighters and equipment.
Tulsa’s operating budget is funded primarily by sales tax and that is dropping as unemployment rises to double digits. Vision 2025 is a sales tax and would have been available for Tulsa and other county cities to maintain services during a downturn.
Chamber of commerce types, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Vision 2025 passed, were crowing last week because of the newly renovated Convention Center – funded to the tune of $50.5 million by Vision 2025.
How many policemen and firefighters could be retained with that $50 million? Is a Convention Center makeover worth laying off policemen?
Oklahoma City has a portion of its sales tax designated for public safety and it is not experiencing the layoffs to the extent Tulsa is.