BRET BAIER: But people looking at Washington from the outside they see this -- that this is always how it is. That it is always about the next election and figuring out how best to position whatever legislation until you get past the next election and then something gets through.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Generally speaking, you get past the next election by changing your policies, by announcing new initiatives, but not by wantonly changing the law lawlessly. This is stuff that you do in a banana republic. It's as if the law is simply a blackboard on which Obama writes any number he wants, any delay he wants and any provision.

It's now reached a point where it is so endemic that nobody even notices or complains. I think if the complaints had started with the first arbitrary changes, and these are are not adjustments or transitions. These are political decisions to minimize the impact leading up to an election, and it's changing the law in a way that you are not allowed to do.

RON FOURNIER: I didn't believe this is lawless. I certainly don't believe we are in a banana republic, but I do think this is why the president's approval ratings are below 40%, why only 12% of public has faith in Congress and why less than 20% of the public has any faith in government. This is incompetence at the very least --

KRAUTHAMMER: It's not incompetence.

FOURNIER: -- that really turns the public off.

KRAUTHAMMER: It's not incompetence, it's willful breaking of the constitutional order. Where in the constitution is a president allowed to alter a law 27 times after it's been passed?

FOURNIER: I think they would argue, and I'm not a constitutional attorney and certainly don't hold a doctorate, but I think they would argue this is a tax which is ironic -- they are arguing now it's a tax -- and under a tax the Treasury Secretary has wide authority to be able to bend regulations.

OBAMA: A changing climate means that weather-related disasters like droughts, wildfires, storms, floods are potentially going to be costlier and they’re going to be harsher.

Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University:

Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.’

His statement carries particular significance because he is an internationally acknowledged expert on climate computer models and forecasts, and his university post is jointly funded by the Met Office.

Prof Collins is also a senior adviser – a ‘co-ordinating lead author’ – for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand,” Kerry said. “We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society,”

Rabbi Richard A. Levine, who served as the spiritual leader of Burlington County’s only Reform synagogue for 41 years, died Friday evening at Virtua Hospital, Voorhees, following a long illness. He was 75 years old and was surrounded by his family when he passed away at 8:22 p.m. Rabbi Levine was a well-known, influential and beloved Jewish advocate in South Jersey, Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley.

“Jewish tradition tells us that those whom God calls home on the Sabbath are considered especially meritorious,” said his oldest son Ari Levine. He described his father as a passionate Zionist who embraced the scholarly life as well as the sporting one.

Rabbi Emeritus of Adath Emanu-El in Mount Laurel since his 2005 retirement, the Voorhees resident continued to teach adult courses there -- the school wing is named for him -- and to contribute to special events and services. He gave a sermon at last year’s Yom Kippur services and was a steady presence at the Lois Levine Arts Weekend,  a longtime annual event that honors his late second wife, and at the annual  Scholar-in-Residence Weekend, a dream of his that came to fruition during his last year as senior rabbi.

“If life is a tapestry, then Dad was content to labor from the back, fixing up the loose ends, confident in the knowledge that his work would create something of incredible beauty and meaning,” Ari Levine said. That applied to the rabbi’s synagogue, his work with Jewish youth, and his blended family, Ari added.

Rabbi Levine was the first full-time rabbi to serve Temple Emanu-El of Willingboro, as the congregation was known when he arrived shortly after his ordination in 1964. At that time, his son noted, the congregation had fewer than 50 families, was meeting in a private home, and had just acquired the land for its first synagogue building.

Under Rabbi Levine's leadership, the congregation grew to over 500 families, but after demographics changed and membership declined, he led the procession from Willingboro to the temple’s new home in Mount Laurel in 1997. There, he fastened the mezuzah to doorposts leading to the sanctuary of what by then was known as Adath Emanu-El. In Mount Laurel, membership again swelled to more than 500 families.

“At a time when many people move from community to community, my father devoted his entire career to Adath Emanu-El and to the Greater Philadelphia Jewish community, Ari Levine said.  “As a result, he was able to touch many lives, and often many generations in the same family,”

Debra Neilson of Mount Laurel, a member of the congregation for the past 22 years, said her heart is broken. “Rabbi Levine was such a huge part of my life, and I considered him not only my spiritual leader but a friend,” Neilson said.

“My world was shaped around the synagogue he built. He created a beautiful home for many of us seeking a loving, warm synagogue to be part of,” Neilson said. “Starting at Temple Emanu-El in Willingboro, and later Adath Emanu-El in Mount Laurel, Rabbi Levine led his congregation with humor, knowledge, kindness and love.”

“He was an intricate part of many of our lives and will forever be a part of our family history,” said Neilson, who added that Rabbi Levine officiated at all of her family’s b’nai mitzvot and confirmations and converted her husband and her daughter, who was adopted from Korea. Rabbi Levine also gently guided the family through the loss of parents and grandparents, but Neilson also recalled his “cheesy” sense of humor and ability to play the shofar.

Rabbi Levine was born on July 14, 1938 in Brooklyn, N.Y., the youngest of Julius and Theresa Levine’s three children. 

“He was passionate about all things Brooklyn, especially his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers,” his son recalled.  “He loved all sports and was famous for infusing his teachings with sports analogies. The rabbi earned varsity athletics letters in high school and college.

Rabbi Levine graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in economics, with the thought of following his father and brother into the family accounting business. He enjoyed his years at Penn, particularly his time on the track team. In later years, he would proudly display a college yearbook photo that featured him and a perhaps more-famous member of the team, Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern. But he felt a higher calling.

He was ordained as a Reform rabbi at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City in 1964. Displaying his sense of humor when asked why he majored in economics as an undergraduate, he would say, “I always wanted to be the first rabbi who really understood his contract!” On a more serious note, he often said that as a rabbi, he was a true “modern Renaissance man.”

The rabbi’s passion for sports continued throughout his lifetime. “Generations of bar mitzvah boys still remember his challenging them to one-on-one basketball games as an inducement to further study,” Ari Levine said.  During the 1980s and ’90s, Rabbi Levine co-anchored a Philadelphia Eagles' television pregame show called “A Higher Power,” which blended enthusiasm for his Eagles with humor and theology. 

Rabbi Levine's other great passion, besides his family, was Israel and its place in the hearts of all Jews.  His first trip to Israel was on a Young Judaea trip in 1955, seven years after the Jewish State was founded.  He remained passionate about Israel throughout his life, making more than 25 trips -- and leading 11 congregational trips -- to the Holy Land.

He was an ardent supporter of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and led Adath Emanu-El to plant more trees in Israel than any other New Jersey congregation, an accomplishment that resulted in his name being placed on the JNF Roll of Honor in Jerusalem.  

Early in his career, Rabbi Levine was tapped to help lead the song and Israeli dance program at Camp Kutz, the Reform Movement's youth leadership training institute in Warwick, N.Y.  The hope was that this might spark a greater sense of spirit in his students, who could then infuse that feeling throughout NFTY, the Reform movement's youth program.

“His efforts succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams,” Ari Levine said.  “My father gave license to a new generation of voices such as the late (singer-songwriter) Debbie Friedman, Cantor Jeff Klepper and Rabbi Daniel Freelander, and they in turn helped to change the way Jews relate to one another and to God. Whenever a congregation sings a Debbie Friedman or a Jeff Klepper song, an echo of my father's teaching can be heard.”

Debbie Friedman wrote her first song, “And Thou Shalt Love,” while living with Rabbi Levine and his family in Willingboro.  Later, Rabbi Levine helped to inspire the careers of Cantors Anita Hochman of M'kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, Leon Sher of Har Sinai in Pennington, and Cantorial Soloist Sandra Messinger of Adath Emanu-El.

“To the man who shaped so many lives, including mine, and gave his all to create a better world, I wish Rabbi Richard Levine peace,” Messinger said.

During his tenure at the synagogue, Rabbi Levine introduced many arts programs for Jewish self-expression in addition to social action and musical programs. He instituted “Ask the Rabbi” nights, home-study classes, and “kallot” retreats at Camp Harlam in the Poconos.  He was also a driving force behind the synagogue’s “Bikkur Cholim” committee, with some members making gifts for seniors and the sick, while others visit the Jewish patients and seniors. 

Said Adath Emanu-El Rabbi Benjamin David, “Rabbi Levine was a rabbi's rabbi, a mensch, a friend, and a truly precious soul.”

Added Dr. Steven Gitler of Cherry Hill, current president of Adath Emanu-El,“Rabbi Levine was our spiritual leader, our teacher, our song leader, our confidante, and our friend for well over 40 years.  He leaves an incredible legacy that will live on for many, many years to come.”

Bruce Grossman of Cherry Hill, president of the temple from 1992 to 1994 and a member since Rabbi Levine married him and his wife, Karen, in 1976, said the rabbi’s moral compass is his everlasting gift. Rabbi Levine officiated at the b’nai mitzvah of Grossman’s three children and at his daughter’s wedding.

“It was no coincidence that Rabbi Levine passed shortly after the beginning of our Shabbat service on Friday,” said Grossman, who chaired the Tribute Committee during Rabbi Levine’s last year as rabbi and now chairs Adath Emanu-El’s Ritual Committee.

“This service, whose theme was ‘L’Dor V’Dor’ (From Generation to Generation), was led by our senior and junior youth groups,” Grossman said.  “I believe that at the time of Rabbi’s passing, it was a moment of Heavenly confluence, when G-d spoke and declared: ‘On This Night, You Shall Ascend Up To Me, and Take Your Place Upon the Holy. For You Have Not Strived To Be Moses, You Have Strived to Be Rabbi Levine, and You Shall Be Honored Among the Righteous.’”

Rabbi Levine was the first and only South Jersey rabbi to serve as president of the Greater Philadelphia Board of Rabbis, speaking on behalf of the Jewish community on July 4, 1976, at Independence Hall.  He also served locally as president of the Tri-County Board of Rabbis and on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey, Jewish Family and Children’s Service and the Department of Jewish Education and Continuity, as well as on the regional boards of Reform Rabbis and the Jewish National Fund. He chaired human relations commissions and ethics boards in Willingboro and Voorhees.

Rabbi Levine chaired two Central Conference of American Rabbis committees – the Retirement Committee and the Audit Committee – at the same time, and was the CCAR’s Carenet coordinator for the Delaware Valley Region for the program’s duration. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from HUC-JIR in 1989.

For many years, Rabbi Levine was a guest lecturer at five regional high schools, where he spoke on such topics as “The Concept of Self and Interrelations with Others.” He was a longtime regular at Vito’s Pizza in Cherry Hill, where the staff expected “Rabbi Levini,” as they called him, to pop in weekly for two slices of cheese pizza.

Rabbi Levine is survived by his wife of 28 years, Judith Chaikin Levine; children Ari (the late William Monnich Jr.) Levine, Ron (Kim) Levine, Brian (Iris Caesar) Golder, Jason (Lisa) Chaikin, Deborah (Chealsea Nather) Golder, Matthew Chaikin, Samantha (David Halpern) Chaikin, Yael (Doug) Emenecker and Shira (Lior) Keet; his sister, Rhoda (the late Dr. Jack) Cohen; his brother, Robert (Helen) Levine, and 13 grandchildren. His first marriage, to Judith Gittelsohn, ended in divorce; his second, to Lois Golder, ended with her death. 

Relatives and friends are invited Tuesday beginning at 10 a.m. to Adath Emanu-El, 205 Elbo Lane, Mount Laurel, where funeral services will begin promptly at noon. Interment will follow at Locustwood Memorial Park, Cherry Hill.  Overflow parking for those not going to the cemetery will be in the rear lot of Fellowship Community Church at 1520 Hainesport-Mount Laurel Rd., with shuttle service to the synagogue and back.

Shiva will be observed at Adath Emanu-El on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., with Minyan services at 7 p.m. Other shiva times will be private.

Contributions may be made to the Rabbi Richard Levine Good Works Fund, c/o Adath Emanu-El, 205 Elbo Lane, Mount Laurel, N.J. 08054. Contributions will be divided among his favorite charities, including Adath Emanu-El, the Jewish National Fund and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

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Rabbi Richard A. Levine, who served 41 years as the religious leader of Burlington County’s only Reform synagogue, died Feb. 28 following a long illness. He was 75 years old and lived in Voorhees, N.J.

“Jewish tradition tells us that those whom God calls home on the Sabbath are considered especially meritorious,” said Levine’s oldest son, Ari. He described his father as a passionate Zionist who embraced the scholarly life as well as the sporting one.

Rabbi emeritus of Adath Emanu-El in Mount Laurel since his 2005 retirement, Levine continued to teach adult courses there — the school wing is named for him — and contribute to special events and services.

Levine was the first full-time rabbi to serve Temple Emanu-El of Willingboro, N.J., as the congregation was known when he arrived shortly after his ordination in 1964. Under his leadership, the congregation grew from 50 to more than 500 families. But after demographics changed and membership declined, in 1997 he led the procession from Willingboro to the temple’s new home in Mount Laurel, by then known as Adath Emanu-El. There, membership returned to its previous levels.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Levine graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics, thinking that he would follow his father and brother into the family accounting business, Ari Levine said. But he felt a higher calling, his son continued, and went on to become ordained as a Reform rabbi at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1964, where he later also earned an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree.

Displaying his sense of humor when congregants asked why he majored in economics, he would say, “I always wanted to be the first rabbi who really understood his contract!” 

The rabbi’s passion for sports was evident during the 1980s and ’90s when he co-anchored a Philadelphia Eagles' television pregame show called A Higher Power, which blended his enthusiasm for the team with humor and theology.

Levine's other great passion, aside from his large blended family, was Israel. He visited the Jewish state more than 25 times, including leading 11 congregational trips.

An ardent supporter of the Jewish National Fund, he led Adath Emanu-El and its congregants to plant so many trees that his name was placed on the JNF Roll of Honor in Jerusalem. Based on the plaques in a grove known as “The New Jersey Forest,” Adath Emanu-El has planted more trees than any other congregation in the state, Ari Levine said. 

Early in his career,  Levine was tapped to help lead the song and Israeli dance program at Camp Kutz, the Reform Movement’s youth leadership training institute in Warwick, N.Y.

“My father gave license to a new generation of voices such as the late Debbie Friedman, Cantor Jeff Klepper and Rabbi Daniel Freelander, and they in turn helped to change the way Jews relate to one another and to God,” Ari Levine said.

Friedman wrote her first song, “And Thou Shalt Love,” while living with Levine and his family in Willingboro.

Adath Emanu-El Rabbi Benjamin David called his predecessor “a rabbi's rabbi, a mensch, a friend and a truly precious soul.”

Levine was reportedly the first and only South Jersey rabbi to serve as president of the Greater Philadelphia Board of Rabbis, and spoke in that role on behalf of the Jewish community on July 4, 1976, at Independence Hall. 

He also served in South Jersey as president of the Tri-County Board of Rabbis and on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey, Jewish Family and Children’s Service and the Department of Jewish Education and Continuity, as well as on the regional boards of Reform Rabbis and the Jewish National Fund. He chaired human relations commissions and ethics boards in Willingboro and Voorhees.

In addition to his son Ari, Levine is survived by his wife, Judith Chaikin Levine; daughters Deborah Golder, Samantha Chaikin, Yael Emenecker and Shira Keet; sons Ron Levine, Brian Golder, Jason Chaikin and Matthew Chaikin; sister Rhoda Cohen; brother Robert;  and 13 grandchildren. 

Contributions may be made to the Rabbi Richard Levine Good Works Fund, c/o Adath Emanu-El, 205 Elbo Lane, Mount Laurel, N.J. 08054. Donations will be divided among his favorite charities, including Adath Emanu-El, the Jewish National Fund and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. 

March 14, 2014
by CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, The Washington Post

The president of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council challenges critics of President Obama's Ukraine policy by saying "What are you going to do, send the 101st Airborne into Crimea?" Not exactly subtle. And rather silly, considering that no one has proposed such a thing.

The alternative to passivity is not war but a serious foreign policy. For the last five years, Obama's fruitless accommodationism has invited the kind of aggressiveness demonstrated by Iran in Syria, China in the East China Sea and Russia in Ukraine. But what's done is done. Put that aside. What is to be done now?

We have three objectives. In ascending order of difficulty: Reassure NATO. Deter further Russian incursion into Ukraine. Reverse the annexation of Crimea.

Reassure NATO:

We're already sending U.S. aircraft to patrol the airspace of the Baltic states. That's not enough.

1. Send the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the Baltics to arrange joint maneuvers.

2. Same for the four NATO countries bordering Ukraine -- Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

3. Urgently revive the original missile defense agreements concluded with Poland and the Czech Republic before Obama canceled them unilaterally to appease Russia.

Deter Russia in Ukraine:

1. Extend the Black Sea maneuvers in which the USS Truxtun is currently engaged with Romania and Bulgaria. These were previously scheduled. Order immediate -- and continual -- follow-ons.

2. Declare that any further Russian military incursion beyond Crimea will lead to a rapid and favorable response from NATO to any request from Kiev for weapons. These would be accompanied by significant numbers of NATO trainers and advisers.

This is no land-war strategy. This is the "tripwire" strategy successful for half a century in Germany and Korea. Any Russian push into western Ukraine would then engage a thin tripwire of NATO trainer/advisers. That is something the most rabid Soviet expansionist never risked. Nor would Putin. It would, therefore, establish a ring of protection at least around the core of western Ukraine.

Reverse the annexation of Crimea:

Clearly the most difficult. In the short run, likely impossible. There are no military cards to play, Russia holding all of them. Ukraine's forces are very weak. The steps must be diplomatic and economic.

First, Crimean secession under Russian occupation must lead to Russia's immediate expulsion from the G-8. To assuage the tremulous Angela Merkel, we could do it by subtraction: All seven democracies withdraw from the G-8, then instantly reconstitute as the original G-7.  

As for economic sanctions, they are currently puny. We haven't done a thing. We haven't even named names. We've just authorized the penalizing of individuals.

Name the names, freeze their accounts. But any real effect will require broader sanctions and for that we need European cooperation. The ultimate sanction is to cut off Russian oligarchs, companies and banks from the Western financial system. That's the economic "nuclear option" that brought Iran to its knees and to the negotiating table. It would have a devastating effect on Putin's economy.

As of now, the Germans, French and British have balked. They have too much economic interest in the Moscow connection.

Which means we can do nothing decisive in the short or even medium term. But we can severely squeeze Russia in the long term.

How? For serious sanctions to become possible, Europe must first be weaned off Russian gas. Obama should order the Energy Department to expedite authorization for roughly 25 liquid natural gas export facilities. Demand all decisions within six weeks.

Second, call for urgent bipartisan consultation with congressional leaders for an emergency increase in defense spending, restoring at least $100 billion annually to the defense budget to keep U.S. armed forces at current strength or greater. Obama won't do it but he should. Nothing demonstrates American global retreat more than a budget that reduces the U.S. Army to 1940 levels.

Obama is not the first president to conduct a weak foreign policy. Jimmy Carter was similarly inclined -- until Russia invaded Afghanistan, at which point the scales fell from Carter's eyes. He responded boldly: imposing the grain embargo on the Soviets, boycotting the Moscow Olympics, increasing defense spending and ostentatiously sending a machine gun-toting Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Khyber Pass, symbolizing the massive military aid we began sending the mujahedeen, whose insurgency so bled the Russians over the next decade that they not only lost Afghanistan but were fatally weakened as a global imperial power.

Invasion woke Carter from his illusions. Will it wake Obama?
     
Charles Krauthammer's email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
    

Irepeat: I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I’ve long believed that it cannot be good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I also believe that those scientists who pretend to know exactly what this will cause in 20, 30 or 50 years are white-coated propagandists.

“The debate is settled,” asserted propagandist in chief Barack Obama in his latest State of the Union address. “Climate change is a fact.” Really? There is nothing more anti-scientific than the very idea that science is settled, static, impervious to challenge. Take a non-climate example. It was long assumed that mammograms help reduce breast cancer deaths. This fact was so settled that Obamacare requires every insurance plan to offer mammograms (for free, no less) or be subject to termination.

Now we learn from a massive randomized study — 90,000 women followed for 25 years — that mammograms may have no effect on breast cancer deaths. Indeed, one out of five of those diagnosed by mammogram receives unnecessary radiation, chemo or surgery.

So much for settledness. And climate is less well understood than breast cancer. If climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing? And how is it that the great physicist Freeman Dyson, who did some climate research in the late 1970s, thinks today’s climate-change Cassandras are hopelessly mistaken?

They deal with the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans, argues Dyson, ignoring the effect of biology, i.e., vegetation and topsoil. Further, their predictions rest on models they fall in love with: “You sit in front of a computer screen for 10 years and you start to think of your model as being real.” Not surprisingly, these models have been “consistently and spectacularly wrong” in their predictions, write atmospheric scientists Richard McNider and John Christy— and always, amazingly, in the same direction.

Settled? Even Britain’s national weather service concedes there’s been no change— delicately called a “pause” — in global temperature in 15 years. If even the raw data is recalcitrant, let alone the assumptions and underlying models, how settled is the science?

But even worse than the pretense of settledness is the cynical attribution of any politically convenient natural disaster to climate change, a clever term that allows you to attribute anything — warming and cooling, drought and flood — to man’s sinful carbon burning.

Accordingly, Obama ostentatiously visited drought-stricken California last Friday. Surprise! He blamed climate change. Here even the New York Times gagged, pointing out that far from being supported by the evidence, “the most recent computer projections suggest that as the world warms, California should get wetter, not drier, in the winter.”

How inconvenient. But we’ve been here before. Hurricane Sandy was made the poster child for the alleged increased frequency and strength of “extreme weather events” like hurricanes.

Nonsense. Sandy wasn’t even a hurricane when it hit the United States. Indeed, in all of 2012, only a single hurricane made U.S. landfall. And 2013 saw the fewest Atlantic hurricanes in 30 years. In fact, in the last half-century, one-third fewermajor hurricanes have hit the United States than in the previous half-century.

Similarly tornadoes. Every time one hits, the climate-change commentary begins. Yet last year saw the fewest in a quarter-century. And the last 30 years — of presumed global warming — has seen a 30 percent decreasein extreme tornado activity (F3 and above) versus the previous 30 years.

None of this is dispositive. It doesn’t settle the issue. But that’s the point. It mocks the very notion of settled science, which is nothing but a crude attempt to silence critics and delegitimize debate. As does the term “denier” — an echo of Holocaust denial, contemptibly suggesting the malevolent rejection of an established historical truth.

Climate-change proponents have made their cause a matter of fealty and faith. For folks who pretend to be brave carriers of the scientific ethic, there’s more than a tinge of religion in their jeremiads. If you whore after other gods, the Bible tells us, “the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit” (Deuteronomy 11).

Sounds like California. Except that today there’s a new god, the Earth Mother. And a new set of sins — burning coal and driving a fully equipped F-150.

But whoring is whoring, and the gods must be appeased. So if California burns, you send your high priest (in carbon -belching Air Force One, but never mind) to the bone-dry land to offer up, on behalf of the repentant congregation, a $1 billion burnt offering called a “climate resilience fund.”

Ah, settled science in action.

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Nancy Pelosi’s flippant remark to “pass the bill first, then find out what’s in it,” has led Americans to the discovery that ObamaCare is indeed a “nightmare,” fraught with bureaucratic tangles, the risk to personal privacy, and the real possibility that, when all is said and done, many will have a health insurance card, but no actual health care.

The free market, apparently, will have none of that, however, as America’s entrepreneurial spirit in real health care marketplaces is moving forward, with doctors and patients negotiating health care outside of government interference.

MediBid, for example, is a website that offers Healthcare Savings Account (HSA) and self-pay patients access to doctors who will provide them with quality medical care and direct cash pricing. The site also provides doctors with access to self-pay patients, allowing them to avoid insurance companies who underpay, and then only after months following the actual treatment or surgery.

Ralph Weber, MediBid’s president and CEO, opened the global marketplace for healthcare in January of 2010 after living in Canada and witnessing the need for a free market in the healthcare industry in a place where healthcare is rationed by the government.

On MediBid, patients can create a free, private profile, and then pay a one-request fee of $25 or $4.95 per month for a year of unlimited medical requests. Patients can then make a medical request for the type of treatment or surgery they need, and physicians and facilities are matched to patients who can proceed to collect bids from them.

Weber provided some insight into how MediBid can work for Americans who decide not to sign up for ObamaCare.

“A lot of procedures are a lot more affordable than big insurance companies want us to think they are,” Weber told KATU in Oregon. “If someone chooses to be uninsured next year, the individual penalty is $95 or up to 1% of your income. I think some people will choose to remain uninsured and shop for care as they go.”

One patient, George Law from Chicago, said that health insurance is simply not affordable for him. He requested a colonoscopy on MediBid and doctors around the country “bid” to perform it.

Dr. Scott Gibson of Oregon won the bid, charging cash customers about $800 for a colonoscopy, a great deal compared to the $3,500 Law would have to pay in Chicago.

“You might say come on, you can actually travel from Chicago to Oregon, rent a car, stay in a hotel and pay for your medical services?” said Law. “Not only did I come out ahead, it was less than half the price [of having the procedure done in Chicago].”

According to Dr. Gibson, the huge price difference is related to where the service is performed.

“Hospitals have high overheads, so they tend to charge more,” he said.

Paul Freeman also drove 600 miles from his home in Texhoma, Oklahoma last year to save himself, and his employer, thousands of dollars on his surgery.

According to postbulletin.com, Freeman’s insurer covered his travel costs and the bill for his treatment because a medical center in Oklahoma City could remove the loose cartilage in his knee for about 70 percent less than a hospital near Freeman’s home. Without the change in location for his surgery, Freeman would have paid about $5,000 out of pocket.

“You immediately think, ‘Oh, they’re going to take me into a butcher shop and it’s going to be real scary,’” Freeman, 53, said. Instead, however, he noted he had a “wonderful experience.” 

MediBid claims it can save the average customer 50 percent on services. However, the savings are realized because patients using MediBid need to check out a doctor’s background on their own and are responsible for getting test results, such as X-rays, blood test lab reports, etc. to the doctor performing the service.

“We waste an enormous amount of money in this country by overpaying for health care,” states John Goodman, an economist and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis. “The only way to get rid of waste is to have people compete in a real marketplace.”

A move toward more free market healthcare delivery means patients need to change their outlook on how their medical care is delivered to them, and do more of the footwork themselves. In the free market, special treatments and surgeries are directed by patients themselves, just like a kitchen renovation or an engine overhaul. Customers investigate service providers who can do the job, get references, and find the best person for the best price.

With ObamaCare being the disaster it is, it looks like any big government takeover of healthcare is going to create more work and greater risk for Americans. Perhaps it’s better to take matters into our own hands so we know what we’re getting.

May 14, 2012: Businessman Frank VanderSloot speaks to Fox News.FNC

An Idaho businessman singled out by the Obama campaign for giving $1 million in support of Mitt Romney is now the focus of IRS and Labor Department audits.

Frank VanderSloot, in an interview with FoxNews.com on Tuesday, said he received the initial audit notice from the IRS last month. Two weeks later, he got one from the Labor Department stating the agency would be looking into records related to foreign employees working at his Idaho Falls cattle ranch.

It might all be a coincidence, he said -- but the timing was peculiar. 

VanderSloot gave the pro-Romney money last year to the super PAC “Restore of Future.” Then in April, he was identified along with seven other donors on an Obama campaign website as “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.”

At the time, VanderSloot spoke out and accused the campaign of targeting him unfairly. Then came the audits. 

“It seems coincidental, but who knows,” VanderSloot told FoxNews.com Tuesday. “The problem is the president made the list, and 61 days later I get the first letter. One has to ask: Is the fact I’m being shot at the result of having a target on my back? … Was the list made with that intent?”

VanderSloot expected some scrutiny, considering he is a co-chairman on the Romney campaign, and years of contributing to state and national races had already exposed him to the rough-and-tumble world of politics.  

He has also been targeted by liberal bloggers and an opposition research team that directed an investigator to poke around his local courthouse, looking at divorce records and other cases.

Yet VanderSloot, owner of the Melaleuca wellness product company,  never expected to be branded on an presidential campaign website as a “litigious, combative and bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”

“I had never heard anybody say that,” said VanderSloot, who speculated the anti-gay claim is largely the result of him about 13 years ago opposing the film “It’s Elementary -- Talking about Gay Issues in School” airing on public TV because it was not suitable for viewing by young children.

“Ninety percent of my gay friends agreed,” he said.

VanderSloot was prescient in his public comments after appearing on the list, musing on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” about whether the list was perhaps a tip-sheet for media critics or federal agencies.

“Am I going to get a call from the FDA … or the IRS?” he said Tuesday, echoing his comments from the show.

Still, the 63-year-old VanderSloot doesn’t think President Obama directly ordered the audits, because simply allowing the so-called "enemy list" to be posted on the original “Keeping GOP Honest” site was enough.

“I doubt he said, ‘Let’s get these guys,’ ” VanderSloot said.

The Obama campaign did not return an email seeking comment. Representatives from the IRS and Labor Department also did not return requests for comment. 

The documents requested by the IRS have been turned over to his accountant, VanderSloot said, and the Labor Department audit is just getting started, but he will fully comply and expects no problems.

"I’m not worried,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”

VanderSloot also said the scrutiny has only strengthened his commitment to stay engaged in the political system.

“I am not going to stay away,” he said. “This has given me even more resolve that we need a new president.”

Tea party groups, Franklin Graham, Christine O'Donnell, a pro-marriage group. And now Dr. Ben Carson.

The list of conservatives targeted by the Internal Revenue Service for audits, tax-exempt reviews or tax privacy breaches keeps growing, raising fresh questions in Washington about whether a scandal the Obama administration has blamed on bureaucratic incompetence and coincidence may in fact involve something more nefarious.

The latest revelation came Thursday from Dr. Carson, the renowned neurosurgeon who told The Washington Times that he was targeted for an audit just months after he gave a speech in front of President Obama that challenged America's leadership. The agency requested to review his real estate holdings and then conducted a full audit.

In the end, the IRS found no wrongdoing, Dr. Carson said, but it raised his suspicions about being singled out for his speech.

"I guess it could be a coincidence, but I never had been audited before and never really had any encounters with the IRS," Dr. Carson said in an interview. "But it certainly would make one suspicious because we know now the IRS has been used for political purposes and therefore actions like this come under suspicion."

Melanie Sloan, head of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and a former Justice Department prosecutor during the Clinton years, said she had not been that concerned about the IRS reviews of the growing number of tea party groups but the story of Dr. Carson's audit raised red flags.

"I have not been particularly persuaded in the past with the IRS targeting of the tea party groups. But this one seems a little odd. This certainly raises questions that I assume someone will begin to investigate," she said.

Dr. Carson, whose rise from poverty and medical work with pediatric patients were celebrated in the movie "Gifted Hands," is the latest in a growing number of high-profile figures to come forward and claim they were improperly targeted by the IRS.

The Rev. Franklin Graham and others have said either they or their organizations were singled out by the IRS, while former Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell said she was audited and that someone used the IRS system to access her private tax information.

On Wednesday, the National Organization for Marriage announced that it would sue the IRS, saying it has evidence that someone within the agency leaked the group's donor list to its political enemies in 2012.

As in the other instances, the organization claims no one at the IRS has been held responsible.

Calls to the IRS went unanswered Thursday. Much of the agency's staff has been furloughed as a result of the federal government shutdown.

In the past, the IRS has declined to discuss specific audits, citing privacy laws. Such instances typically come to light only when individuals or businesses divulge that they've been targeted.

That was what happened this week. During a speech in Alabama, Dr. Carson made a vague reference to having his first "encounter with the IRS."

The encounter came just four months after his speech in February at the National Prayer Breakfast, an address that brought him into the national spotlight and one in which he decried the "moral decay and fiscal irresponsibility" of the U.S. in recent years.

Since then, he has electrified the conservative world and fueled talk of a presidential run with speeches and other works, including his weekly column for The Times.

Dr. Carson said IRS agents contacted him in June and asked to look at his real estate holdings. After finding nothing that concerned them, the agents informed him that they were conducting a full audit of his finances and asked to go back an additional year to review his records, he said.

They ended the review in August after finding no problems.

"They told me everything was in good standing and left," Dr. Carson said.

Asked whether he thought the audit was a retaliation for his speech, Dr. Carson quipped: "I guess I'm surprised it took them that long."

He said the more serious issue is that the IRS has been politicized — "something that never should have happened"— and that leaves all of its activities open to suspicion.

Indeed, Dr. Carson isn't the first high-profile conservative figure to come under fire from the IRS.

Earlier this year, Ms. O'Donnell — a former Senate candidate from Delaware who rose to prominence amid heavy tea party backing — revealed to The Times that she, too, had been audited and also had her personal tax information breached.

Ms. O'Donnell's tax records were accessed by David Smith, an investigator with Delaware's Division of Revenue.

Revelations about that access, which took place in March 2010, spawned an inquiry by the U.S. Treasury Department and denials by Delaware officials that anything inappropriate had taken place.

It also has spawned a congressional investigation spearheaded by Sen. Chuck Grassley, a powerful Iowa Republican.

Ms. O'Donnell's story, which also includes an erroneous lien placed on a home she no longer owned, broke just as the IRS inspector general acknowledged that at least four politicians or political donors have had their personal tax records improperly accessed since 2006. One of those cases involved a willful violation of federal law.

The Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the cases.

Also this year, Mr. Graham, son of legendary evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham, wrote a letter to Mr. Obama in which he accused the IRS of targeting two of his nonprofit organization for political purposes.

Mr. Graham heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, a worldwide relief group.

In his letter, Mr. Graham said he believes "someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us."

Lois Lerner’s appearance on Capitol Hill this week reminds us that, to date, she has become the face of the IRS stonewall: the refusal to tell the American people the truth about the agency’s targeting of groups and individuals as part of a political persecution of conservatives. My story about the IRS is about a stonewall as well, but for something far more serious: the invasion of personal and confidential tax records that are supposed to be protected by law. 

When a Treasury Department inspector general (TIGTA) investigator informed me early last year that my confidential IRS records had been “compromised” and “maybe misused,” the pieces of a three-year-old puzzle began to come together.

He told me that a few hours after I issued a media advisory for a news conference at which I was to announce my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, someone had breached my confidential IRS records. Later that same day the IRS placed an erroneous lien on a home I no longer owned.

The lien was stamped in New Castle County, Delaware. The county executive at that time was Chris Coons, the man who wound up defeating me in the election for the U.S. Senate seat and who sits in that seat today.

For two weeks I was attacked publicly – both in local and national media outlets – for this erroneous lien. The IRS then rescinded the lien claiming it was just a glitch. But the damage had already been done to my campaign and reputation.

As investigators began to look into this case I was fortunate to gain Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) as an ally. He and I were both told last Spring by TIGTA that I deserved to know at least some information about what happened.

Here is where the irony set in and the stonewall went up both in Delaware and Washington. We were told the same law that was supposed to protect the confidentiality of my tax records also protects the identities of the people involved in the records breach, the circumstances surrounding the breach as well as the erroneous lien. 

The person who accessed my records was an employee in the Delaware Department of Revenue, David Smith. His boss publicly claimed he did so as part of a “routine” check. 

The problem is there are laws that protect taxpayers from government officials who just want to go snooping in your confidential tax records. Someone at the IRS didn’t bother to abide by those laws. If all a government official needs to pry into your tax records is to claim he’s making a routine check, then the law isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on and any taxpayer is vulnerable to having their confidential records “compromised” and “misused.”

The routine check turned into an erroneous lien, the lien was supposedly caused by a glitch. The question is if all of this was routine, simple coincidences and harmless glitches, how come neither I nor Senator Grassley have gotten the information promised by TIGTA for the past ten months?

What has happened is that despite genuine bipartisan efforts to get to the bottom of these scandals, despite the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee both probing my particular case, some congressional Democrats are calling for an ethics investigation into TIGTA. They are claiming its work has been pro-Republican. 

This is beyond partisan, it’s ridiculous as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman David Camp confirmed to Fox News' Megyn Kelly that “100 percent of the groups that were audited were conservative groups.” So the real reason to put the clamps on TIGTA is to keep cases like mine from going forward.

As I was considering the campaign for U.S. Senate I was literally told by a prominent Delaware political figure that if I ran the IRS and others were going to “F with your head.” It would seem given Ms. Lerner’s pleading the Fifth Amendment, the year long stonewall, and President Obama’s assertion to Bill O’Reilly that there’s “not even a smidgen” of corruption, the IRS is really doing that to the entire country.

Christine O’Donnell was the 2010 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware.

Why the emphasis on dorm dwellers?

Anyone living in crowded, communal living conditions - dorms, for example, as well as fraternities, sororities and military barracks - are at significantly higher risk for bacterial meningitis than the general population. Add in unhealthy life styles - lack of sleep, unbalanced nutrition, exposure to alcohol and second hand smoke - and the risks rise. Teens who live in dorms are six times more likely to contract the virulent disease than teens in the general population.

A fast-moving, virulent bug.

Meningococcal meningitis is a fast moving, deadly bug that kills 10 to 13% of its victims within a matter of hours or days, and leaves severe repercussions - amputation, brain damage or deafness - for up to 20% of the patients who survive. The frustrating thing is that antibiotics can knock out the disease, but the early symptoms are so general - fever, malaise, rash and a stiff neck - most victims don't even realize they have it until they are very sick indeed.

Contagion and risk.

The disease is spread via bodily fluids: coughing, kissing or by sharing a water bottle or fork. It can infect the blood, or the fluid in the spinal cord or around the brain, and symptoms can emerge in a matter of hours or days. And it spreads so quickly, a patient can die in a few hours, even with medical care. It's that speed that alarms doctors and university officials. Only 125 college students contract the disease - and five to 15 die - each year from the disease. According to the American College Health Association, up to 80% of those cases could have been avoided with the vaccine currently recommended, Menactra, which guards against two out of the three most common forms of the disease in the United States.

(InfoWars) – Why is the federal government so obsessed with grabbing more land?  After all, the federal government already owns more than 40 percent of the land in 9 different U.S. states.  Why are federal bureaucrats so determined to grab even more?  Well, the truth is that this all becomes much clearer once you understand that there is a very twisted philosophy behind what they are doing.  It is commonly known as “Agenda 21″, although many names and labels are used for this particular philosophy.  Basically, those that hold to this form of radical environmentalism believe that humanity is utterly destroying the planet, and therefore the goal should be to create a world where literally everything that we do is tightly monitored and controlled by control freak bureaucrats in the name of “sustainable development”.  In their vision of the future, the human population will be greatly reduced and human activity will be limited to strictly regulated urban areas and travel corridors.  The rest of the planet will be left to nature.  To achieve this goal, a massive transfer of land from private landowners to the federal government will be necessary.

So the conflict between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the BLM is really just the tip of the iceberg.  The reality is that the BLM has their eyes on much bigger prizes.

For example, Breitbart is reporting that the BLM is looking at grabbing 90,000 privately-held acres along the Texas/Oklahoma border…

After the recent Bundy Ranch episode by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Texans are becoming more concerned about the BLM’s focus on 90,000 acres along a 116 mile stretch of the Texas/Oklahoma boundary. The BLM is reviewing the possible federal takeover and ownership of privately-held lands which have been deeded property for generations of Texas landowners.

Sid Miller, former Texas State Representative and Republican candidate for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, has since made the matter a campaign issue to Breitbart Texas.

“In Texas,” Miller says, “the BLM is attempting a repeat of an action taken over 30 years ago along the Red River when Tommy Henderson lost a federal lawsuit. The Bureau of Land Management took 140 acres of his property and didn’t pay him one cent.”

Needless to say, officials down in Texas are not pleased about this.  In fact, just check out what the attorney general of Texas is saying…

Gen. Abbott sent a strongly-worded letter to BLM Director Neil Kornze, asking for answers to a series of questions related to the potential land grab.

“I am deeply concerned about the notion that the Bureau of Land Management believes the federal government has the authority to swoop in and take land that has been owned and cultivated by Texas landowners for generations,” General Abbott wrote. “The BLM’s newly asserted claims to land along the Red River threaten to upset long-settled private property rights and undermine fundamental principles—including the rule of law—that form the foundation of our democracy. Yet, the BLM has failed to disclose either its full intentions or the legal justification for its proposed actions. Decisions of this magnitude must not be made inside a bureaucratic black box.”

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas, General Abbott said, “This is the latest line of attack by the Obama Administration where it seems like they have a complete disregard for the rule of law in this country …And now they’ve crossed the line quite literally by coming into the State of Texas and trying to claim Texas land as federal land. And, as the Attorney General of Texas I am not going to allow this.”

Does the federal government actually need more land?

As I mentioned above, the feds already own more than 40 percent of the land in 9 different U.S. states…

Nevada: 84.5 percent
Alaska: 69.1 percent
Utah: 57.4 percent
Oregon: 53.1 percent
Idaho: 50.2 percent
Arizona: 48.1 percent
California: 45.3 percent
Wyoming: 42.4 percent
New Mexico: 41.8 percent

The federal government does not need more land.  But there is an obsession to grab more so that the dictates of Agenda 21 can be implemented.

The map that I have posted below is a simulation of what the endgame of Agenda 21 might look like.  If these radical environmentalists get their way, the only areas that will be allocated for normal human use will be the areas in green…

If you do not go along with the “sustainable development” agenda, you risk being labeled a “threat” to be dealt with.

For example, Senator Harry Reid has used the label “domestic terrorists” to describe those that showed up to support Cliven Bundy at his ranch.

Reid could have used lots of other labels.  But he specifically chose to call them terrorists.  And considering what the law allows the feds to do to “terrorists”, that is quite chilling.

And don’t think that if you just stay quiet that you won’t get labeled as a “terrorist”.  In fact, there is a very good chance that you already fit several government criteria for being a terrorist.  Just check out the list below.  It comes from my previous article entitled “72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered ‘Potential Terrorists’ In Official Government Documents“…

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”

2. Those that advocate for states’ rights

3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”

4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”

5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”

6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation areseparate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”

7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”

8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”

9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of theenvironment and/or animals”

10. “Anti-Gay”

11. “Anti-Immigrant”

12. “Anti-Muslim”

13. “The Patriot Movement”

14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”

15. Members of the Family Research Council

16. Members of the American Family Association

17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”

18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol

19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform

20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition

21. Members of the Christian Action Network

22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”

23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”

24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21

25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps

26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”

27. The militia movement

28. The sovereign citizen movement

29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”

30. Anyone that “complains about bias”

31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”

32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”

33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”

34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”

35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”

36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”

37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”

38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”

39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”

40. “Militia or unorganized militia”

41. “General right-wing extremist”

42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.

43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”

44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

45. Those that are “anti-global”

46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”

47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”

48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”

49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”

50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”

51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”

53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”

54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”

55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”

56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”

57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”

58. “Rightwing extremists”

59. “Returning veterans”

60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”

61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”

62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”

63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”

64. “Anti-abortion activists”

65. Those that are against illegal immigration

66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner

67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations

68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”

69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr

70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)

71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies

72. Evangelical Christians

Do any of those criteria apply to you?

If so, then you are a “potential terrorist” according to the U.S. government.

We live at a time when the federal government is becoming increasingly oppressive.  Just consider the following excerpt from a recent article by John W. Whitehead…

It’s not just the Cliven Bundys of the world who are being dealt with in this manner. Don Miller, a 91-year-old antiques collector, recently had his Indiana home raided by the FBI, ostensibly because it might be in the nation’s best interest if the rare and valuable antiques and artifacts Miller had collected over the course of 80 years were cared for by the government. Such tactics carried out by anyone other than the government would be considered grand larceny, and yet the government gets a free pass.

In the same way, the government insists it can carry out all manner of surveillance on us—listen in on our phone calls, read our emails and text messages, track our movements, photograph our license plates, even enter our biometric information into DNA databases—but those who dare to return the favor, even a little, by filming potential police misconduct, get roughed up by the police, arrested, charged with violating various and sundry crimes.

This was not what our founders intended.

Our liberties and freedoms are being eroded a little bit more with each passing day, and most Americans don’t even seem to care.

In the end, we will pay a great price for our apathy.

[H/T Infowars: Michael Snyder]

SEIU agents recently accompanied an inspector from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a division of the Department of Labor, on three visits to nonunion work sites under contract with the Houston-based janitorial company Professional Janitorial Services (PJS).
The SEIU representatives gained entry alongside an OSHA inspector to a private office building cleaned by PJS in West Houston on October 29, 2013.
SEIU representatives also accompanied an OSHA inspector on visits to office buildings cleaned by PJS in Houston on October 29, 2013, and in Southwest Houston on November 7, 2013, but the union agents were denied access by the building owners each time.
The visits were made to investigate OSHA complaints by SEIU-friendly employees alleging that the nonunion janitorial company did not provide workers safety goggles and gloves in some instances. Though each of the inspections found proper goggles and gloves, OSHA fined PJS for other alleged infractions related to not keeping certain safety data sheets or providing proper training information on use of cleaning chemicals.
SEIU also accompanied OSHA on a site visit to Philadelphia International Airport in the spring of 2013 after SEIU-affiliated workers complained about a private airline’s safety hazards including allegedly not providing gloves. SEIU has been prominently advocating for wage and benefit hikes and increased training for workers at Philadelphia International and other airports.
The union representatives are allowed to accompany OSHA to nonunion work sites due to an Obama administration rule clarification that was accused in congressional testimony of violating federal laws.

Shocking Report: NLRB Wants to Force Companies to Give Workers' Info to Unions

Source: http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014/04/21/shocking-report-nrlb-wants-force-companies-give-workers-info-unions

April 21, 2014
 

Eugene B. Landis of Marlton passed away peacefully Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, at the Wiley Home in Marlton. He was 86.

Born in Camden, he was the son of the late Roland and Marion Landis.

A resident of Medford Lakes for many years where he raised his family, he is a retired school teacher with the Delran Public School system where he taught for 26 years.

A graduate of Temple University with his Master's Degree in Education he also served as a medic in the U.S. Army during World War II. He enjoyed hiking, jogging, Olympic weightlifting, solving cryptograms, doing the family genealogy and making his world famous soup for family and friends.

While at Wiley he was involved in many activities including ORANGE, WWII meetings, fundraising and holiday events.

He was the husband of Dorothy Landis and the father of Bill Manos (Catherine), John Landis, Sandy Horn (Bob), Dawn Stewart (Bruce), Terri Crabb (Warren) and Jennifer Boswick (Keith). He is also survived by numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews and nieces.

He was the father of the late Cathy Gideon.

Relatives and friends are invited to greet the family from 5 to 6 p.m., Monday, March 10, at the Wiley Church, 99 E. Main Street, Marlton, N.J., where his Memorial Service will be held at 6 p.m. The family will greet friends after the service.

In lieu of other expressions of sympathy the family has requested donations to Wiley Home, 99 E. Main Street, Marlton, NJ 08053.

Bradley & Stow Funeral Home,

Medford

www.BradleyStow.com

Carol A. Kinney of Delran, N.J., passed away on Nov. 9, 2013. She was 71.

She is survived by her loving husband of 43 years, George R Kinney; her devoted sons, Stephen and David; her grandchildren, Megan, and Ryan; and her nieces, Jennifer, Cindy and Amanda.

Relatives and friends are invited to visit from 7 to 9 p.m., Wednesday and from 10 to 11 a.m., Thursday, followed by her Funeral Service at 11:00 a.m., all at the Weber Funeral Home, 112 Broad Street (River Road), Riverton, N.J. Interment will follow in Lakeview Memorial Park.

In lieu of flowers please make remembrances to the Burlington County S.P.C.A., 927 US Highway 206, Bordentown, NJ 08505. (609-298-1713). Weber Funeral Home

Riverton

Alice Phillips, 82, of Canton, Ohio, died Wednesday, July 16, 2008, at Craven Regional Medical Center in New Bern.

Her service will be at 10 a.m. Monday at Tuttles Grove United Methodist Church with the Rev. Charles Smith officiating. Interment will follow in Tuttles Grove Church Cemetery.

Mrs. Phillips was a member of Simpson United Methodist Church in Canton, Ohio, and also a member of the New Jersey Education Association. She was a longtime kindergarten teacher from 1963-1991 in Delran, N.J.

She is survived by two daughters, Martha Lewis of New Bern and Mary Stephens of Canton, Ohio; one son, John Phillips of Red Lion, Pa.; 10 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

The family will receive friends 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday at Munden Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Simpson United Methodist Church, 4900 Middlebranch Ave. NE, Canton, Ohio 44705 or to the Alice Phillips Scholarship Fund, 427 37th St., Canton, Ohio 44709.

Arrangements are by Munden Funeral Home and Crematory Inc. of Morehead City.

By Bob Goetz, Special to The Inquirer

On most afternoons when school is in session, Suzanne Brooks climbs into her van and travels to the Delran schools to pick up two of her three children, usually collecting five others in her car pool. Often, she picks up more.

Even though Brooks is one of five families participating in the car pool, she is the only parent in the group who has time to drive children home after school. The rest of the parents, like Louise Puglise, are at work.

It's an arrangement that Brooks and Puglise say would not be necessary if the school system better responded to the changing work habits of Delran's families and increased the number of children eligible for busing.

"The days of June Cleaver are over," said Puglise, a single mother of three who works for an advertising agency in Philadelphia. "Today, one of four or one of three families in Delran are single-parent homes."

To pressure school officials for a response, Brooks and Puglise presented the school board a 444-signature petition at its last meeting asking the school district to increase busing. Their requests are for a bus to drive children home after their afternoon activities and for the board to lower eligibility requirements for children to qualify for busing.

State regulations require the Delran system to provide busing for every elementary and middle school student who lives more than two miles from school, and for every high school student more than 2 1/2 miles away.

Brooks and Puglise would like busing for children who live 1 1/2 miles away.

The school board said that since the meeting, it had identified some inefficiencies in bus routes that might allow for a bus following after-school activities.

But officials say that their biggest obstacle to providing more busing is in finding more money - a difficult proposition in a township that voted down last year's proposed school board budget because of its highertaxes. "We've tried to get a (bus following after-school activities) for the last few years," said school board member Kathleen "Bunny" Hewko. "Then we got our budget defeated."

The Delran schools meet state requirements for busing and exceed the state regulations for children who must cross dangerous roads such as U.S. 130, Hartford Road or Creek Road on their way to school. The school board buses parochial school students in the same way.

"Only about 18 percent of the kids we bus are required under state guidelines," said Joseph Picogna, business administrator for the school board. "The local public is picking up the tab for 82 percent of the transportation."

Picogna said that the board did not have enough money in its current budget to provide busing for children living more than 1 1/2 miles from school, but that it might be able to streamline morning routes to allow a bus to take children home following after-school activities.

For instance, six buses are now needed to serve Delran High School in the morning, but officials are trying to consolidate the routes to four.

The board must work with a restriction in the drivers' contract that permits no more than 3 1/2 hours of actual driving time in a day per driver. To provide additional service would require more money, either in overtime or by hiring more drivers - money that Picogna said the schools did not have this year.

Puglise, however, said that the dangers presented by Delran's increasingly crowded roads were another reason for added busing. "There are no more country roads," she said. "We're looking at secondary highways."

Both Puglise and Brooks credit the board for responding to their requests, even if they say they are doubtful that anything will change this year. "In the past, people have come in and made their request on a singular level," Brooks said.

"This is the first time the community has come together and said that this is a strain on us."

By Nicole Brodeur, Special to The Inquirer

Representatives of the Burlington County Department of Solid Waste went to Delran Township last night to try to stop a lawsuit over a newspaper dropoff center the county wants to build near a residential area and three schools.

The county department reviewed plans for the center, proposed for a 4.5- acre lot on Hartford Road. Delran filed suit against the county in November, contending that the county had violated the state's municipal land- use law when it failed to seek township approval of the site. Delran Township officials said they would drop the suit if county officials would appear at the meeting to explain the plan.

The dropoff center - the first of three facilities under way to expand the county recycling progarm - is scheduled to be completed in June.

Newspapers collected from 25 townships would be dropped off at the center, where they would be baled and sold for recycling.

At the meeting, attended by 35 residents, council member Maryann Rivell said township officials were not informed of the plan until it was already well under way. She said Delran officals had suggested an alternate site - an industrial park planned along Route 130 - but were told by county officials that it was too late to consider another location.

"We are fairly adamant that they didn't use good reasoning to choose this site," Rivell said. "Why there?"

Officials and residents have expressed concern over increased traffic near the proposed dropoff center, which is close to Delran and Holy Cross High Schools, the Mill Bridge Elementary School and the school bus depot.

As many as 11 vans would leave the plant on weekdays between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. and return between noon and 6 p.m.

Once baled, paper from the plant would be removed daily by three tractor- trailers.

Delran, County Locked In Recycling-site Battle

By Kenneth Glick, Special to The Inquirer

The 3-year-old fight between Delran Township and the Burlington County Freeholders over the county's plans to construct a recycling center on Hartford Road has come down to a race against time.

And for Delran, the clock is running out.

"There aren't many avenues left to us," said Delran administrator Matthew Watkins Friday as he gazed at the Hartford Road site about 150 yards from Route 130 North. "They (the freeholders) just ran roughshod over us. And it would not have had to be that way if they just worked with us."

Contractors started laying the foundation for the $908,000 project in early April after Burlington County Judge Martin B. Haines rejected the township's plea to stop the county from building at the site.

The conflict actually began in July 1984, when the representatives of the county's Occupational Training Center first approached Delran officials about placing a recycling station in the township.

Delran Mayor Richard Knight recalled that the OTC director Joseph Bender met informally with township planners on July 9, 1984, to discuss choosing a site within Delran for the recycling station.

Bender mentioned the Hartford Road location, Knight said, and board members expressed concerns about that site.

Officials said they would welcome a plant in the township but not on Hartford Road. The site is directly across from 15 homes and small businesses and is within a mile of Delran and Holy Cross high schools and the Millbridge Elementary School. Local fears about traffic congestion, children's safety, vermin and noise pollution persist to this day.

"The impression I had was that he took our concerns about the location back to the county, and that they would get back to us for formal site plan review and approval," Knight said last week.

But Knight said that the county did not respond until August 1985, "when a set of plans were delivered to my office."

"They even purchased the land on Hartford Road without our knowledge," he said. The purchase took place in the fall of 1984, when Paul Ketchel of Delran sold the land for $83,500, through Terra Associates, a Mount Holly real estate firm.

The gap between Delran and the county widened after a Sept. 25, 1985, freeholders meeting attended by township officials. At that meeting, Knight chastised the board "for consciously avoiding our planning board and discussions with township officials" over the proposed site.

Knight said he proposed to the freeholders that they work with the township ''so that we can join forces to find a location that is better suited to this type of operation."

However, the county never expressed interest in another site, Knight said, and in November 1985, Delran filed suit against the county, charging that the freeholders had violated local zoning ordinances and New Jersey's municipal land-use law.

Municipal approval of a county recycling center had never been required, according to Freeholder Bradford Smith. However, in a precedent-setting decision, Judge Haines did require in December that the county file with the Department of Environmental Protection an environmental-impact statement.

Smith also contended that Delran had ample chances to provide input into the site's plans. "In fact, the plans (for soil and noise pollution) were revised according to their concerns."

Delran officials insist that it is not too late to find a site agreeable to both sides. One option proposed by Knight would allow the county to either lease or purchase a 4.63-acre tract off Taylor's Lane. The tract is listed on the township's Green Acres inventory. Another solution, offered by businessman George Yelland, would allow the county to put the plant in an industrial park he is developing in Delran.

Republican Assemblyman Robert Shinn told 200 residents at Delran High School at a public hearing April 27 that the Taylor's Lane site "was not viable because of the delays involved" in obtaining state permission to use the property.

Freeholder Francis Bodine said Sunday that the Yelland proposal was "an offer to negotiate and not a formal plan."

Watkins said that Shinn's comments do not support the facts. "We asked him directly in February 1986 at a meeting here if the county was interested in an alternate site and his answer was a flat 'no.'"

Freeholder Director Martha Bark argued that the center would be in a commercial area, which has DEP approval and poses no health or safety hazards to the community.

The recycling plant has been held up a year, Bark said, and is needed so that glass, aluminum cans and newspapers can be kept out of the county's Parklands landfill in Bordentown.

Scheduled to close by the end of 1988, Parklands is filling up rapidly, and recycling is the means of extending its capacity until the county's new landfill in Florence and Mansfield Townships opens next year, county officals said.

"Its really too late to consider another site at this point," Bark said Sunday. Delran's concerns will continue to be addressed in the facility

plans, she said, "but we are really under the gun. If Parklands becomes full before we can bring this center on line in time, the cost of dumping trash could increase astronomically."

The county is moving forward in its plans for the recycling center, leaving municipal officials scrambling for an eleventh-hour reprieve, possibly with additional appeals.

County recycling coordinator Anne Moore said Monday that the county hopes the center would be operational by October at the earliest.

Moore argues that the county has gone to great lengths to consider residents' fears.

"It is not going to have an impact on the community," she said. Traffic will be minimal and controlled, Moore said, while safeguards for crushing glass, baling paper and collecting cans are incorporated into the design.

Still, residential opposition persists. A mobile sign across from the center with an arrow pointed at the site symbolizes the fight. It says simply, "Stop This Site."

No Settlement In Delran Recycling Dispute

By Rose Simmons, Inquirer Staff Writer

Tempers flared yesterday as the Burlington County Freeholders, the Delran mayor and Delran residents sought unsuccessfully to end a three-year-old dispute over the location of a county recycling plant in the township.

After a tense hour-long meeting at the county administration building in Mount Holly, both sides agreed to keep their "minds open" and try again for a compromise on the residents' concerns about increased truck traffic and safety risks to the community.

The recycling plant site is at Route 130 and Hartford Road, within a mile of several homes and three schools.

Freeholders said they would respond in writing next week to those concerns, which were spelled out in a three-page letter given to county officials yesterday by representatives of the Citizens Against the Hartford Road Recycling Station.

Still, freeholders made clear that a compromise would not include changing the site of the $908,000 recycling center, as Delran residents have insisted.

"I'm very reluctant to consider relocation, because I'm very concerned about time," Freeholder Director Martha Bark said when questioned on her stand by Delran Mayor Richard Knight. "I'm afraid we will simply run out of space."

Bark said countywide recycling of aluminum cans, bottles and paper was necessary to keep the county's only operating landfill in Bordentown open until its new landfill in Florence and Mansfield Townships is completed in 1988.

The county plans to complete the Delran plant by October. It will accept recyclables from the entire county until two other plants are open next year in Florence and Southampton Townships. Bark told residents yesterday that work on the Delran plant would continue while county officials addressed the township's concerns.

In an earlier meeting yesterday, Bark and other freeholders were told by their special-projects coordinator, Assemblyman Robert C. Shinn Jr. (R., Burlington County), that the county staff had already worked out a new traffic-flow schedule for the plant.

Under the new plan, Shinn said, all traffic in and out of the Delran plant would occur during off-peak travel times. There would be two tractor-trailers and 18 vans making two trips each to the plant, he said.

To slow dumping at the Bordentown landfill, Shinn also recommended that the freeholders move ahead with the recycling plant at the present site, speed up construction of the two other recycling plants and ask the state to allow Fort Dix to burn more in its new trash-to-steam plant.

At a later meeting with freeholders, Knight said the county still could open the recycling center in Delran as planned in October if the township and freeholders worked together to get state approval for an alternative site in Delran now listed under the New Jersey Green Acres program. He also offered to waive certain environmental studies to speed the relocation of the plant to a Green Acres site on Taylors Lane.

Freeholder Bradford Smith said, however, that he was still concerned that moving the site would set back the project too much and result in the Bordentown landfill's having to close before the county was ready.

"Everybody would lose then, because we would have to ship our trash to Ohio for $125 a ton" instead of $17.94 at the Bordentown landfill, he said.

The meeting between the residents and county heated up when Freeholder Michael Conda angrily accused Knight of acting arrogantly.

"I've watched this thing go on and I'm sick of your arrogant attitude: 'Do it my way or not at all,'" Conda responded when Knight asked him where he stood on relocating the recycling plant.

When Jon Hewko, chairman of the citizens' groups protesting the plant, asked Conda whether the commment was directed at him, Conda answered that he had nothing to say to Hewko. Hewko further angered Conda when he asked why the freeholder had nothing to say to citizens. Responded Conda: "Just leave me alone. Just leave me alone."

Conda left shortly after the outburst to take a message outside the freeholders' conference room.

In the charged silence that followed Conda's exit, Freeholder Eugene Stafford guided the meeting back on calmer ground by getting Knight and the three other residents at the meeting to consider a compromise on the recycling facility short of relocation.

However, Hewko and Robin Hartok, another organizer of the protest, said after the meeting that they still hoped to persuade freeholders to move the site.

More than 200 residents attended a meeting called by Hewko last night at Delran Township Council chambers to protest the county's refusal to stop construction at the recycling plant site.

The organization has collected about 1,200 signatures on petitions demanding that the county stop work at the Hartford Road site. Residents said they were unconvinced that the plant could be operated without excess noise, traffic and pollution, as county officials have assured them in the past.

Edwin Kohlbrenner Jr., owner of Kohlbrenner Scrap Metal in Mount Holly, told residents last night that his machine for crushing bottles and cans was so noisy that he could not operate it while people were making deliveries to his plant.

Hewko has asked residents to attend the freeholders' May 13 public meeting to demonstrate against the plant.

Truck Ban's Effects On Station Debated

By Bob Tulini, Special to The Inquirer

The Delran Township Council's proposed ordinance to ban heavy trucks from a portion of Hartford Road where the Burlington County recycling station is to be located has opened yet another debate concerning the controversial station.

The ordinance was introduced at a council meeting last Wednesday.

Burlington County Freeholder Bradford Smith said Thursday that the proposed ban would not apply to trucks using the county-sponsored station.

"You can't prohibit local deliveries" under state law, Smith said.

But Council President Andrew Ritzie said the ban essentially would prevent trucks weighing more than 4 tons from entering or leaving the recycling plant, which is to be located a few hundred feet from Route 130 on Hartford Road. The council has opposed the recycling station for the last three years.

Deborah Lawler, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, said municipalities had the authority to ban local deliveries by trucks on township roads only with the approval of the department.

Lawler said that traffic engineering officials in the department would consider the effects of such a ban on neighboring municipalities and the county as a whole.

Ritzie said Friday that the ordinance could allow small trucks loaded with recyclable materials to use Hartford Road to reach the recycling station, while prohibiting large, empty trucks from reaching the station to take the recyclables away.

Ritzie said the council would vote on adopting the ordinance, which would prohibit trucks of more than 4 tons from Hartford Road between Route 130 and Bridgeboro Road, at its meeting Aug. 26.

Delran officials and residents have been fighting construction of the recycling station for three years, contending that it would be a health and safety hazard to the community. Construction, however, has begun on the station.

Ritzie said after the council meeting last Wednesday that the ordinance was intended not to prevent the station from opening, but to minimize the amount of heavy truck traffic in residential and school areas.

Ritzie said trucks of that weight already were excluded from 20 to 25 other major access roads, preventing the trucks from using about 60 percent to 70 percent of the residential streets in Delran.

State May Step In To Approve Delran Recycling Plant

By Rose Simmons, Inquirer Staff Writer

The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs could issue a certificate of occupancy for a Burlington County recycling plant in Delran Township - over the objections of local officials - if it finds that the municipality has no grounds for blocking use of the building, a department spokesman said yesterday.

The county yesterday corrected the last of several construction problems that the township inspector had listed as reasons for not issuing an occupancy certificate for the $1 million recycling center. With the installation yesterday of handrails for the handicapped, County Administrator Charles Juliana said he knew of no reason the township should refuse to issue the certificate allowing use of the building.

The county asked Wednesday that the building be reinspected yesterday, Juliana said. But Matthew Watkins, Delran administrator, said he was not aware the county had requested another inspection.

"In any case, we have five days to act, and it will probably take until that time to do the inspection," Watkins said.

The township had turned down earlier requests from the county and state to issue a temporary occupancy certificate for the controversial building, which is next to a residential area. A Department of Community Affairs spokesman said the township was within its rights to keep the county out of the building until it was brought up to state construction codes.

"The local construction-code official is the boss," said Richard E. Harpster, spokesman for the department. "As long as he's enforcing the building code, we're satisfied. If not, we could take over the job and issue a state" certificate of occupancy.

Building inspectors are licensed and trained by the department but operate as independent contractors.

Burlington County officials contend that Delran has used the "minor" construction problems to keep them out of the building while a lawsuit filed by the township against the county's recycling plan wends its way through Superior Court.

County officials said the delay in using the building had prevented them from fully gearing up their recycling program and might reduce future landfill space in the county.

Glass, aluminum, newspaper and possibly plastic beverage containers are to be processed for resale at the recycling center, county officials said.

Delran, whose residents want the center moved to a more commercial location in the township, contends that the plant will pose a health and safety threat to residents.

At the freeholders' request, Juliana wrote to the Department of Community Affairs last month and asked the department to intercede in the dispute. On March 4, the department hand-delivered a letter to township officials asking them to issue a certificate of occupancy or explain its refusal.

In a letter to the department mailed by the township this week, Delran officials cited the lack of handrails at the building for their refusing to issue a certificate of occupancy to the county.

By Laurent Sacharoff, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

DELRAN — More than a year after a $7.8 million bond referendum for a new school failed resoundingly, voters in Delran will decide Feb. 17 on a $7.6 million bond that backers say has one important selling point:

No new taxes.

The money would build a 30-class intermediate school that is needed, administrators say, to make room in the crowded system for more pupils from two planned 700-unit housing developments.

No new taxes would be needed because an old bond will expire in 1995, and the new bond would simply replace it. By approving the bond, voters would forgo a possible - although not guaranteed - tax reduction of up to $55 per resident per year, said Carl Johnson, superintendent of schools.

"This is a window of opportunity to do this type of thing that would be out the door, so to speak," Johnson said.

Lining up a new bond right after an old one expires is not a new idea to school districts. Edgewater Park plans to do the same thing in April for about $550,000.

In Delran, a 20-year bond that had raised money for its high school expires at the end of 1995.

If the plan is approved, Aronson Bell Elementary School would be razed immediately to build a new school serving up to 750 pupils from grades three through five on the Creek Road site. Johnson expects the school will be named Delran Intermediate School.

The new school would be finished by September 1995, Johnson said. Construction would be funded with short-term loans to be repaid when the new bond starts in 1996.

Delran has three elementary schools: Millbridge, Aronson Bell and Cambridge. If the plan passes, Cambridge would be closed and Millbridge would take all kindergartners through second graders. As a result, all Delran students will go to the same schools as they progress through the system.

The previous referendum called for building a smaller elementary school next to the middle school.

During construction, Aronson Bell pupils would be put in other schools, although Johnson said no plans had been finalized.

Voting will take place from 5 to 9 p.m. Feb. 17 at Millbridge School, the middle school on Chester Road, and the high school at Hartford and Conrow Roads.

New School To Herald A New Era For Delran Delran Intermediate Will Offer The District More Than Nice Digs. It Will Also Bring Unity And Equity, Officials Hope.

By Natalie Pompilio, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

DELRAN — Route 130 has been a physical barrier for residents here since before the Depression, when it was a two-lane dirt road called the Burlington Pike.

Recently, the six-lane highway has been an educational and social barrier for the town's young people as well.

Aronson Bell Elementary, once located near Rancocas Creek in the Bridgeboro section, and Cambridge Elementary, nearer to the Delaware River, were in Old Delran, the established part of town that includes the land west of Route 130 and a small part of the east side near the Rancocas.

Millbridge Elementary, on Conrow Road, is in New Delran, the rest of the land east of Route 130 that was built up after World War II.

Today, the school district is breaking ground on a new intermediate school, the first step in a plan that it hopes will bridge those divisions.

The problem, in the words of School Superintendent Carl Johnson, has been ''education equity."

Aronson Bell and Cambridge were very small; for example, each had one first-grade classroom, while Millbridge had four. The geographic isolation of the two smaller schools, as well as their size, hindered learning. Students at Millbridge were receiving benefits such as team teaching and specialized instruction that the other schools' children weren't.

Another problem was a social one.

"I had parents come up to me and say their children had a hard time adjusting to the middle school because their children had been isolated at Aronson Bell or Cambridge," Johnson said.

When the new school, tentatively named Delran Intermediate, opens in September 1996, it will house grades 3 through 5. Students in grades K to 2 will attend Millbridge School; grades 6 to 8 will stay in Delran Middle School, and grades 9 to 12 will be in the high school.

The new system will allow students to meet in kindergarten and travel through the school system together, as well as give them new educational opportunities.

To Michael Gallucci, principal of the high school, the change was long overdue.

The 25-year veteran of the Delran school system said he was especially excited about the process because, "I get the product."

Aronson Bell Elementary was torn down last summer; its grounds are being used for the new building. Cambridgewas closed at the end of this past school year, and the township is considering using it as a recreation or community center.

"Those two schools were antiquated when I came on board in 1970," Gallucci said.

Residents apparently agreed. Voters approved a $7.8 million plan for the new school in a February 1994 referendum.

The new school was originally scheduled to open this September, but permit problems delayed the building process. In October 1994, the architectural plan submitted to the county's Soil Conservation District fell short of drainage requirements. In March, a second plan was submitted that was finally approved in June.

While the school is under construction, fifth graders from Aronson Bell will attend class at the middle school, while grades K to 4 will be housed at Millbridge. To accommodate the additional students at Millbridge, the district has bought four portable classrooms at a total cost of about $120,000. These units will be sold back after this school year. The superintendent estimated that the district would get back 80 percent of the purchase price.

Busing the students to their new schools will not cost any additional money, Johnson said. The district now buses about 75 percent of its students, and that percentage will remain about the same, he said. The only hurdle, he said, will be getting through this school year.

"We're going to have to deal with some inconveniences this coming year, but there's light at the end of the tunnel," Johnson said.

By Gary Sternberg, Special to The Inquirer

The Delran Elementary Parent-Teacher Association has won a national PTA award for motivating 750 students to read more than 30,000 books in five months. The Delran Elementary PTA received a runner-up award June 20 in Dallas from the National Parent-Teacher Association for the SOAR (Success Obtains Achievement in Reading) program at the district's three elementary schools, Pat Domanski, president of the Elementary PTA, told the Delran board Monday night.

SOAR enlisted the help of about 70 businesses and parents for the program, in which each pupil in kindergarten through fifth grade at Aronson-Bell, Millbridge and Cambridge Elementary Schools read about 40 books from November through March in the 1986-87 school year.

"Our main goal was to get at least one student to read who maybe didn't before," Domanski said after the meeting.

Students monitored their own progress using charts, and parents wrote notes indicating when their children had finished reading their books, Domanski said.

A key part of the program, Domanski said, was that about 70 businesses, many of them local, donated goods and services - such as pizza parties, bookmarks, prizes - as incentives.

Parental participation contributed to the success, she added. "We tried to encourage parents to read with their children," she said. Notes were sent home asking that televisions be turned off for one hour a night so that families could read together.

Many students swapped books to obtain books they had not read.

The SOAR project "took a lot of work, but it was worth it," said Domanski.

At Monday's meeting, the Elementary PTA also announced results of a survey it conducted in the district to determine the need for a school latchkey program.

The survey found that 72 families, with 106 children, wanted a day-care program both before and after school, Barbara Clauser, health and safety chairman for the Elementary PTA, told the board.

The survey showed day-care was needed from 7 to 8:45 a.m. and from 3 to 6 p.m. each school day, she said.

Clauser, who heads the New Jersey PTA Juvenile Protection Committee, said the survey was part of a statewide effort.