Dear Editor,
May I be so bold as to provide your columnist, “Charles Hill”, with a grammatical “tool” that he may employ before he submits his column to future editions of the First Capitol News?
His column that appeared in the March 17-23 edition includes the sentence “Once again this project does require you and I to kick in 5 acres of taxpayers ground.”
If Charles Hill would use the following method of checking his usage of the English/American language, similar mistakes more than likely won’t be repeated. “Once again this project does require you and I to kick in 5 acres of taxpayers ground.” (Omit the words “you and” and say the sentence aloud. Then ask, “Does this sound right?” — …this project does require I to kick in…)
(Also, he may wish to include the oft-misused apostrophe in the word “taxpayers” to read “taxpayers’” since he is indicating group ownership of those 5 acres of ground.)
I must compliment your “Editor’s Eye” regarding recent First Capitol News editions, as you have progressed by leaps and bounds concerning the extensive misspellings, misuse of the ubiquitous apostrophe and publication of extremely poor grammar that used to appear throughout the early issues. I realize you may have been publishing articles and opinions “as they are received” from your columnists, but I would wonder if any of them have little tools named “Spell Check” and/or “Grammar Check” residing within
their software programs.
Again, I am so grateful for the news and insights provided by your publication – especially articles forewarning the public of ugly political moves such as the hiring of the “Goon Squad”. I’m not surprised, but perhaps some of the uninformed public/voters will become aware of such underhanded political moves by reading the First Capitol News.
Thank you!
Sandy Fernstrom
Slf40@charter.net
Editor’s note
Thank you for being a reader of the First Capitol News. Our agreement with our columnists is that as long as their articles do not contain misinformation or libelous statements we print them as written. However we do correct grammatical errors when we catch them. I am forwarding your comments to Charles Hill for his review.
To the Editor:
As a longtime citizen and former Mayor of St. Peters, I am deeply concerned with some of the attributes of one of our mayoral candidates. Alderman Len Pagano is running his campaign on the basis of trust and his accomplishments during his tenure. What has Alderman Pagano done? First of all, he has outright taken credit for being involved in the many endeavors the City has made, beginning with the St. Peters Senior Center. I was there from the conception of the idea to the finished product, and not once was he there to pound one nail or put up a 2x4. The same may be said for the Rec-Plex. While fundraising was going on for this wonderful development, many people who already had full time jobs gave their all to make this happen for the citizens of St. Peters. Again, Mr. Pagano was no-where to be found during this time and spent no effort to aid in this project. In addition, he is never seen at the ribbon cuttings for the small businesses he claims to support, and where was he when the City was trying to pass the last 3 bond issues?
Now let’s talk about what Len Pagano has done. He has sold himself to the Great River Habitat Alliance and Adolphus Busch. This is the same man who put in the entire O’Fallon board of Aldermen and Mayor in power as well as our felonious Mayor Shawn Brown. Ironically, Len Pagano has also credited himself for taking Mayor Shawn Brown and Aldeman Michelle Steins under his wings; his protégés if you will. He has also blamed the city for letting houses be built close to the pipelines, though he’s the only one who was there when whose votes for it were taken! Finally, as far as his campaign is being conducted, there are some questionable billboard donations from Drury sign company totaling $5,000. Alderman Pagano has been heard beginning most of his comments with “I’m really not quite sure”. Well Mr. Pagano, there’s your campaign slogan.
Tom Brown
Former Mayor St. Peters
Dear Editor,
During the March 8th Saint Charles School Board Meeting President Dennis Hahn made this quote, “I think our intent really for the non-resident situation was to try to keep the smaller…Um…the lower grades, smaller class sizes.” He made this comment after Dr. Tower chided the rest of the board about using the money they were suppose to be saving by kicking those children out of our district. Dennis Hahn has backpedaled from his position in February and now what is he telling us. In a district with about 2,000 elementary school students, they are afraid to allow less than 20 additional children because it will “compromise class sizes”? If Dennis Hahn thinks we can’t tolerate a meager 1% increase at the elementary school level, then this district is not ready to close down two elementary schools.
The worst part is that they don’t need to do it. In January their financial update included the new “Assessment Evaluations” which projected next year that they would be receiving a significant increase from the city in tax revenue. The amount stated in January of 4-5 million was not repeated in February or March, but I encourage everyone to look into this, as it is nearly twice the amount of money the board claimed they needed to keep our schools open.
It was no surprise for me to hear that Mr. Weinrich, the Treasurer of the School Board, (one of the three that has been going against the Gang of Four) suddenly backed out of his re-election bid after the board’s closed session meeting on March 15th. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Towers followed suit after her efforts against the fearsome foursome.
Dennis Hahn and his gang are railroading this district to the same end we see happening in Saint Louis. They too started by shutting down schools, which didn’t save any money, and then they lost good teachers, lost their accreditations, and now face a state take-over. Is that what Dennis Hahn is trying to do to our district?
The city is handing our school district all the money they asked for and still Dennis Hahn is willing to sacrifice young lives in his vain effort to “Stay the Course”. I find his disrespect for the teachers, the children and the wishes of this community intolerable.
Jim DuMontelle
