VOX POP

I don't know how many people can't read signs but the stop sign by the SA station in northeast Brainerd has been changed to a no-left turn. I see cars that turn left all the time. Please for your safety read the signs. I also think the police should give out tickets for people not doing the right thing. Also the turn by Sawmill Inn, people will back up traffic by trying to turn left there also. Read the signs.

Is this true?

According to the District Report on Accountability there is one paid employee for every 8.69 students in the school year 2007-08. One employee for every eight students. Could this possibly be true?

Watering the children?

School is starting in the rain? Hopefully that's a good sign that the kids will grow this year.

No wise choices

The contracts of both teachers and administration were settled before the referendum vote. The board hoped the referendum would pay for the raises, but it did not. How many staff members had to be cut to pay for the raises? Now, non-certified staff receive no raises. That was another example of the school board not making wise choices. In the year or two leading up to the referendum, the board needed to show some cost-cutting measures across the district and they did very little. They ran the district as if the budget was not in any trouble.

Nothing about our state?

I live in this area. I get your paper every week and I can't understand why you can't put in more of a fishing report or more of an outdoors section for our part of the area than the rest of the state? What's the sense of getting the paper? I think you should be able to do better than that. You can waste your time putting on stuff about other parts of the country but you don't put in nothing about our state except one lousy page in the back that's usually one story and Walleyedan.

Editor's note: The Vox Pop Department of How's That Again? says, "We have a law against writing about Minnesota outdoors. If we find out who has been writing a series all summer long about Minnesota's state parks, we will prosecute him to the full extent of the law." While you're at it, check out Page 1A today and take a peek at the weekly fishing report on Page 4B.

Stolen wood

To the individual or individuals who decided they needed the nicely cut, stacked, cord of birch firewood sitting next to the red fire hydrant this weekend, thank you for saving me from having to haul and store it in a new location so our family could enjoy it this weekend. Perhaps you are needy and if so, just asking for it would have kept you from being a thief. Once a thief, always a thief!

School of choice question

I am wondering if Brainerd School District can clear something up for us all. Wasn't school of choice taken away when the referendum failed? Why are some families being allowed to continue at their previous school then when the rest of us had to move? We all have special situations that would justify us staying at our old school.

Cut classes

I'll tell you where some of the high school kids went. My son and friends went to other schools with better classes. BHS showed little help to teens during cuts and they cut the classes that help kids in their future - business and marketing classes. Someone needs to ask how many kids were in the kept classes.

Yes to no

In response to the wage freeze for all non-certified ISD 181 employees, if there's no money for the next two years for them, how is there going to magically appear money for the teachers and administrators for next year? I guess we'll find out where the greed is. I'll change my yes vote on the last referendum to a no for all future ones.

Vox Pop, voice of the people, publishes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Submissions are limited to 100 words. To phone in a comment, call (218) 855-5888 and leave a message. To e-mail a comment, write to voxpop@brainerddispatch.com. Comments, which must meet the newspaper's standards of fairness and good taste, may be edited for clarity, length and libel.