Merrell Wood and Connecting to the City

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   In reading Mr. Wood's editiorial in the paper several things came to mind. 

Mr. Wood states, "I recently had a conversation with a retired resident of Middletown who complained that taxes are too high and wanted to know why it costs so much to run our city. Living on a fixed income and with many of his old friends either gone to Florida or to their maker, he grumbled that City Hall should do a better job of tightening its belt."

The question that entered my mind, was that if this gentleman he talked to was retired and living on a fixed income he is paying no Income tax to the City of Middletown.  Now if he owns a home he is paying Property Tax and only about 10-15% of that goes to the City.  The bulk of the Property tax goes to the Middletown City School District.  So why are we not told we should be connecting with the MCSD?  Mr. Wood seems to want to focus on the Senior Citizens of Middletown Volunteering at the City Building which is fine, but the taxes paid by most Seniors don't go to the City if they don't work. 

Now Mr. Wood and Mr. Schiavone want to set up a program based on Ketterings  volunteer program, called "ACTIVE – Area Citizens Together In Volunteer Endeavors."  Mr. Wood states that he wants Volunteers to "assist their city's administrative staff in a variety of activities to supplement and complement city services at minimal expense."  In otherwords filing, stuffing envelopes, answering the phone, etc.

Lets take a look at Kettering and Middletown for a moment:

Kettering Population approx. 58,000  Middletown 51,000
Kettering Average Income     $49,000  Middletown $37,000
Kettering Income Tax 2.25%  Middletowns  1.75%
Kettering Poverty Level  8.5%   Middletowns 22%
Kettering Section 8 Housing 71   Middletown 1662 
Kettering City Employees 400  Middletown 400
Kettering size about 18 Miles   Middletown 26 Miles
Kettering Fire/Medical Calls about 8100+  Middletwon is similar
Kettering Fire Stations 7   Middletown 5
Kettering Paid FireFighters 45    Middletown Paid FireFighters 85

Say what, Kettering and Middletown have about the same number of Fire/Medical calls yet Kettering has 40 fewer paid FireFighters and 2 more Fire Stations how is this possible?

It is possible due to the part of the Volunteer Program that Mr. Wood and Mr. Schiavone left out:

Volunteer Department 

Volunteer Firefighters

The City of Kettering's firefighting force includes 45 full-time firefighters, administrative personnel and paramedics. Full-time firefighters work during the day with backup from volunteers. After 5:00 pm and on weekends and holidays, volunteers take over providing the fire protection for the community as well as aiding paramedics on emergency runs. The City needs about 120 volunteers to be at full strength.

Hmmmmmmmm this would seem to be a more worthy endeavor to investigate as far as Volunteering in Middletown than just shuffling papers for the City Admin.