Your Letters for Nov. 7, 2025
Stuck-in-the-mud school system
The School District’s 2019 demographic study clearly indicates that enrollment will continue to decline over the next decade. The analysis is impossible to misinterpret: public school enrollment is shrinking and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. A responsible school board would bite the bullet and begin right-sizing the mix of elementary, middle, and high school buildings, heed the Superintendent’s recommendation for the proper number of support and teaching staff, and launch an aggressive plan for elevating the district from its dismal ranking near the bottom of the lower 50% of Missouri School Districts. Such tough, proactive decisions are disruptive, but they are necessary for the good of the community. Job-creating technical companies avoid locating in St. Joseph because the executives’ families do not want to enroll their children in our stuck-in-the-mud school system.
Dennis Weiser
St. Joseph
Say what?
How about some stats!
Did you know which states have lost a net domestic migration population? The top five: New York -295,577; California -338,371, Illinois -83,839; Louisiana, -14,274; Pennsylvania -10,408.
U.S. in total population 2020-2022, we lost 500.000. In 2023 it was 91,000!
Why are these states and others losing population? Below are the reasons why these five states lead the exodus.
Taxes, quality of life issues, high cost of living, housing, business leaving/closing, regulations issues, weather, traffic, homeless increases, power problems, wildfires, drought, schools performance, liberal policies, jobs, aging populations infrastructure. All of this as the U.S. population growth of .5% in 42 states, and eight declines!
Texas and Florida are states that have benefited from the above exits! (The good news is the southern states have accounted for 87% of U.S. population growth in 2023.)
So, what is the solution? How about sound financial policies, balanced budgets, controlled spending, drug enforcement/immigration, background checks, deportation of illegals! Employers doing actual background checks on new employees if their paperwork is questionable. In other words, sensible policies which help the employer rid the state of illegals. One good example would be is the increasing numbering of “over the road truck drivers” who cannot speak of read English nor not understand the signs on the highways! “An estimated 130,000 undocumented truckers operate in the U.S., many in states that have issued over 1 million licenses to undocumented immigrants since 2013,” per the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
Some of California’s current problems are they have the highest taxes in the nation: on gas, electricity, on top of multi-billion budget deficits, namely half of the nation’s homeless, half of the country’s illegals, a fifth of the its population lives below the poverty level, 1/3 of the nation’s welfare recipients, the highest property crime rate, schools test scores below bottom 1% in the nation. Add the massive fires, the failure of the high-speed rails system, solar power farm failure, and California believes via more “bull” from the American politicians that there is not a problem.
Then those who used to believe climate change is a problem, even when Kery and his group have backed off it! As they fly their personal jets to the COP meetings — and park hundreds of these corporate jets setting at the airports.
Did you know that records on the U.S. record temperatures show the hottest recorded temp in the USA were:
+121 degrees on 7/6/1936 in Steele, North Dakota
+121 degrees on 7/24/1936 in Acten, Kansas
+122 degrees on 6/27/1994 in Waste Isolatin Pl., New Mexico
+125 degrees on 6/29/1994 in Laughlin, Nevada
+128 degrees on 6/29/1994 in lake Hasasu City, Arizona
+134 degrees on 7/10/1993 in Death Valley, California
Note Prospect Creek Alaska had the coldest temps of -80 on 1/23/1971, and -60 on 2/2/1996!
Doesn’t this make you wonder who to believe?
Ben Pecora
St. Joseph
