Our state’s need for all blood types is becoming critical. While the New Jersey media often have stories about the need to donate blood, sadly too few of our region’s residents are blood donors. While the vast majority of New Jersey residents are generally in good health and eligible to donate blood, only a precious few choose to donate. As a result, each year New Jersey blood services must “import” thousands of units of blood from neighboring states to meet our hospitals’ and patients’ needs.
If a member of New Jersey family needs a blood transfusion, the family just expects the blood to be available. Yet that expectation can only be met if our region has an ample and stable blood supply. For our state to have all blood types available, more New Jersey family members need to become regular blood donors.
Presently, there are no substitutes for human blood. Blood products hospitals continually need include red blood cells, platelets and plasma. These products generally have short shelf life and inventories constantly need to be replenished. A healthy blood donor between the ages of 17 and 75 can donate every 56 days or about five to six times a years.
Educating the general public about the need to donate blood is a never-ending task. For more information about donating blood, scheduling oneself to donate blood, or arranging for a group blood drive, go to www.nybloodcenter.org or call 1-800-933-2566. Please donate blood today — a family member just may need it tomorrow.
Maggie O’Shea
executive director
New Jersey Blood Services
New Brunswick
School staff thanked
for ‘years of service’
The Board of Education would like to extend its thanks to the following staff members for their support to the South Brunswick School District and its students during their years of service:
Anna Amarao, Naomi Brahinsky, Sonia Cianci, Theresa Purcell Cone, Robert Danek, Patricia Dohanic, Marianne Dougherty, Linda Fekete, Kathy Guzzo, Cathy Hunt, Raymond Ivey, Dolores Kramp, Donna Levinston, Joyce Lott, Diane Marr, Claire Neach, Beate Perkuhn, Gouri Ray, Bette Ann Redfield, Kara Ruffner, Samantha Weinstein, Joan Yepez.
Congratulations and the best of luck in your future endeavors.
South Brunswick
Board of Education
New Jersey’s property tax is ‘inherently unfair’
Recent opinion page articles in a local daily newspaper by Sen. Joseph Kyrillos and John Meyerle (New Jersey Coalition for Property Tax Reform) again reveal the gross misunderstanding these leaders have of the fundamental problem with property taxes. What they seem to fail to see is that it is inherently unfair — no matter what the level of taxation. So, their solutions do not address that fact.
Mr. Meyerle’s group claims to want to reform and bring fairness to the property tax. But its proposed cure, the SMART bill, fails in its stated purpose: making property taxes fair for us all. Any plan that leaves in place the property tax is inherently misguided. Lowering how much one pays does not address the fairness issue. A tax should be based upon one’s ability to pay.
Granted, some at the very lowest rungs of the income ladder will find some relief under the SMART plan. But as one moves up that ladder, many will still be burdened with property taxes. Even if they are lessened in degree for a few years — if left in place — it is guaranteed they will eventually be increased.
Unfortunately, Sen. Kyrillos has raised the now familiar canard about the proposed property tax convention. The claim is that if spending is not addressed, then the convention is one-sided and insufficient. These objectors miss the point: the issue is tax fairness, not just degree of taxation.
If the convention is allowed to address spending as well as the narrow focus of how and whom to tax, there will be the inevitable result that taxpayer “relief” will be dependent upon achieving so-called cost savings. And when those savings do not materialize or, even if they do, when they are reversed a few short years later, those most adversely affected by the property tax will be back in the same boat.
If fairness is achieved through basing it upon ability to pay, then no matter how much spending is or is not contained, it will not affect those who need relief the most. But if a percentage of relief is dependent upon cost savings, reality and experience prove a thorough solution will never be achieved. The issue of fairness is about a tax burden unfairly assessed and not about how low we can make an unfair burden so nobody complains. Fairness is a principle, not pragmatics.
Another mistaken assumption by those against the convention is that because it does not address spending, then spending cannot or will not be addressed? Why not? Hold a special session in Trenton and take care of it today. What prevents you? Or hold a separate convention to address those matters. They are not the same issue.
John Hendrickson
Middletown