Erie Times-News unveils another community college propagandist

The Erie Times-News and its stepchild, Rethink Erie, the elitest group behind the controversial tax-supported community college proposed by one-term County Executive Barry Grossman, trotted out their latest propagandist to reiterate their talking points, an obscure businessman from Fairview whose op-ed column in Sunday's newspaper reeks of naivete.

In a typically misleading headline over his column, the Times-News lamely mis-characterized Andrew Foyle as an "educator" simply because he is a citizen who sits on the Fairview school board, and represents that board on the board of the Erie County Technical Institute, presumably to try to qualify him as a credible advocate for a community college, a futile ploy. Nowhere in his dissertation does Mr. Foyle betray any evidence of expertise as an educator, rather the contrary.

In a specious apples and oranges exercise, Mr. Foyle wrote in the Times-News that the position of the three county council members who oppose using property tax revenues to fund the proposed community college is morally inconsistent with their recent objections to a proposal to privatize the two county-owned and operated nursing homes.

"It's unfortunate," Mr. Foyle piously wrote, "that the slim majority of council doesn't feel the same 'moral obligation' to help educate our young people who are also in need of financial assistance."

That's an inane statement that underscores Mr. Foyle's fundamental misunderstanding of both higher education and subsidized health care. The latter is mandated by federal and state law, the former is not. Morality has nothing to do with it.

Whether the county nursing homes continue to be run by government or are given over to the private sector to operate, the vast bulk of patients' costs will continue to be paid from the same public sources, medicare, medicaid and their various permutations. And the private sector is certain to operate them more efficiently, providing the same or higher level of services for less cost, a plus for both the patients and taxpayers.

With supreme arrogance and utter disdain for the facts, Mr. Foyle wrote: "Inarguably (Inarguably?), an educational gap exists in our region between secondary education and affordable postsecondary education and/or the existing for-profit business and trade schools. With far too many families in our community living at or below the poverty level, demand exists for affordable education."

For one thing, there are numerous public and private sources of post-secondary funding for disadvantaged students which help to level the financial playing field, so the "gap" is not as foreboding as Mr. Foyle implies.

Second, why should county taxpayers have to pay for the specialized vocational training of prospective employees whom manufacturers and industrialists like Mr. Foyle require to operate their for-profit businesses, when they should be providing the training themselves out of their profits as a cost of doing business?

Is it any wonder that, as Mr. Foyle asserts, "Many of the leading employers in this community have been quite vocal in their support of a community college because of a growing demand for skilled workers." Who wouldn't rather have someone else pay for some of their costs of doing business, rather than paying for it themselves? It's the American way.

So, as we can see, Mr. Foyle, GE and other employers who support a tax-funded community college are just as guilty of seeking to avoid certain costs as the vast majority of the county's property taxpayers are reluctant, indeed unable, to finance a community college. His and his cohorts' position isn't the altruistic conceit he attempts to portray it as.

Mr. Foyle says what bothers him most is that the county pays out millions of dollars towards social services, but "Unfortunately, our county government doesn't make the connection that an investment in education today will lead to a decreased demand for social services tomorrow." If Mr. Foyle or anyone else thinks investment in a community college will diminish the entrenched social services bureaucracy in any way, they are self-delusional. The historic experience dictates that it will grow bigger.

Mr. Foyle writes in the Times-News: "Without a community college, or other affordable alternative, many high school graduates from lower-income families can't afford the education necessary to gain these skills. Without a skilled local labor force, how long do you think these companies will stay in Erie?"

Is Mr. Foyle deaf, dumb and blind? Doesn't he know that Erie businesses are leaving Erie in droves for greener pastures offshore like Mexico and elsewhere, not because there aren't skilled workers here, but because there are skilled workers there who will work for much lower wages in venues where taxation, utilities and other key cost factors are a fraction of those here in Pennsylvania. Here a dominant source of industrial energy is electricity, the cost of which will nearly double next year, thanks to the dismal legacy of former governor Tom Ridge's disastrous deregulation initiative back in the mid-90s.

Mr. Foyle says "I applaud Grossman for his vision in continuing to champion a community college." Here we find him at his most naive. Would Mr. Foyle turn over his business to the county government to run? I don't think so. County government has consistently failed in its higher educational initiatives. As Keith Farnham has repeatedly pointed out, county taxpayers are still nearly a million dollars in debt to the state for the county's last failed attempt at post-secondary ed, CamTech. It isn't "vision" that's driving the county executive's pipedream, it's blindness to economic reality.

If County executive Grossman, Mr. Foyle, the Times-News,Rethink Erie and other proponents of a county community college would get behind the promising but aborted effort to align with the highly successful Butler County Community College to provide a proven community college environment here in Erie at much less cost than is proposed for Grossman's boondoggle, Erie County's disadvantaged youth would have their affordable education.

But affordable education isn't really what the county executive, the Times-News, Rethink Erie and their sycophants are really interested in. What they're really interested in are empire building, self-aggrandizement and power-broking at any cost to the taxpayers.