Southern York County Podcast

First, I want to say that I am glad to have cleared up the the rumor about KD High School reading scores.  I heard it from various people and I am glad to hear their scores were much better than the rumor indicated.  Part of what SYCP is out there for is to clear things like this up.  Here is the link to greatschools.org Rebecca Reynolds mentioned.  Taking care of these local rumors is something only community media could do.  Who will do it if SYCP is not around?  That is one of the reasons more needs to be done to support SYCP especially if you are a business that wants to advertise locally.  Underwriting is more than just about advertising, it is about quality programming for the community.  Since we are a nonprofit, YOU TECHNICALLY OWN SYCP, not the SYCP team.  We are just volunteering to keep it operating.   It will NO LONGER BE FUNDED BY VOLUNTEERS INTO THE FUTURE.
 
Now for the heart of the matter . . . .    When it comes to the cost of education, property taxes, quality of education, etc., this is what the debate is all about in South Eastern School District.  In part two the our guests indicated that there is little school boards can do to curb costs due to the many unfunded mandates.  There was also a feeling with at least two of our guests that the district got by on taxes lower than they should have because they were living off the trust fund in the past and essentially hiding the costs of education until it was too late.  Contrast these comments in Part 2 with Pat Bishop and Marge Lavin's comments on our show about the local tax and political structure in PA.  This is the real gap between the community and those who actually serve on the board and pay the bills.
 
Now you can say, 'well that is why they are no longer in office'.  Absolutely; that disconnect is the real reason the election turned out the way it did.   The question is: what is reality?  No you can't cop out and say, reality is somewhere in the middle.  It either cost upwards of $42M to educate the students in the district or it does not.  It is real numbers on real paper that represent real dollars that get spent.  Whether necessary or not, state and federal mandates contribute to the cost of education and if you are going to accept their money, you have to play by their rules.  We did have audience members for that episode that obviously disagreed with the panel on this.  It will be interesting to see what the new board brings us.
 
One point that they all three panelists stressed was that the new board needed to support the current administration.  Ironic how Part 2 was released right around the time the board voted to have a legal audit done on the district.  Part 2 offers more food for thought on the matter and perhaps one more reason to support local community media like SYCP.  BTW, don't forget about our pit beef, silent auction, yard sale on April 17, 2010 at 2937 Bridgeview Rd, Stewartstown, PA 17363. On route 851 between Stewartstown and Shrewsbury. Look for the big white sign.  The event will take place from 9:00 AM - 3:00PM.  One of the vendor booths will be the Campaign for Liberty and we will be doing an interview with Doug Walters, candidate for the 93rd district at 11:00 AM.
 
 

First, we are planning a pit beef and silent auction fundraiser for April 17, 2010  at 2937 Bridgeview Rd, Stewartstown, PA 17363 (On route 851 between Stewartstown and Shrewsbury. Look for the big white sign.) Also if you are interested in setting up yard sale, vendor, or organizational booths please contact us at 717 382-4943.  The cost is $10.00 per booth.  So keep you calendars open and there will be more information forthcoming. 
 
It is no secret we have been struggling to get donations, underwriting, and volunteers.  Due to lack of funds and lack of volunteers for the host position, we had to change the format of our shows a little bit.
 
First, we just cannot really cut back on the amount of time we have guests to speak on certain subjects.  Our discussions are detailed and intelligent.  I am not about to give that up.  There is no where where that type of media exist at the county level or below.  As a result though, most of our shows are at least 1 - 2 hours long.  There are issues resource, finacial, technical, and otherwise that makes it difficult to produce a full epsiode each month.  I do not want SYCP to turn into the mindless forms of information you recieve from most if not all media outlets available today.
 
So far we estimate that SYCP has provided the community with $24,000.00 worth of free service without charging or being too vocal about the need for donations and volunteers.  As of yet, you the audience have not seen any effect of our struggles with these issues.  Now the bills are coming due on all sides. 
 
We here at SYCP cannot continue to provide a full program each month.  Think about it, if you were a volunteer and you were continuously asked to put in 20-80 hours a month without getting a penny, how long do you think you would stay with that organization?  Moreover, wouldn't it make sense that if we could offer the host $50.00-$100.00 per episode and throw say $25.00 per epsode at the audio and video editors wouldn't you think we could get more folks to help out?
 
Of course we cannot provide this if we are not getting any help from the community.  Yes we are having a fund raiser this year but that will barely scratch the surface of our finacial liabilities as a result of last year's expenses.  It comes down to this: The community wants this type of programming we are going to have to get more support, otherwise Part 4 of this program will be our last.  That gives you until April or May to decide whether you want quality, intelligent, local programming or if you just want to to rely on quarrelsome forums that really provide very little verifiable information, or "local" media outlets that barley give you any real news or details on a subject you feel is important to the community, or worse yet, the local rumor mill.  It is your call, not ours here at SYCP.  We have about a $12,000.00 budget made up for 2010 and if we can't meet most of it we literally cannot function.  You must take us seriously as well as our budget concerns!  The time of passively listening is over.  If you want us to continue into the summer we need you to go to our homepage and click on the Pay-Pal Donate button.  If you've been waiting to see what would happen to SYCP if we didn't get funding help from the community, you will find out at the start of this summer if/when our servers go offline due to lack of support.
 
Given the economic and resource realities, we decided to break this program up into four different episodes.  These epsidoes will run through April or May.  Each one will be about 20 minutes long.  They will have the same guests but will be a continiuation of the discussion in the previous part.
 
Enjoy the program and think about where you get your information and think about what you will be giving up if SYCP no longer provided the quality programming that has become so commonplace that it has been taken for granted over the previous two and one half years.