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Thursday, May 20, 2010
Local business owner joins Boehner in stand against ‘Obamacare’
Press release from office of U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-West Chester Twp.:
Eighth Congressional District small business operators joined Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) and other House Republicans today for a press conference to discuss the destructive effect President Obama’s new health care law is having on their ability to create new jobs for Americans who are out of work.
“Washington Democrats claim the new health care law is lowering costs and creating jobs, but the reality outside the Beltway is that it is doing neither. No one has better first-hand knowledge of the destructive effects of the new health care law than our small business owners,” Boehner said. “Neither the President nor Speaker Pelosi has ever run a small business. I have. If the President is serious about creating jobs, we need to repeal this job-killing health care law and replace it with common-sense reforms that will help small businesses thrive.”
Tyeis Baker-Baumann, President of Rebsco, Inc., in Greenville called the law a “logistical nightmare” for small businesses like hers and voiced support for the efforts of the National Federation of Independent Business and 20 states to overturn it. “Small businesses today don’t need more uncertainty. And we certainly don’t need higher costs, more taxes, and more paperwork. These things destroy jobs,” Baker-Baumann said. “What I and other small businesses need from Washington is the freedom to do what we do best: run and try to grow our business and create jobs.”
Todd Wilber, Vice President of CTI Restaurants, which employs hundreds of Ohioans in the northern Cincinnati area at its Taco Bell and UNOs restaurants, said one provision alone in the new law could cost his small business an estimated $250,000 in new taxes.
“I don’t know how we are going to stay in business - let alone think about retaining employees or hiring new ones,” Wilber said. “At a time when Ohio’s unemployment rate is 11 percent, the President’s health care law is only going to make it harder on people who might not have a lot going for them, but are just looking for someone to give them a chance.”
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Jolivette gets support for dispatch merger study
After pushing for years for Butler County to consider consolidating some of its emergency dispatch centers, county Commission President Gregory Jolivette was able to convince his fellow commissioners to take a tiny step in that direction.
Commissioners voted unanimously today, May 20, to put out a request for proposals to determine the price of a study of the costs and benefits of merging some of the nine 911 dispatch centers across the county.
This comes as a $1.3 million bill comes due to Motorola for a one-year maintenance warranty for the county’s new 800 megahertz radio system. That cost will go up to $2.4 million next year.
The $36 million system was built with funds from a temporary. .5 percent sales tax, but the cost of maintaining it will come from the county’s recession-battered general fund.
“The dollars that came in for that are gone, and it has to come out of the general fund,” said Commissioner Donald Dixon on why he agreed to the proposal. “That’s only going to go up every year and the revenues are not there.”
“I think we missed an opportunity to save millions of dollars back when we put in the 800 mhz system,” said Jolivette, who last called for a study in 2008.
Dixon opposed the study in 2008, saying he was new to the board and not ready to decide on the issue. Commissioner Charles Furmon opposed it after a flood of criticism came from local police and fire chiefs, and the county sheriff.
Furmon said he is still opposed to “forcing any of the political entities into it.” But “I’m not opposed to going out for the information commissioner Jolivette has requested,” he said.
Once all the info is in, though, “it should be their (local governments’) call, basically,” Furmon said.
Local law enforcement leaders worried when the issue was raised before that any savings would come at a cost. They expressed concerns about the loss of dispatch staff that do other things such as answer other phone calls, enter warrants and interact with the public.
Currently, the areas with their own dispatch centers are the sheriff’s office, Hamilton, Middletown, Oxford, Monroe, Fairfield, West Chester Twp., Miami University and Trenton.
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