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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > February > 13
Friday, February 13, 2009
Editorial: No roughing allowed in hockey debate
The debate about whether the Dayton community needs a hockey arena is about more than building an ice rink.
The discussion exposes:
—A rift about where to invest.
—Disagreements about how to best promote economic development.
—Concerns about downtown’s place in the region.
—Questions about the community’s willingness to go “green.”
These are hard questions. The good news is that they’re on the table. If anyone wanted to avoid them (not a good choice), that’s not going to happen.
Think about what’s occurred in the last few weeks.
Right before the holidays, Montgomery County asked the legislature to allow it to increase the hotel/motel tax, so it could use the money to help build an events center and possibly a hockey arena at the Austin Pike interchange.
City of Dayton officials threw a fit, thinking that an event center would threaten the convention center and efforts to make downtown the region’s cultural and entertainment center. (Hotels and people who oppose raising taxes weren’t happy, either.)
Barely two months later, advocates of downtown (and the Dayton Bombers) are proposing a hockey arena for downtown. That seemingly competing proposal made the Dayton Daily News’ front page on the morning the mayor gave her State of the City speech.
Montgomery County’s commissioners, who were in the audience and are supposedly tight with Mayor Rhine McLin, had to feel more than a little awkward.
Even though the hotel/motel tax increase is all but officially nixed, tension is in the air.
Montgomery County and R.G. Properties, which is developing Austin Pike, are pretty much resigned to going back to the drawing board to come up with something other than an arena that will distinguish the interchange. They think they need more than snazzy office space and convenient access to, and visibility from, I-75.
Montgomery County is passionately committed to Austin Pike and to R.G. because it wants to capitalize on the growth that’s occurring on the I-75 corridor that has leaned heavily south toward Cincinnati.
Dayton agrees that is a big problem, but it doesn’t want Montgomery County to consciously or unconsciously compromise the niche it’s been trying to create for itself.
With millions of public dollars going into Austin Pike, and with millions of public dollars having gone into making downtown a destination, conflict was inevitable. Reconciling two legitimate but competing views can’t happen if one side thinks it’s being steamrolled.
Of course, Dayton shouldn’t get to veto development elsewhere. But Montgomery County has to be sensitive to the investments Dayton and the county itself have made downtown.
There’s always going to be a chicken-and-egg nature to development. People go where jobs are, but jobs go to places where people want to be. Finding the balance between creating a climate that attracts businesses, while also creating the kind of community that workers want to live in, can be a contentious process.
Often, there aren’t right and wrong answers, just compromises. When public dollars are in play, the trade-offs need to be decided in public and acknowledged in public.
Downtown’s place as a hub in the region isn’t guaranteed. It has to compete with the suburbs for jobs and for people. That city officials feel that Dayton is under siege isn’t shocking.
The city’s real attributes — and there are many for certain businesses and people with certain likes — shouldn’t be minimized. After all, anyone who has lived very long knows tastes come and go, and there’s a healthy body of research saying that young people today and start-up businesses are gravitating toward the places others before them fled.
Moreover, a region without a core — or with a devastated core — is lifeless and endangered.
Some advocates for a hockey arena downtown argue that it can be built more cheaply and it would be “greener” if it used existing downtown parking garages, sewers, sidewalks and whatnot. Nobody has put numbers to paper, but the very fact that there are forces raising that argument is positive.
The build-it-green movement is here, and it’s becoming more, not less, powerful.
What’s surprised some people about the hockey arena debate is how much pent-up passion there is for a sports complex that is something more than a venue for the Bombers. Even in these tough times, people still want to have fun, they still want their kids to have a place to work off their energy, and they recognize some businesses make a lot of money catering to youth sports.
There’s a healthy debate happening about Dayton’s next big thing. It should continue.
To read what folks at Dayton Most Metro are saying, click here.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Ellen Belcher
Kevin Riley: ‘Young creatives’ most powerful people in town
If you looked behind the scenes last week, you could see that the DaytonCREATE initiative is getting traction.
The initiative was launched last year with the help of economist and best-selling author Richard Florida. He urges communities that want to thrive economically to recruit and cultivate a “creative class” — artists, musicians, engineers and high-tech workers, all people who think and create for a living.
A number of projects have grown out of the work of Dayton’s creative “catalysts.”
For example:
—Film Dayton, created to support and grow a regional film industry, will partner with HBO Films to premiere an award-winning documentary here about Dayton native Sister Dorothy Stang. “They Killed Sister Dorothy” examines the murder of the 73-year-old Catholic nun, who advocated for the poor of Brazil and was trying to preserve the rain forest there.
—One of the public meetings on the Greater Dayton Downtown Plan took place at c{space, a 5,000-square-foot gathering spot at 20 N. Jefferson St. C{space grew out of the catalysts’ effort to promote street-level art, music and independent business downtown. A similar project in Providence, Rhode Island, is about 20 years old, and the fallout is credited with adding to that city’s vitality.
Watch a 4-minute video of graffiti artists painting the interior of c{space, 20 N. Jefferson St.
—Updayton, another of the DaytonCREATE groups, hosted a session at an Oregon District bar that drew about 50 young professionals. The group talked about the importance of entertainment and nightlife to attracting the “creative class.” This session was one of several “Pints and Perspective” gatherings the group is conducting in advance of its Young Creatives Summit on April 18.
We have something important going on here.
At the Oregon District session, the participants’ passion and interest were impressive. The meeting was informal and just barely moderated. But people grabbed the microphone and spoke candidly. And they weren’t intimidated by Dayton’s current economic problems or how hard it might be to make new things happen or to change things.
Updayton’s survey of about 500 young professionals shows that most of them are satisfied living in Dayton, although only 30 percent say it is a “better than average” place for young people. Seventy percent say they are satisfied with their job, but they are worried about new job opportunities (something they also consider very important). And one worrisome trend, according to the research: many expect to move away from Dayton.
It’s telling that the creative catalysts have gotten the attention of Gov. Ted Strickland; the state, not just Dayton, is trying to court young talent. The catalysts have invited him and other community leaders to their summit.
And it’s also telling that leaders of the new downtown initiative have come to this group for input.
As you sat at that Oregon District bar, it became clear that these people have power — maybe much more than they realize. The community’s many stakeholders need them, and no one stakeholder — not governments, businesses or colleges — can address their needs on their own.
The region’s young creatives can mold plans for downtown, riverfront development and other plans. They can demand regional cooperation for the greater good. After all, they are the people the region is supposed to be building for.
So let’s give them that power. And let’s urge them to put it to use.
Kevin Riley is the editor of the DaytonDaily News. Contact him at (937) 225-2161 or kriley@coxohio.com.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Dayton Creative Class Initiative, Kevin Riley
Martin Gottlieb: What can a pragmatic deficit hawk like Voinovich do?
Look at the stimulus fight from the point of view of a senator, Ohio Republican George Voinovich, who likes to consider himself a “deficit hawk,” somebody focused on the evils of piling debt on future generations.
In Washington, a “deficit hawk” is somebody who isn’t necessarily on board with Republicans when they push tax cuts, or the Democrats when they push spending, but is focused on how both exacerbate the deficits.
Voinovich has been sounding the alarm about deficits for years. Once, on taxes, he was a decisive vote and forced President George W. Bush to accept a cut of shorter duration than he wanted.
Of course, he also has the pragmatic side of a born centrist. He has supported the biggest-ticket spending items: adding prescription drugs to Medicare, the Iraq war and the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions.
But all those were presented — and largely received — as urgent needs that had to be met despite their impact on the deficit.
The stimulus is different. This is spending for the sake of spending, to stimulate an economy when nobody else is spending. Sure, the Democrats defend the projects as worthy. But the first decision they made was that a lot of money had to be spent.
The decision, in other words, was to put the concerns of the “deficit hawks” on hold.
President Barack Obama wouldn’t say he is unconcerned about deficits. He’d say that, if the economy continues to plummet, deficits will increase dramatically, anyway, because revenues will drop. He’d also say that the long-term battle against the deficit requires a strong economy (an argument that Ronald Reagan and his people used to make when they increased the deficit).
So what does a pragmatic deficit hawk do?
Voinovich doesn’t have to worry any more about the hard-core conservative Republicans in Ohio who already think he’s too liberal. He’s retiring at the end of his term. He’s on his own.
He is one Republican whose vote the Democrats had high hopes for. He talked early on as if he was looking forward to supporting the stimulus. He acknowledged the need to help out individual victims of the recession, and he granted the need for spending to help the economy generally.
Voinovich was one of the last five Republicans in Senate negotiations. By then, it was generally understood that the Senate bill wouldn’t be much smaller than the House’s $800 billion. Indeed, the Senate had added an expensive cut in something called the alternative minimum tax.
He was the last Republican to give up on the Senate negotiations. He left the room last Wednesday; the Senate deal — bringing three Republicans on board — was struck on Friday.
Upon leaving, he said the emerging deal didn’t meet his criteria for spending, which should be “timely, targeted and temporary.” He also said the items funded should be legitimate federal responsibilities, should be “shovel ready” and should not be programs that ought to go through the “regular appropriations process.”
True to form, he was focused on the details.
Unlike some Republicans, he was not complaining that too much of the bill is focused on “welfare.”
Ironically, the item he singled out as objectionable when he left the negotiations was removed by the time the Senate deal was reached: school construction. The House plan had $19.5 billion for that. Voinovich insists it’s a state responsibility.
Voinovich called for more money for “federal responsibilities like highways, transit and sewers, which would put people back to work quickly.”
When the package went back to House-Senate negotiations this week, more money was, indeed, added for such infrastructure projects. The emerging total for highway, bridge and rail programs was $49.6 billion, $3.5 billion more than the Senate had put up, even though the overall package was lower.
The House-Senate deal was struck this Tuesday. On Wednesday, people were still analyzing the details. When the media speculated about whether the last-minute changes might bring in any new Republican votes, Voinovich was the first Senate name to come up.
He had asked House-Senate negotiators to “ensure that each and every dollar in this bill is focused on creating jobs, jump-starting the economy and responding to … human needs.” Taken literally, those are tough standards, particularly given that what creates jobs and jump-starts an economy is in debate.
Getting a deficit hawk to vote for $800 billion of spending for the sake of spending was destined not to be easy.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Martin Gottlieb, National Politics
Lawrence Briskin: U.S. can bring back 5 million jobs with fair rules on trade
The Dayton Daily News editorial “Buy American is protectionist, could backfire,” Feb. 5, rehashes all the old thinking about international trade. The chief issue was a “buy American” provision in the stimulus bill, since removed. Far more than a “buy American” provision is called for.
Americans must understand that our trade deficit is running about $700 billion per year. This $700 billion deficit is equivalent to 5 million lost jobs.
The cumulative trade deficit is more than $7 trillion. This didn’t happen by accident.
Most of our trading partners impose a Value Added Tax (VAT) averaging 15 percent on American exports. This includes China, Japan, Canada, Mexico and all members of the European Union. In turn, they rebate the VAT to their exporters at an average of 15 percent. This places American products at a 15 percent disadvantage both on imports and exports.
In addition some nations, particularly the Chinese, undervalue their currency. The Chinese yuan is undervalued at about 20 percent. This is the equivalent of a 20 percent import tax on American products and an export subsidy of 20 percent. This undervaluation of the yuan is done unilaterally.
We have two options if we want to correct the situation. First, we might impose a countervailing VAT. In other words, place a 15 percent import tax on any nation having a VAT. Second, we might impose a Trade Balancing Tariff (TBT).
The TBT is an across-the-board tariff. When our trade is 5 percent or more in deficit, raise the TBT by 5 percent on nations with which we are in deficit. If our trade is in surplus of 5 percent or more, lower the TBT by 5 percent on nations with which we are in surplus. The TBT would be reviewed annually and the necessary adjustments made. This would bring American trade into a balance of ±5 percent.
Either a countervailing VAT or the TBT would do the job. The charge of unilateralism from our trading partners rings hollow. They will never consent to any change, which will impede their exports to the United States and their gigantic trade surpluses and the attendant jobs that represents.
We have been importing about two-thirds more than we export. In a trade war, our trading partners would lose $3 worth of exports to our $2. They cannot win.
Their best option would be to accept the fact that trade rules will no longer be uneven and unfair.
Some economists will immediately dredge up the American Smoot-Hawley tariff, which is supposed to have caused or lengthened the Great Depression. This is a false analogy. The United States ran trade surpluses throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Now the opposite is true. We have had 34 years of mounting trade deficits.
If we really want a job stimulation package, it is ours for the taking. Some 5 million jobs are at stake.
Centerville resident Lawrence Briskin is a retired engineer formerly employed as a civilian at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Guest Columns
Editorial: Just saying no isn’t smart bargaining in Dayton
The city of Dayton says it’s close to having a balanced budget for the fiscal year that starts in July. Getting there was not pretty.
Lessons from this budget, if learned, could help make the process easier next time, when things most likely will be even uglier.
Late last year, City Manager Rashad Young announced that the city had a $13.5 million deficit to close. The city began taking steps — selling assets, freezing managers’ pay, raising parking meter prices — to try to reduce the gap.
One move that didn’t work was asking members of the city’s biggest unions, representing police, firefighters and service workers, to give up their 3 percent raise for 2009. Mr. Young, who visited union halls to make the city’s pitch directly to the rank-and-file, was told “no thanks.”
That decision by workers could hurt building attendants who are part of the public service workers’ union. When a wage freeze was rejected, city leaders began exploring contracting out for those services, putting 20 or so jobs in jeopardy. When the service workers’ union got wind of that possibility, it rushed to offer an alternative.
Before that, the lack of communication and cooperation didn’t exactly promote smart problem solving.
Marcia Knox, regional director in charge of the Dayton service workers’ union, declined to give details of the union’s plan, but said it would result in savings similar to what outsourcing would net. The union is waiting for Dayton’s response.
The exchange of ideas — belated though it was — between the union and city leaders is a good development. This sort of give-and-take needs to continue. The city’s finances aren’t going to get better any time soon.
Already, Mr. Young has exercised a rarely used contract provision that triggers reconsideration of next year’s scheduled raises. He hasn’t minced words about what he hopes to achieve at the bargaining table: he’ll be asking again for a wage freeze.
A complicating factor in those talks will be hard feelings about past grievances. Union leaders say their members distrust, or flat out refuse to believe, what city leaders say about the budget, even though some incidents they bring up date back years.
It’s in everybody’s interest to look forward, rather than backward. Mr. Young needs ideas and advice from employees in crafting tight future budgets. If workers just say no to cuts without offering alternatives that save money, they’re telling Mr. Young to solve his very real budget problems without them.
They may not like his decisions. That’s what the service workers could yet learn the hard way.
Mr. Young and his boss, the city commission, must continue to reach out, even when the other side is signaling it won’t be cooperative.
Managers and workers have to get beyond the past and move to a future that’s not going to look like the old days.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Scott Elliott
