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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 > April
April 2009
Martin Gottlieb: Specter’s problems show limits for Ohio Republicans, too
When Arlen Specter announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Republican Party, an e-mail labeled “Good Riddance” was sent out by the National Republican Congressional Committee (whose job is to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives).
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Republican Party, Michael Steele, referred to the dearly departed’s voting record as “left-wing.”
These reactions must win the attention of other Republicans who don’t always toe the party line.
If Specter is a left-winger, where does that leave Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, the Republicans from Maine who bolt from the party more often?
How many other good-riddances do the party officials have in them?
The next senatorial name that comes up is George Voinovich. This is true for a couple of reasons.
One is that, as you travel from Maine down into the heart of the country, the first Republican senator you come to is now Voinovich, except for Judd Gregg, the fellow from New Hampshire who accepted a nomination to the Obama Cabinet before he rejected it. (Like Voinovich, he is retiring.)
The North is where senatorial independence from the line of the Southern-based party is most likely to raise its head, precisely because life is so difficult for Republicans up here.
Another reason Voinovich’s name must come up is that he was the last Republican senator to leave the room in negotiations over the stimulus. His was the vote the Democrats came closest to getting, but lost.
That was the crucial issue in the Specter story. He voted for the stimulus, then concluded that the vote probably precluded his renomination.
On the day after Specter flipped parties, The New York Times ran a chart showing which senators have most often voted differently than their party’s majority this year. Snowe and Collins were the highest-ranking Republicans. Specter was next.
Voinovich was next. He voted with the party only 68 percent of the time, compared to Specter’s 65 percent.
He was, for example, one of only nine Republicans voting to confirm Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services. That was fundamentally a vote against playing partisan games and against bowing to the warrior conservatives in the party.
He was also one of six Republicans (the four mentioned above, plus Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Indiana’s Richard Lugar) to vote for congressional representation for the District of Columbia.
Most typically, Voinovich is there for the Republicans on the big ones. But being there only “typically” is about one step away from being a “left-winger” in some eyes.
Over the years, Voinovich’s posture on taxes, on Iraq and a few other issues has resulted in the frequent charge from the Wall Street Journal editorial page and assorted Rush Limbaugh Republicans that he is a RINO (Republican in name only).
Most congressional Republicans won’t risk being unpopular with the Limbaugh people these days.
When Voinovich announced that he will not seek re-election, Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, who is heading the effort to elect Republican senators, said that, while he was disappointed, he sees an opportunity to put forth “new, energetic, fresh-faced candidates who are articulators of the Republican message, and I like our chances.”
Maybe that wasn’t exactly a slap at Voinovich, but the truth is that articulating the Republican message isn’t the activity one associates with Voinovich. He’s more into the nuts and bolts of real-life governance than ideology.
So it’s interesting to contemplate what would have happened if Voinovich had supported the stimulus and had decided to seek re-election.
Ohio has a lot in common with Pennsylvania, politically speaking. Both are urban states where the Democrats are ascendant now, but not always.
Ohio might be considered more conservative than Pennsylvania, not having gone consistently for Democrats in presidential elections lately.
But, on the other hand, Ohio Republicans at the state level haven’t typically been warrior conservatives like Sen. Rick Santorum, who lost his Pennsylvania seat in 2006, or the man who was beating Specter in the Republican polls this year.
Former Ohio Republican Sen. Mike DeWine was much in the Voinovich vein.
But, still, there is that Ken Blackwell strain of the party for the Voinovich types to worry about.
Clearly, the Republicans representing Ohio don’t have much freedom to maneuver. Voinovich has taken the independence thing about as far as it can be taken.
The next degree of independence is Specter, the “left-winger” who is being bidden “good riddance.”
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Not fixing Medicaid costs everybody
Ohio’s hospitals and nursing homes are ticked about Gov. Ted. Strickland’s budget. They can take a number.
With the exception of some schools (which believe that the governor has set them up to get much more money in the future, though not so much now), nobody is happy.
State employees (who won’t get raises for the next three years and must take five-day furloughs this year and next), people who feed the hungry, local governments — they are all disappointed.
Specifically, the health-care providers are mad that Gov. Strickland wants to increase a tax that only they pay. The proceeds from it are used to tap federal Medicaid dollars that must be matched by the state.
(Medicaid is the government program that provides medical care for the needy, and nursing home care for the poor and those who became poor after paying their nursing home bills.)
Historically, both industries have paid the tax willingly because Ohio has paid the money back — dollar-for-dollar — to offset the cost of providing charity care.
In this Strickland budget, the governor would increase the tax to bring in about $600 million, but the providers would only get $187 million back. Thus, they’d pay $400 million in new taxes.
That opens up a door that hospitals and nursing homes don’t even want to go through.
As compared to other industries, it’s hard to fret about hospitals.
Many say they’re losing money, and across the country, many have closed. Still, many others are buying and building like gangbusters. They also have created all sorts of work-arounds that move money off their books.
Meanwhile, executive compensation is beyond generous.
As for the nursing home industry, in Ohio, it has had a great gig going, almost always getting most of what it wants from the Legislature in reimbursements and with regard to regulations.
Knowing these realities, Gov. Strickland — when he looked at a $54 billion two-year budget that is being patched together mainly with $6.7 billion in one-time federal stimulus money — decided hospitals and nursing homes could be hit up to pay more than in the past.
This week his budget proposal was worked over in the Democratic Ohio House — with the hospitals and nursing homes getting more, but not all of, their money back.
Now the legislation moves to the Republican-controlled Senate. Who knows what will happen there.
The complaint from hospitals and nursing homes about their taxes is important less on its merit and more because of the point it makes about the crushing cost of refusing to make enough Medicaid reforms.
After all, if hospitals can legitimately complain about their financial problems, it’s because Medicaid is fraught with inequities and crazy rules that drive up costs.
However, what’s not well understood is that that fact affects everybody — not just poor people and health-care providers.
Consider:
—Because Medicaid reimbursement rates are low, hospitals, doctors and nursing homes charge more to people who have insurance, driving up their rates.
—When hospitals or medical providers cut services and employees because Medicaid shortchanges them, the quality of care for all patients suffers.
—The more of your tax dollars that the state spends on Medicaid, the less money there is for other things (or the more your taxes go up). Today almost 40 percent of the entire state budget goes for this program.
The most pressing and vexing issue is not that Gov. Strickland wants to ding the health care industry. It’s that Medicaid, as it exists in Ohio, is unsustainable.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Ohio politics, Social Services
TweetEditorial: Getting a train-building plant won’t be easy
It’s only natural for the Dayton community to think about playing a role in the new age of passenger-rail transportation beyond being a stop on the Cincinnati-Cleveland line. After all, somebody will have to make the train cars that will be used on new lines that are slated for the Midwest and the rest of the country.
Here we have the auto industry coming to a dire juncture just as the feds have put up $8 billion for passenger trains, in the stimulus package. And that isn’t the only money available.
In the regular federal transportation budgets, more emphasis is being put on rail, to the tune of another billion a year for the next five years. (That money, unlike the stimulus money, requires states to put up some of their own funds in matching dollars.)
This community has empty factories and a lot of experienced factory workers looking for work. Most recently available, of course, is the Moraine plant where General Motors used to build sport utility vehicles. It’s big, and it has access to railroad tracks.
Meanwhile, nobody in this country is making passenger rail cars. Substantial parts are being made for subway cars and other rail transit cars, but foreign makers dominate the train market, including a company in Canada.
And yet, there are problems for any community that would like to dive into the train business. For one thing, a lot of communities are on to the opportunities. Many are eyeing them, with thoughts about their own empty plants and idle workers. Sen. Dick Durbin, of Illinois, wants the prospective industry for his state. He’s the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate.
For another, any start-ups — whether new companies or new operations in existing companies — face severe problems. The capital costs of train building — the up-front investments necessary — are enormous. That means that investors would have to expect a lot of business before they decided to spend their money. But how much business there will be is not clear.
Will Americans embrace passenger trains? How much use can the train operators get out of existing cars that were stockpiled when the heyday of train travel ended?
One idea that train enthusiasts play with has a state like Ohio (or perhaps a consortium of Midwestern states) authorizing a particular manufacturing start-up and promising it long-term business if it provides long-term employment. But there are horns on the approach.
A government-backed business? That’s just for cars. And banks. And insurance companies.
Pretty clearly, the train option is not an easy one for Dayton or anyplace else. Fortunately, it certainly isn’t the only option for a plant like Moraine’s. That plant could be suitable for other kinds of manufacturing. It has, in fact, been eyed by some dreamers.
Moraine City Manager Dave Hicks, who has worked hard on finding an occupant, thinks the best bet might be for GM to sell the property — before the automaker ends up in bankruptcy, thus complicating everything — to somebody who will manage and rent it out, if not to one occupant, to several. He says he has had a nibble or two.
Even that might not be easy. There are, after all, lots of empty plants in Ohio, and, at this moment, at least, there are not a lot of enthusiastic investors.
The best bet for putting Dayton’s plants and people back to work is to proceed on several tracks at one time, not to get locked into one possible use.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb, Transportation
TweetGuest column: Diversity ads might change bad behavior
Jim McCarthy is president/CEO of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center and chairman of the board of directors of the National Fair Housing Alliance.
Kathleen Parker did a tremendous disservice by manipulating the truth in her April 20 column, “Big Brother says to love thy neighbor — or else.”
The federal Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 with two purposes: to eliminate housing discrimination and to promote residential integration.
She failed to mention the law’s dual purpose, as supported by Congress twice — first in 1968, when Sens. Walter Mondale, Edward Brooke and Everett Dirksen moved the legislation into law immediately following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and again when President Ronald Reagan signed the Fair Housing Amendments Act in 1988.
Research shows that white families want to live in communities where they and their children have the opportunity to grow up with people from different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds. However, research and investigations continue to prove that some real-estate agents engage in racial steering — a practice that keeps buyers from even viewing homes in neighborhoods where their race does not predominate.
According to an analysis done for the National Fair Housing Alliance, it is estimated that approximately 3.7 million fair housing violations occur annually against African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and Asian Pacific Islanders alone. These illegal practices, coupled with data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, show ongoing rental and sales discrimination, rendering invalid Parker’s notion that an “organic process” is the best way to promote diversity.
Not only has the law long been supported by Congress, but it has also been upheld in the Supreme Court.
In 1972, white residents claimed that their racially isolated community deprived them of the opportunities for multicultural and multiracial associations. The court found that when people of color are discouraged or denied the opportunity to live in a neighborhood, all residents, including whites, miss business and professional opportunities and have the stigma of living in a segregated community. (The case was Trafficante vs. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.)
The national media campaign (www.ARicherLife.org) that Parker complains about, and warns against, simply promotes the benefits of residential diversity. I wonder if Parker was also against the “Don’t Be a Litterbug” campaign of my childhood.
What’s wrong with selling a positive message that changes bad behavior?
Jim McCarthy is president/CEO of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center and chairman of the board of directors of the National Fair Housing Alliance.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns
TweetEditorial: Districts should support new STEM school
One of the most interesting education experiments this area has seen has made big strides the past couple months. The Dayton Regional STEM School, which is on track to open this fall, is busy putting together its first class of ninth-graders.
The school’s efforts so far are encouraging.
Student interest has come from near and far across three counties. But making this intensive science high school on Wright State University’s campus work for students will require regional cooperation. If area districts buy in, the STEM school’s success can benefit everyone.
The school — focused on science, technology, engineering and math — is open to students in 30 districts across Montgomery, Greene and Clark counties. It’s partnering with several area colleges and high-tech employers and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Though there are a handful of experimental science high schools starting up around the state, Dayton’s school is the only one that is designed as a regional center.
As such, its leaders have reached out with informational meetings in most area districts. That strategy is paying off. Only seven districts in the region sent no applicants, and those were largely outlying districts in northern Clark and Montgomery counties.
In all, about 160 students applied for 100 spots in the first class. (The plan is to add grades each year until the school has 600 kids in grades 6 to 12.)
The school accepted kids, as best it could, in proportion to the size of the district from which they came. (Acceptance is not selective; applicants don’t have to be high-achievers.) So Dayton schools, with about 13 percent of the kids in the region, won 27 spots — the most of any district.
But the school did well attracting suburban interest, too. Just to name a few examples, there were four Centerville students who applied, four from Kettering, two from Oakwood and four from Sugarcreek. About 45 percent of applicants came from non-public schools or are being home-schooled. About a third of the applicants qualify for free or reduced lunches.
Those are pretty encouraging numbers — a diverse applicant pool regionally and economically. But there are still obstacles to overcome. Area districts can do a lot to minimize them.
One big problem is transportation. The STEM school won’t have buses. In most cases, it will reimburse parents for getting their children to school. School leaders hope to set up carpools. Larger districts may send buses, and could help by working out deals to pick up other kids in the districts they pass through.
Students also will be allowed to participate in clubs and sports in their home districts, a logistically tricky problem that will require flexibility from coaches and advisers in students’ home districts.
Some districts, most notably West Carrollton, Huber Heights, Fairborn and Xenia, embraced the school early. Others have been more wary, fearing the charter school could siphon off top students and state money. That’s the wrong attitude.
The STEM school not only wants to develop young talent and nudge those students toward high-tech careers that are in demand locally, it also is seeking to raise the level of instruction in science in the region. The plan is to share methods and offer mentors to teachers in a three-county area. The school is not big enough to be a threat to anyone.
It has the potential to be a huge regional success story. Local districts should do everything they can to make that happen.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Warren flap over stimulus is all about the posturing
Let’s talk about Warren County rejecting some stimulus money. What a bunch of phony, silly posturing, both at home and in Washington.
The $373,000 would have been used mainly to replace vans the county now has in place to give people rides they call ahead for.
Says county Commissioner C. Michael Kilburn, “All I want the government to do is leave Warren County alone. If we need something, we’ll take care of it, and we’ll buy it.”
But if the federal government left Warren County alone, there would probably be no van fleet to replace. The current vans were 80 percent paid for by the feds. That’s the usual deal on local transit vehicles.
All that’s happening now is the feds are offering this one-time deal whereby they’ll pick up the other 20 percent, too.
The stimulus money would replace vans that will have to be replaced soon enough anyway, and the county would get vans that need less upkeep than the old ones and are probably more fuel-efficient, saving the county more money.
Sounds like a pretty good deal. That’s why the county staff applied for the money. It was the obvious thing to do, in behalf of the county’s taxpayers.
No other county has turned down any stimulus money coming through the Ohio Department of Transportation.
But the commission voted unanimously to not accept the money.
One commissioner, Kilburn, is reportedly against accepting any stimulus money. You’ve probably heard his theatrical line: “I’ll let Warren County go broke before taking any of Obama’s filthy money.”
But the other two commissioners, Pat South and David Young, are taking stimulus offers one at a time. They’re saying that road work or other such infrastructure help might be OK.
By the way, the other projects being talked about look much bigger than $373,000. If some of the posturing by the commission looks a bit odd, enter Congress to top it.
Republican U.S. Reps. Mike Turner and Jean Schmidt, who represent Warren County, cheered on by Republican House leader John Boehner, a neighbor, have submitted legislation to “rescind” the $373,000 from stimulus package that Congress has passed, thereby supposedly using the money to reduce the federal deficit.
Never mind that Congress and the president have already specifically decided to spend a certain amount of money — $787 billion, of which the $373,000 is part — on the stimulus, and have not changed their minds, near as anyone knows.
Never mind that the $373,000 has already been slated for use elsewhere by ODOT, the conduit from Washington.
Never mind that $373,000 is one two-millionth of $787 billion, which would fall even below the official definition of symbolic if there were such a definition.
Never mind that whether Warren County needs this money is irrelevant to the question of whether the money should be spent.
Warren is a fortunate county. It has not had to make the cutbacks in programs and staffs that have characterized local government in so many other places in this recession.
So the stimulus money should be concentrated elsewhere. But imagine the flap if the feds didn’t offer help to the affluent, solidly Republican counties that border metropolitan areas: Washington would be accused of trying to reward the Democratic counties and bribe the swing counties.
Sometimes, when Republicans bash the stimulus, that is exactly the charge they make about it: that it’s an effort to reward political friends. Some even call the process “filthy.”
The “rescind” idea is partly a smokescreen. It’s designed to get the county commissioners out from under the charge that they are sending perfectly good money to another county.
Kilburn has scoffed at the proposal, but the other two commissioners are on board, saying the stimulus involves too much borrowing, too big a burden on future generations.
They’d look better if they just said the money could be better used by somebody else, because that’s what’s going to happen.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, Rural Communities, Suburban Communities, Transportation
TweetEditorial: Cosby knows what Central State gives
Earlier this month, Central State University pulled off a coup. For a second time, Bill Cosby did a benefit concert for Ohio’s smallest public four-year college and its only black public university.
Mr. Cosby has an affection for Central State that was born of a friendship with Josh Culbreath, the school’s former track coach and a bronze medalist at the 1956 Summer Olympics. More broadly, Mr. Cosby has a concern for black young people.
(Before the concert, Mr. Cosby gave a crowd of young people a sometimes stern, sometimes humorous talking-to. In the no-holds-barred way that he is known for when speaking to young black people about their personal responsibilities, he told the high school students that they had no excuse for not going to college. He told them to study hard, then to work and go to a community college while they saved money to attend a four-year school. He insisted that if the teenagers worked half as hard as the people taking care of them did, they’d get a degree.)
The comedian had told Central State he’d donate his time only if the school would commit to raising $2 million. (Last time he came, CSU raised $1.4 million.)
His requirement was intended as a challenge to Central State staff and supporters to be demanding of themselves and others about what the school needs. The 2009 Cosby Challenge, in the end, netted $2.6 million.
As hard as it was to raise that amount in this economy and over a period of just months, in truth, it is a small number in the world of college financing.
Earlier this year tiny, private Cedarville University, which has 3,000 students, completed a multi-year $11 million capital campaign.
In 2002, the University of Dayton, Ohio’s largest private university with a full-time undergraduate enrollment of about 7,100, wrapped up a campaign that was also multi-year and raised $158 million.
Three years ago, Wright State University, which has 11,300 undergraduate full-timers, completed a fundraising campaign that raised $123.1 million.
These were all capital campaigns, wherein fundraising teams literally spent several years beating the bushes. But, in fact, Central State has never had a capital campaign, and doesn’t have the institutional muscle and staff to make that effort.
The point is not to belittle Central State, which has about 2,200 students, or how far it has come. Rather, the point is that Central State has to scrap hard to raise what, in the grand scheme of things, is small change.
Before the concert, when Central State President John Garland told Gov. Ted Strickland that the school had exceeded Mr. Cosby’s goal, he went out of his way to say that the $70,000 that the state had given the school last year to put toward hiring a fundraiser had made all the difference in the world.
Yes, but: if any other university had Mr. Cosby in its corner, it would have had the capacity to put dozens of people to work leveraging his star power.
Working with what it had, Central State did itself proud. The floor of Ohio State‘s Value City Arena, where the Cosby concert was held, was mostly full, and Mr. Cosby looked out at a crowd.
When a video on Central State was rolled — several hundred prospective students were in the audience — the contrast between Central State’s buildings and where they were sitting couldn’t have been lost on the recruits. Yes, Ohio State is the state’s flagship university, but it probably spends more on mulch and flowers for its sprawling campus than has been put into some of Central State’s buildings and labs.
Central State is Ohio’s fourth-oldest university. If it is going to be around for generations to come, it has to overcome challenges that go beyond what many other universities face. For much of the school’s existence, it was among the few colleges in the state that blacks were allowed to apply to, or could feel comfortable attending. That fact of life guaranteed a ready-made supply of students, many of them exceptional.
Today, universities throw scholarships at gifted and talented minorities. In the face of that intense competition, Central State has to be as good as predominately white universities and other historically black colleges in its speciality areas, and it has to have niches that set it apart.
That’s hard to do on a shoestring, with a small student body that doesn’t produce a lot of economies of scale, and when faculty salaries aren’t competitive with bigger or richer universities. It’s this context that makes fundraising so vital.
Bill Cosby has been a great gift to Central State. In fact, though, it needs and deserves a lot more.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Ellen Belcher, Higher Ed
TweetEditorial: ‘Dirty money’ charge tarnishes commission
“I’ll let Warren County go broke before taking any of (President Barack) Obama’s filthy money.” — Warren County Commissioner C. Michael Kilburn.
All class, huh?
Commissioner Kilburn said he is “tired of worrying about people who don’t have.”
Oh, the burdens of worry. It can make one so tired.
The “filthy money” description was no momentary lapse of judgment. The commissioner also said, of money from the federal stimulus, “This is bad, filthy money, folks. This is money we don’t have.”
If that’s the definition of filthy money — money that’s borrowed — then the money spent in Iraq or, say, on the new Medicare coverage of prescription drugs is filthy, too. And a lot more besides.
In announcing his exhaustion from worrying about “people who don’t have,” Mr. Kilburn cited a conservative icon: “As (Ronald) Reagan said, ‘Government is not the answer, it’s the problem.’”
But Mr. Reagan would never have been so graceless as to talk about “Obama’s filthy money.” He could hold staunchly conservative views without getting ugly.
Reasonable people can disagree about the merits of the Obama administration’s efforts to get the economy moving. The nation has had a lively debate on it, which is all to the good.
Even on the Warren County Commission there’s some support for using the federal money in certain ways — on local roads (though the money for that wouldn’t be any cleaner; it also would be borrowed).
It’s remarkable how few places have rejected the money. But if that was to happen someplace in Ohio, Warren County was the likely spot. The county is so monolithically conservative that Republican politicians only worry about challenges from the right wing of their party, never from Democrats.
Moreover, Warren is one of the few counties in Ohio that has actually been growing. And it’s generally affluent.
And yet, about 1,870 people are reported to have lost their jobs there last year, at a time when replacement jobs are hard to find. Requests for food stamps are up about 60 percent, and building permits down by 35 percent, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Unemployment in February was 6.7 percent, which is way below the average for Ohio, but definitely is still not good.
The feds essentially offered Warren $373,000 for three new buses and vans, as part of an effort to help unemployed rural people get to job training and educational opportunities.
Whatever one thinks of the stimulus, one might expect leaders of a fully Republican county to appreciate that the Democrats are not excluding politically hostile territory from its benefits.
Moreover, the money will eventually go to somebody. Commissioner Kilburn says he wants Warren County’s share to go to deficit reduction. The commission has reportedly asked the county prosecutor to try to make that happen with other stimulus money the county has already received: $1.8 million to improve energy efficiency in government buildings (which would save local money in the long term).
But, of course, the feds have already decided they don’t want the stimulus money to go to deficit reduction, that being at direct odds with the goal of stimulating the economy in the short run. Nevertheless, Reps. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, and Jean Schmidt, R-Cincinnati, have put forth legislation trying to accommodate the county.
Maybe there is some county that can use the bus and van money better than Warren. But the commissioners would serve the community by taking a close look at each shot at stimulus money, rather than getting hostile.
If they are more eager to complain about national policy than to serve local constituents, a simple “No, thank you” (as, indeed, was offered by one commissioner), would have sufficed.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, Suburban Communities
TweetEditorial: Governor’s goals are good, but where’s money?
The hype and fury about Gov. Ted Strickland’s education reforms are overblown. Schools are not going to be much different, at least in the next two years.
The governor and lawmakers have just 60 days to agree on a two-year budget. Some of the big changes the governor wants probably will make it past the Democratic House of Representatives and the Republican Senate.
But even the governor’s Democratic allies — who made significant changes to how the governor proposed divvying up money in the near term— aren’t proposing to increase support for very many districts any time soon.
Meanwhile, the biggest policy changes would be phased in over 10 years. The state doesn’t have the money to pay for new, bold plans now, and, actually, schools would be cut in the upcoming budget if Washington were not giving Ohio stimulus money. Republicans are critical of the governor for creating a budget that relies on the federal dollars, but many also still support taking the money. Those views can’t be reconciled; if the state accepts the money and spends it (the feds won’t allow it to be saved), that inevitably creates a problem in 2011, when those funds run out.
That said, Republicans are absolutely correct that Gov. Strickland should not get credit for identifying sustained funding for the reforms he wants. They are also right that doing so likely would require a tax increase.
That hot question has been put off for another day by the governor, who will be running for re-election next year.
Gov. Strickland’s plan is ambitious. It pushes Ohio to think of itself as competing against the best education systems around the world. It requires more of students (moving away from proficiency tests and instead requiring all students to take the harder ACT exam). It asks more of teachers (who would teach more days a year). It requires more professional development. It sets new requirements about the kinds and numbers of professionals who would be in every school.
Gov. Strickland insists these ideas can be implemented — and paid for — if future leaders are committed enough to the goals. That’s easy for him to say; after all, he’s not going to be in office for the next decade.
Arguably the biggest change Gov. Strickland wants relates to how the state decides what to spend on schools. He would create a panel of about 25 experts to examine research and other states’ practices and then assign price tags to the expenses that make for excellent and effective schools.
In essence, the panel would decide the cost of educating children and then leave it to the legislature to figure out how to pay the tab.
Compared with Ohio’s historical approach — determining how much cash is available and then giving out that amount — the new process would set a higher bar.
But where would lawmakers find the money to pay for what unquestionably would be new demands? Would the panel recognize that the state’s responsibilities go beyond just funding schools?
Those are the multibillion-dollar questions.
If by 2011, say, the economy is recovering, money won’t be as tight, but Republicans and undoubtedly some Democrats are worried about creating expectations that can’t be met without raising taxes.
The critics, though, have no alternative to the governor’s plan.
Gov. Strickland is right to acknowledge that, in many communities, homeowners are tapped out when it comes to increasing their property taxes. He’s also right that Ohio should aim to standardize academic opportunities, ensuring that children from city, suburban and rural schools all have genuinely similar education options.
But a big battle lies ahead. Even if the governor gets much of what he wants, Ohio hasn’t settled on how to pay for goals that are as laudable as they are expensive.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Ohio politics, Scott Elliott
TweetKevin Riley: Reds movie project could be start of something big
The plan to make a movie in southwest Ohio about a fictional Cincinnati Reds player is picking up supporters. The Reds have gotten behind the idea, and the project could be part of larger efforts to bring more movie makers to Ohio.
Phillip J. Castellini, chief operating officer of the Reds, said this week he believes making “Last at Bat” would be a “great thing for the Reds” and offered to make the team’s stadium available to the film’s producers. Initially the Reds had reacted cautiously to the project, which is the brainchild of Dayton native Mark Donahue.
Castellini also said he will help Donahue navigate agreements that might be required by Major League Baseball and other teams to make the movie.
Donahue is a 1971 Wright State graduate who became a successful real-estate developer in Florida. His hobby is writing fiction.
One of his works, “Last at Bat,” is a novel about the rise and fall of a star Cincinnati Reds player, and much of the story occurs in this region. A friend of a friend got the story into the hands of Hollywood producer and director Demian Lichtenstein.
Donahue said Lichtenstein has been to the area to scout locations to shoot the movie and liked what he saw.
Naturally, support for the idea is strong in Dayton, with the Dayton Dragons and other organizations offering help.
Donahue’s push has coincided with efforts by FilmDayton, a group formed as part of the region’s “Creative Class” initiative. These local film fans want to grow a regional film industry.
As part of their efforts, they’ve organized a three-day film festival that will be held next month, and they were also instrumental in bringing the recent premiere of HBO’s “They Killed Sister Dorothy” to Dayton. That acclaimed documentary is about Sister Dorothy Stang, a Daytonian who was murdered for her work helping Brazil’s poor and preserving the rainforests there.
These and other activities have highlighted opportunities to create a local film industry (a push, incidentally, that’s happening in states and cities across the country).
Lichtenstein says Dayton has some great “underutilized assets” that Hollywood types need. He gets no disagreement from people in FilmDayton and at Wright State University’s film school, many of whom have been saying this for years.
Lichtenstein, for example, points to Dayton’s diverse architecture, and he notes that, within a short driving distance, a director can shoot a suburban, farm or small-town scene. In Hollywood, studios have to spend enormous sums to build a set to look like Lebanon.
Of Dayton, Lichtenstein said: “What I saw was this well-put-together city and underutilized assets for film-making.” He cited WSU’s film school as a source of young technical talent. He also said that movie sets require skilled labor, such as electricians who might have worked in an automotive assembly plant.
But there are hurdles.
Compared with other states, Ohio lags in offering tax incentives for filmmakers. And everyone involved in this effort emphasizes that films are about making money. After our recent front-page story about Donahue, among the dozens of calls he received was one from a representative of Michigan. That state wants him to make “Last at Bat” there; it offers huge financial incentives to cover production costs.
Donahue and Lichtenstein would both like to make the movie here, but the numbers have to work.
After initially being reluctant, Gov. Ted Strickland supports putting some tax breaks for filmmakers in the pending budget bill. Speaking here Thursday, he said, “Do I believe Ohio should get in the ball game and have a rational approach (to wooing filmmakers) that will not be too threatening to our budget situation? Yes. … I think that’s what we’re going to do.”
Ohio’ doesn’t have to throw money at the film industry to be competitive. It just has to make sure filmmakers don’t have to pay a huge premium to do their work here. The goal should be to build a sustainable industry, rather than spend a lot of money attracting just a few projects in the short term.
(Strickland was emphatic that he would veto any so-called transferable tax credits, and he wants a limit on the total spending for breaks to filmmakers that can be given each year.)
If the state and the right people show a little interest — backed by real money — “Last at Bat” could help spur the development of a new industry.
As Lichtenstein said, he wants to make “Last at Bat” because “America needs a great story.” So does Ohio.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Dayton Creative Class Initiative, Economy, Kevin Riley, Sports and Recreation
TweetEditorial: Dayton can’t duck decision on Julienne
At a Dayton City Commission hearing about the former Julienne High School last week, everyone was waiting for what never came — a decision.
It’s been nearly two years since those hoping to save the school began an effort to get it a historic designation. The move, recommended by the City Plan Board over the objection of city staff, could block the Dayton school district from tearing down the building to make way for a new elementary school in the Five Oaks neighborhood.
During that time, there have been countless meetings and discussions. School officials have presented a host of designs for a new school or one that includes part renovation and part new construction. Most of the rehabilitation options would cost $5 million to $6 million more than a new building.
Dayton school administrators say they can’t overpay by that much. More than a year ago, they put out an appeal, saying the district would sell the school for the same $2.35 million it paid or accept money to bridge the gap between a new school and one of the rehab designs.
There have been no offers or checks.
Along the way, the district has come up with a Plan B. It has told the city commission it will reluctantly relocate the school to the former Colonel White High School site about a mile away if the commission blocks its plan by awarding the historic designation. School officials say the children of Five Oaks, an area with more school-age students than most city neighborhoods, would be better served by a school closer to their homes.
Supporters of saving Julienne — which include nearby residents, preservationists and those who want to honor alumna Sister Dorothy Stang, who was murdered in Brazil for advocating for the poor and protecting the rainforests — say they also favor a district school in the neighborhood. But they want a plan that saves the building that once housed the Catholic girls’ school. They argue that the district will rob the community of an important piece of its past if it razes Julienne.
This is a tough call, reminiscent of the debate about Roosevelt High School. That building, undeniably historic and architecturally significant, was the subject of two years of debate and multiple plans for re-use before the school board — backed by city commissioners — finally decided to tear it down. Today a $21 million project that will result in a new school and recreation center is being built there.
But in this case, with the district and Julienne supporters deadlocked, the commission sent the conflict back to the City Plan Board for 90 more days of talks. It’s hard to see how money will materialize now if it didn’t before.
The question of a historic designation for Julienne falls finally to the city commissioners. They need to make up their minds by the time the question returns in July.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
TweetEditorial: Enough already with all these special elections
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner wants to eliminate elections in February and August, limiting all elections to November and to the scheduled primaries.
It’s about time somebody of importance tried to move Ohio in this commonsensical direction. The state has way too many elections.
Most of them, however, can’t be eliminated, realistically speaking. The state constitution requires holding municipal, township and school board elections in odd-numbered years. What with cities seeming to think they must stagger the terms on their councils, that means that every odd-numbered year has elections; and not only the general election in November, but potentially a primary, too.
Every even-numbered year also has elections. The nation’s founders decided that members of the House of Representatives shall have two-year terms. The states follow suit. And Ohio decided it wants to elect statewide officers in years when they don’t have to compete with presidential candidates for attention. County races are also held in even-numbered years.
So, in a four-year cycle, there are eight election dates. Can anybody possibly think that’s not enough?
Well, yes. Sometimes, local authorities manage to convince themselves that the best bet for getting a tax increase passed is a very low turnout. They call such elections for February or August and hope nothing else will be on the ballot.
That strategy borders on disreputable. Beyond that, it’s often just bad strategy.
As Secretary Brunner notes, last August there were 67 questions on ballots around the state, if you count school issues that included multiple questions (53 if you don’t). Only 19 passed.
It’s certainly true that local officials who are trying to manage stressed or declining budgets have a hard time persuading voters of their needs. They often like to try again quickly if a tax issue is defeated, perhaps with a lesser tax. And sometimes they have financial problems that are immediately upon them, so they need a quick election. But surely two chances a year are enough to somehow make the system work. Secretary Brunner says low turnout reflects “election fatigue.”
“Voters have clearly spoken when it comes to special elections,” she says. “Turnout is universally low.”
However, her main point in calling for reform is not low turnout. It’s cost. She says that in 2008, the elections in August cost $2.67 million. Figure twice that total in most years, counting February.
Secretary Brunner made her recommendation this week in the wake of conferences she held after the 2008 presidential election. She has a lot of other recommendations, too, moving generally in good directions.
She wants to have more early-voting sites (four per county) and to shorten the early voting period to 20 days before an election.
Both are moves in the right direction.
She also wants to clarify voter-identification laws, so that voters have to bring either one photo ID or two non-photo IDs.
Unfortunately, she only wants to study same-day voter registration. (Her report is at www.sos.state.oh.us. Look for “Elections Enhancements for Ohio.”)
None of the recommendations is more important than limiting the number of inconvenient, under-the-radar elections.
Secretary Brunner could go further. A ban on statewide referenda in odd-numbered years and in primaries also would make sense.
If ballot questions were limited to biennial fall elections — when there’s the most turnout — the outcomes would be more legitimate, and the number of elections that must be held statewide would be reduced. That would be progress.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Springboro has cut enough, needs levy
The financial road for Springboro schools has gotten increasingly bumpy over the course of three levy defeats. The resulting cuts have begun to really hurt.
On May 5, the district is back for another try for new money. This time voters have an opportunity to stabilize the district’s budget for a relatively low cost. They should vote in favor of the levy.
The district reduced the size of its request to 4.11 mills, down from a prior levy that would have grown to 5.9 mills. This levy would cost the owners of a $100,000 home an additional $126 annually.
At the same time, the district has gotten blunt advice from the Ohio auditor’s office and followed it, making tough budget cuts.
The most difficult decision was to close an elementary school — a move that will save money for now, but cannot last. Already the district of about 5,500 students projects enrollment growth will force that building to reopen within three years.
It’s no surprise that districts like Springboro and Centerville schools all are on the ballot this May. All have received little or no state funding increases in recent years, and the latest projections from funding reform plans offered by Gov. Ted Strickland and the Ohio House show more of the same in the future. Because these districts are comparatively wealthy, Ohio leaves them on their own to keep up with inflation.
Critics of the school district complain about the district’s spending, citing what they see as excessive salaries and extravagant new school buildings. Teachers and administrators are paid well, and the results show. Last fall, the district was one of only a few in the state named “excellent with distinction,” the state’s highest honor. The new schools are certainly nice, but they were paid for out of a separate bond fund that voters approved. This levy is about operating money.
For the May levy, school officials make a convincing case that the need is real. Closing the school, for example, was educationally unsound, even if it made financial sense. It’s disruptive to move kids around, and Dennis Elementary School will be 100 students over its design capacity with 1,200 students next year.
This decision was not something school leaders wanted to do, but they followed the advice of state auditors.
To keep the district’s high-scoring academic program completely intact, school leaders say they should be asking for more money. But, instead, they pared down the levy request.
Good schools matter for Springboro. They are part of the community’s identity and a strength for the city.
The district has heard voters’ demand for more cuts and a smaller levy and responded on both counts. Residents should react by passing this levy so the district can stabilize its budget before the quality of instruction is eroded further.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities
TweetEditorial: Xenia asking voters to approve a great opportunity
Times are as tough in Xenia as anyplace. So you wouldn’t want to be asking people to raise their taxes if you could avoid it. A tax increase for the city went down to overwhelming defeat in February, and the school board lost big last November in a request for money for school construction.
But now the school district is back with a modified proposal. It’s a 7.9-mill levy, 7.4 mills of which would go toward a school construction and renovation bond issue. If it’s passed, that would result in the state putting up $47 million for the type of construction program that Dayton and a lot of other places have already accessed. The state would pay 47 percent of the cost.
The board has little choice but to go for the money now; this year is likely the last time the money will be available.
Ironically, the very fact that a lot of people are hurting in Xenia is one good reason for supporting the levy. After all, the construction program would employ a lot of people: about 2,500 for some length of time, the district says.
The building program would also result in income-tax money being added to the city’s coffers (more than $750,000, the district says).
The district hopes to build a new high school on the south end of town, while building several new elementary schools to replace existing ones and renovating Central Middle School into an elementary school. The existing high school would become a middle school, being better suited to students of that physical size, says Superintendent Jeffrey Lewis.
Several school buildings in Xenia were built after the 1974 tornado. Some of them have special problems. For one thing, “open schools” were the rage in the 1970s, meaning few walls. When walls were added later, heating and cooling problems resulted; in some classrooms today, children wear coats and gloves.
There are other physical problems around the struggling district. (For the district’s presentation of them, see the video at www.xenia.k12.oh.us).
Even in the absence of the state construction program, the district would have to build new buildings in the near future, says Dr. Lewis.
Meanwhile, of course, other districts are moving ahead to build better science labs and other facilities associated with modern education. Sure, education can take place in old-fashioned surroundings. Nevertheless, parents who are deciding where to live want a community that offers their children a competitive education.
On top of all that, there is the simple fact that old schools have special maintenance needs. In Xenia, that means such basic problems as roof repair and heating equipment repair. But the district has to handle those expenses itself, with no help from the state. Those expenses will get bigger as buildings age.
Letting the state help build new schools offers the secondary advantage of lowering those costs.
Last year, Xenia was moving toward a concept called “Under One Roof,” in which the school district would share a campus with organizations like the YMCA and senior groups. There was much to be said for that, but there was also much opposition. This year, that concept is off the table.
Xenia’s voters are simply being asked to make a contribution to keep their students competitive, stimulate the local economy, make the community more attractive to newcomers, and minimize future upkeep costs, even as they would get a generous incentive from the state. It’s a good deal.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Martin Gottlieb, Suburban Communities
TweetEditorial: Northmont asking not to be cut
Northmont schools are asking voters to approve a renewal of a 5-mill, $2.3 million levy on May 5. It would simply prevent the district from having a sharp drop in local revenue.
Traditionally, voters pass renewals overwhelmingly. These days, however, with the economy being what it is, with the governor talking about spending more money on schools and with Washington pumping out new kinds of help, perhaps nothing should be assumed.
Northmont’s leadership — which is united on the need for the renewal — wants to make sure that voters understand that the governor isn’t proposing to give new money to its schools. Early projections have a zero increase for Northmont. That would continue the pattern of recent years.
If, eventually, more money does come, it will likely carry with new mandates. Meanwhile, the district notes, the feds don’t put up money for operating expenses, but for targeted purposes. Northmont is being run prudently. It recently shut down an elementary school with dwindling enrollment, over much local opposition. The district is also moving toward creating an early-learning center, also based on money-saving motivations, among others. The superintendent’s office likes to point out that its per-pupil costs are 14th lowest among 16 districts in Montgomery County. Meanwhile, Northmont has done well academically, as judged by state tests and other measures. It is consistently rated “excellent” by the state; that’s the highest rating on Ohio’s report cards. Northmont is a uniting force for multiple municipalities: Clayton, Englewood, Phillipsburg and Union. The school district fosters a sense of community where city lines can have the opposite effect. If the people of those communities can come together on the cause of making sure that the schools in all of them are adequately funded, that’s a good thing. And if they can come together in the goal of defeating athletic teams from other parts of the region, that’s not so bad either. The district progressed well under the longtime leadership of Superintendent Gale Mabry, who retired last year. Doug Lantz, a veteran of other local districts, replaced him. He brings a special expertise in financial matters, having been business manager for three districts. Well-run schools where students are objectively doing well ought to be the last places that are actually cut back.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Martin Gottlieb, Suburban Communities
TweetEditorial: Renewal levy crucial for Sugarcreek schools
Voters in Sugarcreek are facing difficult choices about their schools. But the 9-mill renewal levy on the May 5 ballot is an easy call. They should vote yes.
Voters in Sugarcreek are facing difficult choices about their schools. But the 9-mill renewal levy on the May 5 ballot is an easy call. They should vote yes.
The renewal levy, which currently costs owners of a $100,000 home about $231.26 annually, would keep the district at its current funding and not raise taxes.
It would also convert what was a five-year levy to a continuing one.
The levy is absolutely key to providing students with a quality instructional program. The money it raises represents about a fifth of the district’s approximately $20 million budget.
Sugarcreek is facing tough financial times and, in fact, needs additional operating money to maintain its outstanding program.
Last November, school leaders proposed a new tax on earned income that they hoped would result in more reliable funding, much the way five of the other six Greene County school districts rely to some extent on an income tax.
The idea was soundly defeated. The district responded with $2.1 million in budget cuts and is seeking ways to fill a remaining $775,000 budget deficit even after those cuts. Superintendent Keith St. Pierre and Treasurer Kevin Liming have considered breaking state law to borrow from a bond retirement fund for a brief period. They shouldn’t do that, but a future levy for new money to address the shortfall is more than likely later this year.
Still, the question of future levies for new money is beside the point now. The simple fact is that the cuts that would follow this levy’s defeat would have to be so drastic that residents might not recognize their school district, which has had Ohio’s highest rating for four straight years.
Deep reductions in programs, activities and transportation, along with layoffs for teachers and staff, all are on the drawing board.
Passing the renewal levy should mean Sugarcreek can at least maintain the basics for now. Then the community can tackle the tougher question about how much new money the district should ask for.
Until recently, this school district was on a successful run. It raised its state rating two spots on the state’s five-step ranking from “continuous improvement” in 2002 to “excellent” four of the last five years. That is a major accomplishment.
At the same time, it passed a bond issue and completed a major overhaul of its school facilities. Students now learn in state-of-the-art buildings. As all this was done, Sugarcreek managed to maintain spending at $9,393 per student, according to the latest state figures. That’s $540 below the state average and compares well against neighboring districts of similar size.
Still, operating funds have been squeezed by the recession. That has accelerated what had been a manageable, but worrisome, financial crunch.
Now there’s a crisis that could result in Sugarcreek facing state takeover by the end of the summer.
Voters should vote yes to keep their taxes at the level they are now and begin a frank discussion about what sort of school district they expect going forward.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Elections, Scott Elliott
TweetEditorial: Kettering voters should support their schools
As voting for school levies goes, Kettering voters’ task on May 5 is an easy one. The levy is for a “renewal.”
That means voters would simply be renewing a property tax levy that they endorsed previously, in this case five years ago. This is not a tax increase proposal.
The specific request on the ballot is for 6.9 mills, and again the levy would run five years. Homeowners of a $100,000 home would continue paying about $189 per year.
The levy, which pays for general expenses, raises approximately $8.3 million annually. That represents about 10 percent of the district’s budget.
Administrators haven’t decided what they’ll do if the levy fails, according to Superintendent Bob Mengerink. They’re hoping that voters will be impressed by the $6 million in cuts the district has made over the last two years and be comfortable with the current tax rate.
In case of defeat, one option would be to close a school. The district has one high school, two middle schools and nine elementary schools. The question of whether Kettering can afford all of these buildings if voters want to reduce spending inevitably would come up.
That wouldn’t be an easy conversation for a community that is attached to so many neighborhood schools for its youngest children.
School leaders are not aware of any organized opposition to the renewal, though certainly there are people who are feeling strapped or who’ve lost their jobs or taken pay cuts. They’re understandably going to have a hard time voting for the levy.
Each of Kettering’s 12 schools were rated either “excellent” or “effective” in the state’s most recent rankings. This is not an insignificant achievement in a district that, as an inner-ring suburb, has a growing number of children who are from struggling or poor families.
A full third of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. In 2000, that number was just 13 percent.
Moreover, that percentage actually may be low, because administrators believe high school students are embarrassed to apply for the financial help.
Kettering has a long tradition of supporting its schools. By voting for this renewal, voters would simply be ratifying a decision they made in better times.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Elections, Ellen Belcher, Suburban Communities
TweetEditorial: ‘Excellent’ Centerville schools cost money
The Centerville school district is on edge about its second run at getting voters to approve a 5.9-mill continuous levy. That request lost in November by 1,437 votes — 17,883 to 16,446.
Close, but no new money.
The concern is whether last year’s defeat signals a return to a period in the 1990s, when the affluent suburb rejected a string of levies.
The community was deeply divided through those campaigns, and the district struggled to come back from the cuts that were imposed.
Without doubt, these are tougher economic times.
Part of Centerville’s predicament is that, as a relatively well-off district, it doesn’t get a lot of special financial aid from the state. The district has given up thinking that will ever change.
Its political calculation — undoubtedly true— puts a heavy burden on homeowners, who support the schools via the property tax.
In the wake of November’s defeat, the district made $3 million in cuts in mid-year. In the scheme of things, they were small, partially because it’s difficult to break contracts in the middle of the school year. If the levy, which would raise $10 million annually, is defeated again, there will be more cuts to the approximately $82 million budget.
Even if the request passes, the district is committed to eliminating 17 teaching positions and 20 support staff.
These cuts won’t result in teachers being laid off (because of attrition), but other employees have already been told they won’t have a job next fall.
There are scattered critics of Centerville’s request. But the Web site www.notaxcentervilleschool.com has attracted particular attention. It details salaries for administrators, teachers and others, and complains that employees are being paid too much.
The district does, indeed, pay well, and many people stay for all or most of their careers. So there are large groups at the top of the district’s pay ranges.
Some voters will be surprised at the salaries; others will insist that most of the teachers are exceptional and doing far, far more than working the 180 days the Web site creator complains.
Centerville schools have consistently received the state’s highest rating of “excellent.” The district is especially committed to helping special needs students, as well as those who are gifted. It has facilities and programs that many others can’t imagine ever learning or working in.
All that, though, comes with a cost. Vote yes to continue this quality.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Elections, Ellen Belcher, Suburban Communities
TweetEditorial: Getting Obama on board just a start for passenger trains
When President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden held an event last week to promote passenger rail service, it seemed like old news to a lot of people. The administration has been clear for some time that it supports much more train service.
But to long-time train advocates, the event was a landmark. In the past, whatever enthusiasm could be found for trains in an administration was found at much lower levels than president and vice president. Now, however, the matter is clearly being pushed from the top.
The president and vice president (who used to ride the only high-speed passenger train operating in the country when he went home to Delaware) specifically promote high-speed service.
Said the president, “What we need, then, is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century, a system that reduces travel times and increases mobility, a system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity, a system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs.”
However, Ohioans need to understand that reducing travel times by a lot isn’t the short-term plan for Ohio, or at least for Dayton. The much-talked-about line from Cincinnati through Dayton to Columbus and Cleveland would not be high-speed at first. And it would not likely ever be super-high speed, like 200 miles an hour.
Where there is no existing passenger service line, the financially realistic way to proceed is to install conventional service first, meaning up to about 80 miles an hour. To go right to high-speed — which, in Ohio, might mean about 110 miles an hour, given all the difficult crossings — would cost way too much.
Train advocates in Ohio hope for high-speed service in eight or 10 years on the “3C” line. But the conventional project is doable in a couple of years.
Passenger-train advocates point out that California voters have approved selling $10 billion in bonds to upgrade an existing conventional system there to high-speed. They say people have to get used to the whole idea of train service first.
Meanwhile, however, Ohio would not necessarily be excluded from the high-speed world for a decade. The Obama administration has identified 10 high-speed projects for the shorter term. One would make Chicago a hub for lines that would extend to Cincinnati through Indianapolis, and to Cleveland via Toledo.
As the president notes, this country is decades behind Japan and some European countries in train service. He wants to spend $8 billion from his stimulus package for trains, and another $5 billion over five years in matching grants for train projects that local and state governments are pushing.
That will not come close to bringing this country up to speed with Japan and Europe. But it is a serious start.
Harder tasks lie ahead.
Nobody is promising that passenger train systems will be self-supporting. That, of course, is not the only question to be asked about them, any more than it’s the only question about commuter transit systems or highways. But train proponents do have to worry about how big a subsidy will be needed.
Under any circumstances, train travel won’t be cheap. On Amtrak’s existing Washington-Boston Amtrak line, fares are much higher than for buses. The goal must be to make fares affordable for most people.
Washington needs to come up with a steady source of financial support for passenger trains, like the highways get through gas taxes. That will be less fun than giving states money, and it will require getting a lot of people on board besides Joe Biden.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Transportation
TweetSugarcreek schools should make cuts now
Sugarcreek schools face a dire financial crisis and must start making the tough choices to get their house in order.
The plan by the superintendent and treasurer to knowingly break state law to avoid a June 30 deficit is a mistake that will only put off hard choices.
To be clear, taking aggressive action now will hurt deeply and likely harm the quality of education in this high-performing school district. But the borrowing plan creates even more risk. The pain and damage just ahead could be worse.
Sugarcreek has come to this crossroads by way of missteps and misfortune. The district finished last school year with a small cash cushion. In response, it made $2.1 million in budget cuts and placed a levy on the ballot last November.
That levy was a big bet — the district asked for an earned-income tax in a community that has long rejected income taxes. Just before the vote, the economy tanked, likely contributing to the levy’s big defeat in a community with a track record of passing school issues.
In tough economic times, even high-performing districts in wealthy communities struggle at the ballot. Neighboring districts Centerville and Springboro also are working through tough budgets after levy troubles. This is a problem Gov. Ted Strickland has promised to fix with his school funding reform. But if the latest version of the plan goes through, all three districts would actually be getting less state aid by 2011.
Property taxes historically are a reliable funding source. But this spring, a big bump in real-estate taxes the district had been counting on didn’t materialize because of the drop in housing prices. Without that cash, Sugarcreek now projects a $775,000 deficit on June 30.
Superintendent Keith St. Pierre and Treasurer Kevin Liming have said their plan is to borrow from a bond retirement fund to balance the budget and then pay the money back next fiscal year. That move would violate state law, but Mr. St. Pierre and Mr. Liming say they are willing to accept a citation from the state auditor.
The school district is on the ballot May 5 for what has now become an even more critical levy renewal. Mr. St. Pierre said the district is exploring immediate cuts, but wants to wait until month’s end for the release of a report by Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor that will suggest efficiencies.
The district shouldn’t wait. Ms. Taylor’s office said it constantly shares drafts and information from its audit team with school districts it studies. Mr. St. Pierre should ask for advice now, rather than wait. The school year has seven weeks left. Every day matters if cuts are going to be made.
Even if the levy renewal passes next month, Sugarcreek projects a $1.1 million deficit for next year. So come July 1, painful cuts must be made. Programs will have to be eliminated, staff laid off and services reduced. The district should begin making those moves now so it can finish the year with a balanced budget without breaking the law. This would also put it in better shape for next year.
No school district should disrupt its program in the midst of a school year unless there is a grave crisis. Unfortunately for Sugarcreek, that moment has arrived. If the May 5 renewal fails and no new money is approved by voters in 2009, that will guarantee the district will face state takeover and truly dramatic cuts — closed buildings, large classes, severe layoffs — such as those in districts like Jefferson Twp. and Springfield. Both have been under state control.
Next month, Sugarcreek voters face tough choices about what they want their school district to look like. But today the tough choices are for the superintendent, the treasurer and the school board. They can’t pretend their crisis isn’t here.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities
TweetGuest column: Where’s debate on Dayton’s health care?
By Lawrence E. Mieczkowski, an internist who specializes in cardiovascular disease prevention. From 1994-96, he was director of clinical information services for Kettering Medical Center.
Re “Hospitals playing with babies’ lives,” April 5: Editorial Page Editor Ellen Belcher’s column regarding neonatal intensive care in the community spoke to one of the core problems relating to health care locally.
Why is there no outrage over these issues, not the least of which is the pediatric delivery system?
A few points to consider:
• Duplication of services continues to grow, and money drives the delivery system. The Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association has been an abysmal failure in the last 20 years in overseeing health care. For instance, Kettering Medical Center is going to build a hospital-like campus in Beavercreek to compete with Miami Valley Hospital’s south campus on Wilmington Pike.
Kettering and Miami Valley are each building new cardiac service “hospitals.” Does the Dayton community need these facilities? Where was the debate? Why weren’t community leaders involved? Most physicians see these facilities as competing monuments.
• Do the math on executive compensation.
We’re paying $2 million dollars for the region’s two health systems’ leadership. The CEOs of Kettering Health Network and Premier Health Partners (Frank Perez and Tom Breitenbach) each receive more than $1 million in compensation. Each hospital president (Kettering, Sycamore, Grandview, Miami Valley, Good Samaritan) probably receives $500,000 or more. That’s at least $2.5 million.
Meanwhile, each hospital has four to five vice presidents probably making $200,000 to $300,000 each. That adds up to possibly another $4 million. Now add in directors of cardiac services, obstetric services, orthopedic services. They usually command $70,000 to $100,000.
In the end, executive hospital leadership in Dayton may approach $10 million annually.
That’s a lot of money, especially for a medium-sized city.
Instead of laying off nurses as the bottom line gets tight, what if each hospital cut executive compensation or positions? Of course, that’s unlikely to happen.
Physicians are increasingly being squeezed financially. Realize that the radiologist reading a CT scan of your abdomen may receive $165 from Anthem, Cigna, or UHC for the five minutes it takes to read the X-ray.
On the other hand, your family physician gets about $60 for a 30-minute session dealing with your diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol problems. We often have to jump through paper trails and online approval screens to get prescriptions or X-rays approved.
Seriously, do you want your plumber making more than your physician? This disparity can be fixed pretty easily. But it requires paying primary care physicians 40 percent more and cutting reimbursement for some specialists.
• The practice of “managed care” puts insurers’ interests over patients’. Specifically, Dayton has allowed UHC and Anthem to run the region’s health-care delivery. These insurers have been especially successful in playing Miami Valley and Kettering hospitals against each other.
Managed care will pay the $4,000 monthly cost of a new cancer drug to prolong someone’s life by three months, but often it will not cover specific diabetes or cholesterol medications.
The other day, I tried to go through Anthem’s prescription services utilization to get a medication covered for a patient. The clinical pharmacist in charge would not even speak to me on the phone. Is this the system we want? And how did we get to this point?
I challenge the leaders of the hospitals and the local managed care plans to debates on these issues. We could do three or four of them. Count me in.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns, Local Business, Montgomery County, Social Services
TweetEllen Belcher: Develop the river and everybody wins
Last month Dayton had a frightening and embarrassing setback to some people’s efforts to think and act regionally.
The mishap, of course, was the meltdown at Montgomery County’s 911 dispatch center, which, on its opening day, was receiving calls that dispatchers couldn’t hear, and didn’t know were coming in. (Amazing, but true.)
AT&T and Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer are still working on fixing multiple glitches and running tests. Meanwhile, local officials are telling Plummer and Montgomery County Administrator Deborah Feldman that they’re going to have to swear that nothing has been left to chance before the City of Dayton comes onto the system.
That’s scheduled for August, and that switch-over is significant because the volume at the center will jump by leaps and bounds when calls from Dayton — by far the largest jurisdiction and the busiest in the consortium — start rolling in.
Last week, though, a less controversial, bigger (geographically speaking) and arguably economically more significant regional initiative picked up speed. Not quite a year after their first “River Summit,” the University of Dayton and the Miami Conservancy District brought 150 people back for another look at what’s happening in the string of cities along the Great Miami River.
Dayton has announced another phase of downtown’s RiverScape. Miamisburg is in the design process for a multi-phase development project for its riverbanks and has been furiously acquiring properties. Troy is going great guns, creating impressive programming centered on the river and has attracted a restaurant, the Tin Roof, that you’ll be able to paddle up to.
Dayton and Troy are continuing to sponsor mayor’s floats, wherein elected officials go paddling on the Great Miami with people who may never have been on the river. Great Miami Outfitters is organizing canoe races.
As with last year, the presentations helped cities and community leaders imagine how they can promote each other’s amenities and link up. The thought of collaborating was not threatening; instead, people were seeing green, as in money. The richer the activities along the river, the more inviting, interesting and fun the region is for everyone.
The goals behind promoting “Ohio’s Great Corridor” — get it, “great” as in Great Miami and “great” as in a neat place — are bigger than playing to outdoor types. Cities across the country have used water — riverfronts, not just oceanfronts — to attract people and businesses. (Really, if given the choice, would you prefer to look at a freeway, another office building or water?)
CareSource, downtown’s Dayton’s new office tower, picked its spot as much for the view of the Great Miami as the fact that a parking garage could be constructed nearby. San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Chattanooga have leveraged their rivers in ways the Dayton region is just now starting to imagine — even though the water has been there forever. That 1913 flood really has been hard to shake.
Twelve cities dot the Great Miami between Sidney and Fairfield. Calling that Ohio’s “Great Corridor” isn’t hyperbole if you know that those cities are stops along a 98-mile swath that is almost completely connected with bike paths. (Just 22 miles to go.)
Besides providing the updates, organizers of Friday’s summit also challenged attendees to band together and see who can come up with the best plans for a progressive festival next summer.
The rules are that at least two communities have to come together to promote at least a three-day festival that involves their downtowns and encourages people to peddle or paddle between their cities. (This newspaper is a sponsor, and besides getting a small grant, the winner will receive a free marketing package.)
Imagine proposals that include hot bands, funky contests and promises of good food and beer.
The St. Louis area’s Katy Trail is one place to go for inspiration. It extends about 200 miles out from St. Louis along the Missouri River. You can bike or paddle for miles, eating, drinking, camping or stopping at bed-and-breakfast places. For those who need a reason to get out, there are festivals galore.
Developing the region’s river and recognizing it as a natural resource and an economic asset is not busy work for tree-huggers or a diversion for an area that has had more than its share of hard knocks.
It’s about working with what we have, seizing an opportunity that’s in our backyard and remembering that water is magical.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Montgomery County, Rural Communities, Sports and Recreation, Suburban Communities
TweetEditorial: ‘Tea parties’ not start of a revolution
The past week was the chance for Barack Obama’s staunchest opponents to show their strength.
On cable television, radio stations and the Internet, they called their followers to the streets in cities across the country, including Dayton, at downtown’s Courthouse Square. They drew a few thousand in a lot of places. They demonstrated a movement that might turn into something, but at this stage it’s most generously considered nascent.
The critics cried “socialism” often and far harsher words, too. “Obamanomics is fascism with a smiley face” read one sign. Another: “Remember that Hitler gave great speeches, too.”
The warnings were dire: “Redistribution is government enslavement.”
The rhetoric of the speakers was just about as hot. One fellow here pleaded that we not “let the government destroy the fabric of our nation.” Let us not, he said, become a “western France.” He snarled that country’s name.
Among the lines from the podium: “I would rather die a free man than live as an economic slave.”
The “Tea Parties” show part of the truth about public opinion, here and elsewhere. Polls say Americans approve of President Barack Obama by about 2-1 (when you set aside the undecideds). They express more trust in him than in his opponents by an even larger margin.
And yet, there is widespread doubt about his policies. Many who express approval are approving of the man and the fact that he is trying to do something about the extraordinary mess he stepped into.
About 70 percent of the public expresses optimism that President Obama’s policies will work. But that could just be general American optimism, rather than support for his ideological approach. When the Gallup organization threw the magic words “big government” into a question, 53 percent of people said they approve of expanding the federal government’s reach, if it’s temporary, as the president insists. Forty-four percent disapprove.
That divide suggests majority opinion is not set in stone. From here on out, it’s a matter of how the economy goes, whether what the president is doing really works.
Any president who proceeds as boldly as Barack Obama invites a backlash. He has upset the political apple cart. He has flown into the teeth of a conservative movement that still has sharp teeth. He has turned Democrats overnight from critics of high deficits to proponents of enormous deficits, just as Ronald Reagan did that to Republicans in 1980, similarly in pursuit of economic revival.
One result is polarization and hostility that is at odds with President Obama’s talk as a candidate about closing the nation’s political divide. That dream is a victim of irreconcilable differences about how to respond to a stunning financial crisis.
So far, the polarization isn’t threatening the president. He has the clear majority not only with public opinion, but in Congress.
The “Tea Parties” were designed to make sure the president knows that not everyone is on his side. They were big enough to remind Republicans in Congress that hard-core conservatives are furious, but not big enough to be a concern for Democrats.
If the idea was to deliver a message that would reach beyond those who are most angry, let’s just say the critics have more work to do. So far, they’re talking to themselves.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, National Politics
TweetEditorial: Governor pays price for not debating Morgan
The flap between freshman state Rep. Seth Morgan, R-Huber Heights, and Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland is mostly political gamesmanship.
But the controversy has exposed a problem with the governor’s education plan. Widely praised for putting forward bold ideas, Gov. Strickland has so far not persuaded enough Ohioans — or lawmakers — that his approach is right and affordable.
If he and his advisers really are confident that two years of study has led them to the best changes, then engaging foes like Rep. Morgan in debate ought to be enlightening. Rep. Morgan first complained in a House subcommittee that the governor’s staff was not being forthright in answering his questions about the massive education reform proposal. After two public records requests failed to get the information he wants, Mr. Morgan went to court. In so doing, he scored points with critics of the governor, many of them Republican.
Gov. Strickland and his staff apparently hoped pesky Rep. Morgan would go away or that his complaints would be rolled into the wider budget debate. There, the discussion was to be focused more on how to make the education plan work, not whether Gov. Strickland’s proposals are the right way to go.
To be fair, the governor’s spokesman Keith Dailey argues that Rep. Morgan’s records requests were sweeping and difficult to fill quickly. An initial computer search, he said, turned up 74,000 documents that could be relevant, and staffers were sorting through them when the lawsuit was filed.
Still, Mr. Dailey acknowledged his office could have handled the request more aggressively. Both sides now have dueling Web sites. Details of Gov. Strickland’s plan can be found at www.conversationoneducation.org, while Rep. Morgan is posting records as they are released at www.ohioeducationevidence.com.
In Mr. Dailey’s view, Gov. Strickland’s Web site is just one example that demonstrates the administration’s openness. Yes, most of the debate has been about funding the ideas (as opposed to the rationales behind the changes). But, Mr. Dailey said, a heavy focus on money was to be expected, given the state’s financial problems.
Mr. Dailey also points out that the same House subcommittee that Rep. Morgan sits on has heard 300 witness and 50 hours of testimony in meetings across the state where the governor’s education proposals have been discussed.
The subcommittee, in fact, came to Dayton last month. Perhaps that meeting is instructive.
A large crowd of charter school supporters spoke at Stivers School for the Arts, raising concerns about the money their children’s schools would lose. The debate heated up as Rep. Morgan and Republicans sparred with Democrats about questions of cost and quality of charter schools vs. traditional public schools. At that point, the committee chairman, Democrat Stephen Dyer, angrily ordered a recess.
He said he was offended when charter supporters cheered Republicans as they pointed out public schools in Dayton have similarly low test scores to the bad charter numbers cited by the Democrats.
The moment wasn’t a shining one in the annals of open debate, and, clearly, Rep. Morgan and other Republicans were frustrated about being shut down.
Democrats shouldn’t run from debates about the details of their education proposals. If the discussions had been more open, and Gov. Strickland’s staff and supporters more responsive, perhaps Rep. Morgan might not have gone to court.
As things turned out, the administration handed an issue to Rep. Morgan and created a distraction for itself.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Ohio politics, Scott Elliott
TweetEditorial: Sadly, to be in movies, Ohio must pay
There’s no doubt that movie producers decide where to make their movies with tax breaks in mind. In recent years, a flood of productions went to Canada and Europe, with the producers stating flatly that low taxes drove them there.
Whereas other businesses have to think about where their markets are, or their suppliers or the best work force, the movie people are footloose. And the incentives they are getting are huge.
Because so many American movies were being made outside the country, 43 states are now offering incentives.
Ohio is poised to do the same.
Two competing bills — one associated with Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and one with the Republican Senate — would have taxpayers pay 25 percent of the costs of production in Ohio. The governor wants to cap the total payout for any one movie at $5 million, while the Senate would put the limit at $25 million.
The two bills have other differences. The governor would limit the total pay out for all movies to $20 million over two years, whereas the Senate bill would go to $100 million every year.
The governor’s version would be “refundable,” meaning the production’s owners would get the total 25 percent of their production cost even if that amount exceeds the production’s income-tax and franchise-tax costs. The Senate version is not refundable, but it’s transferable to other taxpayers; and if the production’s income-tax tax bill comes to zero in a given year, the credit may be applied to subsequent years.
Some states offer less than 25 percent; others that much. California offers 42 percent. The issue arises now partly because a particular company has an eye on Cleveland as a site not only for a movie, but for a production facility. That company has said it’s happy with either plan.
The idea of movies being made in Ohio should not be laughed off. “Rain Man,” “Spider-Man 3,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Deer Hunter,” “Air Force One,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Major League” and a fair number of others have been made here in whole or in part. Nor do most of the productions go to Cleveland.
Still, qualms about these inducements are in order. Often, when tax breaks are given to lure companies, the idea is to establish permanent jobs. In the case of movies, the jobs typically are temporary.
A tax credit is a matter of the state forgoing income, rather than actually putting out money (so long as the credit isn’t refundable). But movies are like other businesses in that they use the services that the state and communities offer, from roads to other necessities. So there are costs.
In the end, however, the competition with other states must be confronted. Does Ohio really want to opt out of the hunt for movie jobs, at a time when all jobs — temporary or not — are cherished?
The best course involves something like the numbers in the Strickland plan. The plan would offer plenty of financial incentive to the types of productions that might come to Dayton and most other Ohio cities, or to small towns and rural areas.
It’s a shame that the tax breaks are necessary at all, that the states cut each other’s throats in pursuit of jobs. A national approach would make more sense.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Can Mike DeWine stoop to conquer with AG job?
Not often you see a former United States senator run for an office lower than governor. But it’s a good bet that former Sen. Mike DeWine will run for attorney general of Ohio next year.
Events are coming together in a certain way for the local guy who has been the Greene County prosecutor, Gov. George Voinovich’s man on law enforcement issues (as lieutenant governor), and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the U.S. attorney general’s shop.
For one thing, he loves the work of an attorney general, knowing it well and knowing others who have loved it.
(While you’re betting, you can also bet that he would have loved to be U.S. attorney general if his friend John McCain had been elected president. He would have been seriously considered, having not only the right resume but the right McCainian reputation for working across party lines, as well as for political cleanliness.)
Meanwhile, opinion among Ohio’s Republican insiders is coalescing around the view that the best ticket for the party would have former Rep. John Kasich for governor, former Rep. Rob Portman for U.S. Senate, and De-Wine for attorney general.
The Republicans don’t love the idea of putting somebody at the top of the ticket who lost in 2006, as DeWine did in his bid for Senate re-election. They are thinking the public is looking for somebody who is somehow “new.”
Of course, Kasich has been around forever. But he is not associated with the George W. Bush years or with recent party debacles at the polls. Yes, that’s a strained definition of new, but everything’s relative.
The same insiders see DeWine as a very strong candidate for attorney general — notwithstanding 2006 — given his very specific qualifications, his name-recognition and his enormous list of Republicans who have contributed money to him in the past.
They see Democrat Richard Cordray as probably strong enough to beat a generic challenger: some state legislator who is known in only one community. And they see DeWine as nongeneric.
Another factor pushing DeWine toward AG is that Gov. Ted Strickland is looking particularly strong for next year. It’s dangerous to make that judgment this early. But potential candidates have to make their decisions early about statewide offices.
What’s known is that elections for governor don’t depend as much upon the state of the economy as elections for, say, president, and that Ohio has a strong tradition of re-electing governors.
The only modern exception was Democrat John Gilligan, who lost narrowly to a former governor, Jim Rhodes, after raising taxes and closing state parks. Ted Strickland is, as of now, no John Gilligan.
If you’re Mike DeWine, and you would like to be governor — he’s 62, and he made clear when he came back from Washington that he’d like to be governor — how do you pursue the goal?
Is it better to run in 2010, and risk becoming a two-consecutive-time loser in big races? Or do you try to erase the 2006 loss with a win for AG? That would get him back on the state scene, so that he’s not yesterday’s news. And it would allow him to think ahead to the next governor’s race, which might be better for Republicans, with Strickland out.
Running for a lower office than one has held is not unheard of. Ohio’s higher education Chancellor Eric Fingerhut ran for the state legislature after losing for re-election to Congress. He wasn’t the first to do that. It seems to have worked out for him.
Since being governor of California, Jerry Brown has been mayor of Oakland and is now attorney general. He seems to prefer both those jobs to hosting a talk show, which he’s also done.
If DeWine doesn’t see the state attorney general slot as beneath the stature of a former U.S. senator, that’s a tribute to his modesty. He didn’t let the whole Washington thing go to his head.
But going for AG could also be what’s right for him, the only way to prevent his loss in 2006 — which was largely about his party — from ending his political career and the dream of being governor.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Dayton Tea Party seemed aimed at few
Just back from the Tea Party, aka anti-Obama rally, at Courthouse Square downtown on Wednesday evening. OK, so I left early. Gimme a break. I stayed for an hour fifteen, which is longer that some people who were there as participants (as opposed to observers). We all got the message.
Best sign: “Kosher Spending.” (You might have to think about it.)
Other signs, T-shirts and whatnot:
“Doing what is evil in the sight of the lord. Repent Government.”
“Show me your birth certificate.”
“Obama: Only change we need: Repent.”
“Socialism: rich or poor, you will hate it.”
“Stop the stink in Washington. Impeach Obama now.”
“Socialism. Fascism. Communism. What’s next? Obamism. Vote 2010.”
“Farmers Almanac A+ NASA, Gore, TWC F-“
Something quoting Sitting Bull.
“Power to the people, not the politicians.”
“Obamanomics is fascism with a smiley face.”
“Remember that Hitler gave great speeches, too.”
“Pelosi adopt me.”
“Redistribution is government enslavement.”
“9/11 was an inside job.”
Don’t ask me to explain them.
There were also a lot of “Fair Tax” signs. But I suppose the single largest category denounced “socialism.” (Not liberalism, though, so most of us are apparently ok.)
I don’t do crowd estimates, but the crowd didn’t come close to filling the square. Pretty cold day, of course; but not rainy or windy. It wasn’t particularly unpleasant standing there, if you were dressed right. Maybe parking issues kept the crowd down.
My general impression was that it all about a radio station or two, and their listeners. The radio people led off and got big applause by naming Limbaugh and Hannity.
The speakers were not people I knew. Several had trouble making themselves heard.
Among their lines: “I would rather die a free man than live as an economic slave.” (I wasn’t sure if that speaker was quoting somebody.)
One fellow pleaded that we not “let the government destroy the fabric of our nation.” Let us not, he said, become a “western France.” He snarled the last word. Yes, snarled it, just as snarly as he possibly could.
One speaker told the crowd that the main problem is that a lot of people aren’t as well informed as they are. He said, “this is a war, not of fists, but facts,” a “war of ideas.” He emphasized it was to be non-violent “not fought in the streets.”
One woman added politicians who coddle “aliens” to her list of complaints.
A fellow got big applause referring to Ronald Reagan and his line about how government is not the solution, but the problem.
The crowd was 99-plus percent white.
My take:
Any president who proceeds as boldly as Obama has will generate some sort of backlash. But any Obama people looking over this event would likely be pleased. There was nothing there that might resonate with the American mainstream. There was just a lot of ideologically-mongering. The word ideological is perhaps misleading, because we’re certainly not talking about a lot of academics here. The crowd seemed - guessing here, of course - mainly blue collar. But we’re talking about people with very fairly special takes on things.
Permalink | Comments (214) | Post your comment | Categories: Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, National Politics
TweetEditorial: State’s archaic construction ways have shot at good makeover
Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration is patting itself on the back for getting agreement from unlikely bedfellows about how to bring down construction costs for state buildings, schools and the myriad structures that universities build.
The construction industry, trade unions, government officials and others have dug into rules that the general public knows little about that drive up the bills for public buildings. They’ve compromised about fixing problems that have festered for years.
But:
In addressing how the state will handle the $3 billion it spends annually on construction work, Gov. Strickland limited the controversies negotiators could even consider revising.
He said, for instance, he would not support lifting the prevailing-wage rule for public projects (which require even nonunion workers to be paid union wages).
And he insisted there would be no changes to minority set-aside rules that lay out goals for awarding business to firms that are considered disadvantaged.
Some of the same people who are touting the agreement that’s been reached (but that still needs legislative approval) would have liked to have gone further. Or, put another way, the various interests’ public hand-holding — which does not include the nonunion construction industry — is not as enthusiastic as it might seem.
Because of his restrictions, you can argue that Gov. Strickland didn’t let the group get bogged down, knowing that certain issues were even hotter potatoes than the ones that ultimately were resolved. Or you can say he was stubbornly looking out for labor’s interests.
In fact, both observations are true to a point.
Especially universities — and specifically Ohio State University — have been begging, pleading and sometimes screaming for having more construction contracting options.
They say they’re entitled because, even though they get tens of millions of taxpayer money for buildings, they also do significant construction with money they raise privately; even then, they still have to follow the state rules for their projects.
Ohio State, for instance, is spending $1 billion on a hospital complex — financed largely with private money — and President Gordon Gee is seething about what he thinks is an expensive, bureaucratic process that complicates getting the best design for an infinitely difficult undertaking.
Specifically, he and other university leaders bristle at having to use “multiple-prime” contractors. Under that arrangement, different parts of their projects are bid separately, and there’s not one general contractor overseeing things from start to finish.
That arrangement can run up the tab, draw out the process and result in contractors tripping over each other. Meanwhile, universities have to manage the construction, which is not their forte. That headache, maybe even more than frequent cost overruns, is a big concern.
The problem with going to a single contractor is that the subcontractors say that invites a general contractor to squeeze them and keep the savings. They argue that tax dollars aren’t really saved; rather, the money is taken from them and given to someone else.
The compromise the group negotiated was to inject transparency in the bidding process for the subcontractors who do plumbing, heating and whatnot. That provides assurance that the general contractor doesn’t get to play favorites and keeps expenses in the light of day.
Most people who are involved in this big business are in agreement that Ohio is operating in the Dark Ages. As construction work has become more technical and complicated, other forms of contracting and bidding have replaced the old ways that Ohio has stuck to.
The state now has a blueprint for catching up with the times. If that happens, the Strickland administration should get much of the credit.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Higher Ed, Local Business, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Two raises a year? Who gets that?
Vandalia is taking on a sacred cow. That suburb’s taxpayers should be impressed. Not many local governments have worked up this sort of courage.
Other local governments and school boards should follow Vandalia’s lead.
Starting next year, Vandalia will do away with expensive “step” salary increases (except for police and firefighters). Many voters don’t know that, in government (including school districts), many employees have for eons gotten two pay raises annually: one because they’ve stayed on the job for another year and a second for “cost of living.”
Together those two bumps have often resulted in yearly raises of 6 and 7 percent.
Now, even with governments imposing pay freezes because of the depressed economy, many employees are still getting their step pay hikes.
The practice has a lot to do with governments being unionized. But it also is rooted in civil service, which, at its best ensures fairness and discourages cronyism, and at its worst rewards people for simply showing up.
In addition, governments historically have paid less than the private sector, especially early in people’s careers. More and bigger raises were the reward for starting low.
Today, however, the wage gap between the private and public sector has narrowed substantially. Some people even go so far as to say that government is overpaying for many jobs.
Vandalia, which isn’t in the financial straits, say, of Dayton, is nevertheless not feeling flush. Its Delphi plant, which has been the city’s largest employer, has cut jobs, cut workers’ pay and isn’t out of danger even yet.
It’s in this context — and because of the accompanying loss in income taxes — that city council decided the city can’t afford a pay structure wherein raises are automatic and so generous.
Specifically, council members recently approved a plan that reduces job classifications from 25 to 7, and future raises will be dependent on evaluations. In theory, employees can get as much as a 5 percent increase, but that won’t be the norm.
The plan affects all employees except police and fire; the city has to negotiate with their unions.
The change, first and foremost, is designed to save money. But it also is a change in workplace culture.
The notion that employees are entitled to raises just for time on the job, and just because inflation happens, is not the way of the world today. As jobs have become more demanding, as customers (and taxpayers) have come to expect more for their money, as competition has intensified, as money has become tighter, performance and results are what count.
With just 144 full-time employees, Vandalia can implement this sort of change more easily than bigger governments (though Montgomery County did away with step increases for most of its employees some years ago). Some people won’t be happy, but city officials believe the move won’t be an invitation to workers to unionize because they’ve involved employees in the changes. Time will tell.
Getting the police and fire unions to accept the compensation plan could be a hard sell. Under Ohio law, they’re entitled to go to binding arbitration if negotiations break down. An arbitrator probably won’t see things the Vandalia’s way because arbitrators don’t typically overturn what’s customary. Most police and fire departments are on step plans.
But the city does have this going for it: Police and firefighters tend to stay on the job for years. Eventually they are stuck in the higher pay grades for five years, during which time their raises are frozen except for the cost-of-living increase.
Going to a merit pay system creates the possibility that high performers would be better off financially to break out of the old system. (Six police sergeants, who have their own bargaining unit, have agreed that future sergeants will come in under the new system.)
Government administrators are good at making the argument that a lot of what government workers do absolutely has to be done and that if they cut workers, public safety and a community’s quality of life will suffer. But, in fact, there are practices that politicians and administrators don’t want to confront that would save money and hold down taxes.
Vandalia is doing just that.
Permalink | Comments (34) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Montgomery County, Suburban Communities
TweetGuest column: Governor should trust parents to do what’s best for their kids
Christine Musgrave Beard, of Arlington, is president of the Ohio Coalition of eSchool Families.
“That’s not fair!”
Who among us has never said those words? Most of us have built-in fairness radar — especially when it comes to how others treat us. So then why is it so hard for people like Gov. Ted Strickland to apply fairness to our public school system?
For years, Ohioans have known that the school funding formula isn’t fair. Even the Ohio Supreme Court said that was true. And in his 2006 campaign, Strickland staked his success on solving this issue.
No wonder Ohio residents paid attention to the State of the State address the governor gave in February, hoping that he would spell out a workable, honest plan.
Unfortunately, they’re still waiting. That’s because the governor’s proposed plan doesn’t solve the problem he said he would fix. And it’s clearly unfair to tens of thousands of schoolchildren.
The governor’s budget would severely cut funding for public charter schools — especially virtual schools, where kids learn using 21st century technology, aided by involved parents and experienced teachers. As the parent of one of those children, and as president of a statewide education reform group representing thousands of other families, I must say that the governor’s unfairness is troubling.
In fact, the governor’s plan just reveals a lack of understanding of how virtual schools actually operate — something my daughter and I would be glad to demonstrate to the governor. If he agrees, he would be able to see first-hand how eSchools really are successful.
But it’s not just virtual school parents who oppose the Strickland plan. He’s trying to end all school choice by shutting down public charter schools, as well. Don’t take my word for it.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, “Make no mistake: Passage of this plan will pummel Ohio’s charter schools out of existence, and the main victims will be poor but studious youngsters who have sought a better alternative than they found in the public schools.”
The governor denies that he wants to close charters. However, the evidence says otherwise.
If he has his way, he’ll do much more than make punishing financial cuts to public charter schools. He also is proposing new regulatory burdens that won’t even apply to traditional public schools. Virtual schools — also known as eSchools — already comply with strict accountability standards, and if they don’t, the Department of Education can shut them down.
But, like all public charter schools, ultimately eSchools are accountable to parents. If my eSchool weren’t doing a great job educating my daughter, we’d send her to a different school. That’s how competition works — and it’s working. So increased standards only place more burdens on already over-regulated schools that, frankly, I’d rather have focusing on educating our kids.
And lest you think I’m showing bias and only crying foul about charter school funding — traditional school districts aren’t all treated fairly, either, by the governor’s plan. Newspapers have pointed out that some of the richest school districts in Ohio would get more money, while some of the poorest would suffer cuts.
Is that the fair solution the governor promised?
Closing charter schools would have a catastrophic effect on Ohio’s public education system. Nearly 80,000 Ohio children would be forced back into traditional public schools.
All of this can be boiled down to one question for Strickland: “Why don’t you trust parents to know what’s best for their kids?” Answer that, and perhaps we’ll finally be one step closer to finding a truly fair school funding system.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Education, Guest Columns, Ohio politics
TweetPaul Leonard: Tea-baggers still fighting election
Tax-time 2009 has brought with it a little political twist this year. Cheered-on by such notables as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Joe The Plumber, Republicans are gathering in various American cities (Dayton included) and depositing tea bags into bodies of water.
Glenn Beck and Fox News have been relentlessly promoting the parties in the past few weeks.
Apparently, the act of “tea-bagging” is intended to be a symbol of past revolutionary spirit in America, and a protest against Washington’s spending priorities. Local organizer, Rob Scott, a University of Dayton law student, was quoted in a recent Dayton Daily News story saying, “People are disgusted and sick with what’s going on in government right now and the amount of money being spent by our current administration and the past administration.”
Mr. Scott hasn’t been reading the national polls lately.
Americans are, so far, giving our President’s approach to stimulating the economy a vote of confidence. This is not rocket science. If spending by consumers (who buy what business makes or does) has slowed dramatically, and businesses are no longer buying from their suppliers, and are laying-off workers in an effort to balance their bottom-line and remain viable, the government by process of elimination becomes the spender-of-last-resort.
George W. Bush did the Republican Party no favors when he realized only late in the game that his tax cuts were not getting it done and government spending was the last good idea. This coming from the president who accumulated more debt in his presidency than all presidents before him — combined. America’s last balanced budget was achieved under President Bill Clinton. “W” managed to wipe that out in his first term.
Republicans have little or no credibility when it comes to handling a domestic economic crisis — thanks to two of their least-respected national leaders: Bush and Herbert Hoover. And, although it’s much too early to get giddy about the direction of our economy, last week’s turnaround at Wells Fargo Bank (a bailout recipient) and the recent jump in the stock market seem to be slowly rebuilding Americans’ confidence. If that continues to happen, the consumer will begin spending again, there will be a demand for goods and services from businesses which will start buying supplies again, and people will eventually go back to work.
It’s going to be a long-time before we’re out-of-the-woods. Democrats and Republicans alike, especially in the Congress, are going to have to learn to be much more disciplined with any new tax revenues. The president and those who have supported the stimulus-spending approach have promised us that the current programs offered by government are like ‘priming the pump.” Spending now will yield more growth in the form of new revenues later. The key for government is to learn how to spend and save at the same time — just like most American families have to do.
The Fox-News-promoted tea-bag parties will be amusing and, probably, a one-day story. Unfortunately for Republicans, the gatherings are likely to look more like tea-bag tantrums by those who are still having a hard time accepting the fact that Barack Obama — and his direction for government — are with us for at least four years. Thank goodness!
As a matter of fact, I am willing to bet that the new White House puppy is likely to get more news coverage this week than our imitation revolutionaries.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Guest Columns, Miami Valley Politics, National Politics
TweetEditorial: AmeriCorps expansion suits the times
AmeriCorps doesn’t have the high public profile that, say, the Peace Corps has, despite being focused on this country, rather than abroad. But its volunteers have served such nonprofits in the Dayton area as Boys and Girls Clubs, Artemis Center (for battered women), Daybreak (a shelter for teens), the Urban League and Children’s Medical Center.
The local Project Read, which combats illiteracy, has one of only seven Literacy AmeriCorps programs in the nation.
Meanwhile, young people from the Dayton area who volunteer for AmeriCorps get the experience of helping out, for example, in the aftermath of a calamity such as Hurricane Katrina.
Today, nonprofit groups across the country are reporting “record-setting volunteer interest,” the Associated Press reports; AmeriCorps applications have tripled this year. The economy might be one reason.
Most likely, though, an important factor at work is an inspiring president who talks about service and giving back — with a first lady, who sets an example.
The government is moving to expand volunteer opportunities. Both houses of Congress have voted to triple the number of full-time volunteer slots in AmeriCorps to 250,000. The legislation includes a modest increase to $5,350 in the education benefits that full-time volunteers get after a year, on top of their minimum-wage-type pay.
The same bill also entails efforts to attract people over 55 to part-time volunteering. The work of the new AmeriCorps would be focused on helping veterans, providing health care, reducing poverty and promoting clean energy.
The bill has had broad bipartisan support, stemming largely from the fact that Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, of Utah, was engaged in the drafting from the beginning and won provisions supporting volunteerism for non-governmental groups.
However, more than half the Republicans in the House voted against the final version. Every member of the Dayton-area delegation voted no except Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville.
Some Republicans didn’t like the $6 billion price tag (over five years). Some see the organizations the volunteers work for as liberal. Other critics are skeptical of government-backed volunteerism, even suggesting that the word volunteer shouldn’t be used if there’s any payment.
Columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote last year, “Volunteerism is good. But why does every good thing need to be orchestrated by government? …We already have a healthier culture of service without — as Obama would do — doubling the size of the Peace Corps or pushing another 250,000 into AmeriCorps.”
The legislation is about taking advantage of people’s desire to serve — at a remarkably low per-person cost — and about meeting unmet human needs, which have only increased as the economy has deteriorated.
The president is spending an awful lot of money. He is obliged to offer offsets eventually or new ways to pay for his expenditures. But this is a relatively small part of the budget.
He would be frittering away his special talent if he did not use his presidency to engage people — young and not — in attacks on the problems of society.
When New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof spoke at Wright State University last winter, he told students that the best case for involving themselves in the problems of the stricken people of the world is not the good they might do others. It’s the good they would do themselves — enriching their lives by connecting with, trying to help, and learning from people who must confront the worst.
The more people in this society who have had that kind of experience, the better a place it will be.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Social Services
TweetEditorial: Unneeded voter ID law needs tweaking, at least
In 2006, Ohio enacted a law requiring that voters show identification at the polling place. It was an odd situation.
Until then, voters were required only to sign in. The system worked fine. Some poll workers didn’t like the task of comparing a new signature with a signature on file, feeling that they had never claimed to be handwriting experts. But almost nobody ever tried to vote illegally.
After all, voting illegally typically requires impersonating somebody who has registered. Few people are willing to take the risk of doing that. A statewide survey cited by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found “four instances of ineligible persons voting or attempting to vote in 2002 and 2004 out of 9,078,728 votes cast” in Ohio.
A lot of people are confused about this: registration fraud happens a lot; actual voting fraud does not. That is, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse register (because solicitors are often paid according to how many people they register), but they seldom show up to vote.
Nevertheless, there was a general Republican movement across the country a few years ago to require ID, with the Democrats opposed. They believed that Republicans were trying to exclude some Democratic voters.
Some states, including Indiana, went so far as to require photo IDs, notwithstanding the Brennan Center’s claim that about “10 percent of voting-age Americans today do not have a driver’s license or state-issued non-driver’s photo ID.”
Ohio lawmakers decided to accept other IDs, such as utility bills.
In the wake of the 2008 election, many people who work in Ohio’s election system say that, if the old system didn’t cause major problems, neither does the new one. They say that voters expect to be carded and are happy to oblige. They say the practice seems like common sense to most people.
That’s largely true, no doubt.
There are a few stories, though, of legitimate voters — elderly people especially — giving up on voting when they’re carded. Moreover, a couple hundred thousand people did have to cast provisional ballots in 2008 (meaning their status as legal voters had to be ascertained after the election). That happened a lot in Ohio before showing IDs was required, too, but it’s a problem that needs attention. The ID requirement isn’t helping.
Beyond that, the fact is that a great many observers were surprised when Ohio turned out to have lower turnout in 2008 than in 2004, given the exceptional degree of excitement and organization surrounding the Barack Obama campaign. The new law might have played a part.
Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has run two post-election conferences, and the Brennan Center has reported on their consideration of many election administration issues. One possibility raised was to make clear that the voter ID law is about identity, not address. That would allow even an old driver’s license to suffice, or a student ID.
Another idea is to add passports to the list of acceptable IDs.
Now that the Legislature is no longer dominated by one party, the time should be right to square the voter ID requirement with the goal of not excluding legitimate voters.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Gates’ plans pose new challenge for Dayton area leaders
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ new Pentagon budget could mark a new day, not only for American defense policy in general, but for the Air Force and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in particular.
The independent-thinking Cabinet officer who has now served presidents of both political parties starts from the premise that future wars will have more in common with Afghanistan and the advanced stages of Iraq than, say, with World War II or the actual invasion of Iraq.
He adds to that premise his frustrations about the delays and expenses common to the acquisition of military hardware.
And he comes to the conclusion that more skepticism is needed about the highest-tech, most expensive military systems, which he sees as more useful for old-fashioned, country-on-country wars. He wants more troops, better intelligence and sometimes simpler equipment.
Symbolic of the secretary’s new direction is his decision about the F-22 fighter, once the Air Force’s top priority, which hasn’t been used in Iraq. Though the Air Force once hoped for 750, Secretary Gates is cutting the number off at 187, just four more than now exist. He’s opting for the less expensive F-35.
He’s also eliminating a planned Air Force search-and-rescue helicopter, among other projects (across service lines), including a long-planned helicopter for the president and vice president.
Secretary Gates gave strong hints of his new direction when he was still working for President George W. Bush. Now President Barack Obama has told him to limit defense spending increases — outside of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — to 4 percent. That seems to have accelerated the secretary’s move to abandon projects.
How much of his plan will be adopted is not clear. Many in Congress have parochial, emotional and even principled attachments to some weapons systems the secretary doesn’t like. But Congress will have difficulty bucking him without spending more. The Pentagon budget that is already greater than the next 25 biggest military budgets in the world combined.
The Gates direction means a lot for people in the Air Force, which is already under civilian and military leadership installed by Secretary Gates in a shake-up near the end of the Bush years.
But all its meanings are not clear yet. Although the Air Force has certainly been associated with high-tech, expensive systems, not all the news from him is bad by any stretch.
The secretary sees the number of F-35s growing. And Wright-Patterson Air Force Base specifically is big into intelligence work.
Moreover, in a time when people in the private sector are hanging onto jobs by their fingertips, he proposes to increase the number of civilian jobs in the military. Thousands of the new jobs would be in acquisitions, a big field at Wright-Patterson.
It’s been a much criticized realm. With many other observers, Secretary Gates believes that the trend in recent years to use private contractors in that area has gone too far.
With times changing so much, community leaders in Dayton — people focused on the well-being of the local economy — need to get up to speed on the trends, and stay up to speed.
Over the years, Dayton has received exceptional marks from Pentagon watchers for its competent focus on Wright-Patterson’s interests. That focus is characterized by the mobilization of a platoon of community leaders every year for an assault on Washington. That kind of effort to stay visible, stay informed and stay useful will still be needed.
The need now is not to argue about whether Secretary Gates is on the right track. Individuals and interests can and will have their say on that. What’s important for Dayton-area leaders is to understand what the track is and how it tracks with what Dayton and the base can offer.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
TweetEditorial: Faith-based council could use Tony Hall
When President George W. Bush pushed his faith-based spending initiative at the beginning of his presidency, the Democratic sponsor in the House of Representatives was Dayton’s Tony Hall. But the Bush plan failed to get enacted. Democrats in general were opposed.
That didn’t kill the idea of the government awarding money to faith-based community groups to deal with social ills such as drug addiction, poverty and crime. Such awards had been made before. And the president created a White House office to foster more.
But the idea never fully flowered.
There was a lot of distrust of the ties between church and state. And there was controversy over issues such as whether organizations receiving government money could apply a religious test in hiring.
But President Barack Obama has embraced the basic Bush idea that faith-based groups can be tapped to a greater degree than they have been. He has kept the Bush office, with small changes.
This week the White House announced enough new appointees to fill out its 25-person council on faith-based initiatives. Most are leaders of religious organizations: Baptists, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims. There’s racial diversity. Hispanics and gays are represented.
The appointment of former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy stirred controversy. Liberal organizations were angry because he had fought hard against gay marriage in Indiana. Ultimately, he withdrew his nomination, citing time-commitment problems. Certainly the council does have to be diverse ideologically and politically, not just demographically.
One might have expected Tony Hall to be on the council. He knows this issue. He’s had exceptional ties to faith-based groups. He knows Congress, and, if appointed, would be the only commissioner with that experience. Being conservative on abortion and gay rights, he’s one Democrat who can talk to Republicans on social issues.
Also, he is known to the Obama people. He worked in the campaign with the person who was running outreach to religious groups and who is now head of the faith-based initiatives office (26-year-old Joshua DuBois). His support in the primaries for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton against Sen. Obama is ancient, irrelevant history, given her role in the administration.
Former Rep. Hall already has one job for the government. He was appointed by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to a group that tries to foster ties among the various religious groups in the Mideast. His appointment on that runs until June, when former Sen. George Mitchell, the chief American diplomat for the region, decides on the project’s future.
Involvement with the two projects would not seem to be mutually exclusive, as neither involves a full-time job.
Rep. Hall is not seeking a spot on the faith-based council, saying he’s already on as many boards as he can handle. Still, this would be a big one. And he’d be a good choice for a lot of reasons.
Appointments to the board only last a year. So vacancies should be coming up regularly.
It’s good to see the White House pushing ahead with the initiative, despite qualms among liberals. The faith-based realm is the rare policy area that allows a lot of room for the bipartisanship that President Barack Obama and many others give lip service to.
To oversimplify: Republicans should like the idea of faith-based groups getting an enlarged role. Democrats should like the idea of increasing the number of organizations that are engaged in attacks on social problems.
If all goes well, the project might even increase public and political support for federal funding of community efforts to address chronic problems that otherwise get too little support.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, Religion and Faith
TweetEditorial: Budget-cutting for Dayton far from over
It’s not nothing when a city saves $1.7 million. That’s the value of the deal Dayton cut with its largest union last week.
The Dayton Public Service Union agreed to give up a 3 percent raise for 2009, and its members will take four days off without pay between now and next May.
In addition, 22 janitors will be reduced to part-time, but the city won’t contract out for that service, which was an idea that was under consideration. (That change in status means the workers won’t get city-paid health insurance.)
In exchange for all of this, the city has promised not to lay off any of the union’s members for the next year.
Each side gave much more than it wanted:
The union, for instance, didn’t want to see two dozen people bumped down to part-time; the city didn’t really want to tie its own hands with regard to layoffs for 13 months.
Whether the Dayton City Commission was too generous and hopeful in light of the economic downturn remains to be seen; that’s a possibility.
The city’s main source of tax money — the income tax— is about 2 percent behind projections, not to mention Dayton is getting at least $800,000 less from the state’s local government fund than it anticipated.
The public service union — representing sanitation workers, street maintenance workers, clerical employees and others — proposed the pay freeze and furlough at least partially to head off the privatization move.
In making that offer, the union jumped ahead of the police officers’ union, which the city also is negotiating with about give-backs.
But the police are showing no sign of budging. The expectation is that the two sides will have to go first to fact-finding and then binding arbitration.
Meanwhile, managers are also in negotiations with the fire department about downgrading a few firefighters’ titles and pay, and cutting overtime.
For their own part, managers have resigned themselves to a pay freeze, and they’ll be taking a pay cut that’s equivalent to four days off.
Some cities and governments have had more high-profile layoffs and cutbacks, with people being let go by the hundreds all at once.
That can give the impression that other places have been more sweeping or draconian in their reductions.
But Dayton has been chipping away at its workforce, cutting about 20 percent since 2001, when it had almost 3,000 employees.
Even that, though, hasn’t been enough. Last fall, Dayton’s budget officers projected a $13 million deficit for this year. To get out of the red, fees were increased, cuts were made, jobs went unfilled.
Now, a little more than three months into 2009, there’s a new projected shortfall of $2 million.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the main job of City Manager Rashad Young has become downsizing a bureaucracy and public services without chaos. After all, even when the recession lets up, Dayton is not likely to find itself rolling in dough.
Rather, any uptick is going to be slow. In the near term, the best that can be hoped for is that revenue doesn’t drop off faster than the organization can cut.
In a nutshell, the Dayton Public Service Union acknowledged the obvious and tried to minimize the hurt to workers and to limit how sharply services would be cut.
There should be no misunderstanding about what’s been achieved, though: The reductions and the reshaping of an enterprise that’s important to the region are far from over.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Law Enforcement and Public Safety
TweetKevin Riley: Like you, DDN has to change with the times
The Dayton region ranks in the top 20 markets in the country for combined readership of a print newspaper and its associated Web site.
Scarborough Research, a national firm that measures media usage, says that four out of five adults in the Dayton area read a newspaper or its Web site each week. We weren’t surprised by that, and Scarborough’s numbers support our own research.
That’s good news for us — at a time when newspapers nationally have been making news because of their financial problems.
So what about us?
Are we different than the troubled newspapers you’ve heard about? The entire media industry has financial challenges, but the short answer is yes.
Why are we different? Part of the reason is being here, a medium-sized market where many of you are connected to the community and intently follow local news in print and online.
You’ve demanded that we change to meet your expectations — in print, online, on your mobile phone, your PDA and in other ways. But even having a lot of readers isn’t enough in today’s newspaper business.
The newspapers you hear most about are those that were particularly vulnerable during a difficult economy. For example, newspapers in Seattle and Denver shut down. They were the weaker of two newspapers in their towns, surviving to this point because of cooperative agreements with their rival.
Some media companies also have taken on large debt. When the economy weakened, several found themselves in bankruptcy court.
Still other newspapers thrived in booming markets, allowing them to ignore long-term trends and the need to improve their operations. They are now trying to catch up.
Some other things that I believe have helped the Dayton Daily News:
— This part of the country has been living through a difficult economic transition for decades. We only had to read our own Web site or news pages to know that Dayton wasn’t a boom town, so we’ve kept our operations lean. We kept our focus on serving this region.
— We’ve done a lot of reporting on local companies finding better ways to do things. We did the same, including building a modern printing plant and moving aggressively into online and digital businesses.
We will continue to change, with a number of things in mind:
— Readership of print newspapers will continue to decline over the long term. We have a large number of print readers. But many of our new and younger readers want their news in digital formats. That’s a huge opportunity for us.
— For now, print readers are still the majority of our audience — and the economics of print still outweigh online when it comes to making money.
Technological change and the current economy have made us, I believe, better journalists. When we cover companies and people facing rough economic times, we’re reminded of how many businesses adapt. Our own industry’s difficulties have given us a keener sense of how fragile businesses are, and how wrenching it is for people to lose their jobs and for a community to lose important businesses.
We are part of the economic struggle in our region, not just on the sidelines writing about it.
With a staff that lives and works here, we have to change with our readers’ and our region’s needs.
Our community commitments — to the United Way, the Food Bank, to the arts and countless other causes — have become even more meaningful to us.
And, most important, we know we must provide the information you count on, expect and deserve.
Every day, we tell this community’s stories in a way no one else can. Those stories stimulate discussion — around the dinner table, at your cubicle, in public meetings, on our Web site and at local blogs. And those stories are often the starting point for citizens who make a difference in the quality of life here.
We know that sometimes what we report is unsettling. But the debate that information stimulates — on these pages, in letters, in e-mails and in comments at DaytonDailyNews.com — make us all better informed and better able to change and compete. We’ll remain the place that provides the news that other media react to and follow. In matters of substance, we’re responsible for providing our community’s largest forum.
Some newspapers have forgotten these things and lost their way. We won’t.
Permalink | Comments (36) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Kevin Riley, Local Business
TweetGuest column: Downtown’s good schools add up
Bill Pote, an information technology consultant, runs the blog, Dayton MostMetro. Bill lives in downtown Dayton.
The Dayton Region is home to some fantastic public and private schools. Oakwood, Centerville, Beavercreek and Vandalia are among the top-ranked school districts in the state.
This makes these communities attractive to home buyers, who often consider school quality as one of the most important factors in their home search. Unfortunately, just like most urban cities in the country, the City of Dayton’s public school system continues to struggle near the bottom rankings for the state, and thus Dayton fails to attract those home buyers looking to live in high quality school districts.
But what if I told you that the highest concentration of excellent schools is in Downtown Dayton? Keep reading.
Downtown Dayton is much more than the few square blocks that make up the central business district. It also includes the surrounding urban neighborhoods and districts. While still a small geography compared to the rest of the city, it happens to include some of the highest quality learning institutions in the state:
— The University of Dayton (11,000 students) is a top-tier university; among Catholic universities, UD is ranked in the top 10 in the nation.
— Holy Angels Catholic School (306) and Chaminade-Julienne Catholic High School (982) are the other Catholic schools in Downtown. Both are excellent rated schools that attract students from across the region. Ninety-eight percent of CJ graduates go on to higher education.
— Sinclair Community College (24,000) is one of the largest community colleges in the country and was ranked in the top 12 by the League for Innovation.
— Miami Jacobs Career College is a solid trade school that provides valuable administrative training in the medical field as well as spa and massage therapy training.
— Dayton Early College Academy (DECA) (244) is a joint effort initiated by Dayton Public Schools and the University of Dayton (it’s now a charter school) that has earned the top state designation of “excellent” with scores at or above 94% in all state indicators. It recently earned a bronze award from U.S. News & World Report in its list of best public schools in the country.
— Stivers School for the Arts (870) is also a bronze award winner in the U.S. News & World Report list and has been designated “excellent’ by the Ohio Department of Education.
This Dayton Public School is not just known for strong academic scores but has some of the best arts, music and theater programs in the state. The Stivers Jazz Band won first place among 220 schools across the country last year in the Berklee College of Music High School Jazz Festival in Boston.
— Ponitz Career Technology Center (800) — This Dayton Public School will open this August and is a partnership with Sinclair Community College. Its early college credit program will be similar to DECA’s, but with a technology focus.
While it is too early to tell how successful the Ponitz Center will be, state-of-the-art technology and equipment, a brand new building and a focus on college prep make strong ingredients for another successful Dayton Public School.
— Dayton Montessori School — Ground has not been broken yet on this planned elementary school at Emmet Street and Riverside Drive (across the river from Riverscape). But when it is completed in a couple of years, it will potentially be a strong school option for parents who live or work in downtown.
It is interesting to note that there are more than 40,000 students who attend these downtown institutions — more than the entire population of any single suburb in the region (except Kettering). All of these downtown schools listed (except the two that have yet to open) have high regional rankings, with several state and national rankings.
So for those looking for suburban living, Dayton has some great suburbs with fantastic school systems. But for others looking for an urban lifestyle, the list above should make most prospective residents and home buyers comfortable with choosing to live in the urban core of Dayton — a true center of educational excellence.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Post your comment | Categories: Bill Pote, Education, Guest Columns
TweetPaul Leonard: Holder right on medical marijuana
(Paul Leonard, author of this column, is the former mayor of Dayton and lieutenant governor of Ohio.)
As Clarence Page noted in his recent column, Eric Holder, America’s first African-American attorney general, has announced that the Justice Department will no longer sanction raids on places that legitimately dispense marijuana for medicinal purposes. That’s not a liberal position. It’s just plain common sense.
Anyone who has watched a loved-one suffer horrendous pain as the hideous disease of cancer robs a person of strength and dignity, would, in all probability, have a very pragmatic point of view on this issue: If it alleviates pain and allows dying people, especially, to enjoy some semblance of a quality-of-life during the final months, I say “have at it.”
The states that are currently debating a change in the law to allow marijuana use for medicinal purposes are ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, Ohio, never in a hurry to be a first in anything that even smells of controversy, is not one of them.
But the people who really have their heads in the clouds, are the six justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who said that the federal government trumps the states on this issue, and, therefore, anyone who dispenses marijuana for medicinal purposes can be punished by the feds. And to think, the Republican-appointed justices who voted “yes” that day in 2005 would, on any other day, tell you with a straight face, that they are states’ rights judges who do not believe in an activist federal government.
Yeah, sure. Just like they were states’ rights judges in 2000 when they stuck their collective noses in the middle of a presidential race and stopped the Florida recount — a recount that had shrunk the race between Bush and Gore to razor-thin margin.
It was the Bush (“W”) administration that crowed the loudest when the court handed down their marijuana decision. “The end of medical marijuana as a political issue,” Mr. Page noted in his column, was the reaction from Bush’s so-called drug czar. What a hypocrite our former president was! After all, he was the guy who self-medicated with alcohol, if you can believe his own mea-culpa.
I like finally having a president who can multi-task. It’s kind of nice having a president who, in the midst of an economic crisis and leftover foreign challenges, understands that federally-approved and funded stem-cell research makes perfect sense and might, some day, lead to the cure of some of our most feared medical conditions. Finally, a president who wants to help people who are out of work and out of a job, instead of claiming a political victory when some poor guy in California is destined to be sentenced for dispensing medical marijuana.
President Obama has just named a new drug czar. He’s a former police chief from the state of Washington. People who know him describe him as “reasonable.” The hope is that he will follow the lead of the attorney general and work to make medical marijuana a legally protected usage.
Now, the next job for the president? Get some intellectually honest and progressive justices appointed to the United States Supreme Court. About six of them.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns, Law Enforcement and Public Safety
TweetEditorial: Baseball a big part of Dayton’s grip on the good life
As gets frequently noted by the Dayton Daily News editorial page around this time of the year, the first week of the baseball season symbolizes so much that is so good — spring, new beginnings, tradition, fun at the old ballpark, Americana — that some people find themselves looking on the bright side of things generally. Even in a year like this.
Well, when a Daytonian wants to look on the bright side of things in Dayton specifically, baseball itself turns out to be there. The community basks in an abundant presence of the national pastime. In a period when much about the community gets lambasted often, this fact is worth relishing.
There is, first, a major league team just down the road. That is not to be taken for granted. The possibility of the Reds leaving has been real at various stages. After all, cities are not cities anymore; they are “markets.” And Cincinnati is considered a small market, as major league cities go.
One impact of that seems to be that the Reds have difficulty putting together a dynasty, lacking the resources of, say, a certain city on the East Coast. But the fact that the Reds struggle for a winning season in a small market has an upside: tickets aren’t that hard to get.
Make a last-minute decision to take in a game, and you might actually be able to do it. It’s not cheap, of course, and the trip can get old. But that’s where the Dayton Dragons come in. Their existence, too, is not to be taken for granted, as anybody who lived here before this decade can tell you.
Dragon seats are not so easily available, but if you can get one, it doesn’t cost an arm and leg. You see the same game, played not so well as in Cincinnati — all joking aside — but just about as watchable. The park is lovely. The trip is easy. You get some non-baseball entertainment, and you get to watch very young men who can’t believe they get to play in such a cool park.
That the Dragons are a farm team of the Reds is the mustard on the hot dog, adding interest to watching both teams. This, too, is not to be taken for granted.
A baseball might do well to think of the whole situation this way: at least you’re not a hockey fan.
Dayton has had a heck of a time supporting minor league teams in various sports, so much so that many locals scoffed at the idea that baseball would work. Now hockey is leaving, at least for a year, unable to attract any substantial following to games.
But baseball is a different world, and Dayton is as much a part of that world as any city its size.
In recent weeks this community has been celebrated for its passion for and hospitality to basketball. That characteristic is not to be denied. But the successful professional franchise is in baseball.
Minor league baseball has not yet brought the kind of economic revival — even for a portion of downtown — that some had hoped for. But it could still act as a catalyst. Nor have baseball and other downtown improvements been enough even to stave off population decline for the city.
But to get a handle on just how much baseball has meant to the community, try to imagine how people would feel if it were to disappear.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Sports and Recreation
TweetEditorial: New auto move most important for Dayton area
The number of government initiatives to help the auto industry keeps growing.
The biggest and first effort — the “bailout” of General Motors and Chrysler — is a loan. Some people don’t take the distinction between a gift and loan seriously; but the federal government actually made money on its bailout of Chrysler decades ago. The feds are first in line for GM and Chrysler money, should any materialize.
But the government help is going way beyond loans.
The Obama administration is now proposing to back auto company warranties if the companies are in bankruptcy. That’s a huge gesture, because everybody has been assuming that nobody would buy the cars of a company in bankruptcy.
And people who buy new cars now can write off state and local taxes.
And the White House and some in Congress want to give people either cash or vouchers worth between $2,500 and $5,000 to turn in old gas guzzlers for new, more fuel-efficient cars. It’s an idea that has been tried in Europe and deemed successful by some.
The government has also set up an auto task force whose job is to help the industry get through this crisis. The task force has been delving into the issue surrounding Delphi, the bankrupt auto parts maker that has been so tied to Dayton. Task force members are meeting with GM and Delphi officials and with Delphi’s lenders and creditors to see if GM’s bailout money raises the prospects for Delphi getting out of bankruptcy.
Also not to be forgotten when government efforts that help the auto industry are toted up is that interest rates have been lowered through the floor.
The stakes in all this are high for Ohio, which still has 10,000 people working for GM and Chrysler. Indeed, the stakes are high even for people who no longer work in auto industry. When Delphi moved to stop paying health care and insurance benefits for salaried pensioners, that had to make a lot of people nervous about GM pensions. (The judge has now approved a settlement in the Delphi issue.)
All these efforts, however, may be less important to Dayton than the latest one: the administration has named a director of the effort to help auto-towns recover from hits they have already taken.
Deputy Secretary of Labor Edward Montgomery says he will focus his work on helping displaced workers get retraining, extended health care and extended income support.
“My job,” he said, “is to cut the red tape,” referring to the possibility of federal stimulus money and other help coming from Washington.
He might have to get more creative than that. The federal government has been committed since the Clinton years to the idea that people who lose their jobs to foreign competition need to be retrained. But reviews of federal efforts to do the training and get people situated have been generally bad, notwithstanding some successes.
Realism requires understanding that most of the jobs that have been lost are not coming back; that communities — as well as individuals — have been hurt through no fault of their own; and that the transition to a new era is not going well for them.
Ohio’s and Dayton’s community leaders need to get to know Mr. Montgomery very fast.
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TweetEditorial: Strickland right to hold voucher schools accountable
A big story has gone largely unnoticed in the debate about Gov. Ted Strickland’s ambitious school reform plan.
That story is the EdChoice voucher program, which is growing fast. The program helps students from public schools that consistently rank poorly on the state’s report cards.
They get tax money in the form of a voucher to attend a private school.
Three years after Ohio expanded vouchers statewide from a pilot program for 2,500 students just in Cleveland, nearly 10,000 kids have signed on. Students at qualifying low-performing public schools are eligible for up to $5,300 for tuition at a private high school and $4,500 for elementary school. About 1,400 Dayton kids use vouchers.
The program already is the nation’s biggest statewide voucher system. It’s on track to soon hit its 14,000-student limit, at which point it will rival Milwaukee, with 17,000 voucher students. That city has the largest voucher program of any kind.
As Ohio’s program grows, so does the need for accountability. Right now, schools accepting vouchers must administer state achievement tests to their voucher students.
But the state does not collect the results in a way that allows for easy comparison of students’ performance. Even if that data were available, it would be hard to use to evaluate individual schools, since many of them have only a small number of voucher students.
Gov. Strickland is not a fan of vouchers, preferring to spend Ohio’s education money on public schools. In his education plan, he proposes to expand accountability by requiring all schools accepting voucher students to administer state tests to all of their students.
The resulting scores would be used by the state to gauge whether it is getting its money’s worth at those schools, and by parents to compare school quality. The state is picking up the tab for the added tests.
Even so, voucher proponents are worried. Testing all students can be arduous, and supporters fear some schools with only a few voucher kids will decide instead to just withdraw from the program, denying those students the option of attending a better school.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a sponsor of charter schools in Dayton and a backer of vouchers, convened a panel of education experts who favor school choice and issued a report on how states should manage voucher programs.
With regard to testing, Fordham suggests a “sliding scale,” whereby a sample of students at each voucher school are given state tests based on how many voucher kids attend the school. The idea is to lighten the testing load, while still collecting data.
Fordham deserves credit for its long-running commitment to promoting quality in alternative schools that get state money. But in this instance, Gov. Strickland’s plan makes more sense.
While more testing can be a headache for private schools, it’s not an unreasonable burden, especially with the state paying the tab. State officials should have conversations with the schools to devise processes that ease the testing workload and encourage the schools to stick with the program.
The governor’s plan simply results in better information. Complete test results are much easier to compare school-to-school and can help the state and parents make better judgments.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
TweetEditorial: A smart ad campaign could save lives — just be careful where you watch
There’s been a worldwide push to rip cell phones from the hands of drivers — in the name of public safety.
But a new study, one that also raises alarms about the dangers of driver inattention generally, challenges the notion that cell phones are the biggest problem.
Laws in 50 countries and at least parts of 24 states now impose some limit on cell-phone use by drivers.
Some only permit the use of hands-free phones in vehicles; others limit younger drivers from using cell phones; some ban texting. Ohio has no state law on this.
A recent news story looked at findings by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, which outfitted 100 cars with an array of cameras and sensors to examine driver behavior for a full year. Its work has been described as the most realistic study of its kind.
Not shockingly, researchers did find that cell phones are a distraction that increased the risk of traffic crashes. And yet, also very risky were other tasks drivers routinely perform — reaching for a moving object, reading, eating, applying makeup or even just talking to others or trying to swat a bug.
Far worse than cell-phone use and most other distractions was drowsiness.
The bottom line from the study was this: Take your eyes off the road for more than two seconds for any reason and the likelihood of a crash spikes.
For lawmakers, one lesson is that a war on cell phones alone is misguided. While cell-phone distraction is an undeniable problem, so are less sexy driver tasks that are just as common. It’s easy to write laws banning cell phones. How do you prohibit drowsiness? Are car stereos left alone just because no one would stand for them being outlawed?
Fortunately, more scrutiny of driver distraction is in the works, and it should bring better answers about how to attack it. A big, national study will equip 2,500 cars in a similar fashion to the 100-car Virginia Tech effort.
The better the facts get, the more likely it is that researchers will pinpoint specific behaviors that are most correlated with accidents. In time, legislatures will be better informed about what sorts of bans and enforcement strategies are the most effective.
Still, there is no reason to wait to address an obvious problem. One of the most effective efforts that has helped curb another roadway menace — drunken driving — was a sustained education campaign about the dangers of drinking and driving.
Smart slogans like “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” clicked for many people. Local, state and federal highway safety agencies need new campaigns telling people what they should already know.
Many drivers still need to hear with frequency and in a compelling way that they’re really not competent at driving and dialing or unwrapping fast-food sandwiches.
Let’s get a few ad agencies working on life-saving awareness efforts and more researchers creating data that can guide effective laws.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Scott Elliott, Transportation
TweetEditorial: Husted right on downsizing job he wants
Jon Husted is seeking office, but — you might say — not power.
The state senator from Kettering has announced his candidacy for secretary of state in 2010.
Whoever runs against him faces a challenge that might be unique.
The secretary of state has two main jobs. One, she — currently Democrat Jennifer Brunner — is the top elections official.
County election boards actually administer elections, but Secretary Brunner breaks ties on those boards, and she makes certain election-related decisions that then are applied statewide.
Two, she sits on the commission that draws state legislative districts every 10 years. Other than that, the secretary of state’s job has a lot to do with “business filings.” Now comes Sen. Husted proposing to do away with Jobs 1 and 2.
He points out that there’s nothing inevitable or necessary about having elections run by somebody who might be a candidate and who is backed by one political party. Some states do things differently.
He proposes giving the secretary of state’s election-related responsibilities to a nonpartisan commission. And the same with redistricting, though that work would done by a different commission.
Sen. Husted has a good point on both causes, especially redistricting. Currently, one party can dominate the process, and computers make it too easy for that party to slice and dice groups of voters to its advantage.
Sen. Husted’s proposals typify him in one regard: He doesn’t just sit there; he tries hard to get things done.
As speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives in the last two years of Bob Taft’s governorship, he helped the beleaguered Mr. Taft claim concrete accomplishments, or at least major policy changes. Then, in the first two Ted Strickland years, he helped establish a bipartisan atmosphere that, again, resulted in good work.
Sometimes he’s wrong. On this week’s vote on the transportation budget, he didn’t like the fact that the budget leaves future funding decisions about possible passenger train service in Ohio up to the state controlling board, an odd sort of commission outside the Legislature. He sees train funding as a legislative responsibility.
He says that, during the economic crisis, Congress has given up too much money with too little oversight, with results such as the AIG bonus outrage. He doesn’t want the state Legislature to copy the national legislature.
When the Democrats first proposed the controlling-board option, they were accused of trying an end-run around the Republican state senate; the controlling board has a Democratic majority. Some Democrats responded that they just wanted to signal to Washington that Ohio is eager to get the train project going, so Washington wouldn’t send its money elsewhere.
A compromise was worked out whereby the controlling board needs a super-majority — involving both parties — to pass money for the project. That was enough for most Republicans. Only two senators dissented.
It was the kind of compromise that’s needed to keep things going when state power is divided between the parties, when things are moving quickly in Washington and when people want action.
Actually, it was the kind of compromise that one might normally expect the pragmatic Sen. Husted to support. But he is now seeking the nomination of a party whose activists are angry about government spending.
Others voters might be more interested in his role when he’s not just one vote in a lopsided roll call, but is the one making things happen. On that, with regard to the secretary of state job, he’s putting together an undeniably relevant record.
Perhaps his proposals have the added value to him of directing attention away from the flap that now has Secretary Brunner deciding whether Sen. Husted is really a resident of his district.
Democrats are already claiming that Sen. Husted has been a partisan in past election-administration controversies involving two secretaries of state. There’s something to that. But all references to those endless, enervating fights are reminders of the need to minimize them in the future.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Region should root for Tech Town
At a time when a lot of commercial projects have stopped or never got off the ground, construction for the first building at Dayton’s Tech Town is going full tilt.
By the end of June, workers should be moving in to the city’s campus-like office complex on the site of the old General Motors Harrison Radiator plant.
There are more than a couple reasons to pay attention to the development at First Street and Monument Avenue:
• This is Dayton’s attempt to compete with suburban office parks, while capitalizing on the advantages and cards a downtown has to play.
• This also is Dayton’s Austin Pike project, though on a smaller scale. At Austin Pike, Montgomery County is aggressively trying to make sure that businesses that are popping up like crocuses on the I-75 corridor between Dayton and Cincinnati have a place to put down roots in Montgomery County, not just Warren and Butler counties.
• The 30-acre site — if it fully comes together over the next decade — will be an example of the benefits of redeveloping brownfields, which, once you get past the expensive environmental cleanups, typically have exceptional ties to existing roads, interstates, sewer and water lines.
• Finally, Tech Town is Dayton’s most tangible gamble — and commitment — to try to attract high-tech companies that can move the city and the region beyond their industrial past.
Tech Town’s blueprints — with their balconies, high-speed broadband and green roofs — are a striking statement of what’s ahead. That physical presence couldn’t be more different from the hulking manufacturing plants that used to dominate the block.
Where workers once made refrigerators and automobile components, the next generation of people will be researching remote sensors to detect explosives in the air and bio-agents in food or drinking water.
Dayton and downtown are often dismissed as having had their heyday, even having outlived their usefulness. That judgment overlooks the reality that not all companies — not all workers — prefer the suburbs, especially when getting around the region is so quick and easy.
Tech Town is just 10 minutes from Area B at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which is seeing an influx of new business and contractors. Some of the young high-tech workers that the Air Force’s business partners need to attract will have gone to school in urban settings and want to work in an urban environment.
The evidence is not just anecdotal that many young professionals are partial to cities, that they like the idea of walking to a bar after work as opposed to jumping in cars and hitting the freeway.
The point is not that one environment is bad and the other is good; the point is that the region needs an attractive downtown with the sort of commercial space that gives companies choices.
Tech Town, which initially was conceived as Tool Town (back when the tool and die industry was doing better), represents a huge public investment. While there’s space for up to 14 buildings, the first one has been built almost totally with money from Dayton and state and federal grants or loans.
CityWide Development Corp. owns the building and has secured the leases for the first building. The hope, though, is that, going forward, businesses will finance and build the majority of the structures that would fill out the campus.
The wholly reasonable question is: If Dayton builds this sort of office park, will they come?
It’s a fair question, one that’s ultimately unknowable. But if this sort of office space isn’t stoked by public investment — to help create critical mass, to make sure a cleanup that had to be done anyway is completed — then downtown has one less offering.
Tech Town has a great anchor tenant for its first building in IDCAST, a research group being led by the University of Dayton. It won a $28 million from the state’s Third Frontier program for research in sensors. (The Third Frontier money is supposed to seed university research that can be commercialized by the private sector.)
IDCAST, which Dayton and CityWide desperately wanted to bring to Tech Town, is a plum tenant that can be a magnet for other firms with high-technology bents. As payback for its decision and because it signed up first for the property, IDCAST is getting below-market rent.
Meanwhile, the Dayton RFID Incubator — which works with entrepreneurs trying to cash in on radio frequency identification research and products — is also in the building; and the Entrepreneur Center, where start-ups get subsidized rent and administrative services, is across the street.
Tech Town isn’t going to turn downtown around in a night and a day. But it’s an investment — and an important statement — by Dayton showing that it understands that the business world has changed and that the city is ready to meet the needs of companies of the future.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Auto industry, City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Local History, Montgomery County
TweetEllen Belcher: Hospitals playing with babies’ lives
Is anybody going to stand up to Kettering Medical Center and say the region needs a second high-risk obstetrics unit and a third nursery for extremely sick babies about as much as it needs another drug store?
Nationally and locally hospitals interminably complain about how little they’re reimbursed by insurance companies, the government and uninsured patients who can’t pay $10 for a Tylenol. Then they buy and build like maniacs — and complain some more.
They do this even as they also try to run each other into the ground.
Take the fight that’s quietly, but heatedly, playing out between Children’s Medical Center, Miami Valley Hospital and Kettering. If you’re pregnant or planning to become pregnant, or even if you’re just sick of high health insurance premiums, these hospital boards’ decisions affect you.
Especially if you care about having a healthy children’s hospital in Dayton, read on.
Miami Valley Hospital has the region’s only high-risk maternity center, which requires that it also have an intensive care unit for newborns. Just a few minutes away — by helicopter or ambulance — Children’s Medical Center also has an intensive care nursery. But, of course, moms don’t deliver there.
Usually, but not always, doctors know in advance if they’re dealing with a problem pregnancy. In that case, the mother is directed to deliver at Miami Valley (which seriously cuts into Kettering’s maternity business). Preemies and sick babies born at the Valley are whisked to its intensive care nursery, where about 850 infants are cared for each year.
In Kettering’s defense, this reality represents a lot of business that Kettering is shut out from and would like to compete for.
In a situation when a baby is born with unexpected complications, a gentleman’s agreement among the hospitals usually results in the infant being transported to Children’s neonatology unit, not Miami Valley’s. The upsetting part about this arrangement is that mom and her baby are separated, usually for a few days.
Kettering officials say that their network of hospitals had about 4,500 births last year, with only 10 or so newborns needing to be transported to Children’s. The number is double or so if you count complicated births at Kettering’s affiliated hospitals. These transports, though, are not what Kettering is upset about losing.
Rather, it’s those hundreds of mothers that the Valley gets because it’s the only high-risk game in town.
If Kettering goes forward with creating a high-risk unit, three rather than two places in a relatively small medical market will be fighting to care for babies that require expensive and hard-to-recruit doctors. (Part of Dayton’s recruiting problem is that it doesn’t have a research hospital, which is where many specialists prefer to work.)
Equally concerning is that splitting up the market means that none of the nurseries will have a lot of babies on any given day. Specialists don’t train for a decade-plus to wait for emergencies.
As one doctor put it, caring for a preemie is like creating a symphony. Each person on the team has to be “playing” his complicated part expertly, or the baby suffers. The lower the volume of procedures that are done, the less expert the individuals are.
Last, there’s this community-wide consideration: Children’s is struggling. Even more than the adult hospitals, Children’s gets much of its funding from Medicaid, the government insurance program for the needy. That reimbursement is markedly less than what commercial insurers pay.
As the state and federal governments have tried to insure more children by increasing how much parents can earn and still qualify for Medicaid coverage for their kids, some families are opting for Medicaid over private insurance; generally it’s free or cheaper for them. But the unintended consequence of a good intention is that children’s hospitals are taking a financial hit.
Kettering Health Network and Premier Health Partners (Miami Valley’s parent) have been fighting fiercely for local market share for years now. But historically they’ve agreed not to pick off business from Children’s, granting that there are major benefits to the community to having an institution dedicated only to sick kids.
But when the hospitals fight over pregnant moms, their decisions have profound consequences for an institution they’ve said they want to protect. About a third of Children’s business — as measured in hospital days — is related to its neonatology unit.
Adult hospitals in other communities — Cincinnati and Columbus, for instance — have cut deals with the city’s children’s hospital or neonatologists to staff and/or operate their newborn intensive care units. The goal is to have a system that serves moms and babies, while also creating an environment where specialists are excellent at what they do.
But that requires everybody to forego some money and to cooperate.
Let Dayton’s adult hospitals fight all they want about who has the flashier lobby. But when they start compromising babies’ care to improve their bottom lines, they must be stopped.
Permalink | Comments (67) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Ellen Belcher, Local Business
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Obama looking surprisingly good in New York
The political news from New York surprises me.
The news is that an off-year congressional race — in the upstate district that was left vacant when a representative was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat — was, for analytical purpose, a tie. Outcome still unknown a day afterward.
Often, the first off-year elections after a presidential election go badly for the president’s party. A new president starts off in Washington like gangbusters, which gives pause to some swing voters. They set out to trim sails.
I expected that phenomenon to work against the Democrats this year, especially, because the Republicans are SO intense and so united in opposition to Obama. Typically, swing voters want a president not to be hated by the other party.
I expect the Democrats to hit a wall in 2010. But, in truth, typically when something like that happens, the seeds are visible in the off-year elections the year before.
Here, however, we have a district generally judged to lean Republican. Although it went for Obama in ‘08, it went big for Bush in ‘04 and ‘00 (by 8 and 7 percentage points). The former Democratic representative was peculiarly conservative as northern Democrats go, out of respect for her district’s politics.
By all rights, this should have been a clear Republican win. And the Republicans knew it. They threw everything they had into the race, raising money frantically. The new chairman of the party knew he had to win it, given his other problems. Republicans spent more and got more help from interest groups.
In the end, the Republicans did manage to find a piece of good news: an opportunity to raise money. The sent out an e-mail Wednesday to potential contributors labeled “Don’t Let ‘em Pull a Franken.” It said, “Don’t let the Democrats steal this election… Democrats have almost succeeded in stealing the election in Minnesota…. We need your support….”
The charge about Minnesota is nonsense, of course. Each party is doing what the other would do in the same circumstances. The Republicans are doing what they hated the Democrats for in Florida in 2000: trying every legal avenue that might produce a change in the vote totals that keep favoring the other side.
The tone of the financial pitch strikes me as just the kind of hyper-partisan hatefulness that isn’t doing the party any good so far, no matter how much money it raises.
(Some people will respond that this post is just the work of an Obama apologist doing some spinning for Obama. Fine. It so happens, however, that I was ready to write that the New York outcome showed trouble brewing for the Democrats. I do that sort of thing all the time; no problem whatsoever; couldn’t care less which party doesn’t like it. But what happened happened.)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, National Politics
TweetHusted makes decision
A press release about the 2010 election came in from Columbus today (April 1) saying “State Senator Jon Husted (R-Kettering) will make a campaign announcement tomorrow at the Ohio Republican Party.”
What? Not in Kettering?
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