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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 > June > 05 > Entry
Guest column: NCR’s exodus should be impetus to revamp tax structure, government
Bill Pote, an information technology consultant who lives in downtown Dayton, is involved with DaytonCREATE and the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan. This piece was adapted from his blog, DaytonMostMetro.com.
We’d like to thank NCR for the 125 years they’ve been a part of Dayton. We appreciate the support you’ve shown to our arts and cultural groups and other nonprofits. We will always cherish the rich history that your company has had with us, going back to the days of John Patterson.
NCR’s departure comes as no surprise to those of us who have been trying to work with the company over the past several months to no avail. We regret their decision to unceremoniously abandon Dayton.
But, starting this minute, we look forward to new opportunities with emerging and growing businesses and remain committed to all of those companies that actually wish to stay and grow in the Dayton region.
We will not dwell on what has been lost. But we will take advantage of this opportunity to make bold changes that will transform our city and region.
Dayton’s past represents the era of a few mega-corporations that the community relied on in every facet of life. But Dayton’s future represents a new environment created to attract and nurture thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that are able to innovate, grow and retain top talent. This new reality will require a completely new way of operating at the local, regional and state levels. We are dedicated to making the hard decisions that will get us to where we need to be.
These words weren’t spoken this week. But they are what the region’s leaders should have been saying when we learned that NCR Corp. was moving to Georgia. NCR’s departure has struck a nerve at the highest levels in state and local governments. Let’s capitalize on that attention. Let’s focus on doing hard work.
Transforming the tax structure. We must completely overhaul our antiquated tax structure that may have made sense decades ago, but is now the single largest force that prevents our region from working together.
The system forces cities to rely on the income tax, counties to rely on the sales tax and townships to rely on the property tax. Added to a political climate that pits rural and suburban communities against cities, it is no wonder our region is so divided. Change must happen at the state level in order to implement a more equitable tax structure that encourages communities to work together rather than compete.
Simplify, consolidate and cut. We must consolidate similar organizations, cut every duplicate administrative role and streamline our organizations. We have to free up more resources to invest in our communities and businesses. It is never easy to kill positions, but businesses do it every day in order to survive. We must do it if we are to survive as a region.
Change the culture. We must finally transform ourselves away from a series of individual counties and communities competing with one another and into a single region that values the unique identities of individual communities, but that works closely together to ensure that every investment and development decision is made to maximize benefits for the entire region.
Only when the diversity of choices our region offers — to residents and businesses — is considered an asset rather than an “us vs. them” argument will we become a unified region. And only when we become a unified region will we become attractive to outside business and investment.
Strengthen the core. The entire region is seeing the effects of having a weak urban core. Businesses are attracted to regions with strong central cities. While others debate whether the city’s leadership has done its job, those we elect in the future must be able to inspire confidence and speak not just for the city, but for the region — even if they do not have any official regional power outside of the city’s borders.
City government must do a much better job of attracting residents and businesses to the core. At the same time, our suburbs must get over their irrational attitudes and biases against the city and understand, once and for all, that we’re in this together.
Do we have the will to make Dayton a different, yet stronger, city and region? Or are we paralyzed by the enormous challenges we face as Dayton sinks further into irrelevance and becomes an exurb to Cincinnati?
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Bill Pote, City of Dayton
Comments
By bruce wilkes
June 5, 2009 6:39 PM | Link to this
The citizens of this region should demand an independent forensic accounting firm that keeps track of every dollar our local government spends or plans on spending. They report directly to the citizens of this area every day on any form of misuse or wasteful spending. As soon as the stimulus money flows into our region our corrupt governments will waste or siphon off everything cent they think they can get away with. Public accountability of our government in a manner that is ruthless and draconian will be the only manner in which we the taxpayer will be treated correctly.By Davidss2
June 6, 2009 7:44 AM | Link to this
Quote: Weak urban core. Hmmmm. Surprise. The city government which panders to their black voters hurts us, the region, even more. Surprise.————-It’s really too bad the other candidate didn’t win in the Mayorial race. It’s reall too bad the more experienced and capable assistant city manager didn’t get appointed to be the latest City Manager.————The DDN should do more to point out how the filling jobs with less capable folks hurts the region. McLin hurt the region when he was playing politics and kickbacks in state government; now we get more of the same old, same old. —————Notice how quickly McLin was with a statement to show that she had tried to ‘visit’ the latests NCR chief? For what? To show him her new hat? Or her latest asymmetric glasses? Gimme a break.————-I was listening to Atlanta radio after the news broke here. They talked about a higher number, more qualified people as workers. They also had larger numbers of jobs total involved in this move than reported here. Maybe the locals are trying to make it sound less drastic than it is just as they try to minimize damage for their political choices in last year’s campaigns to help get them elected. Small town anyone? ————Strengthen the core? Only when the whole region can vote on the city government to which they have given huge earnings taxes while jobs were in Dayton without a voice.——————- Accountability——-the chickens are coming home to roost. Maybe the people governing Dayton will understand that quote.By Bill Pote
June 6, 2009 9:49 AM | Link to this
There is WAY too much focus on the mayor, considering that the Dayton mayor role is little more than a part-time figurehead position with no executive power, and whose vote is simply one of five on the city commission. Say what you will about McLin’s fashion sense, less-than-commanding presence and public speaking ability, but I give her MUCH credit for doing a job that pays very little, gives her very little power to do much and exposes her to much more criticism and ridicule than any one person deserves. IMO the system is to blame, as it allows for too many chiefs with no central leader. Added to a bad regional system, it is no wonder Dayton and the region are struggling. We have very talented individuals that can only be so effective in a broken system. Unfortunately it is easier to criticize and destroy individuals than it is to change the system.By Davidss2
June 6, 2009 1:51 PM | Link to this
The focus on the mayor is because she sets the tone for her following group who vote for her, as well as others, despite their lack of ability and future.————-Unfortunately I see the idea of “region” mentioned again. Perhaps you weren’t here when DAyton’s idea of regionalism was to annex anything with a tentacle of land that could provide property and earnings tax for them. Dayton had no concept of regionalism when they had all the earnings tax from workers at the Delphi and GM plants and others. Did they share that income; I didn’t notice it at the time. —————The region has attempted to survive despite Dayton’s taking it down.————As for criticizing people, if they can’t take the heat they should get out of the kitchen. It’s nice to cook when you’re taking in money from earnings tax from workers living in the surrounding communities; it’s not easy when you have to actually work at it. But that’s not easy when you’ve curried favor with the welfare and victim mentality of your voter group. That takes money to feed each year.————Dayton government needs a total makeover.By Bill Pote
June 7, 2009 10:55 AM | Link to this
@Davidss2 - no, I wasn’t here to witness Dayton’s annex efforts as you describe them as I moved to Ohio in 2001. A couple of points to that though - one, one major reason Columbus is the only major city in Ohio that is showing significant economic growth is its success in annexing surround communities, thereby creating the largest city in the state and enjoying the economic benefits and cache that come with being the 15th largest U.S. city. Two - can you really hold a grudge against a city whose past leaders may have made big mistakes like alienating the rest of the region, when the current leaders had nothing to do with it? If the city needs new leadership in order for the city to improve, don’t you think potential candidates will think twice about getting involved if they think they will have to pay for sins of the past leadership? It makes no sense to continue a grudge against the city for what happened in the past - it is the same as cutting off your nose to spite your face. I happen to think that we do need fresh leaders with fresh ideas in the City of Dayton. But as a region we must look toward the future and understand now more than ever the need to act as ONE region, with Dayton being the central hub whose success MUST be in the interests to the entire region. If that requires new city leadership, then the region should be more involved with efforts to identify new leaders and help them get elected, no matter if the region-at-large cannot vote in city elections. Bottom line - the future leaders of Dayton must have the support of and be able to speak for the entire region, and not just the city-proper. It is no longer an us-vs-them argument, because the region’s future depends on the central city’s health. NCR’s exit should be proof of that.By DAvidss2
June 7, 2009 6:31 PM | Link to this
What surrounding cities has Columbus annexed? Dublin? Whitehall? I believe they have always been the golden child along with Cleveland for the State of Ohio. Can you show me?By Bill Pote
June 7, 2009 7:34 PM | Link to this
Since the argument is probably irrelevant to Dayton’s situation at hand I won’t do your research for you, though the following does a good job describing what Columbus did: http://tinyurl.com/nstxcw (note: Columbus is not an example of regional government) Don’t mistake the idea of regionalism or regional unity as meaning that everything becomes Dayton, or affluent suburbs start having to pay more taxes to pay for the city’s social services - we all know that won’t happen. Believe it or not, I’d bet that the city would be one of the most vocal AGAINST regional government as its politicians would stand to lose power in such a situation. We can do more in terms of regional cooperation without threatening the autonomy of individual municipalities, such as regional land use policy that slows or stops urban sprawl (which both city and rural leaders would like to see). We can consolidate economic development groups so that we can speak to businesses with one voice as opposed to several competing voices. And we can eliminate the ability for different communities in the region to poach businesses from one another with tax incentives that are not at all in the region’s best interest.By Bob540
June 8, 2009 1:30 PM | Link to this
Mr. Pote: As a person who very much wants to see a resurgence of my once-proud hometown, I think we need more people like you expressing ideas and offering solutions. We obviously have TOO MANY naysayers and cynics, and playing the blame game accomplishes nothing. I’m glad you wrote this piece; know that there are many Daytonians (suburbs and all) who want to help, if they only knew what to do.