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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
June 2009
How about this NCR “For Sale” ad?
We have a winner! Earlier this month, we asked readers to write the “for sale” ad for NCR’s corporate headquarters. Two dozen of you took us up.
We liked Lorraine Russell’s submission best.
She wrote:
“First time offered! Surrounded by history. Skeletons in closet. Available with 1200 dedicated souls and countless ghosts. Owner offering pre-sale exorcism. Neighbors seek messiah or Indian chief w/experience preserving hallowed ground. Assistance provided in praying for new beginning. Don’t wait. Call your representative today for packaged deals!”
Lorraine, of Beavercreek, wins the original of this Mike Peters cartoon. She is a former employee of NCR who left the company in January.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Ellen Belcher, Local Business, Local History
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Righter-than-right forces tug at local Republicans
If you were to judge by the headlines in Butler and Warren counties in this no-big-elections year, you might get the sense the real action in politics these days is on the political right.
The hard right. The righter-than-right right.
If, on the other hand, you have followed the national media all year, you know there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about whether the conservative movement has lost appeal beyond the Republican base and whether the party must move toward the center.
When some political people talk about the party’s base, they use the phrase “Southern, white males.” They’re exaggerating for effect, of course. Still, they might add the exurban Northerners, the people who live beyond the suburbs that surround a big city. John McCain beat Barack Obama by well over 2-1 in Warren County and by about 5-3 in Butler.
Person for person, the Republicans might not be any more conservative than anyplace else. But there are so few Democrats that conservative Republican incumbents worry more about challenges from more conservative Republicans than from Democrats.
The highest-profile political figure in Butler County, Sheriff Richard Jones, has considered a run for Congress. He took out papers for 2010, but eventually decided against running.
Now the highest-profile political figure in Warren County, Commissioner Michael Kilburn, is reported to be considering a run.
The adjacent counties are in different districts. Sheriff Jones would have been running against fellow Republican John Boehner, the incumbent, of West Chester. That’s the 8th District, which goes up the Indiana border from Butler, curls over Montgomery County and dips back down into Huber Heights and east Dayton.
Kilburn would be running against fellow Republican Jean Schmidt, another incumbent, of Loveland, outside Cincinnati. Her 2nd District mainly sprawls eastward from Cincinnati but also reaches up into Lebanon.
Both Kilburn and Jones have become visible by pushing — or pulling from the right — on national issues, despite holding county office.
For the sheriff, the issue has been illegal immigration, which he rails — and acts — against, winning favor from right-wing media outlets.
His activism predates this year. However, the talk of a congressional run surfaced this year, as conservative anger mounted about the general Obama direction.
For Kilburn, the big issue is federal spending. He got national attention for saying he’d let his county go broke before taking Obama’s “filthy” stimulus money.
Says fellow Warren County commissioner, Pat South, a Republican, about Kilburn, “I’m glad to see he is considering a run for Congress, where he can work to be part of the solution, rather than continuing to tear our commission meetings apart with his tirades.” Quite an endorsement.
Both of Kilburn’s fellow Republican commissioners show some pragmatic moderation. They agreed with him in rejecting one pot of stimulus money, but are accepting others.
Says Commissioner Dave Young, “I hate it. We wanted to give it back, but they won’t let us… If I turn the money aside, and it goes to Ashtabula County or whatever, I and 207,000 Warren County residents are still paying for it.”
Undoubtedly, though, Kilburn has received much positive feedback about his uncompromising position. The anti-stimulus, anti-Obama people include a passionate hard core that is all about being heard.
These high-profile uprisings are some sort of sign of the polarized times. After all, Boehner and Schmidt are seriously conservative. Move any farther to the right and you’re on talk radio.
Yet both have strayed from ideological purity. They voted for President George W. Bush’s $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry.
Boehner has never been seriously challenged by a Democrat. Schmidt, widely seen as a weak candidate, has been, but seems to have survived her roughest years.
She has many Republican critics, but few are likely to see Kilburn as a stronger candidate, given that some voters who are open to his views might not like the “filthy” talk.
One might argue that the Jones and Kilburn stories should not be taken seriously. In the end, both “candidacies” might prove to have been fleeting and weak. Still, for the moment, the report from southwestern Ohio is that the Republican move to the center is invisible.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics
TweetEditorial: Strickland, Republicans play chicken
If an important principle were behind the bitter stalemate between Gov. Ted Strickland and Senate Republicans, maybe they could be forgiven for their inability to pass a budget.
But the disagreement about whether to allow electronic slot machines at Ohio’s seven horse racing tracks does not come down to principle.
The governor doesn’t really want to expand gambling even though he’s caved and is proposing allowing it. Senate President Bill Harris and most of his Republican caucus are against the idea, too.
In their hearts of hearts, the governor and President Harris agree with each other.
What the dispute really comes down to is a political calculation. Gov. Strickland doesn’t want to be alone in authorizing more gambling or to be the first to propose yet another $1 billion in cuts or tax hikes.
He’s saying to Sen. Harris: If you don’t want to get the money through gambling, then tell me what you want to do.
If there’s going to be more gambling, Sen. Harris does want that to be all the governor’s fault. And he’s not going to go first to call for tax hikes or bigger cuts.
Both sides are playing a transparent game of political chicken.
Moreover, even if the Senate were to go along with the governor’s brainstorm that slots can be adopted legally so long as they’re under the Lottery Commission, those who disagree are going to sue. They will argue that this move requires changing the constitution and a vote of the people.
The investors who would have to put up the money for their slot licenses and the hundreds and hundreds of machines that are being proposed will — if they’re smart — think twice about doing that until the last word has been heard in court.
That means it could take months before this argument is settled. For the governor to be counting on so much money from such a disputed idea is wishful thinking.
So how about we get on with making the hard decisions?
Gov. Strickland and Sen. Harris are both good men. One a minister, the other a Marine, they know about honor and duty. When their better angels are guiding them, they are precisely the kind of people you want making hard decisions.
Ohio is facing the most difficult situation it has faced in decades. Income tax revenues and sales tax revenues have fallen precipitously below projections, and there is no hope in sight, if only because the states’ economic fortunes always lag the national economy.
Not only is Ohio not out of the woods, we may not be into the darkest parts yet.
Turning race tracks into casinos is not the way out, and taking that tack — because decisions would be made so hurriedly — could put the state at a horrible disadvantage. The gambling industry can be counted on to exploit every unanticipated problem or loophole that works to its advantage.
Ohio has options: suspending the last installment of its 21-percent income tax cut; raising the cigarette tax; imposing a soft drink tax; increasing the sales tax temporarily; upping the commercial activity tax on business; eliminating tax exemptions; imposing more cuts.
Gov. Strickland and Sen. Harris are the two people who have to come together for Ohio. They have to stop posturing.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Ohio government, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Why those sex scandals seem to skip Ohio
The nation is enjoying some sex scandals. Every place you turn, another politician is in trouble for doing something he ultimately describes as letting down his family, his staff, his supporters and his state.
The late-night talk show hosts rejoice. The news media get to lighten up for a while. The latest embarrassments have been to Republican politicians, but the long-term trend is decidedly bipartisan.
The phenomenon of the sexually misbehaving politician occurs in the far west and the northeast, the southeast and the Mississippi Delta.
One entity is skipped: Ohio.
When Ohio has a scandal, it’s about lobbyists and booze and money and other such pedestrian stuff. Nobody ever has sex. When they shouldn’t, anyway. Or gets caught, anyway.
Why? Are we not a fairly typical place?
Not in politics. In that, we’re a little on the weird side.
Specifically, for the last several decades, Ohio politics has been dominated by people whom you can’t even imagine having an affair, at least if you know them.
John Glenn? Who met his beloved Annie in school, protected her through her shy youth and obviously delighted in her later in life?
Ted Strickland, the minister and psychologist and politician, and one of the most earnest men in the history of men?
George Voinovich? Out of the question.
Mike DeWine? Bob Taft? No and no.
These guys exude choir boy. Not that they’re preachy about it. They’re not.
Their commitment to family and to “traditional values,” including a pretty strong fix on the difference between right and wrong (that weakens in campaigns), doesn’t get expressed in fire-and-brimstone sermons from political mounts. It gets expressed in private lives led privately, despite public careers. It gets expressed without being expressed.
You couldn’t write a novel about politics that featured these guys. Nobody would believe it. That’s how far they are from the stereotype that is nurtured by the governor of New York who took the train to his trysts, the governor of South Carolina who went to Argentina to do it, the senator from Nevada whose special friend was on his payroll, the senator from Louisiana who paid, and the former president who did not have sex with that woman.
Sometimes people are shocked by the details, but seldom by the fact of scandal itself. Political enemies express a sort of shock, of course, but they are not to be taken seriously. They feel that if they can somehow tie the adultery to the use of taxpayers’ money or official duty, they can make a huge deal of the whole thing.
However, if sex scandal were to hit one of these Ohio guys, there’d be real shock, not Casablanca shock (to use an old-movie reference).
The above mentioned novel would have another problem, besides incredibility: It’d be boring. Sure, there’s a “storybook” quality to some of these romances, but there’s nothing novel about them.
Now, of course, not every single Ohio politician you can name fits into the choir-boy category. But so many do that the odds of the state having one of these juicy scandals in, say, any five-year period are bleak. There was Dick Celeste many, many years ago. Then there was Marc Dann, who was still a largely unknown quantity when he self-destructed in so many ways. For all anybody knows, that might be it for a while.
In which case, Ohioans will have to bear with politics that’s about deficit spending and school funding, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and all that. It seems unnatural.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Dayton shows it can rescue dropouts
For all the challenges facing Dayton schools and their students — and they are many — there is one good news story: Far more kids are graduating than did so just a few years ago.
Dayton is now at an 83.5 percent graduation rate, up 30 points from a disastrously low 53.5 percent six years ago. The district still has work to do, but its impressive gain is testament to the value of hard work and focus.
The way Dayton made this gain also has implications for education policymakers and could be a road map for other struggling urban districts.
The turnaround started by digging into data. One of the early moves of former Superintendent Percy Mack and the school board under Gail Littlejohn and her team was to hire a director of accountability and beef up the department that tracks statistics — test scores, attendance, graduation figures.
As the district delved into graduation rates, administrators found a significant number of kids were being counted as dropouts even though they actually had transferred to other schools. There was a disconnect that prevented matching the fact that records had been requested by another school (the best sign a student has transferred) with the data on dropouts.
This might seem like a ridiculously basic step for the district to miss, and, to an extent, it is. But remember that Dayton students are extremely transient. It’s quite common for a student to move several times in a school year, sometimes to a school outside the district and then back.
Also, there is no formal procedure by which districts notify each other that a student has transferred. Districts have to have the sense to track records requests. This is silly. Ohio is developing a system that assigns each student in the state a unique ID that would ease tracking of transfers, but it’s still several years away from implementation.
At the same time that it was figuring out who transferred and who didn’t, Dayton also began improving its reporting and tracking of daily attendance, which previously had been a mess. This helped schools more quickly identify kids who were absent a lot. Attendance was 90.8 percent last year — still below the 93 percent the state expects, but several points higher than in prior years.
Beyond cleaning up data, Mr. Mack instituted new disciplinary rules. They weren’t perfect, and discipline remains a problem in some schools even today. But the changes were an improvement over previously lax policies.
The district also has gotten aggressive during the past six years about addressing students who are flunking classes. Students who fail courses in high school now are quickly offered an opportunity to make up the work through a computer-based course that they can complete at their own pace before and after school. That keeps kids from falling behind and on track toward graduating.
One big 2002 study, by Johns Hopkins University of dropouts in Philadelphia, which tracked kids for six years beginning in sixth grade, studied a host of data about kids who did not graduate and found four factors that correlated to at least a 75 percent likelihood that a student would drop out: a final grade of F in math; a final grade of F in English; attendance below 80 percent in a year; or a final “unsatisfactory” behavior mark in any class.
It’s impressive how closely aligned Dayton’s improvement efforts were with research that was just emerging at the time. Its interventions hit all four of those areas.
The issues Dayton has tried to address — sloppy data and a lack of attention to kids who are failing classes, misbehaving or skipping school — are common to many urban districts.
If Dayton can keep refining its efforts to hang on to students, keep its momentum and eventually see 90 or 95 percent of kids graduate, it could become a model for others to study and replicate.
It’s making great strides.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
TweetGuest column: Where city employees live really does matter
Paul Woodie, a former assistant city manager in Dayton, is a lifelong Dayton resident.
Much of the debate about requiring city employees to live in Dayton has centered on urban myths.
Myth No. 1: Everyone has a constitutional right to live where he or she wants.
Residency was the rule from 1805 to the 1950s and from 1971 to 2009. Have city employees been denied their constitutional rights for 200 years, or has the meaning of civil service changed?
Why can’t state employees live in Covington or Richmond? Why is Jon Husted required to live in Kettering?
In the end, we all live where our chosen work requires us.
Myth: If Dayton had better schools and neighborhoods, its employees would choose to live in the city.
By 1971, after a 20-year residency hiatus, a majority of city employees did not live in the city. Were Dayton neighborhoods that bad in the 1950s and ’60s?
Myth: A majority of city employees will continue to live in the city.
In just 10 years, a majority of employees will live outside the city even if every current employee stays put. City residents constitute 20 percent of the region’s work force. All things being equal, 80 percent of those taking and passing the civil service exam will not be residents. With a 7 percent annual turnover in personnel, it is merely a matter of math and time.
Myth: It is an insult to assume that nonresident employees would not be professional in the performance of their job.
The concern is not about nonfeasance, but about world views. Why do we care who is appointed to the Supreme Court so long as the nominees are qualified judges of good will? Because something more than skill and good will may color their decisions, like empathy and life choices.
Is it likely that a planner who chooses to live on a farm outside Eaton will have the same intuitive skills to address urban life in Five Oaks as a planner living in McPhersontown? Would a parks supervisor who lives in Mason be as willing to attend neighborhood night meetings as an employee who lives in Belmont, or will this become another union grievance?
Of course, there will be employees who will rise above it all, but that will not be the general rule. If a waitress is rude, I simply go to another restaurant, but city employees have important control over the quality of life of my neighborhood.
Myth: The mayor and the city commission run the city, so it shouldn’t matter where city employees live.
This is the biggest myth and the one that strikes at the heart of the problem. For the first time in history, the CEO of the city will not have to live in the city. Does it matter? Think NCR’s Bill Nuti.
Contrary to popular belief, the CEO is not the mayor. The mayor hires and fires no one, does not control the budget, and cannot negotiate financial incentives for either NCR or Joe the Plumber.
The mayor’s role is to form a consensus among the five commissioners and represent the city to state and federal officials. This role has merit and requires considerable political skill, but the position doesn’t have the power many think it does.
Under Dayton’s current form of government, policymaking and the quality of city services are decided by bureaucrats. Under this new law, neither the police chief, who decides how I am protected from crime, nor the city attorney, who decides if a law dealing with drug houses is worth defending, are required to even live in Montgomery County.
The city manager form of government worked well when Dayton was primarily a utility service provider, and there were few social and economic issues to navigate. It worked well when employees grew up and lived in the city and had credibility in a crisis. In the near future, those who have never lived, and will never live, in the city and who may be uncomfortable in most neighborhoods will decide our fate.
In the early ’70s, before residency, several tax issues failed, forcing dramatic city service cuts. Opinion surveys indicated citizens believed employees were unresponsive and unconcerned. Restoration of the residency rule, performance budgeting and the creation of priority boards were the pillars of reform that led to tax levies passing. Now all the pillars are cracked. We need to build new ones.
Dayton is the last major city in Ohio with a city manager form of government. Cincinnati and Toledo have abandoned it for a strong mayor. It is time for us to take a hard look at the efficacy of our form of government.
Some have suggested metro government as the answer. But the pathway to regionalism begins in the suburbs, not Dayton. Unfortunately, the cocktail conversation always ends when the vodka runs out.
In the meantime, if we can’t have a government of the people, at least let us have a government by and for the people.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Guest Columns, Local History
TweetEditorial: Employees to pay taxes to NCR
Georgia is paying about $50,000 per job to entice NCR Corp. to move its world headquarters to that state.
That’s not out of the norm for incentive packages — or shakedowns, as critics would call them.
The State of Ohio and Columbus-area governments paid in that neighborhood last year to keep NetJets from flying south. That’s also approximately what Ohio’s Third Frontier program (which seeds research efforts designed to create spin-off companies) is costing per job created, according to state Sen. Jon Husted.
One way of looking at the NCR deal is that the employees who have to move will actually be the ones financing the cost of wooing the company. That’s because almost $80 million of the $100 milllion-plus incentive package that Georgia put up represents state income taxes that will be deducted from employees’ checks over five years, but that NCR will get to keep.
Like most states today, Georgia isn’t just sitting on $80 million that it’s aching to give away. Yet, it didn’t have to put up much cold cash to get NCR. Rather, it’s temporarily foregoing income tax money it would have been due.
One can argue that any time a state gives a tax break, all state residents end up footing the bill in one way or another. But when a tax break is so precisely tied to what a company’s employees owe the state, it easy to see how they might think they’re the ones really putting up the cash.
It also shouldn’t be lost on anyone that under the Georgia plan, NCR has every incentive to move every last body out of Ohio. Leaving people in Dayton is leaving money on the table; the bigger its workforce in Georgia, the more money the company will get to keep.
If it turns out that Georgia’s tax on individuals is more than Ohio’s, that’s all the better for the company, though not so much for its employees.
Ohio has its own version of Georgia’s “Mega Job Tax Credit.” One program applies to companies that are threatening to leave; another is available to companies that are considering coming to the state.
In fact, $28.6 million of the $31 million incentive package that Ohio offered NCR to stay was a tax credit that was calculated on the estimated state income tax NCR employees would pay. Ohio offered to subtract from NCR’s state tax bill 75 percent of what its workers here would have owed the state during the next 10 years.
The national trend of tying tax breaks to what workers owe the state is a tidy way for states to make sure that companies receiving incentives really are producing the jobs they’ve promised to create. It’s hard to cheat if a business tax credit is linked directly to the state taxes a company is withholding from its employees.
Ohio’s business tax credits — which critics say have essentially become an entitlement — are harder to get for companies that are threatening to move than for new businesses wanting to set up shop here.
The “retention” incentives can only be given to businesses with 1,000 employees and that are making a capital investment of $100 million. (In the pending budget bill, the rules would be available to smaller companies and require less of an investment in the state.)
The “job creation” subsidy, on the other hand, can go to firms that create just 25 new full-time positions paying a minimum of 150 percent of the federal minimum wage, or that create just 10 new full-time positions paying at least 400 percent of the minimum wage.
Georgia didn’t invent the game of poaching jobs. Ohio would have done the same thing if it had gotten wind, say, that Coca-Cola Co. wanted to move here.
But the country isn’t any better because the states are fighting to see which one can demand less of its corporations.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Local Business
TweetEllen Belcher: Strickland is scared he’ll lose if he leads
If Gov. Ted Strickland is re-elected next year, it will be because his supporters have nowhere else to go. They can’t very well cast a protest vote for John Kasich.
But his backers are disappointed, and they have a right to be. He’s not getting it done, and he’s selling out.
Put aside for a minute the awful choices he has about a budget sinkhole, a situation not of his making. Let’s talk about what is in his control.
He had two years to figure out what to do on school funding. When he rolled out his big plans, he endorsed requiring children to go to school for longer periods, and he wants to raise the academic bar to get more kids to college.
But when it came to paying for his changes, he didn’t have any brilliant ideas, and when it came to spending money, he pretended that the lack of it doesn’t matter. Mostly, he wants credit for intentions.
After two years of effort, the former member of Congress who hadn’t ever faced down a myopic public education establishment has figured out what smart and dumb governors and lawmakers always learn to their everlasting dismay:
Funding more than 600 school districts that have widely different needs and resources — but similarly great expectations about what the state should give them — is thankless work.
When he spoke about his plans, the governor was passionate about all-day kindergarten and requiring students to take college entrance exams. But when it came to details, he would quickly turn to aides who don’t command confidence. His heart, not his head, was in the game.
The contrast between the brain trust working on K-12 schools and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut’s efforts to reshape Ohio’s public colleges is stunning. The governor has been incredibly well-served by Fingerhut & Co., while he’s been let down by his K-12 advisers. He, however, picked his team.
Now about his proposal to allow slot machines at race tracks in the hope of bringing in almost $1 billion to bridge a newly discovered $3.2 billion gap: This is a total sell-out.
A Methodist minister, a psychologist who knows about addiction, a politician who has adamantly opposed casinos is suddenly going to support throwing up slot machines?
The government is not going to be content selling you Lottery tickets, but also is going to entice you to drop money in its machines that are stacked against you?
This is political desperation gone mad.
Now to the budget: No question about it, the governor is over a big barrel. Cutting 6 percent out of a budget may not sound like much. But we’re talking about cuts on top of cuts, and, in a recession, state spending goes up automatically on things like Medicaid.
Meanwhile, prisons still have to be staffed and more people are deciding to go to college (which costs the state money because funding is tied to enrollment) and little of anything gets cheaper.
But here’s what Strickland (and everyone else in Columbus) knows but won’t say:
A tax increase is coming — if not today then after the election in 2010.
This proposed budget is patched together with almost $6 billion in one-time federal stimulus money. If finding $3 billion is hard today, making up that $6 billion in two years — even if the economy has picked up and not all of it is needed — will be harder still.
In the governor’s defense, even if he were willing to say that the state needs to suspend the fifth and last installment of Ohio’s 21-percent income tax cut, Republicans aren’t eager to go there. Many of them are up for re-election next year, too.
Though House Democrats should be on Strickland’s side, every one of them will be campaigning next year and most of them are scared thoughtless.
Here’s the thing, though: Does anyone think that all the spending cuts that are coming will be painless?
When libraries close, when people in group homes lose their state funding, when parks fill up with trash, when seniors stop getting their in-home care, when exceptional charter schools close, when students lose their scholarships, do you think voters aren’t going to notice?
The governor alone isn’t accountable for Ohio’s well-being. But he is the man at the top. And he has an obligation to level with people about what will happen if Ohio just cuts its way out of its hole.
He has shamelessly not done that. And it’s because his foremost concern is being re-elected.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Higher Ed, Ohio government, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: State workers not Ohio’s piggybank
Gov. Ted Strickland cannot be faulted for using one-time money to make the next two-year state budget come together.
Taking almost $6 billion in federal stimulus money — a stunning amount by any measure — and looking under every rock for other money even if it won’t be available down the road totally makes sense. First problems first.
But he has flipped his lid if he thinks deferring not quite half — 6 percent — of the state share for pension payments — promising to pay back the pension fund later — is acceptable public policy.
If the state can’t afford its pension obligations, the governor needs to say it’s unsustainable to keep kicking in 14 percent on the dollar to fund state workers’ retirement benefits. (Employees pay 10 percent.)
The unions, which backed Gov. Strickland in his election campaign, are right that this is a slippery slope. If the pension funds become a slush fund for governors and lawmakers, there’s no telling how often an “emergency” will come up and people’s retirements will be raided.
Moreover, it’s not as if the state employees’ pension fund is flush. It has been hit by the stock market decline, even as the optional medical benefits it provides retirees have become increasingly pricey.
All of the public pension funds — for state workers, police, firefighters and teachers — are agonizing about how to cut back benefits without inciting a war with the beneficiaries (which may yet occur, depending on how many changes have to be made).
Delaying the pension payments would free up $236 million, which is real money at a time when the governor is looking to fill a $3.2 billion gap in his $54 billion budget. But the “loan” would have to be repaid, and paying it back over 10 years amounts to shoving today’s problems off on governors, legislatures and taxpayers down the road.
Moreover, there are also good — and unanswered — questions about how much interest would be owed the pension fund, and how to calculate the lost opportunity gains the fund could have made in the market over the next decade.
Ohio’s public employee pension plans are expensive propositions. The employer contributions are huge cost drivers not just for the state, but also for local governments and school districts.
Government retirement benefits, as compared to the private sector, are exceedingly generous and the funds are having a difficult time keeping up with growing obligations.
Retirees are living longer, their medical care has become increasingly expensive and the market isn’t cooperating in the least to make up for rising costs.
With all these challenges already staring the pension boards in the eyes, this is the worst time to think of robbing any of the funds.
Who would allow that with their own pension? Why should state employees have to assume the risk of an accounting gimmick?
Gov. Strickland has his hands full, and it’s not clear how much legislators are going to constructively contribute to what’s a real financial crisis.
But there should be no bail out from the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Ohio government, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Targeting vulnerable is wrong budget fix
It’s a moment of truth for Ohio’s government.
The Legislature and Gov. Ted Strickland are supposed to agree on a two-year budget before Wednesday. The world won’t come to an end if they don’t; they can work out something temporary. But that would prolong the agony, foster a sense of dysfunction, further upset the people who set Ohio’s credit ratings and get Ohio compared to floundering California.
The task at hand is not easy. When lawmakers unanimously agreed upon a two-year, $52 billion budget two years ago, it was widely hailed as the most conservative in a long time. Yet it has been cut three times since then, by almost $2 billion, as state revenues have nosedived.
Meanwhile, though, demands on the state were increasing, as more people lost jobs, stopped paying taxes and started needing various forms of aid, such as Medicaid.
The federal stimulus has helped, but the fiscal problems are intense, not only here, but in states across the country.
When Gov. Strickland submitted his new two-year spending plan, he assumed more decline in revenues. The House and the Senate have each passed their own budgets. But now the governor’s budget people say another $3.2 billion must come out of the $54 billion budget, because of worsening revenue projections.
The governor proposes raising maybe $900 million by allowing slot machines at horse racing tracks. The rest of the shortfall would be made up with spending cuts.
The list of cuts is highly focused on whatever the governor hasn’t made big promises about. He has promised to improve higher education and hold down tuition. He’s promised to upgrade Ohio’s K-12 schools. So the cuts are generally elsewhere.
Libraries take a historic hit of 30 percent, on top of a recent 20 percent loss in state money. The impact is particularly huge for those libraries — most in the state — that get all their funding from the state.
There’s a 17 percent cut for the Department of Mental Heath. The state support for preschool education would be eliminated. The program to prevent abuse of seniors and children would be cut by 70 percent. A youth services facility would close.
Various scholarships would go away, with private trade schools being hit particularly hard. Medicaid would curtail paying for over-the-counter drugs. State money to fund public defenders would be reduced by 40 percent. There’s much more.
The list is appalling. The Legislature should be less concerned with the governor’s previous commitments and more concerned with protecting the most vulnerable people, who have already been hit hard by cuts in the current budget, as by changes in the economy.
Even libraries, to some degree, should be seen in that light. Some have excellent collections and facilities. But many are places for poor children to go to read, or for children whose parents won’t buy them books. And they’re places for people to go who need jobs. Job-seekers can use the computers and can search for information available about salable skills and how to attain them.
Clearly, too, the state needs to raise more money. However, the Strickland proposal on slot machines is a last-minute desperation concoction that ignores too much and is, some think, too optimistic about the money that would be raised.
If Ohio is to suddenly allow something that would be an awful lot like casino gambling after voters have turned down casino gambling four times, it ought not do so suddenly, under such pressure.
A far better way to raise revenue: suspend the last year of a phased-in 21 percent cut in the state income tax. That would raise about as much as the Strickland people project from the slots.
Too, a 75-cents-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes could raise about a half-billion, while leaving Ohio in the mainstream on such taxes (at $2 a pack, same as Michigan), and also reducing the number of people who smoke. (Studies are conclusive about that.)
The Legislature needs to be creative about both revenue and spending. A half-cent increase in the sales tax could raise more than $1 billion. It could be made temporary, for this economic crisis.
Serious tax increases could work against the impact of the federal effort to get people and companies spending — the stimulus. But a half-cent sales tax is not likely to affect many plans or decisions.
At any rate, spending cuts could undermine the stimulus, too.
The politicians in Ohio have to get past their silly game on taxes, wherein nobody wants to go first in proposing them.
Ohio has a combination of tough decisions to make. It does not have an insolvable problem. The right guidelines:
Flexibility; spreading the economic burden; sharing the political responsibility; and protecting the most vulnerable.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Higher Ed, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio government, Social Services
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Map drawing reform could help local Democrats, though it should be a wash statewide
It looks like local Democrats could get a break if the state adopts a nonpartisan approach to the drawing of congressional districts.
By definition, of course, a reformed system would have to treat the parties equally statewide. Any break the Democrats got in what is now Republican Mike Turner’s district would likely result in the Republicans getting a break elsewhere.
Still, this seems to be true: if a reformed system had been in place in 2001, the district that includes Dayton would be more winnable for the Democrats (though maybe not enough for them to beat Turner, who is strong).
As it is, the district went slightly for John McCain in 2008, indicating it’s pretty seriously Republican.
Percolating in Columbus is an effort to radically change the system for drawing districts in Ohio. The current system leaves the politicians completely in charge, functioning under very few rules.
Sometimes that means that one party is in complete control; sometimes (only as to congressional districts, not state legislature districts), it means the two parties have to work something out. Either way, political calculations prevail.
Some reformers decided to see what happens if there are rules about how districts can be drawn, and if there’s a contest — open to all — to see who can score the most points under those rules.
The proposed rules: Districts should, ideally, be compact. They should embrace complete counties and cities, to the degree possible. They should be winnable for either party. And, as to those that favor one party, there should be equal numbers favoring each, given that the state is closely balanced.
(For details on the contest, see www.ohio redistricting.org.)
In dealing with the Miami Valley, the contestants had to start with the fact that Montgomery County is, like the state, roughly a toss up, though it’s gone Democratic in several straight presidential elections. The county isn’t quite big enough to constitute a congressional district. And just about any direction one goes from Montgomery County, one finds very strong Republican outposts.
A look at the three highest-scoring entries:
• Stuart Wright, of Columbus, came up with a competitive Dayton-based district by cutting off the most Republican part of Montgomery County, the south (and the lightly populated west) and reaching into the southern part of Clark County for Springfield. Dayton and Springfield provide most of the Democrats in the district. Filling it out are Republican Greene and Miami counties in their entirety.
He lost points in the contest for breaking up two counties, Montgomery and Clark. But the district is fairly compact. He got points for that, as well as for the competitiveness. He leaves all the surrounding districts Republican. There’s no way around that. Rural and suburban southwestern Ohio is simply Republican.
• Tim Clarke, of Avon, created a competitive district around Dayton by lopping off the southern suburbs in Montgomery County and combining the rest of Montgomery with Greene County. He benefits in the scoring from breaking up only one county. And his district is also compact.
• Mike Fortner, a Republican state representative in Illinois, from West Chicago, combines the entirety of Montgomery County with northeast Greene County, which is to say, basically, Fairborn, a struggling area whose demographics are trending Democratic. This district, too, is competitive.
Important to remember: none of these maps will be adopted. They’re based on the 2000 Census and on Ohio having 18 congressional seats. After the 2010 Census — the next time the maps are redrawn — Ohio will have 17 or 16 seats.
But you get the idea.
Quite likely, the only way to have an intensely competitive district after 2010 will be to include Springfield.
Such a district would still be pretty good for Rep. Mike Turner, if he maintains his current political appeal. But it could make a race to succeed him wide open.
Or it could make for a juicy primary, throwing Turner and Rep. Steve Austria, of Beavercreek, who represents Springfield, into the same district.
Reform should not be either embraced or rejected because of what it portends for any local party or person. The point is the statewide situation. Why shouldn’t more competition be embraced as a good thing, if it can be accomplished without drawing weird looking districts?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Contest shows real hope for better elections
How would Ohio’s legislative districts be drawn if politicians didn’t control the process?
Answer: Much better. In every important way. No trade-offs.
That’s the only possible conclusion you can draw from an exercise just finished by advocates of reform, with some help from the secretary of state’s office. The exercise is one of the more creative efforts to come out of Columbus in a while.
Specifically, reformers — including the League of Women Voters — held a contest to draw congressional districts.
Under Ohio’s existing system, districts for the state Legislature are drawn by a commission that is completely controlled by one political party or the other, depending on which party holds what statewide offices at the moment. Meanwhile, congressional districts are drawn by the Legislature and approved by the governor.
Political calculations dominate in both cases.
The reformers said, let’s start by setting up some nonpartisan guidelines:
• Districts are better that have lines that don’t squiggle all over the place and are relatively compact.
• They’re better if they respect county lines and other jurisdictional boundaries.
• They’re better if they can be won be either party, rather than being so dominated by voters of a particular party that the other party doesn’t even make a real effort.
• And they’re better if the state ends up with Democratic and Republican officeholders in rough proportion to the votes the two parties get statewide in a given year.
Finally, the reformers said, let’s find a way to define each of these criteria precisely, in numerical terms, and let’s assign equal weight to each. Then let’s hold a map-drawing contest, letting the public participate. The idea would be to get the highest score on the four criteria when totaled.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s office agreed to administer the contest. That entailed holding a class about how to use a software program that is widely used for redistricting purposes.
Entrants were then asked to draw a congressional map based on the 2000 Census. By law, maps are redrawn every 10 years, right after the Census. The lines can’t be redrawn now. The idea was just to see how they might have been drawn in the first place.
Only 14 people actually submitted maps. Of those, only 11 complied with all the rules. But that was plenty to make the point:
Of those 11, all scored higher than the actual existing map, not only as to total score, but on all four criteria taken individually.
In other words, no criteria had to be seriously sacrificed in order to meet other criteria. Many skeptics of reform (and even supporters) have worried that making districts competitive would require making them weird and squiggly. Nope.
Reformers are highlighting the three highest-scoring entries (including one by a Republican state legislator from Illinois). These maps generally don’t have the oddities of the existing map: the gash in northeastern Montgomery County that was taken out of the 3rd District (Rep. Mike Turner’s); the skinny district that runs up the eastern border of the state; the division of Franklin County into three districts; the oddly shaped 13th District. All these things were drawn for political reasons.
(To see all the maps, and more detailed explanations of all the rules and outcomes, go towww.ohioredistricting.org.)
What happens now? The Ohio Constitution has to be changed. It should specify the criteria of a good map, much as the reformers have done.
(Reformers say that a state commission shouldn’t necessarily have to pick the single highest-scoring map, but should have to choose from among the highest or come up with one that matches them.)
Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, has a proposal pending to create a bipartisan commission. He and other reformers ought to be able work something out.
The following gets said every time redistricting reform is proposed; nevertheless, it does seem true now: The time is right. That’s because nobody can say which party has the most to lose from reform. Either party might end up in control of state legislative redistricting after 2010.
Any proposal must be thoroughly bipartisan, because 60-percent majorities are needed in both houses of the Legislature to put something on this November’s ballot. Nobody is attempting the other way of getting something on the ballot — gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. That’s partly because all sides have concluded — from experience — that the redistricting reform goes nowhere if both parties aren’t onboard from the start.
What’s necessary now is wide distribution of the outcome of the contests, fast study and political leadership.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetGuest column: Cuts to early education would harm Ohio’s long-term goals
Jenni Roer is a member of the Montgomery County Family and Children First Council executive committee.
Much debate has taken place during the last few weeks on how Ohio could have done a better job of keeping NCR and the 1,200 jobs that Dayton will lose when they are moved to Georgia. The truth is, Georgia started its plans to lure companies like NCR more than 10 years ago, when it instituted universal prekindergarten for every 4-year-old.
Georgians saw what Ohioans are having difficulty seeing — that children who receive high-quality early education are 20 percent more likely to graduate from high school, 23 percent more likely to attain higher education, 50 percent less likely to become a teen parent, and significantly less likely to participate in criminal activity and become incarcerated.
Georgia’s foresight paid off. Since instituting the prekindergarten program in 1995, high school graduation rates have spiked by 10 percentage points. It is now serving 75,000 4-year-olds in its quality prekindergarten program, and a recent study by Georgia State University showed that the children who participated in Georgia’s preschool program exceeded the national norms on their overall math skills, reading skills, expressive language and letter and word recognition by the first grade.
In Ohio, we serve 18,400 children in our Public Preschool and Early Learning Initiative programs. The Strickland administration has just proposed complete elimination of early learning programs. These initiatives have prepared 12,000 low-income 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds for kindergarten during the last two-year budget cycle.
The programs address the health and cognitive-development needs of low-income children in order to give them the comprehensive services they need to break the cycle of poverty. The elimination of early learning initiatives is an example of choices that will keep us in the same position we are in today — watching as companies flee our state and wondering why our last-minute scrambling to create incentives is not effective.
True incentives are thoughtful, long-term investments that focus on research-based results. According to research conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis, each dollar invested in high-quality early care and education for low-income children returns as much as $16 in savings by enabling children to graduate from high school, go on for higher education, become gainfully employed and fuel rather than hinder the economy.
Apparently this is a lesson that Georgia has already learned, at our expense. In Columbus, Gov. Ted Strickland and the legislature need to take a close look at this budget and fund — not eliminate — programs that will build the long-term incentives that Ohio needs to keep and attract companies like NCR.
High-quality early education, particularly Ohio’s Early Learning Initiative programs, needs to be at the top of that list.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Education, Guest Columns, Ohio politics
TweetMartin Gottlieb: (Relatively) good news: Ohio jobs stat stagnates
You might have heard that Ohio’s unemployment rate increased from 10.2 to 10.6 percent from April to May. You might not have heard, however, that the total number of jobs in the state didn’t really drop.
That’s a pretty important fact, given that the total number of jobs in the country is still shrinking, and given that Ohio has become used to seeing jobs shrink in number in this decade.
Richard Stock, economist at the University of Dayton, thinks the long-term decline in Ohio jobs may be the reason the short-term numbers aren’t so bad. Maybe Ohio got its worst news out of the way earlier.
OK. But why did the unemployment rate go up, if the number of jobs did not go down?
The answer is that the unemployment rate is not a measure of the number of people without jobs. It’s a measure of the people without jobs who say — in a survey — that they are looking for jobs.
So the rise in the unemployment rate was not a rise in the number of people losing jobs, but in the number entering the job market.
Why did that happen? Economists are not claiming to know for sure. Things just came together in a certain way.
A lot of people might have received bad news lately about a family member’s job being threatened, or about somebody’s hours being cut back, and might have decided it was time to look around.
Wright State University economist Robert Premus points out that retirees might be thinking about re-entering the job market as they see hear news about pensions. (Also, more graduates enter the job market in late spring, of course. Government stats are actually “seasonally adjusted” to account for that, but perhaps not perfectly.)
Anyway, what was happening in the Ohio job market was that, as the manufacturing sector continued to wane, the services sector added jobs, especially the medical and education fields.
Does the flat total indicate that a general turnaround is pending? Some think so, but it might not show up for a long time in unemployment rates. WSU’s Premus says that when business picks up, employers typically have plenty of workers to handle it for a while, because they’ve been conservative in cutting back.
Gov. Ted Strickland’s budget director, Pari Sabety, talks about a worst-case scenario unemployment rate of 15.4 in 2010 or 2011. That seems like an awfully high figure to some people. But Ohio’s unemployment rate did hit 13.8 percent in January, 1983. And this recession certainly seems worse than that one.
One thing that’s clear is that the generally bad economic news of the past few months is starting to figure into Ohio politics. Strickland’s popularity is looking less formidable.
One poll, by Public Policy Polling, shows roughly equal numbers of people approving as disapproving of his performance (with 15 percent being in neither category). A match-up between him and Republican contender John Kasich comes out basically as a draw, which is new.
Republicans certainly have their line of attack: Says party Chairman Kevin DeWine, of Fairborn, “Ohio has lost nearly 300,000 jobs on Ted Strickland’s watch. He promised to turn around Ohio’s economy … and he failed.”
It’s a strange thing. The politicians of both parties know that governors have limited impact on the economy. But they campaign on what they’ll do for the economy. Certainly Strickland did.
He didn’t propose anything dramatic; indeed, he proposed to let the big Republican initiative on that score — the tax-overhaul/tax cut plan of 2005 — remain in place.
He proposed nuts and bolts things, like nurturing his predecessor’s Third Frontier program, while reshaping the higher education system. He enacted a five-year “stimulus” that was designed to funnel money to new economy type projects; “green” stuff and all that.
These efforts — generally focused on the long term — were destined not to be a match for a dramatic, sudden national downturn, complete with a special collapse in the auto industry. No governor’s plans could be.
Still, the campaign for governor is likely to be about these issues (with the national scene playing a big role).
What the most recent economic stats suggest is that Strickland might actually have some good news to point to — if you call stagnant-job-numbers-while-other-states-are-losing-jobs good news.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Husted holds his grudge too long
Consider how you might behave in this scenario:
You are a high-ranking official in a company that does business with another company. You agree to a meeting with the other company’s CEO to discuss important business that impacts both companies’ customers. But when the CEO arrives, he has with him the chairman of his board of directors, a guy you have had unpleasant dealings with in the past.
Do you:
(a) Bite your lip and go ahead with the meeting?
(b) Cancel the meeting?
(c) Refuse to meet with counterpart’s board chair present and call security to escort him from the building when he refuses to leave?
It’s hard to imagine too many people who would have the bad sense to choose option (c), but that’s pretty much what state Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, did last week when Dayton school Superintendent Kurt Stanic showed up for a scheduled meeting with his boss, Dayton school board President Jeff Mims, unexpectedly at his side.
Sen. Husted’s temper tantrum was out of line and disrespectful to Mr. Mims. Regardless of the history between them, Mr. Husted has a responsibility to be cordial to Dayton’s school board president and attend to business that affects the Dayton region and Ohio taxpayers.
One issue Mr. Stanic and Sen. Husted were to discuss — a curious nixing by Republicans of a land swap between the district and the state that is a win-win — was too important to be overshadowed by petty grievances.
This story begins several years back, when Mr. Mims was still an employee of the school board. As the district’s legislative liaison, Mr. Mims spent much time in Columbus lobbying for urban schools. Democrats were generally more friendly to the cause, and Mr. Mims was a frequent critic of Republicans and their education policies, including complaining sharply about Sen. Husted (when he was still in the House) and other Dayton-area lawmakers and policies they supported (especially relating to charter schools).
This infuriated Sen. Husted and other local Republicans. The district, in their view, was paying Mr. Mims to act as a functionary of the Democratic Party by attacking them. Mr. Mims, a former union leader and lobbyist for teachers’ unions, viewed his role as that of an advocate for city schools. Mims is now retired and was elected to the board in 2007.
The only facts and history that should have been relevant in this meeting was that Dayton needs Senate sign-off for a deal it cut with the state that will clear the way for construction of the new Belmont High School. The current school building is badly placed at the back of a long property that faces Wayne Avenue. But adjacent is the state-owned, now-closed Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare Center.
Under the deal, the two sides swap land so the new school can be built in a premium spot closer to the street. In return, the district razes former Twin Valley buildings for the state.
For some reason, language approving the deal was removed from the budget bill by Senate Republicans. A staffer for Republican Senate President Bill Harris said it was likely taken out because senators were unfamiliar with the deal and nobody was advocating for it.
If that’s true, that situation reflects badly on Sen. Husted and Sen. Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton. The school sits in Sen. Strahorn’s district, and Sen. Husted, as the well-connected former House speaker and now part of the Republican Senate caucus, ought to be asking questions when a Dayton project gets bumped. (Sen. Husted says he is now advocating for the swap, after Mr. Stanic explained the issue to him.)
It’s fair to ask why Mr. Mims, knowing full well that he and Sen. Husted aren’t exactly chummy and having been told Sen. Husted did not want him in the meeting, would insist on being present. But that doesn’t excuse Sen. Husted from putting personal grudges ahead of the people’s business.
The land swap deal is advantageous for the state, Dayton, the school district and taxpayers. Even if Sen. Husted doesn’t get along with Mr. Mims, he owes residents of the region’s central city the decency of treating the officials they elect with basic respect.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Ohio politics, Scott Elliott
TweetGuest column: Strickland proposal will devastate Ohio libraries
Tim Kambitsch is executive director of the Dayton Metro Library. Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposal to permit slot machines covered the front pages of Ohio’s newspapers during this past weekend. The real gamble he’s taking, however, is his proposal that would cut funding to Ohio public libraries by nearly 50 percent. That move would force the closure of many of Ohio’s 750 public libraries and branches found in neighborhoods and communities in every county in the state.
“Where will you go when your library closes?” is a question Ohioans have to ask themselves. Where will your teens go when the safe and constructive places they visit after school are gone?
Unemployed, underemployed and at-risk employees trying to hone their skills, seek out new employers and update resumes will find computers turned off and doors closed.
Parents and caregivers wanting to ensure young children are ready for kindergarten will be left to their own devices and their children will be left behind. Children who use public libraries for school support and homework help — often because school libraries have been eliminated — will have no other option. Statewide summer reading programs that help kids retain essential reading and learning skills will no longer be available.
This is not rhetoric. This is not hyperbole.
If enacted Strickland’s late-hour proposal to cut $227.3 million in funding to Ohio’s public libraries will be devastating. This move could not come at a worse time, considering that libraries have been stressed by nearly a decade of funding freezes and cuts.
The remarkable thing is that, while public libraries have been making the tough choices required to balance budgets, they have been keeping their doors wide open, making a difference in the lives of record numbers of users.
Ohio public libraries are funded by 2.22 percent of total state General Revenues Fund tax receipts. Everyone understood that when the economy contracted, public libraries would see less funding.
And, in the last decade, libraries have lost nearly a quarter of that funding, with most of the decline coming in recent months. It has been painful, but public libraries have been willing to endure their fair share. The governor’s proposal is an additional 30 percent cut on top of the 20 percent reduction libraries have already experienced this year.
Libraries have always been a refuge for those who seek self-improvement. For the last 15 years, they have also been the place for those who cannot afford Internet access. For many Ohioans, libraries may be the only way to participate in the information economy.
In today’s world, public libraries have never been needed more. They provide information, materials and programs necessary to survive in this economy.
Closing public libraries will send a message to young people: “Go elsewhere.” Strickland’s proposal contributes to a downward spiral from which Ohio will never recover.
The budget conference committee needs to make difficult decisions within the next 10 days. It cannot gamble with Ohio’s future and take all of us down the road of decline.
Permalink | Comments (31) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Guest Columns, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Baseball’s history still has power to connect
Bill Cosby, speaking to a crowd in Cincinnati during the weekend about racial integration in Major League baseball, said:
“You need to tell your children this was not a done deal. Henry Aaron had to hear people yelling, calling, telling him the same thing they told your great-grandparents: ‘You are not, you can’t be. And even if you did, it doesn’t mean anything.’”
Mr. Cosby was speaking on the occasion of the “Civil Rights Game.” That’s a promotion for baseball, a way of connecting the game with black Americans, with an eye on the fact that baseball doesn’t have nearly as many black players as it used to.
This useful promotion brings sport into contact with the issues of the larger society.
So often, the instinct of athletes and owners alike is to avoid those issues as diversions from their tasks, as potentially divisive, and, after all, as subjects that athletes are not uniquely equipped to deal with.
One result is that any time a social issue does show up in sports, the occasion is decidedly negative. Think drugs. Or money, as in the amount the big leagues charge for a ticket or a hotdog, and the amount they pay unimpressive players.
The Civil Rights Game saw legendary athletes — Mr. Aaron, Frank Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Tony Perez, Bob Gibson, Oscar Robertson — and Mr. Cosby talking about race in America and race in baseball, along with intellectuals and a former president. The athletes surely won the attention of some people who don’t typically pay much attention to such things, especially young people.
The game itself and ceremonies surrounding it were broadcast nationally, along with interviews with many of the big names and portions of President Bill Clinton’s speech.
That the event was held in Cincinnati made it a promotion for that city, too. Cincinnati was a great spot for a lot of reasons. It was the southernmost city with a big league team when Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s racial barrier in the late 1940s. When his team stayed at the Netherlands Plaza Hotel, he was not allowed to use the dining room or the swimming pool.
Even into this decade, Cincinnati has continued to have high-profile racial problems. That part of the history of southwestern Ohio — Dayton as much as Cincinnati — is something that should be remembered.
By the same token, though, Cincinnati was a key part of the Underground Railroad, the famed route for helping escaped slaves from the South make their way to freedom. Today that story is preserved by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which opened in 2004 and is next door to Great American Ballpark.
That was a big reason Cincinnati got the game, which was held experimentally in Memphis the last two seasons, with unofficial games featuring Major League teams.
It always made sense for the game to be in a major league city. The presence of the Freedom Center helped baseball justify the move for 2009 and 2010.
Whether the game can become a tradition isn’t certain. But that would be a good thing. (In Memphis, the crowds for the games were disappointing.)
Cincinnati and Dayton are at the northern end of a long bridge between the north and the south. They are cities where sports did much to break down racial barriers, being central to the cultures of two races.
They are places where baseball’s roots go deep. And baseball is a game whose roots go deep into American history — the worst and some of the best.
If a promotion can capture some of that and bring it to the attention of a community and part of a nation, that’s a pretty special promotion.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Civil Rights, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Sports and Recreation
TweetEditorial: Bar should make changes to judicial poll
Last fall, the Dayton Bar Association’s judicial preference poll was at the center of controversy in a race for judge between attorney Dennis Atkins and Frances McGee, an appointed common pleas court judge running for her first election.
Of the six candidates in three judicial races, McGee, the only black candidate, got far lower ratings from local lawyers than the others. Her supporters were angry and blasted the poll. The incident raised questions about potential bias in the polling process.
In response, the association rightly asked researchers from Wright State University to review the poll and its processes. The researchers have produced a thoughtful report; the association should implement the recommendations.
The poll is designed to help voters gauge the qualifications of candidates. The idea is that lawyers have special familiarity with the quality of the work of judges and aspiring judges, because they see them work up close.
Poll results often appear in candidates’ advertisements and in the news media, including news stories and editorials in the Dayton Daily News.
The bar association stresses that the poll is not perfect.
In the case of Judge McGee, who narrowly defeated Mr. Atkins, the poll results were unusual enough to suggest real cause for concern.
Critics have panned the poll as simply a popularity contest. They point out that participation is low. Just 455 of the association’s approximately 1,350 voting members cast ballots last fall. On the other hand, that likely is more lawyers than have first-hand experience at trial with the judges.
But the vast majority of respondents treat the poll with the seriousness it deserves. Privately, some of them said prior to the election that the results reflected real concerns about Judge McGee’s struggles to adjust to the bench and her sometimes unnecessarily brusque temperament.
With her victory, she now has a six-year term to dispel those concerns. Still, a better poll — more carefully crafted and scientific — could inspire greater confidence in the results and reduce concerns about fairness when the unexpected occurs.
Among the suggestions are simple fixes (like using the ultra-understandable A-to-F grading scale for simplicity), and more involved improvements (like hiring a statistician to make sure the final report accurately describes the results). One of the best suggestions is adding a demographic section in which attorneys would report basics like their ethnicity, age, gender, years in practice and how often (and how recently) they’ve practiced in front of the judge in question.
Such data would provide breakdowns relevant to an argument over the importance to be assigned to the poll.
Overall, the researchers said the poll should be transformed from a “preference poll” into an “evaluation poll.” They suggest making the poll an annual exercise. The idea would be to collect data about judges both when they are up for election and when they are not. That would give voters a richer picture of how judges are viewed by their legal peers.
The bar association is still evaluating the report and has much discussion planned before any decisions are made.
The proposed changes would make the poll a stronger tool and the results more useful to voters. They also would give judges and candidates better information about how they are viewed by their peers and why.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Miami Valley Politics, Scott Elliott
TweetGuest column: One less law now divides Dayton from its neighbors
Paul Leonard is a former mayor of Dayton and former lieutenant governor of Ohio.
City officials may not feel like it, but the Ohio Supreme Court just may have done Dayton a favor. It was time to bury the archaic residency rule that required that city employees live within the borders of Dayton. Required residency was the ultimate symbol of parochialism, a relic from the days when Dayton used forced annexation to bring new taxpayers inside the city’s borders. It was one of the last remnants of a time of “us against them.”
Admittedly, there was a period in our history when the residency rule was more acceptable. Dayton had nearly a quarter of a million people living within its borders; business leaders lived within the city; corporations made Dayton their home; and the city’s revenues outpaced its expenditures.
Even Kettering, before it became a city, asked to be a part of Dayton — a request which was turned down by Dayton’s leadership. The city’s challenge then was to manage growth.
The negative news stories were about things like investigations into illegal bingo operations, and a city commissioner who ran off with his underage baby-sitter. Today, it’s just the opposite. The negative stories are usually about economics — people losing their jobs and businesses heading south or west. In the “good ol’ days,” Dayton was the essence of Montgomery County. County governments in Ohio were sleepy, rural-oriented governments that didn’t do much more than manage trash and water. The cities had all the power.
It’s different now. Successful local governments must be more regional in their approach to challenges, especially as taxpayer dollars are shrinking.
One might be tempted to argue that a city that’s shrinking needs to keep as many people as it can inside the city’s borders. Here’s the problem: A city can’t profess to be committed to a regional approach to challenges and assume a position of leadership in that region while, at the same time, sending a message to its neighbors that there is something wrong if Dayton’s employees choose to live outside of the city.
Dayton is either going to be parochial and support parochial rules and regulations, or it’s going to claim its rightful position of leadership in the region and accept the court’s decision as a “blessing in disguise.”
Dayton has to be one of the most resilient towns in America. Every time we’re counted out, we survive. This is an easy town to live in. The future will be different, but better. I’m convinced of it.
We may never again see 250,000 people living inside the city. Business leaders will probably continue to gravitate to the more affluent suburbs. And the monster corporations will be replaced with a more diverse community of smaller businesses.
The biggest change, and challenge, however, will be in regional governance. We cannot afford to continue a system of taxation that has to support more than 600 school districts in a state with 88 counties, and 3,500 local governments. That’s just too much government.
Although I probably won’t live long enough to see it, Dayton and Montgomery County are likely to merge some day — not because merger is preferable, but because it’s more affordable.
The day is coming when lower taxes will trump the desire to have governmental bodies for tiny jurisdictions. When that happens, or even before it happens, or even if it doesn’t happen, the City of Dayton must lead this entire community into the future. Borders cannot function as barriers. The days of parochialism must be a part of our past, not our future.
In that respect, the Supreme Court’s decision paved the way for a more intellectually honest commitment to regionalism: We now have one less law that divides Dayton from its neighbors.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Guest Columns, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: Let market have its way with dealerships
Even before the federal auto bailout, critics of the Detroit automakers — especially of General Motors — were saying the companies had too many dealerships. The word “bloated” was used a lot.
Once the bailout happened, the views of the critics became powerful. When President Barack Obama embraced his predecessor’s bailout — and ultimately enlarged it — he felt he had to show that he was not simply throwing good money after bad. He had to foster dramatic change in the auto industry: fewer dealerships, fewer models, better gas mileage, better deals with unions, more economy generally.
Now GM has targeted 1,300 mainly unidentified dealerships for elimination by late next year. Ohio has 79 of them, more than any state except Pennsylvania. Harmon Cadillac of North Main Street in Dayton has announced that it is one. Rose Chevrolet in Hamilton is another.
Chrysler is on a faster track, having notified hundreds of dealers that it is no longer dealing with them, including Salem Chrysler Jeep, one of 47 in Ohio.
Strong as the case is that there are too many dealers, however, the case is stronger that the marketplace should be allowed to do the sorting out over time, rather than having every case decided from above this year and next.
GM has already lost about 2,000 dealerships in this decade, though it still has far more than anybody else, at about 6,000. Ford is also dropping gradually; it has 3,700. Chrysler had 3,200 before its bankruptcy.
Chevrolet alone has about three times as many dealers as Toyota, but sells roughly the same number of cars.
The dealerships argue that they don’t actually cost the auto companies serious money. The dealers buy their cars, own their property and pay their own overhead. So why worry about there being too many dealers?
The auto companies now say — along with their critics — that GM dealers end up splitting the GM market too much and having too little money. A GM vice president said that a typical dealer for a foreign competitor “has more money to invest in their facilities, in their people, in training, in the customer, in advertising, and that puts us at a competitive disadvantage.”
Often left unspoken is that competition among dealers tends to reduce prices that customers pay, if only a little.
By the same token, though, the competition — which results in much advertising — should result in the sale of more cars overall, at least theoretically.
All things considered, the case is not compelling that auto industry survival depends upon sudden elimination of thousands of dealerships.
Moreover, closing dealerships will add to the short-term problems of the economy. Many thousands of people will lose their jobs. Governments will lose revenue. Communities will lose the involvement of the dealers. (And, it should be noted, newspapers — and other media even more so — will lose advertising revenue.) If the dealership network of GM is “bloated,” that’s substantially GM’s fault. The company is now taking advantage of government pressure — and looming bankruptcy proceedings — to get out from under its own mistakes.
Some industry analysts say it must do that, because auto dealers have major political power at the state level. Ohio is among the many states that protect various kinds of franchises. In some places, closing a dealership can cost an automaker $500,000. Federal proceedings can be the way to get around state protections.
Now the issue is being thrashed out in Congress.
With dealerships disappearing anyway, the best course now — the best bet for a relatively painless transition for communities around the country — would be to neither prop up the dealers artificially at the state level or put them out of business artificially.
Best, in this case, to let economic nature take its course.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Auto industry, Economy, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb
TweetScott Elliott: A Father’s Day message: Don’t wait to mend fences
A work trip to Ohio for my father should have been a sign something was up. Europe, Asia, South America — that would have made sense. But here to Ohio?
Dad was a world traveler. After he died on the last day of March, the tributes began rolling in from every corner of the globe. Japan, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Israel, India, Ireland, China, to name a few. My mother has stacks of letters and e-mails from dozens of countries.
At a memorial service this month at the University of California, Riverside, where he taught American literature the last 20 years, 17 speakers told 200 in attendance even more tales. Listening, I searched for my own story, my unforgettable moment, the big thing he did for me. I found it a decade or so ago, during that unexpected Ohio trip, driving back to Dayton from a gig he engineered at Ohio Wesleyan University.
All my life, Dad was busy trying to change the world. That’s what he thought he was hired to do as part of a wave of new and different faculty members at Princeton University in 1971, when I was three. Princeton then was very much for the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant and wealthy guys. Dad used to like to say he was an “affirmative action” hire. There weren’t too many others like him — a Catholic truck driver’s son from inner-city Baltimore.
He became something of a star in his field, pushing Princeton to become more open to diversity and trying to raise the profile of women, minority and contemporary writers through his scholarship.
When the Berlin Wall fell, Dad saw a golden opportunity to spread American studies to places where it had been ignored or forbidden. Through the American Studies Association, he helped establish and nurture the study of American literature and culture across Eastern Europe and then in other parts of the world.
Like many successful people, Dad was renowned for his incredible work ethic. I’ll let you in on a little secret. What that really means is high achievers have to spend a tremendous amount of time working and have to take on a lot of stressful responsibilities. As a father myself now, with children and a mortgage, I understand this in a way I simply couldn’t at 17. The heavy focus of Dad’s attention on his work added to the inevitable coming-of-age, father-oldest son tension, and made for some very difficult years.
Still, by the time we got in that car for the ride back to Dayton, we were cordial. Ohio Wesleyan is a distinguished, old-school campus in a small, leafy burg. It reminded me of home.
Pulling out of town, we reminisced about Princeton until the conversation lulled. At the pause, he began, “There’s something I need to say. You know, I know things weren’t always great between us back then, and I just wanted you to know I am really sorry for that. I hope you can forgive me.”
After another pause, I managed to spit out that I had forgiven him long ago, but that the tough times were a two-way street, so I needed him to forgive me, too.
Only later it all came together for me. That trip wasn’t about Ohio Wesleyan. He was there for that car ride home. The whole purpose of the visit was so he could say those words to me.
It was slow and gradual, but over time that brief conversation had an impact. Awkward handshakes eventually became warm hugs. Conversations became more personal. After a while, parting even sometimes concluded with “I love you.” Those words, in fact, were the last we spoke to each other two days before he died from a heart attack.
I have to say now that I wish we’d had more time. I wish he’d gone at 96 or 86 instead of 66. I wish I could pick up the phone right now, punch the numbers, and he’d be there. But I’m grateful the last decade wasn’t clouded by old grudges and that we were able to get to “I love you.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Scott Elliott
TweetKevin Riley: Ohio must convince grads to stay
There’s been a lot of talk about what industries hold the key to Ohio’s future. As traditional manufacturing continues its long painful slide in the state, there are plenty of opinions about where Ohio should cast for its future.
Whatever your opinion on that, Ohio has one industry — if you call it that — within which it has undisputed strength: higher education.
Ohio is home to nearly 200 degree-granting institutions enrolling hundreds of thousands of students.
(Only California, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas have more schools.)
Here’s the problem: Ohio is exporting this product (college graduates) instead of keeping it here to build its economy.
So when another report about Ohio’s “brain drain” — shorthand for students who graduate and leave the state — came out last week, you might have been tempted to dismiss it as the latest bit of bad news about that topic.
But the report issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, “Losing Ohio’s Future,” highlighted opportunities the state has to convince college graduates to stay.
Steve Farkas, of FDR Group, which conducted the research for Fordham, briefed community leaders and emphasized those opportunities.
His research involved students at seven of what he called Ohio’s “best” schools: Case Western Reserve, Kent State, Miami, Oberlin, Ohio State, Ohio University and the University of Dayton.
Here’s the good news: Students like Ohio. More than 60 percent think the state is an excellent or good place for them to build a future.
The bad news: Most plan to leave Ohio after school — especially those who aren’t native Ohioans (79 percent).
Typical of the challenge the state faces is Jennie Szink, a Michigan native who is a recent University of Dayton graduate and an intern here at the Dayton Daily News. One good way to convince students to stay, Farkas said, is to get students connected to the community at large — through internships and other jobs. That happened with Szink.
She said that having an internship and other experiences while a UD student “made her feel a part” of Dayton.
One of the problems is that Ohio college students rarely leave campus, and some say that their schools don’t do a good job connecting them to opportunities.
Not true with Szink, who said she was aware of a number of local efforts to do so and has spent time attending events around Dayton. She’s been to the Schuster Center, local festivals and Dragons games.
Locally several groups are addressing this connection issue. For example, the Downtown Dayton Partnership leads a “Campus Connect” program to expose local college students to the amenities of the region. And the city has its “Summer in the City” program for those students who are spending their summer in the area.
But Ohio has some problems with its college students. Close to half say the state’s image is bad among people outside the state. And there are large gaps between what these students want — good job and career opportunities, an exciting and fun place to live — and their view about what Ohio offers them.
Back to Szink, who feels differently. She’s from a small town in Michigan, and wanted to stay in Ohio. She said she believes there’s plenty to do here.
But her peers chided her for it. “They made fun of me … asking ‘why would you want to stay in the Midwest?’” she said.
There are many efforts under way to change that kind of perception of Ohio and the Dayton region. Efforts on that front include recreational developments and revitalizing the city’s urban core.
But a student who has a positive experience here — outside the campus bubble — is someone we ought to be able to convince to stay.
The Fordham research suggests that tax credits for staying here and grants toward down payments on homes were among incentives students liked.
But in the end, the students will need jobs. Some are willing to move to a city, and then find a job — but not so with Szink.
She’ll be going back to Michigan, where she’s landed a job at a weekly newspaper near her hometown.
And therein lies the dilemma for this region and the state — one I experienced firsthand. We had a chance to keep her here, but like many local companies, we haven’t been hiring many people during these tough economic times.
It’s a tough call, and I can’t be sure whether we made the right one. But I hope we’ll get Jennie Szink back some day soon.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Kevin Riley
TweetEditorial: Ohio must see more data to judge schools
Identifying a failing school is trickier than it looks.
Consider a school that, for three years, has been rated in the state’s bottom categories of “academic emergency” or “academic watch” because its kids have posted state test scores that, on average, show they are not proficient in the basic skills expected at their grade level.
Is that school failing? After the third year, should it face sanctions, like reduced state funding? Or perhaps it should be forced to close?
Now consider a school that, for three years, has earned extra credit on its state report card for test score growth. Students come to the school with very limited skills in kindergarten. On average, the kids score below grade level, but their test scores show more than a year’s growth for each year they attend the school.
Is that school succeeding? Should it receive extra money and support from the state to help it keep making progress?
Now get this: Suppose both these scenarios apply to the same school.
In Ohio, this does happen. Schools can be making strong progress on test scores and still be rated on the low end of the report card scale.
For that reason, the legislature must take both views of a school into account as it crafts a budget that Gov. Ted Strickland and House Democrats hope will include an overhaul of the process for dealing with low-performing schools and districts.
A Columbus-based school reform group called KidsOhio, in a report issued this month, has pointed out serious flaws in some of the education proposals being debated.
The House version of the budget, which is now being hashed out with the Senate, gets it right on some scores. For instance, one provision looked at both measures — rating and improvement — to decide if a low-performing charter school should close.
The House bill would shutter any charter school that has been in “academic emergency” for three years and did not show test score growth for at least two consecutive years in math or reading.
Yet, the same bill would also penalize charter schools financially for a low report card rating, even when the schools are making good test score improvement. It also would force a series of strict requirements upon school districts based solely on the report card rating, without looking at whether the district or its individual schools are making gains.
Those rules really make no sense.
If a district is in “academic watch” or “academic emergency,” the House plan would require all its schools to revamp programs to fit a state model — even the schools that are scoring well. The model would dictate what sorts of staff the school would have; it might actually interfere with effective, innovative programs.
Instead, lawmakers should evaluate academic performance at the school level, looking at both state report card ratings and test-score growth. Those that are measuring up should be left alone. Those that aren’t can be forced to change or, if nothing improves over time, shut down.
Dayton schools, rated in the second lowest state category of “academic watch,” are a good example of the potential problems with the House plan. Should an effective, unique school like the Stivers School for the Arts — rated “excellent” and making strong annual test-score growth — be forced to alter its program to fit the state’s vision just because other schools in the district are struggling?
There’s an easy answer to that question: no. But under the House plan, Stivers could be forced to do things the state’s way.
Gov. Strickland’s education proposals are numerous and complicated, and the budget fight is messy. But lawmakers must tie up these loose ends so the education plan that eventually passes makes sense. Before Ohio mandates how schools operate, each should be judged on both measures — state rating and test score growth.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
TweetGuest column: Tackle energy issues with Wright kind of intensity
Lt. Gen. Lawrence P. Farrell Jr. served as the vice commander of the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Now retired, he is president of the National Defense Industrial Association.
In 1909, Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, a plane designed and built by Orville and Wilbur Wright, ushered in a new era when it became the world’s first military airplane. Once the site where the famed inventors tested their aviation inventions, today Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and military bases across the country, can help transform the way our nation secures and uses energy.
The need is urgent. I serve with retired high-ranking military leaders on the Military Advisory Board of the Center for Naval Analysis, which produced the landmark 2007 report — National Security and the Threat of Climate Change. That report found that energy, climate change and national security are inextricably linked.
Our latest study, Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security, builds upon that by considering risks inherent in the United States’ energy posture.
Our conclusion is sobering: U.S. energy posture is an urgent threat to national security. As military leaders who have spent our careers anticipating threats, we concluded that continuing business as usual is not an option.
Militarily, the sources of, and the ways in which we use, energy add to the already great risks assumed by our troops. It puts our troops — more directly and more often — in harm’s way. Ensuring the flow of oil around the world, the global economy’s lifeblood, stretches our military thin.
The country’s dependence on oil — not just foreign oil — reduces our leverage internationally and limits our diplomatic options. We say all oil, because we simply do not have enough resources in this country to ever meet our demand. We find ourselves entangled with unfriendly rulers and undemocratic nations simply because we need their oil.
In 2008, we sent $386 billion overseas to pay for oil — much of it going to nations that wish us harm. And we cannot produce enough oil to change this dynamic; we have to wean ourselves from it.
Economically, we are in the midst of a financial crisis, and our approach to energy is a key part of the problem. We are heavily dependent on a global petroleum market that is highly volatile.
In the last year alone, the per-barrel price of oil climbed as high as $140, and dropped as low as $40. This price volatility is not limited to oil; natural gas and coal prices also saw huge spikes in the last year.
While coal and natural gas resources may be plentiful, they are increasingly difficult to access and have associated impacts that are expensive. Dramatically increasing worldwide demand for fossil fuels and finite supplies will inevitably lead to a future of greater price volatility and shortages.
There are those who say we cannot afford to deal with our energy issues right now. But if we don’t address our long-term energy profile now, future economic crises will dwarf this one.
Increasing demand for, and dwindling supplies of, fossil fuels will lead to greater instability around the world.
So, too, the impacts of global climate change will pose serious threats to water supplies and agricultural production, leading to intense competition for essentials, competition that, in far too many cases, will lead to conflict. The United States cannot assume that we will be untouched by these conflicts.
In our most reasoned military judgment, we must transform the way our country produces and uses energy. We must diversify our sources of energy, both as to type and to source. This will inevitably mean moving to more renewable sources of energy and to a reduced dependence upon fossil fuels.
As the nation’s largest single largest consumer of energy, the Department of Defense can play a leadership role as an early adopter and test-bed for new energy technologies. It can spark the next technological revolution, just as it did as incubator of the Internet.
Wright-Patterson and bases like it have an important part in this transformation. I know, because I have served at Wright-Patt and am keenly aware of the human and technological resources it and other military bases have to jump-start smart energy innovation.
We can win this energy battle if we bring the same sense of urgency and intensity to smart energy innovation that the Wright brothers brought to air travel. Once again, Dayton, home of the Wright brothers’ aviation testing ground, can — and must — help lead the nation to a new era of security and prosperity.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Energy, Guest Columns, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
TweetEditorial: Nuclear power still has big problems, too
Back to the future.
Duke Energy announced this week that it wants to build a nuclear power plant in Piketon, about 100 miles east of Cincinnati, due south of Columbus.
Duke provides electricity to most of Warren and Butler counties, as well as the Cincinnati area (and tiny parts of Montgomery and Preble counties).
The company is confronting the fact that its Ohio business is now coal-based. And coal is a problem.
Washington seems to be moving toward some sort of limit on the carbon emissions that are associated with coal. (Some legislative proposals would hit Ohio particularly hard.)
Whether the much-talked-about “cap and trade” legislation passes or not, the coal industry seems likely to be on the defensive for a while, given the ties that science sees between carbon dioxide and global warming.
The utility apparently doesn’t see the new-fangled likes of solar, wind or geothermal energy as quite ready to meet its needs. So it’s returning to a technology that it sees as relatively tried and true. It operates other nuclear reactors out of state.
The last time Ohio turned to the nuclear option, things didn’t work out. Three utilities, including Dayton Power & Light, started work on a nuclear plant known as the Zimmer project — also east of Cincinnati — in the early 1970s.
After much went wrong, and after $1.7 billion was spent, they gave up, turning the plant into a coal-fired one, and spending another $2 billion to do it.
So the fact that Duke says it wants a plant now doesn’t mean a plant will happen, notwithstanding the enthusiastic support of the likes of Gov. Ted Strickland and Sen. George Voinovich. This is the beginning of a long, long effort.
The people around Piketon are more familiar than most with the dangers of a badly run nuclear operation. The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a Cold War project, resulted in several thousand workers and their survivors collecting hundreds of millions of federal dollars in this decade for resulting medical problems. The contamination is still being cleaned up, with stimulus money.
Even today, nuclear reactors come with a lot of problems. They are enormously expensive. They take forever to come on line, in part because every plant is different; there’s no kit. Also, the country is still fighting about what to do with waste that nuclear reactors generate. And what to do with nuclear plants when their lives are over is still an issue.
Still, the fact is that nuclear energy has undergone a sort of rebirth in popularity since its earlier problems, including the famous Three Mile Island incident. A partial core meltdown at that nuclear plant in Pennsylvania scared the nation. That happened as the Zimmer plant was being built.
Nuclear technology — and the attendant safety precautions — have come a long way. And nuclear plants have operated a long time without any huge human catastrophe, at least in the West. France has 59 nuclear plants providing most of its electrical power, with excess to export.
Meanwhile, every other kind of power generation turns out to have its problems. These days, any kind of mass energy source that doesn’t necessarily hurt the environment and doesn’t come from the Mideast has a lot of attraction.
Ohio — especially Appalachian southern Ohio — has to be somewhat happy about any major corporation wanting to build just about any major project these days. Officials are saying that construction alone could provide 4,000 jobs.
But any nuclear project does still have to be kept under a powerful microscope. Nuclear is very far from problem-free. It just poses a different set of problems.
Related:
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Energy, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb
TweetGuest column: Defense contractors are not the bad guys here
Rick Schikora, of Beavercreek, is director for ARINC Engineering Services. A member of the Carlyle Group, the company has 55 local employees. It does program management and consulting for the military and federal government.
The editorial, “War on contractors had to happen,” May 29, said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Barack Obama are intent on reining in a contracting system that has “gone amok” by returning defense contractor strength to pre-President George W. Bush levels. While the commentary cited the KC-X (refueling tanker) as emblematic of the problem, earlier this year, on Feb. 9, the DDN quoted Gates as faulting the government for KC-X’s woes.
He blamed “entrenched attitudes throughout the government (that) are particularly pronounced in the area of acquisition: a risk-averse culture … parochial interests, excessive and changing requirements, budget churn and instability, and sometimes adversarial relationships within the Department of Defense and between the DoD and other parts of the government.”
My experience as a defense contractor is similar, with program cost overruns and schedule delays primarily being driven by a lack of control in the government’s definition of requirements and execution processes.
These problems won’t be resolved by converting contractor positions to government jobs. The same people planning acquisition today will be executing acquisition tomorrow.
The problems Gates observed require greater discipline in balancing requirements against mission needs, achievable technology and available budgets; building requirement packages in deference to known constraints; and, most important, once defined, letting the requirements stand.
There will always be new technology and new ways to employ it. But at some point you have to go with what you have — or you’ll end up with nothing, as we have with KC-X and CSAR-X (helicopter).
Recent successful protests didn’t happen because contractors had “blank checks.” Rather, they were upheld by the Government Accountability Office because of flawed processes. Source selection authorities should be empowered to solicit and evaluate proposals free from congressional special interests, requirements creep and the suffocating layers of oversight reporting, second-guessing, and scrap and rework exercises that drag procurement decisions out for years.
If sound requirements are established, and acquisition professionals are left to do their job, they will almost always deliver a best value solution.
Converting 20,000 acquisition positions from contractor to federal civil service will not reform acquisition processes, nor will it punish the contractors that Gates, Sen. Carl Levin, and others argue are slopping at Washington’s money trough.
Instead, the brunt of the punishment will be borne by the community of businesses that evolved to support Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and other military acquisition centers. Small businesses cannot sustain prolonged hemorrhages of talent. Gates’ plan, if passed, doesn’t begin until October, yet Wright-Patterson got a head start last year, advertising more than 200 new acquisition support positions.
When the 20,000 new federal acquisition positions are posted, the work force shift will be dramatic. Since the bulk of the Air Force’s acquisition corps and budget resides here at Wright-Patterson, a negative impact on our region’s businesses seems inevitable — an issue whose significance to our community has been largely absent from the media or public discussion.
Many in the contractor acquisition community suspect this conversion will create no real job growth. The government needs acquisition experts. Congressman Mike Turner notes the need to hire the best.
That means the government’s selection process will focus on experienced contractors either already in place or in close support roles, leaving the military’s total acquisition head count here largely the same.
However, small businesses created out of the government’s earlier need for contracted support will see their payrolls steadily decrease, until their staffs and eventually CEOs lose their jobs. If these conversions happened all at once, there would be an outcry from the small business community, and it would reach Washington.
But stretched out over five years, the drain is slow and withering, finishing businesses off one at a time. We in the Dayton area should see some new jobs under the Base Realignment and Closure Commission process that will offset these moves, but there are no guarantees.
And what about other defense acquisition centers? It’s hard to imagine how these job losses could benefit them, the economy or us as a nation. Our elected leaders’ time would be better spent reforming the cumbersome acquisition laws, directives and mandates that got us here to begin with, rather than punishing those who work under them.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
TweetEditorial: ‘Clunker’ bill is a good bet for Midwest
There are a lot of reasons for Midwesterners — still tied to the auto industry, despite everything — to like an idea proposed by Akron-area Democratic Congresswoman Betty Sutton (and supported by local Republican Reps. Mike Turner and Steve Austria).
Her idea is to use $4 billion in Energy Department stimulus funds to spur auto sales while helping to reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency in the nation’s auto fleet.
The proposal, known as “Cash for Clunkers,” would offer up to $4,500 to car owners who agree to trade in their old, gas-guzzling vehicles for new cars with better gas mileage. The plan still needs work. That’s coming now that it has passed the House and is headed to the Senate. But it’s promising, both as a stimulus and for its environmental benefits.
In Europe, where versions of “cash for clunkers” are already in play, the results have been promising. Car sales have jumped significantly. The Wall Street Journal reports Germany saw a 20 percent gain in auto sales in February alone, and there is evidence car owners truly did swap primarily for compact, fuel-efficient vehicles.
Would the impact be as great here? It’s hard to say. Germany has more incentives for drivers to be fuel-sensitive. A high gas tax makes the per-gallon cost of gasoline well above U.S. prices. And the Germans tax big cars heavily.
The bill the U.S. House passed may not have the right incentives. In that version, the vouchers can only be used for new cars, not used cars. And owners would have to just turn over their old cars for no trade-in. (Remember, they’re being scrapped).
The old cars have to be operable and have been insured for the past year. So they can’t really be true junkers. At the same time, it wouldn’t make economic sense for an individual to turn over a car worth more than $4,500. You’d be better off selling it or doing a traditional trade-in.
Also, if you’re buying a new car, you can probably expect to pay at least $12,000. That could be a tall order for many folks worrying about their jobs in an economic downturn.
Meanwhile, environmental groups aren’t sure the bill, as it stands now, serves the planet well enough to justify its cost. For instance, the sliding scale in the law would allow a car owner to get $3,500 for trading up from a vehicle getting 18 miles to the gallon to one that gets 22 miles to the gallon. Environmentalists say that’s not enough payoff. They’d like to require the new car be even more fuel-efficient.
The opportunity is there for fixes to be made. If senators put some work into refining it, “cash for clunkers” could be good for the environment, could reduce demand for oil and could spur car sales.
All of those outcomes would be good for Ohioans. Despite the dramatic downsizing of General Motors and Delphi, Ohio still has a lot of jobs tied to the auto industry directly and indirectly. The state needs the industry to prosper and hopefully even start growing eventually. Given that the stimulus funds are to be spent one way or another, this is a well-conceived way.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Auto industry, Economy, Scott Elliott
TweetGuest column: Cyberspace can blur line between war and crime
Susan Brenner is NCR Professor of Law and Technology at the University of Dayton and author of Cyberthreats: The Emerging Fault Lines of the Nation State. Read more at cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com.
The 1983 movie “War Games” featured a teenage hacker who almost sets off “global thermonuclear war.” Today, the technology in the movie seems hopelessly outdated as global nuclear holocaust has been replaced by terrorists with “dirty bombs.” What many of us don’t realize is that the move’s ultimate message is still valid: In War Games, the computer was the trigger that could set off weapons; today, computers are weapons.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently told CBS News that the United States is “under cyber attack virtually all the time, every day,” and that the Defense Department plans to more than quadruple the number of cyber experts it employs to ward off such attacks.
In 2007, Estonia was the target of a massive cyber attack that lasted two weeks. The attackers used Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks — targeting computers with too much traffic so they shut down. The Estonian DDoS attack shut down computers used by government, media, businesses and schools. The attackers used a botnet — a network of 1 million “zombie” computers.
Zombies are computers that belong to people like you and me; they’ve been taken over by software that lets an attacker use them in DDoS attacks. Since only part of the computer’s resources are used, we never know our computer is moonlighting as an attack droid.
The Estonians knew the country was under attack. But by whom and why? It had to be crime or war (since terrorism is a type of crime). Individuals commit crimes; countries commit war. It used to be easy to tell which was which: When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, it was clear this was war, not crime.
It’s not easy anymore. Estonia thought Russia was behind the attack, which made it war. It asked NATO to help, but NATO wasn’t sure if this was war. The attack finally ended, and Estonia decided it was a crime — just retaliation by hackers who thought the country had insulted Russia.
Modern hackers don’t have to hack NORAD to start a war; they can do it on their own, which creates a dilemma.
If a country doesn’t know what an attack is, it doesn’t know who responds. In the United States, we divide response authority between the military (war) and law enforcement (crime). If we’re hit with a cyber attack, who responds? It might come from another country, but that no longer means it’s war. It might be war, or crime, or someone trying to trick us into believing another country is attacking us so we launch a counterattack.
Cyberspace blurs the lines between crime and war and that creates opportunities for the “bad guys.” We must move beyond the notion of threats as “inside” (crime) or “outside” (war) and develop more flexible threat categories and more nuanced response systems.
Attacks often target civilians, who don’t report them to authorities. The less we know about attacks and attackers, the harder it is to respond effectively. Here are some suggestions:
• Integrate civilians into the response effort by encouraging them to report attacks and harden their systems to improve our ability to resist certain types of attacks.
• Integrate civilians, law enforcement and the military into an initiative that ensures the rapid flow of threat data across all three sectors. Incorporate procedures to preserve the operational distinction between law enforcement and military.
• Create a Cyber Security Agency to implement these efforts and serve as a conduit — within constitutionally permissible grounds — between the military and law enforcement. This agency should encourage and coordinate with similar efforts in other countries.
• Do not incorporate civilians into the response process itself. That creates possibilities for abuse, error and overreaching.
Twenty-first century hackers aren’t bored adolescents. They’re professionals: criminals, mercenaries and cyber warriors. We’re their targets. If we want to avoid becoming their victims, we must take cyber threats seriously.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
TweetEditorial: Foreclosure moratorium still needed
The fact that Ohio has been hit so hard by the foreclosure crisis even though it never experienced the hyper escalation in home prices that occurred in California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada tells you something.
That’s as much evidence as anybody should need that most Ohioans who are losing their homes are doing so because of shameless subprime lenders deceptively peddling high-cost loans — or they’ve lost their jobs.
The problem is definitely not that buyers thought that housing values would keep skyrocketing forever or that people were paying what, in retrospect anyway, were obscene prices for their own little piece of paradise.
Are the real problems abating? Some recent news can be deceptive about that. The number of properties in Ohio that were the subject of a foreclosure filing last month dropped 12.5 percent from the same period a year ago, according to RealtyTrac . In the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area — which includes Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Preble counties — the drop was 26 percent, to 873 in May, versus 1,179 this time last year.
That’s good news, but not a trend.
What’s unknown is if:
a) The Obama program that created incentives for lenders to work with delinquent borrowers is having the desired effect.
b) Mortgage offices are so overwhelmed that they’re behind in filing foreclosures.
c) We’ve hit bottom.
d) Consumers are finding their ways out of crushing loans using helping agencies that are directing them to conventional loans.
e) All of the above.
It will take more months of good numbers before the people who’ve been following the crisis closely think the corner has really been turned. That’s partly because, as late as last year, brokers were still pushing the oppressive predatory loans that have proven to be so devastating to families and whole communities without much oversight from regulators. These adjustable mortgage rate contracts run three or five years.
Places like Ohio could be feeling the hurt through 2012.
Meanwhile, other numbers are worrisome.
The Mortgage Bankers Association recently reported that nationally 3.85 percent of loans were in foreclosure — the highest rate since it began tracking delinquencies in 1972.
In Ohio in the first quarter, the association says that one in 12 conventional loans are either behind or in foreclosure, the importance here being that these were loans made to people who didn’t have tarnished credit histories. The Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio says this number translates to almost 100,000 Ohio homeowners facing trouble.
One possibility is that neighborhoods that have been stable now will start seeing more foreclosures because of joblessness.
Looking at many Ohio cities, it’s hard to picture the foreclosure crisis being any more pervasive. And yet few states are actually worse off.
The problem continues to be big enough, damaging enough and prevalent enough that Ohio needs to adopt legislation calling for a six-month moratorium on more foreclosures. The idea is not to forgive loans, but rather to call a time-out so lenders and borrowers can try to work out new loans with affordable payments.
Lenders make far more money on refinancings than they do on foreclosures, which cost them money.
The Ohio House of Representatives has approved this idea. Now the Senate can buy thousands of families precious time.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Ellen Belcher
TweetEditorial: Xenia could use mental health court
There were plenty of jokes and snide remarks last week across the Miami Valley about “swimsuit man,” the Sugarcreek Twp. man dressed in a woman’s swimsuit who was arrested after creeping out the neighborhood by chasing people around in his unusual attire.
But as the story fades from the local news, law enforcement and the courts are left to figure out how to address a broader issue brought to mind by the case. It’s a common challenge for local courts — how to handle those arrested for minor crimes who appear to have been influenced to offend mostly by mental health issues, as opposed to a genuine criminal proclivity.
In 25 Ohio counties — including Montgomery, Miami, Clark and Greene — they’re trying out an idea that has shown some promise. It’s called “mental health courts.” It should be expanded to more courts and more counties.
Unfortunately, Xenia is not one of the local courts that has tried the idea. Since 2001, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Stratton has been a national voice pushing for more mental health courts. Of 180 mental health courts in the U.S., Ohio is by far the national leader with 34.
“Local judges have a lot of power,” Justice Stratton said. “If they call a meeting of all the agencies, they come. Many mental health courts start with no funding. It’s just a judge putting a team together.”
Judge John Pickrel has spearheaded the effort in Dayton Municipal Court. When mental health issues are suspected, defendants are flagged for screening by professionals who look for serious illnesses — schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and the like. Qualifying cases are reviewed by a group that includes the prosecutor, public defender, mental health professionals, probation officers and the judge.
The process is only for those who have committed minor crimes; serious offenders are not eligible.
Information gathered in the screening process is used to determine how the court will deal with these defendants. (“Swimsuit man” has not been assessed in this way, so it’s not clear if he would qualify for this sort of program.)
Defendants on the mental health docket are ordered to follow treatment plans that may require them to take their medication, go to counseling or therapy or stay clean from drugs and alcohol.
“It’s just a better way of handling cases where mental illness is the root cause of the conduct,” Judge Pickrel said. “Jail is not the best place for them. They get sicker if they go to jail.”
With the Ohio Supreme Court’s blessing, Judge Pickrel’s court now hears mental health cases that are referred from elsewhere around the county.
But in Greene County, where the Sugarcreek Twp. man is charged with eight minor crimes, the only mental health court is in Fairborn’s municipal system. His case is in Xenia Municipal Court and can’t be transferred.
Fairborn Judge Beth Root started a mental health court there in 2006. She said the process works as an intensive probation. Regular treatment, probation meetings and court appearances are required of those in the program.
“We’re trying to get them back into treatment, on their medication and off alcohol and drugs,” she said.
In Fairborn, those who complete the program rarely return to the court system. Judge Root said the success stories are remarkable. She’s seen people enroll in college, find jobs and get promoted, returning to productive lives.
“We’re not seeing them come back,” she said.
Mental health courts have grown as more communities have recognized the benefits, including savings to taxpayers when people return to functional lives. Every municipal court ought look at starting one.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities
TweetGuest column: NCR loss is not just business; it’s personal
Jill P. McElroy, 30, lives in Kettering. A communications specialist for the University of Dayton Law School, her husband has taken a position with the federal government. She will be teaching English at a private school.
The bumper sticker that would tell people where I’d rather be is too long to fit on any car. If it did exist, it would say something like this:
I’d rather be at Carillon Park on a hot but breezy day, sitting under the shade trees just west of the bell tower, reading a book, watching brightly colored kites flutter against a deep-blue sky, listening to the bells mark the long, luxuriant hours of a Dayton summer, building on the happy memories of this place that has been my favorite in all the world ever since I was a little girl.
Carillon Park has long been a part of my history and the history of my hometown. I have spent many perfect days here, with my parents, friends and husband, throwing Frisbees, cooking out, attending festivals and weddings.
The park, which also contains a museum and series of building chronicling Dayton’s history, was founded by Col. Edward Deeds, former CEO of the National Cash Register Corp., whose world headquarters always sat just across the street from my Arcadia. NCR recently announced its plan to relocate from Dayton to Georgia, despite 125 years of strong heritage with the Gem City, where favorite son John Henry Patterson founded the company in 1884. A statue of Patterson sits up the street from my house in Kettering, a Dayton suburb named after Charles Kettering, a local inventor and another famous former employee of NCR.
Responses to the corporation’s departure repeatedly have included the words “angry,” “saddened” and “disappointed.” I echo these emotions, but I also feel as if they’re directed at me. I’m leaving Dayton, too.
My move, to Washington, D.C., this August for my husband’s job, will not make the local papers or TV stations. It is unremarkable in every way, but my heart breaks to participate in the Dayton region’s “brain drain.”
Dayton is a wonderful city that possesses a unique combination of attractive features: a rich history, a vibrant arts scene, diverse population, extensive bike trails and waterways, verdant Ohio scenery, a very low cost of living, the largest private university in the state, and some of the warmest, kindest residents in the country.
Most of us lucky enough to live here appreciate our home, but still Dayton is plagued by a dull reputation, and the economy is at a standstill. We take this personally.
The decision to relocate NCR does not only affect Dayton’s economy. NCR is not just a business; it is thousands of people who live in our community, and more than a hundred years of tangible legacy that stretches across our city (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Old River, the Engineers Club, the Miami Conservancy District, etc.).
I’m sure that many of NCR’s employees now feel the heartache I feel, forced to make a rational decision to move away to a city where they will have a job, though it grates against their heartstrings.
Somehow, Dayton and Ohio’s leaders must do a better job of marketing our city to potential employers and employees. I propose a partnership with the University of Dayton, which recently has managed, despite a challenging economic climate, to successfully introduce new programs and attract record applications.
Surely, UD’s leaders have some tips about how to attract people to Dayton. At least, I hope someone does. Personally, I can’t wait to move back home.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Guest Columns, Montgomery County
TweetEditorial: Court right that money taints judges
For courts to have credibility, people have to believe they can get a fair shake from judges, no matter how much money or political influence the other side has.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling last week in a West Virginia case regarding campaign contributions to a judicial candidate should finally push Ohio’s top court to create a process to decide when its justices must excuse themselves from ruling on cases after they have taken money from one of the parties.
It’s an overdue step, what with Ohio’s Supreme Court having taken its lumps as judicial elections have become increasingly politicized.
The West Virginia case, Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., is such an extreme example of judicial conflict of interest brought on by political contributions that John Grisham has hinted it inspired his novel “The Appeal.”
Hugh Caperton sued Massey Coal, claiming the huge company put his small operation out of business using unfair tactics. He won a $50 million judgment.
Massey’s CEO, who has showered money on West Virginia Republican politicians, followed by spending $3 million to support a candidate’s successful run against one of the sitting state supreme court justices.
That challenger — Brent Benjamin — won and then declined to recuse himself from the Massey case when it was appealed. Justice Benjamin’s vote helped overturn the judgment in a 3-2 ruling (though in other cases he has gone against Massey).
The U.S. Supreme Court found that Justice Benjamin and other judges must step aside from cases where the perception of bias is “extreme” because of campaign contributions.
Nothing like the West Virginia case has happened in Ohio, but it could under the state supreme court’s laissez-faire approach to handling conflicts. Already, there have been embarrassing moments.
The Washington Post’s story Tuesday about the Caperton ruling cited a 2006 New York Times study of Ohio — one of 39 states that elects, rather than appoints, judges — as an example of the influence of political contributions.
The Times found Ohio Supreme Court justices routinely ruled on cases in which they had received contributions from one of the parties and sided with their contributors 70 percent of the time.
Even when Ohio’s justices have done the right thing and stepped aside, the pattern has put the court in a bad light. When cases involving scandal-ridden Republican fundraiser Thomas Noe reached the top court in 2005, five of the seven justices stepped aside because they had taken between $3,000 and $5,000 each for their election campaigns from Mr. Noe.
The situation was a vivid reminder of the role money plays in judicial elections, and it created the impression that some high-rollers make it their business to shower money on politicians — even as judges are supposed to be above that taint.
Interest groups pouring cash into what are supposed to be “nonpartisan” supreme court races is a huge problem. A serious run for the Ohio Supreme Court now requires big money — at least $1 million.
The people handing out the most cash are the very people who have cases before the court — and want judges to rule their way. What reasonable person doesn’t worry that money talks?
The U.S. Supreme Court’s action, while stopping short of establishing new standards or a test for determining when a judge must step aside, nevertheless has focused attention on the need for creating rules to prevent the appearance of bias.
Currently, Ohio’s lower courts have such processes, but the supreme court does not. On the top court, it’s up to each justice to decide on his or her own if there is a need to step aside.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who has pushed for merit selection of judges, expects that to change in the wake of the Caperton case. One option might be allowing the court to decide by majority vote if one member must get off a case. Or an external panel of some sort — lawyers, judges, retired judges or a mix — could make the call. Justice Moyer said he expects the court, which was watching this case, will discuss the issue this summer and propose new procedures by year’s end.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court’s warning to judges will probably not be enough to get Ohioans to do away with electing judges. But the decision is an order that the Ohio Supreme Court can use to impose tougher rules on judges and candidates and to discourage efforts — from the public’s view — to buy judges.
If money really doesn’t influence decisions, then no one should mind judges having to disqualify themselves for getting too much of it.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Scott Elliott
TweetWrite your ad for NCR’s headquarters
Want to win an original, signed Mike Peters NCR cartoon? Have ideas about how you would pitch NCR soon-to-be-empty world headquarters building to a potential buyer? Try clicking through to this post and writing your best hypothetical ad for NCR’s land. Our favorite ad will win the signed cartoon!
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Local Business, Local History
TweetGuest column: Can evolution and creationism be reconciled?
Shelley Emling’s biography of Mary Anning, “The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World,” published by MacMillan, can be preordered at www.amazon.com.
Ken Ham, whose Creation Museum in Kentucky just celebrated its second anniversary, is sure that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old and that God created everything in six divinely ordered 24-hour time slots.
To Ham, it doesn’t matter that scientists have recently unveiled Ida — the 47-million-year-old fossil hailed as the evolutionary link between modern primates and more distant species.
“No other book gives an account of origins as specifically as the Bible,” said Ham, whose museum 20 miles southwest of Cincinnati has attracted 720,000 visitors since opening on May 28, 2007.
I met Ham, founder of the nonprofit ministry Answers in Genesis, earlier this year in London after he gave a speech at Westminster Chapel, part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and Europe.
I became interested in Ham’s message after writing a biography of Mary Anning, a dirt-poor girl who cajoled one never-before-seen prehistoric monster after another from their Jurassic tombs in the cliffs along England’s southern coast in the early 1800s.
Her fossil finds — ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, pterodactyls — paved the way for the work of Charles Darwin, whose book “On the Origin of Species” was published 150 years ago.
Like Ham, most people during Anning’s time adamantly believed that species never evolved or became extinct. Indeed, the very religious Anning likely was unsettled by the fossils she was finding — as was Darwin himself, who asked in one of his private notebooks: Who else but God could have made things happen in such a marvelous way?
I’ve spent a lot of time wondering whether anyone will ever be able to close the gap between religious beliefs and scientific evidence.
Insisting that the great flood is responsible for the fossil record, Ham argues that God created the world in six days — literally. Simply put, he says the word “day” shouldn’t be taken symbolically, because a word can never be symbolic the first time it’s used. Allegories?
But, interestingly, some of the earliest Christian theologians accepted that at least some parts of the Bible’s text, including the creation story, were meant to be taken allegorically. In the early fifth century, St. Augustine argued against the validity of a literal six-day creation in “The Literal Meaning of Genesis.”
Ham agrees that natural selection can provide an organism with an edge in its environment, but refuses to believe that the process can lead to a new species. In other words, dogs can develop new traits from one generation to the next, but dogs will always remain dogs.
But, after years and years of observation, Darwin, of course, believed there was something inherently wrong with the idea that species are fixed. So, can the two sides ever be reconciled?
Today there is a growing movement that believes one can have faith in both science and religion while emphasizing that the Bible makes no specific mention of the Earth’s age.
World-renowned evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala has repeatedly argued that the Genesis story not be seen as a scientific treatise but rather as a declaration of God’s sovereignty over his creation.
When asked whether God exists, Ayala says he cannot prove or disprove it, arguing that the question is not one of science but one of religion. The former president and chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has said Darwin’s greatest accomplishment was that he removed the idea of a creator from biology. But he also hasn’t completely ruled out the idea that evolution might have been guided by God.
In today’s increasingly secular society, people love to believe that science can explain everything. But there are plenty of mysteries that have yet to be solved.
Despite decades of space exploration, for example, more than 90 percent of the mass in the universe still hasn’t been detected.
What’s out there? It’s anybody’s guess.
Scientists also can’t figure out how exactly to explain a human being’s free will, which may or may not be just an illusion.
Even years after Einstein’s theory of relativity, and amazing advancements in quantum physics, scientists can’t truly explain the world’s many wonders — such as the slow blossoming of a flower.
Perhaps one day the debate about evolution and creationism will be settled. But I doubt it. The arguments on both sides are simply too persuasive. Still, one can hope.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns, Religion and Faith
TweetGuest column: For many, NCR was part of fabric of life
Bill Lewis is a freelance writer living in suburban Atlanta. He formerly worked in Dayton for the advertising agency Needham, Harper & Steers. E-mail him at wjlwrite@aol.com.
Even though I now live near Atlanta (and have for 25 years), I read the news of NCR’s Dayton departure with great chagrin.
I grew up in the Gem City (well, technically, in Kettering), and NCR was always a part of my young life. No, my parents didn’t work there, nor did we ever have occasion to buy even one cash register. That really didn’t matter. NCR permeated the lives of many of my friends. And the patient rolls of my Dad’s medical practice contained the names of many NCR employees.
NCR was a part of the fabric of life in Dayton. That was especially true during my growing up years in the ’50s and ’60s.
It was a distinct badge of honor to be an NCR employee during that era. Jobs were proudly handed down from generation to generation. The factories lining Main Street were jammed. And you didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when the afternoon whistle went off and a swarm of humanity headed home after another productive day.
Quite frankly, in the summertime, I was jealous of the kids whose parents worked at NCR. One trip to Old River will do that to you. I have never seen a swimming pool that rivaled the size of the one the company built for employees and their families.
On only a handful of occasions was I privileged to be an invited guest. But to my young eyes, that blue water was at least as big as a lake, and maybe even an ocean. Forget about swimming all the way across. (By the way, I tried that … once … thought I was going to drown. Didn’t need the heroics of a lifeguard, but my friend had to help me the last few yards or I was going under.)
The company originally built two golf courses for its employees to enjoy. In the early ’50s, NCR deeded those to the city to be used as public courses. And they built their employees two brand new ones.
These were not your run-of-the-mill courses either. One, the South Course, hosted the 51st PGA Championship in 1969. (Another note of jealousy: This was before regular tour caddies. Pros would just pick up locals to carry their bags. My friend Jeff’s dad worked at NCR, so Jeff knew the course well. He got to be Arnold Palmer’s caddie.)
At Christmas time each year, NCR would find seemingly the biggest tree in the world and put it up right in front of the factories on Main Street. Families, mine included, made going down to see “The Tree” an annual outing. There were thousands of lights and enormous ornaments all over every branch.
In the distance, Miami Valley Hospital, up on the hill, always had a brilliant star high atop its tallest building. Viewed from the correct angle, it looked as if the star was the crowning glory of the NCR tree.
On the property was also a beautiful auditorium. I suppose the company used it to hold meetings. But mostly I remember it was utilized each year by virtually every high school in the area (including mine, Fairmont West) for baccalaureate services in May and June.
Of course, NCR was the corporate “citizen” in Dayton. Museums, art institutes, philharmonics, community parks, United Way programs, anything that benefited the mental and physical well-being of the residents was sponsored in some way, shape or form by NCR.
Alas, it’s all gone now. The move has actually been happening for some time, of course. Most manufacturing moved away decades ago. And other operations have followed suit since then. But the words “World Headquarters” still remained. Today, even they are history.
The relocation will undoubtedly be Atlanta’s gain. But, in reality, NCR will not be a big fish in a small pond any more. Like Old River, this is a pretty big place in which to try to swim. The Coca-Cola Company, UPS, Home Depot, Newell Rubbermaid, Delta Airlines and a few more well-known corporate entities are already major players here. So, while the news of NCR is great for Atlanta, it’s certainly a major loss for a city like Dayton. Makes me want to go out and buy a cash register. If you can still do such a thing.
At the very least, the next time I visit Dayton, I’ll make it a point to drive down Main Street and remember fondly what used to be there in days gone by.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns, Local History
TweetEditorial: Residency ruling bad for Dayton, region
As bad as the last six months have been for the Dayton region, they’ve been even worse for the city.
On top of the down economy, the foreclosure crisis, budget shortfalls, the automotive industry’s layoffs and NCR’s decision to leave, on Wednesday the Ohio Supreme Court dealt the city another blow when it declared residency rules unconstitutional.
Now workers who make their living off of Dayton taxpayers’ dime — police, firefighters, street workers and others — can live where they choose, though this couldn’t be a worse time for anyone looking to move.
Mayor Rhine McLin, a strong supporter of the city’s position that its “home rule” rights should give it the leeway to make its own decisions on issues like residency, held a press conference Wednesday to announce the city would not challenge those who want to move out.
Afterward, reflecting on all the buffeting, Mayor McLin struck an optimistic tone. “It’s like the 1913 flood again in a different way,” she said. “Can you imagine what the people of Dayton thought after the flood seeing all that devastation? But the city came back. And it will again.”
The Ohio Supreme Court’s decision banning residency requirements is a punch to cities across the state, not just Dayton. Because the state’s constitution allows cities home rule on matters that are not of statewide concern, it’s been widely accepted that local governments could require employees to live within their boundaries.
Keep in mind, everybody knew the rules when they applied and accepted their jobs.
But in 2006, egged on by public employee unions, the legislature easily passed a statewide ban on residency rules, which prompted challenges to the rule in Dayton and several other cities. The Akron and Lima cases made it to the top court first, but the ruling affects everyone.
Writing for the majority, Justice Paul Pfeifer stretched the Ohio Constitution’s guarantee of the legislature’s right to protect employees by providing for their “comfort, health, safety and welfare” at work, extending lawmakers’ power to cover where the employees live when they are not on the job.
In her dissent, Justice Judith Lanzinger said the legislature could now use the ruling “in a conceivably limitless variety of situations to eviscerate municipal home rule.”
If the erosion of Dayton’s middle class continues or accelerates with city workers defecting to the suburbs, that’s not good for the region. While the city’s loss may seem like other communities’ gains, the suburbs, too, are dragged down by a shrinking, too often forgotten core.
That’s really just another way of saying that, when it comes to promoting economic development, Dayton can’t just be an afterthought.
Consider NCR’s departure — a blow to the entire region, for sure. But the hardest hit by far is the city, which will lose a pile of tax revenue and its marquee corporate asset. Specifically, Dayton will stop getting more than $2.6 million per year in income taxes.
Yet, when state Sen. Jon Husted, Montgomery County commissioners and business leaders sent a letter to Gov. Ted Strickland last week asking him to spend the $31 million he offered NCR in incentives on business development here, the focus was outside the city.
The Austin Pike interchange in southern Montgomery County — prime real estate for sure, but of little direct benefit to the city — got hardly a mention. There was just a passing reference in a final bullet point to the possibility of revenue sharing from Austin Road for the benefit of Dayton.
Though it has already made major cuts, the city said this week that it will have to slash yet another $4 million this year — and that’s before any NCR losses are factored in. As bad as other communities are having it right now, far and away, the city is suffering most.
And now, thanks to the Supreme Court’s action, Dayton in the short-term, and definitely over the long-term, will lose again.
When Dayton’s critics go off on all the city is doing wrong, it’s worth remembering that some problems have been beyond its control. And if the region doesn’t look after the place that it takes its name from, if regional leaders aren’t committed to helping Dayton succeed, the suburbs’ futures aren’t going to be good either.
Permalink | Comments (79) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Ohio politics, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities
TweetYou write ‘listing’ for NCR’s headquarters
Pretend you had to write the ad to sell NCR’s headquarters property. What would you trumpet?
Check out this editorial about the sale of NCR’s headquarters.
Now you write the ad to sell NCR’s world headquarters. Post your “listing” here.
We get to pick the one we like best. The winner gets the original of Mike Peters’ “Goodbye NCR” cartoon. If you’re playing to win, we need a real e-mail address.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Local Business, Local History
TweetEditorial: NCR’s home not a fixer-upper
NCR Corp. quite possibly has one of the most beautiful pieces of property — and views — in the city.
Its headquarters looks out at lush Carillon Park. The building itself sits on a small island, with the Old River Park lagoon circling the building. Built in 1976, it still retains its contemporary look.
Soon it will be up for sale.
The 450,000-plus-square-foot building — with plenty of parking — is nestled off Patterson Boulevard and is bathed in green during this time of year and fall colors when the season changes. Though between 1,200 and 1,300 people work on the five floors now, real estate brokers say it has space enough for 2,000 to 3,000 people, depending on which square-foot rule of thumb you like.
The 53.5 acres are prime real estate if you need lots of space in Dayton, Ohio, and if you value — and know about — the things Dayton offers.
The challenge for whatever firm that ends up marketing the property is that corporate headquarters don’t often move. It’s also rare to find one business that needs so much space.
The possibilities increase, however, if you think not just nationally, but globally. And for the right international company looking for a U.S. presence, or to increase its footprint in this country, Dayton is more competitive than many Midwestern locales.
The Air Force research that’s done here, the almost limitless supply of water, the low cost of living, the universities, the engineering talent — are all attributes that not every community has.
Dayton and Ohio — through its department of development — have done, at best, an anemic job telling this story. Especially now, they have to do better.
NCR’s dilemma going forward is also Dayton’s. The company wants its money for the property, which will limit the pool of lookers to only serious actors. The region, on the other hand, needs to have the building back in use.
At least on this front, Dayton’s and NCR’s interests line up perfectly.
But both parties are probably going to have to be patient. The other thing besides location, location, location that matters in real estate is timing, timing, timing.
The chances that a local business would want to own the building are probably not good. The logical contenders are Miami Valley Hospital and the University of Dayton.
But UD has an expansive and expensive multi-year master plan that flows all the way to the river, and developing that acreage — much of it former NCR land — is a full plate.
Meanwhile, the space is too much for the uses Miami Valley would immediately consider.
These realities aren’t so bad. They will force NCR’s agent to look beyond the convenient and top-of-the-head places.
Of course, this is not an easy time to be selling property. But if you’re a prospective buyer with a plan, the landscape — literally and figuratively — couldn’t be better. This is not a time to sell Dayton short.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Local Business, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
TweetEditorial: New Julienne idea has big holes
The possibility of converting the former Julienne High School in Dayton’s Five Oaks neighborhood into senior housing — as suggested by St. Mary Development Corp. Executive Vice President David Bohardt last week — is intriguing.
Senior housing has worked in rehabbed former school buildings in Dayton (the former Huffman School is an example). Moreover, St. Mary has a strong reputation for success with redevelopment, and Mr. Bohardt has credibility among historic preservationists as the former head of Preservation Dayton.
Plus, senior housing needs are expected to grow as baby boomers age.
Given all that, it might seem the idea deserves a look from Dayton Public Schools. But there are so many unanswered questions that Mr. Bohardt’s proposal is a long shot at best.
In short, what he suggests is the school board strongly endorse the idea of senior housing, giving St. Mary the opportunity to apply for historic project tax credits that could cover some of the cost of reworking the building.
The problem, though, is that of the three incentive programs Mr. Bohardt would target, only one seems like a good bet to defray as much as 20 percent of the project. The other programs are intensely competitive, and Julienne might not even qualify for one.
Another big complication is that, to make the project financially feasible, the district would have to hand over the building for close to nothing. Dayton schools, which bought the building in 2004 for $2.35 million, has said previously it is only willing to sell it for the purchase price.
Under even a best-case scenario, Mr. Bohardt acknowledges he would still need even more outside financing.
Raising capital was a big stumbling block in the failed effort to save the former Roosevelt High School on West Third Street — a project that also included senior housing as part of its redevelopment. Like Roosevelt, Julienne is large enough that other tenants would be needed beyond the senior apartments to make the project economically sustaining.
Meanwhile, if all the funding issues worked out perfectly, the proposal still leaves the district with a big problem: it needs a school somewhere near Five Oaks, where a large number of the district’s students are concentrated.
There is the former Colonel White High School property in the nearby Mount Vernon neighborhood, but Dayton would prefer a closer site. Mr. Bohardt suggests a strip of land down the hill from Julienne on Forest Avenue. But the district would have to pay to acquire more property, raising its costs and delaying its building project even more.
Mr. Bohardt acknowledges that he is talking about a long process. He estimates it would take two years just to apply and receive any tax credit funding. Siting a school for this neighborhood already has been on hold for two years as the district and a neighborhood group have battled over razing Julienne.
The schools’ position is that it would cost about $6 million more to renovate Julienne for use as a school than to tear it down and build new on the same site.
In the end, the same problem remains with Mr. Bohardt’s idea: where do you get the extra money needed for a solution that includes saving the 1926 school?
The district can’t wait forever. It has moved swiftly through its 10-year, $627-million plan for replacing schools across the city. It’s on track to complete the entire slate of schools by 2012 and, so far, there have not been any major, budget-busting problems or huge delays.
If Mr. Bohardt wants to make a run at senior housing for Julienne, he needs to bring a more polished plan to the table that demonstrates a greater likelihood of success. He needs to answer as many of the unresolved questions about his proposal as possible — and quickly.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Local History, Scott Elliott
TweetEllen Belcher: Will NCR lessen the losses?
It’s not about us any more. It’s about NCR’s employees.
Just how are we going to help them? What specifically are we — Dayton people, Dayton companies, Dayton institutions — going to do for them?
Maybe it’s just paranoia running wild, but the talk on the street is that NCR employees are terrified that many of them will not be offered positions in Georgia or that the jobs will be so downgraded that they won’t be able to afford to move.
If it’s just a rumor, if people are worrying about nothing, then only NCR can put the concerns to rest and quickly be more specific about its plans.
In truth, and in the company’s defense, NCR would not be the first business to be trying to shed jobs through consolidating. We all get it that the “c” word is a euphemism for cuts.
Even if not every last one of the 1,300 employees and their families are staying awake at night, many are frightened that they’re going to be out of work and without the severance packages that, for example, General Motors employees received.
We need to get some things going for them.
They need a physical place to go, where they can start networking; where they can find out what jobs are available; where companies in the area (and from around Ohio) can interview them.
NCR has said that it’ll start letting people know by the end of the month whether they’ll be asked to move. But in case that doesn’t happen quickly, there also needs to be a “virtual” space for people to connect and interact with potential employers.
People need cover; not everyone will want to walk into a de facto recruiting office, risking getting marked and destroying any chance of staying with NCR.
We also need the universities and their business schools and local entrepreneurs reaching out to the folks who are wondering if this is the push (or shove) they need to break out on their own, to create their own start-up, to try something else.
It’s a miserable time to be raising capital, but there’s plenty of cheap space in which to work and create, and Dayton has the infrastructure — especially at the University of Dayton, Wright State and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base— to go for research dollars and get behind smart people with the next big idea.
The Dayton community also needs something from NCR. It needs to know details about the company’s work force. Precisely what kinds of jobs do the NCR workers have? How many are accountants, lawyers, programmers, sales people, support staff and so on?
Coping with the exit of a corporate headquarters requires every bit as much planning as the shuttering of a manufacturing plant. In some ways it can even be more complicated because people have a wider variety of jobs. NCR is not DHL. We’re not just in need of jobs for pilots and sorters.
Only NCR can tell elected officials and community leaders who is going to be needing help. And there isn’t a lot of time before some — maybe even a lot of — people are going to be hitting the street. The information about the nature of the work force has to be requested and disclosed quickly.
NCR has said it will offer employees outplacement services. But that’s not good enough. That allows the professional and personal hemorrhaging to happen in the dark, in the privacy of each individual’s gloom. It provides too little support.
Outplacement is what a company offers when it lays off one, 10 or 50 people — not when it moves a corporate headquarters, not when it’s siphoning so many jobs from a community. This, after all, is not a potential brain drain; very possibly it could be a brain gush.
Without concrete information from NCR, there’s no way to plan, no way to create a strategy for helping large groups of people land on their feet — here or elsewhere. NCR has to know the blow it has dealt to Dayton and the hundreds of employees who have worked hard and long for a company that is upending their lives.
The least it owes its people is its best efforts to minimize the financial loss and the personal difficulties that, to one degree or another, every single person is experiencing.
Can they and we please get on with getting on with our lives? Can we count on NCR to make its last acts here a model for corporate responsibility?
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Local Business
TweetGuest column: Ohio budget shouldn’t ignore ISUS-style success
Hap Cawood is the former editorial page editor of the Dayton Daily News.
Read quotes from ISUS founder Ann Higdon at the end of this commentary.
Ohio could blow it with regard to charter schools that are keeping at-risk students in the classroom. Consider ISUS (Improved Solutions for Urban Systems), the first charter high school in Dayton, and one for which I have done a little volunteer work.
The cliched charge against charter schools, reflected in attitudes of some like state Rep. Clayton Luckie of Dayton, is that they undermine public schools by skimming off the best students.
But ISUS “skims” from the bottom — for the dropouts, the troubled kids, the ones regular schools can’t handle and are sometimes relieved to see go because they disrupt and bring a school’s test scores down.
Those are the students that Ann Higdon, founder of ISUS in 1992, set out to serve, because she was once one of those kids when she was growing up in Harlem.
With crucial help from Dayton Rotary and other business-industry partners — relationships Ohio should be encouraging because of the resources they leverage — ISUS seeks youngsters between 16 and 22 who don’t like school. And guess what? To catch up, ISUS requires these students to have a longer school day and a longer school year — 1,200 hours of instruction instead of the standard 920 hours, a reform Gov. Ted Strickland advocates. Yet the state penalizes ISUS’s paltry state funding because ISUS demands more days and hours of students.
Furthermore, the state education department only gives ISUS students transportation services based on what Dayton schools use. But, among other things, Dayton schools don’t provide bus passes after 4:30 p.m. Thus, ISUS this year had to spend $46,800 on bus tickets for students because they work later at different sites.
If the transportation subsidy is $420 per student, why not give it directly to the charter school?
Though most ISUS students are at-risk, six out of 10 graduate — 648 since 2000. How does this school with so many court-involved kids provide safety without a single metal detector and only one guard in an organization with dozens of sites?
By creating a new dynamic, by enforcing these rules:
• No guns, no drugs, no violence, no threats of violence; one violation and you’re out.
• By putting students in “family” teams in small classes led by “life coaches” designed to deal with their needs and create positive peer pressure.
• By using hands-on learning with real-world results, leading not only to a diploma but also post-secondary school opportunities and job certifications in in-demand fields such as “green” construction and health care, all at no charge to them.
President Barack Obama is encouraging volunteerism. Every ISUS student is an AmeriCorps volunteer, funded through the Corporation for National Service. ISUS has gotten good marks for its Youthbuild program under the U.S. Department of Labor.
And there’s more. ISUS is the biggest community development corporation in Dayton in terms of home construction. ISUS students first gained a sense of pride by rehabbing 13 homes and an eight-unit apartment building on Frank Street near Miami Valley Hospital, which helped spark the renewal of Brown Street.
ISUS is now working on 60 homes in the stressed Wolf Creek neighborhood, creating a critical mass of improvement and higher home values. Yet the Democrat-led Ohio House budget puts absolutely no value on that kind of achievement.
Up next: ISUS students are replicating the childhood homes of the Wright brothers, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman, all to be built to be highly efficient with renewable energy technologies, including photovoltaic roofs.
This work is hard for ISUS to pull off, given the fact that ISUS receives no local school levy funds and no equipment or facilities funds from the state. Unless Ohio in its school funding promotes, rather than frustrates, this kind of entrepreneurial success — steering atypical kids away from uselessness and crime — this powerful advantage is Ohio’s to lose.
Quotes from Ann Higdon, founder of Dayton’s ISUS charter school
• “School systems don’t know how to keep kids from dropping out. When looking for solutions, I start with less respect than most for how things were done and a clear vision of how things could be.”
• “When the education system no longer serves the population, the people have to have the courage to step forward and say, We have to change the system. If the system doesn’t serve us in a global economy, we’ll never catch up. We are dead last among the developed countries in math and science. Can we continue to do things the same way? You don’t have to be a genius to say, I guess we had better change.”
• “I became involved not because I was a teacher, not because I knew anything relevant in particular, other than that I had walked this path before. The Japanese have a word for teacher, “sensei,” that means “one who has gone before. If that’s a qualification, I have it. I understand how to rise out of poverty. I also understand that it is similar to a rocket ship pulling away from the force of gravity. It uses 85 percent of its fuel just getting away. Pulling out of poverty is not just an economic state. It is also a state of mind.”
• “Learning by doing is key. Learning by doing good is even better. I don’t know how to teach self-esteem to a person who hasn’t made any kind of positive contribution. With a sense of accomplishment, self-esteem becomes easy.”
• “We’re not playing here, taking the easy cases. It’s not that a new student comes in here, looks in our faces, and decides to do the right thing. And I’m not saying that some kids shouldn’t have to suffer the penalty of their choices. I’m not a bleeding heart in that way. We tell them, ‘It’s your choice, if you’re choosing to do the wrong thing, there’s a penalty for that.’ “
• “Our counselors are not the typical school counselors, but are more like counselors you would meet in a recovery program. They put the responsibility for your future squarely on your shoulder. They let you know that if you work just hard enough to keep from getting fired, you’ll get paid just enough to keep you from quitting.”
Permalink | Comments (14) | Post your comment | Categories: Education, Guest Columns, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: AT&T answers on 911 failure insulting
The overdue report from AT&T about what went wrong on the opening day in March of Montgomery County’s 911 dispatch center was a huge waste of paper.
The 71 pages include just three or so of narrative, in which the company concedes that “human error” in the programming of a switch was the likely reason that bystanders reporting a fire got no answer and that dispatchers had no idea frantic callers to the new center weren’t getting through.
That, though, is information Montgomery County already had.
The rest of the report consists of forms, checklists and printouts that make no sense unless you’re an IT wizard and maybe not even then. They are the sort of documents that AT&T would be obligated to turn over if Montgomery County sues the company.
They alone are an explanation of nothing.
Merely compiling paper is no way to treat a customer who has spent $1.5 million buying a sensitive, public safety product.
Since the very first days after the Harrison Twp. fire — which resulted in an 81-year-old woman being hospitalized and her house burning — the questions AT&T has been asked again and again are:
What specific protocols did you follow to ensure the system was ready to be turned out, and what precisely does your pre-testing include?
What sort of call volume did you test for? How many times did you test the equipment?
Also, why did your pre-testing not pick up the fact that the calls could get lost, and how did you miss the fact that certain lines were not functioning?
The questions are not unreasonable. They couldn’t be more obvious.
AT&T spokesman Michael Marker expressed surprise on Monday that Montgomery County Administrator Deborah Feldman found the report lacking. He suggested that any questions that weren’t answered are “granular.”
This level of response is part of a pattern that began when AT&T took questions at a press conference soon after the debacle. Then the company’s representative said he didn’t have answers to the looming questions because it was too soon after the incident and he didn’t have a technical manual with him.
Now, two months later, what’s the excuse?
People’s lives were in danger. For at least eight hours, emergency dispatchers were not receiving all their calls and they didn’t know it. The community is ever so lucky that there was just one life-threatening emergency in which the response time was delayed and only one person was hurt.
Does AT&T really think Montgomery County will just get tired of asking the same questions? Does it think local officials aren’t smart enough to see through its transparent efforts to avoid being candid?
The county hired a consultant to assist Sheriff Phil Plummer and be a “third set of eyes,” in the words of Ms. Feldman to watch over the repair process (at a cost of $10,000). Starting May 20, the 911 center was gradually brought online, and authorities say there have been no recurrences of the earlier problems.
That result was, of course, the only acceptable outcome after everything went so poorly initially.
Meanwhile, the county is preparing its bill to present AT&T on what it has spent for the consultant, in overtime and for redoing work that wasn’t done properly.
By apparently anticipating that Montgomery County could sue, AT&T is asking for a lawsuit with its insulting behavior. It’s also inviting public distrust and contempt for not coming totally clean about how badly things were bungled before the 911 system was turned on.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Montgomery County
TweetEditorial: Sotomayor’s hottest decision backs Dayton
The hottest legal case in Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation battle is about New Haven, Conn., and how that city handled a situation that Dayton also faced.
Judge Sotomayor upheld a decision by New Haven to set aside a civil service test of firefighters after no blacks and only one Hispanic did well enough on it to be promoted.
Conservatives have bashed her — and the other judges in the 3-0 decision, and the district court they were upholding — for trampling on the rights of those who scored high on the test.
Critics accuse her of taking affirmative action to a new level, even suggesting the decision is a demand for quotas.
That charge is just factually wrong.
If New Haven hadn’t set aside the test, it risked what happened in Dayton in a similar situation: a lawsuit. That was true because of existing law and precedent, not because of anything Judge Sotomayor was inventing.
Dayton was threatened with a suit by the U.S. Justice Department after it used a test for police applicants that had an outcome like the New Haven test. Dayton settled out of court, having to pay $450,000 in back pay and benefits to some black job applicants.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether New Haven and Dayton were in the wrong in using those tests in the first place (which were certainly not designed to discriminate against minorities).
But that wasn’t the issue New Haven was facing.
In 2003, New Haven administered tests for firefighter promotions to lieutenant and captain. The pass rates for whites — 60 percent-plus — were roughly twice the rates for blacks and Hispanics. To actually get a promotion, one need to not simply pass the test, but to be among the highest scorers.
The feds want to see racial groups coming within about 80 percent of the success rate of any other group on these tests. It’s not a rigid rule, but a city that gets challenged must explain why the rule of thumb shouldn’t apply.
Since New Haven had used other tests where blacks and Hispanics had done much better, it would have been hard-pressed to explain why this promotion test didn’t produce similar results.
On one level, it was odd to have Dayton criticized for its lack of diversity, given how much diversity there is at the top levels of the city. For decades, black mayors, city commissioners and police chiefs, not to mention administrators, have been eager to increase the percentage of blacks in the safety forces.
They’ve struggled to get into double-digit percentages; the current numbers are even below the percentages of a quarter century ago.
But the Justice Department wasn’t charging intentional discrimination. Courts long ago ruled that the impact of actions, not intent, are what matter. In part, that’s because intent is difficult to prove, but, in addition, people who mean well can nevertheless make decisions that hurt minorities.
Some people are offended when a test gets blamed for the failures of those who take them. But the courts have traditionally taken seriously the argument that American history has resulted in large numbers of blacks and Hispanics having less educational opportunity than most whites. And that a test might not be a perfect measure of ability.
Beyond that, there is the fact that a community is better off if its police force — and even other agencies — are reasonably representative of the population.
The courts and supporters of affirmative action have never said that qualifications should be ignored. At the same time, nobody should say that those who side, for example, with the people who passed the New Haven and Dayton tests are racists.
Competing and legitimate considerations are bumping up against each other.
The result is an enormously complicated, evolving body of civil rights law. The Supreme Court is expected to overturn Judge Sotomayor and, in effect, change the law. But she dealt with the law as it is (which is an example of being precisely the opposite of a judicial activist).
In defending her acceptance of New Haven’s claim that it was trying to avoid an expensive lawsuit and losing in court, she could present Dayton as Exhibit A.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Civil Rights, Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Martin Gottlieb
TweetEditorial: Huber councilman can’t do two jobs
Huber Heights, pop. 37,000, has a nine-member city council, which is more than enough by any standard.
And yet Brian Walton really should let somebody else fill his seat this year, rather than have it go empty.
The point isn’t that nine people are necessary. The point is, that’s the number established under Huber’s rules. If a seat is going to be empty, there ought to be a better reason than that a newly appointed (not elected) member has decided to work in Iraq or Afghanistan for a year as a private contractor.
Mr. Walton argues that others have not resigned offices when called up to military duty, so he shouldn’t either. But if that’s the kind of argument he’s going to make in the world of politics, he’s warning everybody to be leery of him.
Taking a job as a contractor cannot be likened to being called up.
If he were, indeed, wearing his country’s uniform, what other politician would dare suggest that he should give up his seat?
Mr. Walton says he’ll be doing the same kind of work he has done in uniform, and that he sees himself as serving his country, setting an example for his children. Fair enough.
But, still, it’s not the same.
He made a decision to pursue a spot on the council. Then he made a decision to accept a job that precludes service on the council. (Before the contracting job, he was working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and he has a house rehabbing operation with his wife.) He has to make a choice.
He was appointed to the council by the council at the beginning of the year, to fill a vacancy. He is planning to seek election in November. Some members of the council have said they are fine with that and will even support him.
If voters elect him, knowing that he won’t be back until next June, that’s one thing. But to keep a spot he has been appointed to is another.
The council has the right to unseat any member — appointed or elected — if he or she has three consecutive unexcused absences from meetings. That would be fair in this case.
In a community that has strong ties to the military, that might displease some people. But Mr. Walton himself said, upon appointment, “I follow what I feel is right, and, if it’s unpopular, that’s a consequence I’ll have to deal with.”
Mr. Walton’s conviction that he’s serving his country by going to Iraq is, no doubt, sincere. The view that he should step off the council is not a judgment about military contracting. If he were serving his country by joining the Peace Corps (at far less payment than he’ll receive as a military contractor), or leaving to teach in the inner city, or anything else voluntary, he should also step aside.
He is apparently motivated to serve in two different ways. Good. But some ways are mutually exclusive.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, Transportation, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
TweetEditorial: Counties should have more control in a crisis
You can’t blame Montgomery County commissioners — in the midst of cuts and layoffs, trying to close a $7.6 million projected deficit — for looking enviously at $19.4 million in cold, hard cash sitting there, but inaccessible, in the county’s coffers.
By state law, that money — collected from fees, delinquent taxes, law-enforcement seizures and other specific sources — is set aside for special purposes and controlled by a host of local elected officials. They have lots of plans for the money, too. They want to use it for SWAT team equipment, for computer purchases and for an array of other noble purposes.
In good times, that would be fine. But in times of crisis (as many counties are facing today, thanks to a steep slide in sales tax revenue during a recession), it’s crazy that sheriff patrols and other important services should be deeply cut while money that could help ease the pain lies around unused.
So an Ohio group representing county commissioners is asking lawmakers to allow flexibility in the rules that restrict the use of those funds in times of crisis. That request makes a lot of sense.
The core problem here rests with the political structure of Ohio’s counties. Having so many elected offices for positions that could be appointed — like recorder, treasurer, auditor and coroner — creates separate fiefdoms that bring in some money and allow those public officials to feel some sense of detachment from the greater issues facing the county. It’s very easy for some of them to close their doors and focus just on what’s best for their offices.
With latitude from the legislature, even reluctant officials could be brought to the table and made to consider the bigger picture. If their own pet projects are important enough, they could still win funding. They just should have to compete against the county’s other priorities. In some years, they may lose out so a sheriff’s deputy can keep his or her job.
Constitutionally, county courts have more control of their own budgets. That’s not going to change, and they’re sitting on more than $4.7 million in special funds collected by the courts. But the constitutional separation of powers shouldn’t exempt judges from the conversation about what’s best for the county. They need to be at the table, too, and they ought to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.
The two biggest pots of cash — totaling $9.4 million — are in the hands of the county prosecutor and treasurer. By law, those offices split 5 percent of delinquent tax collections, money that is set aside to fund further efforts to collect more back taxes.
But even the county’s robust collection effort cannot spend the money fast enough. Every year, the balances get bigger.
That money, had it been paid on time, would have belonged to school districts, parks, human service agencies and libraries. Rather than leave the money sitting in a bank account, there should be a mechanism to put it where it is needed. And lawmakers should consider whether the current mandate that 5 percent be held back for all counties makes sense.
The $19.4 million is enough to run the sheriff’s office for half a year or the prosecutor’s office for 18 months. It’s too much to be left unused for long periods when needs are great.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Miami Valley Politics, Montgomery County, Scott Elliott
TweetGuest Column: How Dayton can keep jobs, attract more
David Gasper, of Beavercreek, is a software entrepreneur. Formerly with NCR Corp, he sold his start-up company that serviced automated teller machines to NCR in 1999. His start-up, PicsMatch, is a consumer software product that uses facial recognition to organize photographs.
In the wake of NCR Corp. leaving Dayton, many of us are asking how Dayton can hang on to the jobs it has — and grow more.
Here are concrete ideas for keeping our local information technology businesses healthier and more connected to Dayton.
Let’s target the major IT companies that we want to be more vested in Dayton. In information technology, the logical and obvious candidates are:
• Lexis Nexis
• Teradata
• Reynolds and Reynolds
• Standard Register
Let’s also develop an IT outreach strategy modeled after how the community went after jobs during the Base Realignment and Closure Commission process. That elements of that strategy should be:
• Uniting the region and speaking with one voice. One organization needs to own the effort to retain jobs, and all communities and stakeholders need to participate. A single municipality or chamber of commerce is too small to act alone. In the BRAC campaign, collectively we achieved success because we leveraged each other’s energy, knowledge and contacts.
• Developing deep relationships with executives and board members of the targeted companies even if they do not live or work in Dayton. The BRAC team spent a great deal of time in Washington and other communities building relationships.
• Developing strategic plans to counteract the competition from other cities and competing economic entities.
• Including political leaders at the state and federal level.
• Creating a partnership climate for our local businesses. Officials, community leaders and citizens need to understand businesses’ problems and how we eliminate roadblocks — in exchange for more jobs.
•Creating incentives for the targeted companies above and beyond standard tax breaks.
Some examples of might be:
•Start an executive recruitment program in which the Dayton community participates in attracting executives to the area. Create a welcoming and sale committee to help sway executives to live in Dayton.
• Creating specialized tailored management programs that would develop top local talent. This would be more specialized than a standard generic MBA program.
• Enlist business faculty to help businesses. Some educators already participate in the community, but we need still more.
• Convert Dayton to a “tier 1” broadband communications city by turning on the underground fiber network system that has been place but is not being used. Make this high-speed network available to locally vested companies. We have an information super highway lying under our streets, yet we are unable to drive on it. Let’s open it.
• Create more applied research programs for our local universities that could directly benefit local companies. Use Third Frontier Funds to make the research more affordable for our local partner companies.
• Link our local IT companies to state and federal sales opportunities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and in Columbus.
Finally, let’s focus on our small- and medium-sized business. Small businesses have created far more IT jobs in Dayton than NCR did. Yet, they don’t receive multi-million dollar incentive packages. Rather, we face many more obstacles than large companies, yet we are the engine for future job growth.
Warren Buffett compares our economic crisis to a war. While this might not be an appropriate analogy, his point is that we have to respond as if we’re in a fight. We need plans and a strategy; focus and sacrifice; unity and a sense of purpose.
I’m disappointed that NCR no longer believes in Dayton. But we have a lot to offer many other companies. Let’s do it.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Guest Columns, Local Business
TweetGuest Column: Focusing on innovation is the better strategy
Carol M. Shaw is professor emeritus of engineering management at the University of Dayton, where she formerly was director of the Center for Competitive Change.
W. Edwards Deming, the famous MIT professor who set Japan on its course to manufacturing success, cautioned managers about failure to understand a system.
If we consider the United States as an economic system, we might ask: what is the benefit of moving 1,200-plus NCR jobs from one region to another, from Ohio to Georgia? How does using incentives to benefit one region at the expense of another represent an overall gain for the U.S. economy as a system?
Focusing on moving a business from one region to another is the wrong mindset for management. It creates chaos, and it’s comparable to moving chess pieces around on the same board.
What the country needs is for management to focus on innovation — developing products to expand the playing field, or, using our chess analogy, to create a new version of the game. In fact, management should be so busy innovating the next product line that it wouldn’t consider a regional move because doing so would disrupt the creative flow of ideas from their most important asset — people.
The fact that NCR made an executive decision to move without consulting its most important asset provides insight into how NCR views the community. It didn’t care about Dayton.
But should it? Should an executive consider his business’ connection to community? Does it contribute to the bottom line?
Toyota, Deming’s most well- known success story, thinks so. In fact, a long-term commitment to community is in that company’s mission statement. Does that pay off?
Toyota entered the recession with $35 billion in cash, enough to loan the Japanese government money. A taxpayer’s dream, instead of the taxpayer nightmare created by NCR.
There is something to learn, however, from NCR’s decision to move to another region. Bill Nuti’s comment about being the first CEO to open a manufacturing facility in the United States is a signal that state and local officials should note. Get ready!
Manufacturing is coming back to the United States.
In fact, David Huether, chief economist for the National Association for Manufacturing, says, some manufacturing — such as chemicals and food — never left the country. We still produce 21 percent of the $7 trillion in world manufacturing. That’s only a 3 percent change from the 1970s, when that number was 23 percent.
The hit U.S. manufacturing has taken is in metals, apparel and computers, according to Huether, but he agrees that NCR’s Georgia plant opening is a harbinger of a high-tech manufacturing rebound.
U.S. manufacturing is 50 percent more productive than the next 12 leading manufacturing nations, something that’s critical for high-tech manufacturing.
A high-tech manufacturing rebound has ramifications for state and local planning, as well as universities. It’s too bad that NCR missed the high-tech potential that an NCR/University of Dayton/Wright State University/Sinclair Community College partnership could have created. Creative skilled trades, combined with creative engineering, is a powerful foundation that exists now in Dayton.
Meanwhile, Ohio has a key valuable asset many manufacturers need, and many regions lack — water. NCR should revisit the headlines about Georgia’s extreme drought in 2006-2008. Will NCR remember Dayton the next time the reservoir dries up and its water is shutoff?
The Dayton region has pride, enthusiasm, creativity, ingenuity and a friendliness that will assist those moving to Georgia as they sit in the Atlanta airport waiting for delayed flights.
That will not include Nuti, however. He lives in New York and flies in a private jet.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns, Local Business
TweetEditorial: Rap on Ohio and Dayton costs jobs
Losing NCR’s world headquarters is not just heartbreaking for Dayton. It’s also a kick in the teeth for Ohio.
People from NCR’s Bill Nuti to Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich are using the occasion to trash the state on taxes — a symptom of a bigger problem.
Here’s an exchange with Mr. Nuti from the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Web site:
“Q: How did you settle on Georgia, Duluth in particular?
“A: We did a complete analysis of the lower 48 states, measuring a state’s political environment, demographics, tax incentives, foreign direct investment, skilled labor, infrastructure, supply chain, airports and, of course, we looked very, very hard at the cost of living.
“Georgia scored among the highest-ranked states for the high availability of a skilled work force and (training). Georgia has a thriving economy, the No. 8 lowest corporate tax rate, No. 16 in the United States for foreign direct investment, great logistics, particularly for supply chain and infrastructure. It’s home to many research centers and many Fortune 500 companies, including many of our customers in town.”
Now, admittedly taxes are just one item on Mr. Nuti’s list. But he happens to be wrong if he’s referring to a state corporate income tax.
Ohio doesn’t have one. So, as a frustrated state tax official asked, how can Georgia’s rate be lower than zero?
Ohio’s primary business tax is the commercial activity tax, which is effectively a tax on sales. NCR will pay that tax on anything it sells in the state regardless of where its headquarters is, and, had it stayed, it would not pay taxes on its profits.
When he bemoaned NCR’s decision, former Republican Congressman Kasich, who is running against Gov. Ted Strickland next year, complained that “Ohio has the seventh highest state and local tax burden in the country.”
Both Mr. Nuti’s tax statistic and Mr. Kasich’s are from a conservative outfit called the Tax Foundation. Researchers and tax commissioners across the country — no matter how their state stacks up — say the Tax Foundation’s methodology is squirrely. If you were doing a bona fide site analysis, you would never get your information from the Tax Foundation.
The real truth is that Ohio’s tax rates — state and local together — are not low, but neither are they outrageous as compared to other states.
According to 2006 Census data, Ohioans’ state and local tax burden, as a percentage of their personal income, ranked 18th. On a per capita basis, Ohio did better, coming in at 24th. (That number is also somewhat misleading because a bunch of states are clustered together, separated by piddling differences.)
The “high tax” rap is maybe not central to, but a big part, of Ohio’s “brand” problem. We’re just miserable — no, make that inept — at telling a rich, but complicated, story:
For instance, yes, Ohio stacks up poorly in its number of college graduates. But the Dayton region is home to a cluster of engineers and researchers — because of the presence of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its universities — that is the envy of other communities. (This is a fact; Massachusetts tried to rip off many of them during the BRAC process.)
The numbers of scholars and scientists in Columbus because of Ohio State, and in Cleveland because of the Cleveland Clinic, are phenomenal.
Yes, Ohio once had high labor costs, but the industries where unions dominated — automotive, for instance — have been decimated. The manufacturing Ohio is excelling at today is precision manufacturing. Those jobs still pay well because they require high skill levels.
Yes, the state is exporting too many of its young people. But it’s also crawling with universities and community colleges that are swelling with students who might consider staying if they were offered jobs here.
As for the cost of living, in Dayton and any corner of the state, you can have a palace for what it costs to buy a guest house on the coasts and in large cities. (The notion that the Atlanta area has it over Dayton on this metric is laughable.)
Dayton and Ohio have to look at NCR’s departure as a failure if not in a specific sense, at least in an overall way. Mr. Nuti, who was hell-bent on leaving Dayton, convinced his board that the move was in the company’s interests by parroting information that’s widely believed. Ohio and Dayton have only themselves to blame for not countering that.
The sales job this region and the state have is, indeed, formidable. Perceptions definitely die hard. But there’s something wrong when important truths are on our side and no one’s buying.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Local Business, Local History, Montgomery County, Ohio politics
TweetKevin Riley: NCR’s Nuti at least owed us honesty
Bill Nuti worried this community’s leaders from the beginning.
And it wasn’t just because the NCR board agreed — a year after it hired the CEO — that he didn’t have to move to Dayton after all.
Ohio, Montgomery County and Dayton officials saw Nuti’s predecessor, Mark Hurd, as engaged in the community and a supporter of Dayton. They believed they were close to reaching a deal with him to expand here, and they were devastated when he left for Hewlett-Packard.
Because Nuti never wanted to talk about those conversations — or anything else — last week’s announcement that the company is leaving for Georgia felt like it had been in the works for a long time.
But the worst part has been Nuti’s aloofness and lack of honesty.
According to Jon Hoak, former general counsel for NCR and current vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer for Hewlett-Packard, Nuti never valued, or took time to understand, Dayton.
Hoak, who said he was relating his personal views and not those of his company, called NCR’s decision “sad.” “I think it could have been avoided,” he said. “For whatever reason, the management team didn’t want to become part of Dayton.”
Nuti, who has declined repeated requests for interviews from this newspaper, didn’t invent his management style at NCR.
According to Newsday, just before taking the NCR job, he made a public commitment to his role in the Long Island, N.Y., business community when he was the head of the extremely troubled Symbol Technologies. He had also sent a memo to the Symbol staff that said: “I am committed to Symbol Technologies and I intend to be here for the long term,” the newspaper said.
After he became CEO, Nuti closed down an NCR plant in Scotland. According to The Scotsman newspaper, he informed the company’s 650 workers that they would be losing their jobs by having them watch a pre-recorded video.
“It’s just a disgrace the way we’ve been treated,” one worker told the newspaper. The newspaper also said that Nuti had earlier assured community leaders that the company was committed to the plant.
Even with the pressures of the down economy, today’s management gurus are preaching transparency and candor.
So why would a CEO do things this way? Why not just tell communities and employees a company’s situation and your plans?
According to Roy J. Lewicki, an expert on business ethics and professor at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, there are a couple of explanations.
Lewicki said often executives are driven by arrogance or embarrassment. Of Nuti’s plan to move NCR, he said: “This looks like arrogance. It may be fear, but it looks like arrogance.”
Lewicki says companies and their leaders enjoy informal, but important, contracts with the communities they operate in.
“One would think more of the company and its leadership if they could handle this with more decency,” he said.
In August of 2006, Nuti told the Dayton Daily News:
“I think that being a good corporate citizen is good business. We’re very happy in Dayton. We feel NCR is a part of Dayton. We continue to give a great deal of our time and resources to this community, and we will continue to be a strong advocate for this community. I think NCR is committed to Dayton for the long term.”
Either that wasn’t true then, or, in the past three years, he changed his mind.
While Nuti was avoiding conversations with local officials, he definitely was taking Georgia’s calls. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Nuti spoke with Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue in mid-February, about the same time when Dayton and Ohio officials were trying to get a meeting with him. Georgia’s legislature also was passing a huge tax break bill that NCR is now tapping.
Congratulatory e-mails passed around by one of the Atlanta area’s chambers of commerce said local officials “began working with our partners at the State … on this project in late 2007.”
NCR has had a long run of chief executives who treated the community and its employees with respect, even when they were making wrenching decisions — laying off workers by the thousands, closing plants and making draconian cuts.
Dayton knows, Dayton remembers all too well, that Bill Nuti is not the first NCR chief executive who found himself leading in trying times. He has just done so with less honor.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Economy, Kevin Riley, Local Business, Ohio politics
TweetGuest 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
TweetGuest column: ‘Real NCR’ can’t be moved
By Fred Bartenstein
“We are part of all we have met.” — John H. Patterson, 1844-1922
As I read the news coverage and commentary about NCR’s world headquarters moving to Georgia, it occurs to me that it is only the corporation with a three-initial symbol on the New York Stock Exchange that is leaving Dayton.
The real “NCR” — at least what that name has come to mean in the Dayton region — isn’t going anywhere.
In fact, it couldn’t be taken from us. It’s in our DNA, in the very landscape we inhabit, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the way we live and conduct ourselves as a community.
What I’ll call “the real NCR” is a collection of powerful and influential ideas that changed the world and shaped Dayton as we have come to know it in the 20th and 21st centuries. John H. Patterson — who, by the way, bought but did not found the organization that became National Cash Register Company in 1884 — was the person responsible for many of the ideas.
But he also attracted and built a culture supportive of social entrepreneurs who refined his ideas and added their own — people like Charles F. Kettering, Edward Deeds, Thomas Watson, James Cox, and Arthur Morgan.
This culture nourished Wilbur and Orville Wright, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Josephine Schwarz, Miriam Rosenthal and countless others who build on their heritage and add to it today.
What were some of the game-changing ideas that still make Dayton Dayton?
Treating workers like human beings and not just instruments of production. Cooperation among business, government and the public for civic progress. An egalitarian approach to participation, education, public health, parks and open-space, recreation and philanthropy.
Efficiency and professionalism in local government. Creative institution-building for tackling new challenges. A higher social value for merit and innovation than for birth and wealth. A belief that progress is possible, and, therefore, that change is welcome.
We have been mistaken in associating the real NCR with a corporation that manufactures and markets products that could not have been imagined by its founders, far-seeing as they were.
The real NCR is a legacy of ideas, institutions, enterprises, and landmarks that make our region what it is today.
These aren’t going anywhere and will shape the lives of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Let me name just a few: the City of Dayton, the Miami Conservancy District, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Dayton Foundation, the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, Culture Works, the United Way, Hills & Dales Park, Old River, Hawthorn Hill, Moraine Farm, the NCR Golf Course, Carillon Historical Park, Patterson Boulevard (the filled-in Miami and Erie Canal), and Dorothy Lane (named for John H. Patterson’s daughter).
The NCR story this week is not a replay of “Chicken Little” or “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.”It’s more like the “Wizard of Oz.”
We are slowly realizing that it wasn’t a wizard corporation that made the magic behind that moat and brick curtain on Patterson Boulevard. We had the magic all along — the heart, the courage, and the brains — and we can continue to use them to shape our future. We are grateful to our forebears and benefactors, and we — not Atlanta — inherit their legacy.
Fred Bartenstein has lived in the Dayton area since 1975. Formerly president of the Dayton Foundation, managing director of the Victoria Theatre Association and a Dayton assistant city manager, Bartenstein is a consultant living in Yellow Springs. E-mail him at fred@fredbartenstein.com.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Guest Columns, Local Business
TweetEditorial: Stimulus money hard to tie to NCR move to Georgia
Obviously, federal stimulus money should not be used to lure jobs from one state to another. That’s just shuffling deck chairs on a ship that is still taking on water.
However, it really doesn’t look like stimulus money lured NCR to move any jobs to Georgia. This needs to be said, because Ohio politician after politician has made a statement denouncing the “fact,” to quote some, that the federal money — which is supposed to perk up the national economy — is being used for purposes of economic civil war.
The behavior of the politicians is almost defensible, because NCR put out public statements saying that stimulus money would toward its planned operation in Columbus, Ga., However, it turns out that the city has simply applied for that money, even though NCR has already committed to the project.
Every indication is that the project will go forth, whatever the feds decide. That’s what Columbus is saying: that the city will come up with the money, one way or another. It’s a credible claim. After all, a building is available (though NCR also plans to build another, smaller one). The city wants the project to happen. NCR wants it to happen.
Stimulus or no stimulus, that’s typically been enough to make this sort of thing happen. Local communities are enormously eager to find a way to facilitate the arrival of almost a thousand new jobs. Incentives may be the least controversial form of new spending.
Worth noting also is that the jobs in Columbus would not be coming from Dayton, anyway. Dayton doesn’t have an NCR plant. This would be a new operation.
Now, it’s also true that NCR got $60 million in tax breaks and other incentives to go to Georgia, and the Columbus project was necessary to access that money in the way it was accessed. Specifically, the money is available to a company that brings a certain number of jobs and buys a certain amount of land, among other conditions. Only if the Columbus jobs are added to the jobs NCR is moving from Dayton to Duluth, Ga., does the deal qualify.
But if NCR was moving into Columbus with or without the stimulus, the point hardly matters.
Anyway, even if the Columbus project wasn’t happening, it’s hard to believe that Georgia wouldn’t have antied up plenty of incentives to get the NCR headquarters.
Such incentives always materialize when a big company shows interest in a state. NCR had, says the company CEO, looked at all the states before deciding Georgia was right for the headquarters; then it got its offer.
Some politicians who complain about the possible use of stimulus money in Columbus are making a limited point about how the stimulus should be used. Others, of course, are seizing the opportunity to denounce the stimulus itself and those who supported it.
A spokeswoman for Rep. John Boehner, R-West Chester, leader of the House Republicans: “Ohio lawmakers who voted for the so-called stimulus package … need to explain why they voted for legislation that let another state woo away Dayton’s only Fortune 500 company.” Noise.
And yet, maybe the alarms that have been sounded have served a good purpose. Certainly the people who administer the stimulus money are going to have a lot more trouble approving the Columbus application now, given the bipartisan uproar, at least north of the Mason-Dixon.
It looks as though, if Columbus wants NCR, it’s at least going to have to pay. That may be all the comfort Dayton can get out of the whole situation.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb
TweetEditorial: Bidding war would’ve left bad taste, too
The indisputable fact that NCR did not give Dayton and Ohio a shot at keeping the company here is understandably being shouted to the skies by local and state officials. They don’t want to be blamed for the company’s departure.
NCR’s aloofness also outrages other local people, who think that, given the extraordinary historic ties between the company and the community, NCR could have at least given Dayton an opportunity to sell itself. Not that long ago, the plan — under the company’s previous executive — was to expand in Dayton.
In the context of being totally shut out, the possibility that federal stimulus money might be used raises even more local hackles. Federal money to help one state lure jobs from another? Columbus, Ga., officials say ‘taint necessarily so. More on that in future days.
As of now, however, this observation: If there had been a bidding war between Georgia and Ohio, a lot of people would be complaining about that, too, and with justification. NCR obviously wanted to get as much in the way of incentives from Georgia as it could. If it had asked for and received a good offer from Ohio, and then went to Georgia anyway, critics would have said the company was just using the community and the state.
Obviously, NCR didn’t have to mention Ohio to the Georgians for Georgia to understand that NCR had options. Still, NCR can’t be accused of shamelessly playing the two states off each other.
The hours after the move was announced were full of politicians at press conferences and photo opportunities in both states. The politicians here were boiling. The politicians in Georgia were basking.
And yet their role was apparently not the end-all-be-all. The $60 million that Georgia put up in tax breaks is an important number, of course, something NCR had to care about. But such incentives are the way things are done these days; they are not necessarily the reason things are done.
NCR also didn’t pit all the states against each other in an open competition of the sort that automakers sometimes have created when opening new plants. Rather, NCR’s CEO says the company looked at tax rates, among many other factors, and Georgia came out on top.
Given how subject to manipulation those sorts of analyses are, you would not be crazy to think that NCR knew, from the beginning, where it wanted to go.
It would be a shame if the lesson that people take from NCR’s departure is that Ohio or its localities have to become more generous toward corporations bearing jobs. The state has to compete, of course. It has to play the game the way it is played. But it should not be a leader in making the game even more expensive than it is.
It would also be a shame if NCR becomes a football in a game of tackle partisanship. U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-West Chester, leader of the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, said, “This dismaying news … is a definitive statement that Ohio’s current economic policies are driving essential business and valuable jobs out of our state.”
When he says “economic policies,” he means taxes, of course. But Ohio’s basic tax scheme was devised by the Republicans in 2005, when they overhauled the tax system, especially as it relates to businesses. The overhaul has been embraced by Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. So why get partisan?
There is still more to discuss as to government decisions, including the stimulus issue. But the way it looks now, a corporation simply did what it wanted to do and received a lot of government help to do it.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb
TweetEllen Belcher: NCR fight was over before it started
If NCR Corp. likes Georgia, it really likes its money.
Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and state Sen. Jon Husted are adamant that when Mark Hurd was CEO of the company, NCR’s plan was to expand in Dayton. They have letters to show that state and local leaders were in negotiations with the company in 2004 and 2005 about increasing jobs at the Dayton world headquarters, though there’s no letter from NCR committing to anything.
Clearly, there were exchanges, and they sounded positive.
In retrospect and compared to what Georgia is paying the company to move its world headquarters there — $60 million in incentives — the package Ohio and the region pulled together back then is piddling.
Dayton and Montgomery County put $2.65 million on the table; the state of Ohio was committing $3.8 million.
Maybe that helps explain why everyone from Gov. Ted Strickland on down couldn’t get Bill Nuti, CEO of NCR and Hurd’s successor, to give them the time of day for the past two years. Who knows, maybe Nuti saw the aforementioned incentive package and decided from the beginning that Ohio wasn’t worth wasting a meeting on.
Bidding for jobs is the name of the game in today’s business world, but, wow. NCR’s move gives you a feel for how cut-throat and expensive that practice is.
Ohio, too, has played this game, winning some and losing others. Last year the state, Franklin County and Columbus put up a stunning $67.6 million in taxpayer money to get Net Jets to add 810 jobs — far fewer than NCR is promising to Georgia — at its Columbus hub.
The line NCR and Georgia officials are putting out is that the company wanted to consolidate operations in Georgia (it has more workers there than in Dayton); that it likes easy access to Atlanta’s bustling international airport; and it needed Georgia’s demographics (the state is rich in 25- to 34-year-olds).
Certainly, these are not irrelevant or unimportant considerations.
But, please. For every great thing about Georgia, you can find an equally good thing about Ohio.
In fact, Nuti never looked, never gave Ohio or Dayton a chance. It’s pretty hard to know about the affordable housing, the easy commutes, the low cost of living, the rich arts scene or the universities if you’re living in New York City and don’t get to town much.
Which brings us back to the money — and the fact that NCR’s history in Dayton didn’t count for a whit.
Husted, of Kettering, said that in one of his multiple conversations with NCR officials in which he was asking for a meeting with Nuti, he evoked NCR’s long history in Dayton and its founder, John Patterson. The official, Husted said, told him, “This is not John Patterson’s company any more.”
Point made.
Plenty of people are saying that Patterson must be turning over in his grave at the thought of NCR leaving the community that he gave so much to. (Besides making his company into a nationally celebrated relief agency during the 1913 flood, he helped build the Miami Conservancy District and campaigned for a more professional city government.)
Fred Bartenstein, who ran the Dayton Foundation from 1983 to 1992, recalls that it was Patterson who started that philanthropy, which is designed to look out for Dayton in perpetuity. Patterson sent NCR’s “director of social welfare” to Cleveland to learn about the Cleveland Foundation. Upon hearing of its good works, he then got his nephew and sister-in-law to help him capitalize the organization.
“He didn’t call it the NCR Foundation or the Patterson Foundation,” Bartenstein said. “He wanted to create a philanthropy that everybody could participate in … one that would be here no matter what companies come and go.”
Would John Patterson, a fierce competitor and industrialist, ever imagine his own company leaving? Who knows, but, before he got so much attention for his efforts during the flood, he did once threaten to move NCR to Schenectady, N.Y.
“Dayton didn’t appreciate him,” reads one newspaper accounting of the history.
NCR watchers have been anxious about the company leaving town since Hurd departed. No matter was too small to worry about whether it would tip the company over the edge. Even the closing of the Stewart Street bridge for so long was seen as a possible excuse.
The most plausible speculation is that Nuti simply had different plans than Hurd, and that no one was going to stop him.
The assumption in Georgia that the company had some attachment to Dayton was, in the end, just NCR’s bargaining chip to play in a game Dayton was never even in.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Local Business, Local History
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Austria messes around; bids to be the un-Hobson
As you may have heard, President Barack Obama wants to close the American prison for accused terrorists and enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay (on the same island as Cuba). Actually, President George W. Bush said he wanted to close it, too. But Obama has set a deadline — in a year.
Gitmo, as it’s called, has become an international symbol of bad practices: holding people endlessly without trials, concrete charges or contact with the outside world, and, in earlier stages of the Iraq war, mistreating prisoners.
The Bush administration had hoped that by keeping the prisoners outside this country, it could circumvent laws pertaining to other prisoners. The conservative U.S. Supreme Court shot down that stratagem.
Some people have raised alarms about the idea of putting these dangerous prisoners in the states.
However, Obama notes that “Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal ‘supermax’ prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.”
He approvingly quotes Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-N.C.: “The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational.”
(The president’s speech on the subject, which disposes of many of the alarms raised about his plans, is available at www.whitehouse.gov. Go to “speeches,” then to May 21. The speech label mentions national security.)
But Rep. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek, is rising above the rational. He has proposed legislation “to prevent the enemy combatants currently housed at Guantanamo Bay from being relocated to Ohio.”
Curiously, Austria’s press release (available at his Web site) does not explain what would be so awful about putting the prisoners here. Because nobody knows how to contain them? Because Ohio doesn’t have the right kind of prisons?
Instead, he settles for noting three times in a brief statement that the Obama administration has put forth no plan for where the prisoners would go.
But he also notes that the House Appropriations Committee has turned down the Obama request for $80 million to close Gitmo and move the prisoners, precisely because there’s no plan. The Senate has also balked, citing the same reason.
One might think that would be enough to handle the situation, eliminating the need for state-by-state bans.
But one must understand the political problems of a freshman congressman in a minority party. He’s not going to get much that’s real accomplished, except maybe to get some money or other federal actions on local projects.
And, as to that, Austria can’t compete with his predecessor, Dave Hobson, a master of the process. Perhaps Austria had that fact in mind when he opted out of the competition for local “earmarks” for this year.
Note: This year. Maybe later, when he gets the hang of things.
Meanwhile, you take the opportunities that present themselves to, at least, look like you’re doing something.
And who’s to say he’s really making no difference? Remember the fellow who said he was working hard to keep wild elephants off the streets? When told there are no wild elephants on the streets, he said, “You’re welcome.”
The thing is, though, a politician does pay a price for the job this way. You become known in Washington for just messing around, rather than keeping it real. You become the un-Hobson. It’s hard to imagine the all-business Hobson engaging in this sort of cheap stunt.
But maybe Austria is on to something. Maybe the state-by-state approach is the right way to handle national issues. Maybe, when we go to war, for example, we should let the states decide one by one which ones will be subject to having their reserve and National Guard units called. The liberal states could say, “Let the red states handle things, if they’re so gung ho.”
Taxes and environmental regulations? Let the blue states have them if they’re so gung ho; let the others opt out.
Austria didn’t invent the hyper-parochial approach to national politics, of course. And a couple of years ago, newly elected Gov. Ted Strickland said he didn’t think Ohio should have to accept Iraqi refugees. His point was that the president had caused this problem; let him and his supporters eat it. Strickland quickly backed off, though.
At that stage, it wasn’t really about where to put refugees. The state wasn’t going to have a say. It was about what kind of reputation a guy wants.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics
TweetEditorial: What’s it mean to lose NCR?
The loss of NCR to Dayton is, of course, more than the loss of a thousand-plus jobs, difficult as that alone is to deal with in these times.
To have NCR’s corporate headquarters here — long after the actual making of cash registers had ended — has added something to the community, something that’s on the cusp between tangible and intangible.
For a community that frames its history largely as a part of the history of American invention, the NCR headquarters building was a modern day testament to that past.
When visitors and schoolchildren are told the history of the cash register, or about NCR’s and Dayton’s role in World War II code-breaking, or even about the historic construction of dams to protect Dayton from floods, having the physical presence of NCR — the descendants of John H. Patterson, so to speak — meant something.
For past generations of Daytonians, the NCR presence meant a great deal more. Lives by the tens of thousands revolved around the institution. NCR is better called an institution than a corporation, because its role went so far beyond making machines, pushing technology and providing jobs.
For decades, it fostered culture and community as innovatively as it improved technology and changed the way America (and eventually the world) did business.
NCR’s profound sense of paternalism linked the company and the community in a special way, creating both a standard and a tradition that, by today’s standards, looks almost quaint.
But NCR’s presence has shrunk and shrunk. Of late, the CEO and his team didn’t even live in Dayton. Now the news comes that the company is moving its headquarters to Georgia.
That announcement comes on the heels of the news that Iams — another, more modern local institution, no longer locally owned — is moving its headquarters to Mason, outside of Cincinnati.
Iams, too, has had a role in the community far beyond doing business, largely in the philanthropy of founder Clay Mathile and his family (which generously continues).
The NCR and Iams news came right as General Motors — once itself the core of the community’s economy — declared bankruptcy.
Phew. What a week.
Life will go on much as before for those not directly victimized by the loss of a job, though the economic ripples that always occur when a company pulls up stakes will be real. For most, however, life and even livelihood do not revolve around companies that dominated the physical and psychological scene of Dayton.
But for people who worry about the definition of a community, about how to make things work in the big picture, what we have here is a symbolic turning point, a moment of truth, a sort of reckoning about the future.
Modern reality strikes us in the face, as if it was worried that it didn’t already have our attention.
Maybe the reality to be confronted isn’t simply that the old institutions aren’t the center of things anymore. That’s long been true. Maybe the point to be focused on now, as our attention is turned back to the matter, is that they won’t be replaced. Not really, not by anything similar.
Now, after all these years, we know that even when potential replacements come along in the business world, they somehow get absorbed into the national scene and eventually move on. Smaller operations dominate. One mustn’t look for the center of things anymore.
There’s still Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, of course. Its economic impact certainly extends well beyond its gates. That can and should become even more true as the search for connections between military technology and the civilian economy goes on.
But those gates are very real. And people in charge inside quickly pass through them on the way out of town. Most of them, anyway.
The connection of the base to the community can be close, but there will always be a sharp limit.
We are pretty much on our own.
Permalink | Comments (42) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb
TweetEditorial: Foreclosure moratorium key to economy
Ohio is poised to do something significant about the foreclosure crisis.
But lawmakers could end up being so consumed by the hole in the next two-year budget — and the anger and frustration that situation is creating — that they’ll just say the heck with it.
They cannot be allowed to do that. They can make a difference. And if they choose not to act, the very thing they’re obsessing about — the budget and the state’s overall condition — will remain a nightmare.
After all, the one thing that Republicans and Democrats should be in agreement on is that mortgage lending practices, which led to the housing bubble and then the bust, have been a driver behind the economy’s downturn.
That downturn has precipitated the job losses that are precipitating the state’s problems and still more foreclosures.
Ending unnecessary foreclosures is central to stopping the downward spiral.
Recently, the Ohio House of Representatives passed legislation introduced by state Rep. Mike Foley, D-Cleveland, that would require a six-month moratorium on foreclosures.
Note: The legislation would not be a free pass to stop paying your mortgage. Rather, homeowners who are in trouble and who are hoping to have their loan modified would still have to pay 50 percent of their house payment. (If they can’t do that, then they’re probably not good candidates for a loan modification, anyway.)
With the Obama administration just now getting its homeowners’ assistance programs going, a time-out would give everybody a chance to figure out the rules.
Many homeowners don’t know yet if they’ll qualify for federal help. Banks and agencies that help consumers haven’t mastered how to efficiently work through the new paperwork that’s required to tap federal subsidies.
Meanwhile, servicers — those places that collect your mortgage and pass the money on to investors who own the loans — are overwhelmed with requests from borrowers who want to work with their lenders — if they could just get their calls returned.
Even some people in the mortgage industry believe their businesses could be helped by a foreclosure time-out. (They won’t say that publicly because they don’t want anyone thinking that they like lawmakers meddling in their affairs. They’re worried about the precedent a payment holiday would set.)
Lenders do indeed need the breathing space as much as homeowners. In many, many cases, foreclosing on properties actually ends up costing investors dearly.
Empty homes are often vandalized or stripped of everything that’s valuable. In neighborhoods where there are already lots of foreclosed properties that aren’t selling, forcing still more people out of their homes devalues homes even more.
When investors can’t resell vacant properties, or if those properties become worthless, lenders, too, are losers.
Besides the moratorium, the House legislation would — importantly — require that servicers be licensed. Ohio would be the 15th state to take this step.
Over the course of this mortgage crisis, experts have discovered that tons of rules encourage foreclosures, even when that doesn’t make sense.
For instance, if a homeowner stops paying his mortgage, the servicer of that loan has to keep sending payments to the investors who own it anyway. If, however, foreclosure proceedings are started, that gets the servicer off the financial hook, and that business can start charging for foreclosure costs (which are not cheap).
Often, homeowners and investors would be ahead, if instead of foreclosing, the servicer accepted a partial payment, or renegotiated the terms, say, of an unaffordable adjustable rate loan.
Moreover, late fees and penalties are sometimes so hefty that they, more than the loan itself, make it impossible for a homeowner to get an affordable new payment. There’s no reason that some of those charges can’t be reduced or waived, and there should be limits on how high they can go in the first place.
If, to be licensed, servicers had to follow reasonable rules about when they had to offer to renegotiate a mortgage, that could change their financial reflexes.
Not every family in financial trouble can avoid losing its home. But policies can discourage putting people out on the street. The Republican-controlled Ohio Senate — particularly President Bill Harris and Sen. Jon Husted of Kettering — can help that happen.
The goal is not to make sure everybody wins. It’s to make sure everybody loses the least possible.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Ohio politics
TweetEditorial: GM saga gets worse, but could be worse yet
The General Motors saga of the past half year has been a learning experience for all. The country has been in uncharted territory characterized by confusion at every stage. If you’ve tried to follow it all closely by getting information from many sources, you have been getting conflicting information.
The phrase “fog of war” comes to mind. Things have been moving awfully fast on many fronts, with imperfect communication and no good fix on what might happen next.
Once upon a time, the people who wanted to save GM thought that allowing the company to go into bankruptcy was the alternative to that; going to court was giving up. That, in fact, was also the view of some people who did not want the government to save the company.
Now, though, bankruptcy is at hand, and the same government that wants to save the company is a driving force.
The government now has some related experience with Chrysler’s bankruptcy and thinks the process might be shorter and less awful than was originally assumed.
While bankruptcy versus bailout was once the great debate, the two courses always had much in common: an authority — either the president or a court — insisting on major revamping.
But, of course, now we have a bankruptcy and a bailout, something nobody saw as desirable six months ago. Nor was anybody then talking about the amount of bailout money that has developed, $50 billion.
For communities and individuals who have been part of the GM nexus and are still tied to it via benefits, business contracts and memories, it’s all been pretty much a maze. However, one needs no advanced degree to see that the outcome has to be a much smaller company.
What’s emerging is a company in which the government has a huge stake. Not only must the company thrive for the taxpayers to get their money back; the government will actually be the largest owner, with more than 70 percent of the stock, at least at first.
For a country that never wanted to nationalize anything — that never even seriously debated the idea — it’s a strange development. The president insists that he wants it to be temporary. Even during the ownership lifetime, he isn’t eager for the government to be making business decisions.
And yet, what’s that saying? “Follow the money.” The government has too much invested not to be a player in how it’s spent.
Government involvement of some sort is not all bad. If you’re dependent on a GM pension, as so many in the Dayton area are, you don’t want a desperate, untethered CEO making all the decisions.
It must be said that the Obama administration never took a hard line against bankruptcy proceedings. It always acknowledged that circumstances might arise that would make that course the least bad. It told GM to get its bondholders to accept only 10 percent ownership in the emerging company, or to enter bankruptcy. The bondholders were the ones who decided to take their chances in bankruptcy court. Now, as the case moves to court, GM has already offered them a better deal.
Even absent the bondholders situation, though, there are those who will tell you that bankruptcy proceedings are necessary to resolve myriad disputes.
And so a legend of American industry and a monumental force in Dayton’s history comes to the double ignominy: bailout and bankruptcy.
But worse still for the company and country would have been simple liquidation and disappearance of GM and its contractors. Now questions remain about how bad it will be, especially for the people who have been part of the GM community. But questions are better than some answers.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Auto industry, Editorials, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb
TweetMartin Gottlieb: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell just put gay issue in the closet
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — so odd and awkward — has always had a temporary feel to it. It was a decision to put off a real decision, like, one might say, putting something in the closet. You know the closet will get too full eventually, and you’ll have to make another decision.
During the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton said he favored ending the American military’s policy of asking potential recruits if they are gay.
(During the Vietnam War, some reluctant straight draftees thought they could claim gayhood and thus avoid service. Unfortunately, a story goes, when one fellow said at the induction center that he was gay, a doctor said, “Prove it.”)
When Clinton was new in office, Republicans — full of the honeymoon spirit — decided to confront him with the issue immediately. They were certain they had public opinion on their side.
At the time, the commander in chief had the power to change the rule without an act of Congress. But Congress moved to make the existing policy on gays a matter of law. The idea was to challenge him to veto it.
What emerged was the clunky compromise that prevails. However, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law doesn’t settle for the concept implied by the name. It specifies that actual homosexual behavior — as opposed to the orientation itself — is grounds for removal.
Few could really have thought that the distinction between behavior and orientation made any sense. But some anti-gay-rights forces thought it would discourage gays from applying by imposing upon them the need for extreme, endless discretion.
Since 1993, the military has expelled thousands of gays: about 1,200 a year at first, dropping to about 600 in the middle of this decade.
What a ludicrous waste of military resources. Set aside for a minute the fact good people are lost. There’s also the process itself.
In the pending case of Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, there was a three-month investigation. How would you like that job?
Then a board made up of five colonels heard the evidence and found against him. Now the case goes to another board, before going up to the secretary of the Air Force. Already, it has taken a year.
Fehrenbach — the son of another lieutenant colonel, who finished his career at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — has family here, but is stationed in Idaho. He’s been to such tourist destinations as Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
A petition submitted in his defense calculates that the Air Force has spent $25 million training him.
Rules against gays in the military have a long history. It’s hard to remember now, but one argument for those rules used to be — even into the 1980s — that gays were peculiarly subject to being blackmailed into revealing military secrets. That argument didn’t surface much in the 1990s.
As DA/DT has proceeded through its doomed life — dooming careers — times have continued to change. Colin Powell, who disappointed many when he expressed a benighted view on the subject back in 1993, now says the matter should be reviewed, precisely because attitudes have changed.
Other countries — Canada, Australia, Britain — have dropped anti-gay policies and have experienced no great national security problems.
Many opponents of gay marriage have insisted that they have nothing against gays, only a view about marriage. If they now oppose overturning DA/DT, they undermine that pitch.
But Fehrenbach might be a victim of timing. President Barack Obama would like to end DA/DT, obviously. But the White House is declining to take up the issue quickly. Sympathy for that decision is, unfortunately, appropriate.
The president has more urgent fights to fight. And this is a hot-button, divisive issue. He came in as a healer. But he has had to put forth other divisive initiatives. He doesn’t need another.
Also, he needs to build up some chits with the military, become established as a commander in chief who connects with the troops. His refusal to release those pictures of torture might help. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama is focusing on the needs of military families.
Polls show military people in general less agreeable to gays in the military than the general population. But evidence is widespread that the leaders are mellowing, having come a long way with the rest of the country.
Fehrenbach is doing the right thing in fighting publicly for his job. The more cases the public sees — and people in the military see — of justice and common sense going ludicrously astray, the better.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Civil Rights, Columns, Martin Gottlieb, National Politics, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
TweetGuest column: Dayton, ‘dying cities’ fighting back
By Peter Benkendorf and Mike Elsass
American humorist Mark Twain said the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated.
While there is nothing funny about dying cities, it seems the report of the death of 10 American cities, as declared by Forbes.com last summer, was equally premature.
This summer, from Aug. 7-9, neighborhood activists, artists, public officials, academics and the media from the so-called “10 Fast Dying Cities” list — Buffalo, Canton, Charleston, Cleveland, Dayton, Detroit, Flint, Scranton, Springfield, Mass., and Youngstown — will be gathering in Dayton to share and celebrate the most innovative community revitalization projects taking place in their cities.
We’ve dubbed the gathering the “Forbes 10 Fast Dying Cities Symposium and Arts Festival: Celebrating the Human Spirit.” (Read more at www.tenlivingcities.org.)
There is no doubt that these cities — nine of which are in the Midwest — have fallen on hard times. But if citizens make the community, and not the other way around, then the dubious distinction of the Forbes list is serving as a powerful call to action for people who care too much about their hometowns to let them die.
In Buffalo, an innovative program has been developed to use local labor to demolish and salvage vacant houses. What a terrific model: one program that offers employment, reduces material going to landfills and raises revenue through the sale of reusable building supplies and architectural artifacts, while starting a process of bringing neighborhoods back to health.
In Flint, the Genesee County Land Bank was recently recognized by Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for its work returning foreclosed properties to the tax rolls, or, when gifted, to a higher and better condition than when received.
In Dayton, the public and private sectors have come together to create the Greater Downtown Plan, a bold vision for business and residential repopulation of downtown during the next decade.
Across the board, we are seeing adaptive reuse of buildings, a commitment to green space and neighborhood gardens, investments in our waterfronts and new collaborative ventures dedicated to creating community wealth. A number of cities are deploying “local currency” programs as an economic-development tool, and there is a return to volunteerism, as a survival necessity, but also as a source of personal fulfillment that is affecting real change.
Everything in nature has a life cycle. Cities are no different. We can wallow in our situation, or we can see this moment as an opportunity to invest.
Look at the Kalamazoo Promise, which pays for college education to students who finish high school. The program has created a buzz for Kalamazoo and is being replicated around the country.
So what might the Youngstown Promise or the Scranton Promise look like?
The intellectual, organizational, financial, emotional and spiritual resources to transform our cities already exist. We can choose not to confront our challenges — because they seem too expensive and complex — or we can resolve to determine new futures.
It will take, however, a different kind of approach, involving business, government, community organizations, and the people to produce the as yet unseen levels of engagement, imagination, partnership and progressive pragmatism that will define 21st century communities.
And that is what the “Forbes 10 Fast Dying Cities Symposium and Arts Festival” is about. Not a wake, but a rebirth. The symposium will feature:
— Discussion of community wealth creation, collaboration, green planning and regionalism.
— Breakout sessions on the role of media, libraries, universities, government and the private sector in revitalization.
— Presentations of the most innovative projects in each city.
—Panel discussions and brainstorming sessions to share ideas about what is working well and not so well.
— New relationships and new possibilities.
Every idea is the spark for another. Every inspiration is the source of new inspiration. And the arts festival, including the creation of a collaborative piece by artists from all 10 cities, will demonstrate that we are truly alive, thank you very much.
Peter Benkendorf, executive director of Involvement Advocacy, and Mike Elsass, owner of the Color of Energy gallery, both of Dayton, are the originators of the “Forbes 10 Fast Dying Cities Symposium and Arts Festival.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Guest Columns
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