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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 > September > 25
Friday, September 25, 2009
Editorial: Suburbs need law to settle war
Solving the expensive, seemingly never-ending battle between Sugarcreek Twp. and Centerville about the former Dille farm apparently is going to take either a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court or an act by the legislature.
The latter would be best.
The fight has dragged on for three years and, between the two sides, cost more than a half-million dollars in taxpayer money. The owners of the 268 acres of land, located in a prime spot near the Wilmington Pike interchange along Interstate 675, asked in 2006 to be annexed to Centerville. That deal was completed with developers standing by, waiting to add commercial buildings to the land.
The Ohio Legislature wrote special rules in 2001 to address just this sort of situation involving a landowner who wants to be annexed to a city. The law was supposed to speed that process and preclude the sort of lengthy court battles that have bogged down many past annexation cases.
Notwithstanding the law change, Centerville and Sugarcreek are bitterly engaged in a legal war over what the law allows.
Developers want to use “tax increment financing” to build on the old Dille farmland. That financing strategy spends future tax revenues from a development project to make improvements to the property now.
What Centerville and Sugarcreek are fighting about is who gets those future tax revenues. Sugarcreek insists it is entitled to a portion.
Because the law is fairly new and each side thinks it has the right interpretation, both are insistent on continuing to fight in court. Rulings in this case have implications that could affect other so-called TIF development deals.
With an issue this complex, there is a lot of risk for both sides that a major ruling could hamstring either cities or townships across the state.
A recent Second District Court of Appeals decision demonstrates that danger. Because the issue is so complicated and the ruling so detailed, lawyers on both sides are, days later, still not certain what it means for them.
On balance, the outcome seems most beneficial to Centerville. But the judges also said Sugarcreek was entitled to some future tax revenues. And they left unsettled the question of who should receive the biggest chunk of future tax revenue.
Centerville Council member Brooks Compton, a lawyer, says the battle over TIF financing is so important for future development projects that the issue may have to be decided by the Ohio Supreme Court.
There is another way. The legislature could clarify the 2001 law to make clear what is, and what is not, intended by the original language. A legal fix is a better option than leaving these calls to judges.
With this case as a prime example of what has gone wrong with the original law, Dayton-area lawmakers should push for changes that can settle the issue. A fix needs to be made.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
Kevin Riley: All eyes on STEM school
To see a photographs from the grand opening, click here.
Last week when the Dayton Regional STEM School held its grand opening, you had to be impressed.
A long list of regional and state leaders stepped up to the microphone to celebrate getting the one-of-a-kind school in this region off the ground.
Among the speakers: Wright State University President David Hopkins, Dayton Development Coalition President Jim Leftwich and Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut. Former Congressman Dave Hobson, one of the major forces behind establishing the school, was in the crowd, too.
But the really impressive people that night were the students and staff, including two students who served as emcees and greeted the crowd in Chinese, the language that the school’s students are learning.
Other students served as tour guides, proudly showing off their new school. The students started classes Aug. 17.
One student, 14-year-old Sierra Davis, of Trotwood, explained the school this way: “It’s like a normal school, but you learn differently.”
Sierra’s explanation points out why the Dayton Regional STEM School represents an important and closely watched experiment in education for our region and state. The school emphasizes the STEM areas — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — and gives its students real world experiences and problem-solving skills.
The idea is that these are the kinds of skills that students will need to succeed in the work world of the 21st century. These students also are the kinds of employees and young talent that Ohio and the Dayton region need to develop as we transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a knowledge-based, high-tech economy.
So educators, local governments, Wright State and other colleges, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and area high-tech companies got together to organize and fund it. The school is located along Interstate 675 near Wright State’s campus. It’s temporarily being housed in a Clark State University building.
Dayton’s STEM school is one of several in the state, but it’s the only one that is open to students from a region, rather than a specific school district.
Students from 30 school districts in Montgomery, Greene and Clark counties were eligible to apply to the school, which has 81 ninth-graders for this year. Eventually it will have grades six through 12 with an enrollment of 600.
The hope is that students like Sierra, whose father drives her to school each day, will come to school from throughout the area, providing the Dayton region with an asset that is strongly connected to local universities, Wright-Patt and local companies.
One of the teachers at the school believes those kinds of connections are important, based on her own experiences.
Linda Hallinan, of Oakwood, spent more than 20 years as a mechanical engineer, including working for Delphi. About three years ago, she decided to change careers, and now she’s the STEM school’s science and engineering teacher.
She’s driven by a passion to connect students — especially young women — to the real world of science and engineering.
Hallinan, who said she spent much of her engineering career as the only woman in meetings, has several plaques in her classroom that acknowledge her patents. She considers them an important message to her students about what they can achieve.
In fact, part of her curriculum includes having students come up with their own ideas for patents.
“I hope that my patents will set an example, as my students will take time two Fridays a quarter to brainstorm ideas for patents,” she said. “I would like to help inspire this future generation.”
The state’s leadership is also hoping the school inspires changes to the educational system.
Chancellor Fingerhut made a point of being at the grand opening — even though his responsibility is for higher education, not K-12. He said he knows that projects like Dayton’s STEM school are critical to the higher education system and Ohio’s future.
“The entire state is behind you. We are watching,” he said. “We’re learning from you.”
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Martin Gottlieb: Sully symbolized politics for many who loved it
I think I heard of Sully in my first week in Dayton, in 1984 — and then heard his name a half dozen more times in a couple of months. By the time I met him, I felt I knew him. He turned out to be just as I imagined.
It’s not that James E.P. (Sully) Sullivan — as the ritual newspaper ID goes — was such a great power. He was known during that particular passage as the right-hand man of Joe Shump, the chairman of the Democratic Party. Shump was the power, Sully the sidekick.
I think he got talked about so much because Dayton politicos enjoyed having a Sully around. He made politics politics, as the term was understood in certain times and places. You could imagine Damon Runyon writing about him, or Jimmy Breslin.
He could be a character in “The Last Hurrah,” an iconic novel about big-city politics in the early 20th century.
He was the behind-the-scenes guy who was always there, always kibitzing, helping, doing whatever. He was characterized by fierce loyalty to his boss and party and a strong belief in the human element — the human touch — in politics, as opposed to ideology and all that.
And he simply loved politics — not only the game, but the game’s connection with doing good things. He was a sentimentalist about it all, as shown by his collection of memorabilia. He loved to talk politics.
“So, who do think is the best (politician) to come out of here in your time?” was a question he put to a newspaper guy visiting him on other business.
At a big event for the party, he might be a greeter, trying to make you feel welcome, like an old friend.
He could schmooze with the best, having some old, reliable lines. What did the E.P. in his name stand for? Elvis Presley.
When Chairman Shump became the victim of an internal party uprising, Sully lost his position as a precinct captain. Specifically, a supporter of the uprising ran against him in the precinct, because the precinct captains elect the county chairman. Sully said he felt like the victim of a drive-by shooting.
But incoming Chairman Dennis Lieberman recognized him as a party institution and kept him involved. A whole new generation of activists and journalists came to know him.
I had grown up in Chicago in mid-century, the heyday of the Daley Machine. The Machine was built around the human element. The party wanted somebody in every precinct tending to the needs of the people, whether the need in question was for work done by the city, or for a job for a family member (that is, a job with the city or with somebody who wanted to stay on the city’s good side), or whether the need was just for condolences or congratulations.
Sully, who died Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 89, could also have been a figure in a Mike Royko column about Chicago.
When I started in newspapers, I expected to come across more people like him than there turned out to be. He was of his times, and the times were changing. I suppose that’s another reason people felt such affection for him.
I don’t claim to have known him well. I couldn’t tell you, for example, just exactly what he did for Joe Shump, aside from his official jobs with, say, the elections board. Was he a “ward healer,” the guy who tried to keep peace in the party? Or was the idea more to just be there as somebody for Shump to talk to, and to handle details?
But like everybody who knew him at all, I knew there was a lot more there than a fun personality. Famously, he made a trek up Mount Kilimanjaro to find the remains of his son, after training for a year and a half. The character with character, as somebody characterized him on an Internet site for grievers.
Sully saw politics change a lot on his watch. In his later years, he used to tell people how, when he and the eventually legendary state Rep. C. J. McLin started out, when they showed up at a meeting, somebody would tell them how they were voting.
He went with change — including the uprising against Shump in favor of a more democratic Democratic Party — as well as anybody. He didn’t turn sour, as so many do. He left people from several generations — including people far younger than I — remembering him fondly.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics
