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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 > October > 16
Friday, October 16, 2009
Editorial: MetroParks levy funds more than you know
2009 Elections
If you haven’t been to Marie Aull’s garden, or Carriage Hill Farm, or the Butterfly House at Cox Arboretum, you’re missing out. Thanks to Five Rivers MetroParks, these places are yours to enjoy.
And there’s much, much more — at Germantown MetroPark, on the Mad River Recreation Trail, at the National City 2nd Street Market, RiverScape and Wegerzyn Gardens, just to name a few more MetroParks sites.
In fact, MetroParks has 25 parks covering almost 15,000 acres. Its 168 full-time employees and an almost equal number of part-time employees, interns and apprentices (not to mention dozens and dozens of volunteers), are caretakers of fabulous places where we teach our children, get away from our worries, revel in nature or just have a good time. (Did you miss the Garlic Festival last weekend?)
To keep the parks, trails and facilities in good order, Montgomery County voters have supported a property tax levy that will expire next year. MetroParks wants to replace that 10-year 1.8-mill levy with one of a like amount and duration.
(The last levy has been rolled back to 1.45 mills under a law that prevents property tax levies from automatically raising additional revenue as inflation pushes up property values.)
Currently, the owner of a $100,000 home pays $44 per year for the levy. The new levy would raise that amount to $55, less than a dollar a month more. The tax would raise $17.9 million.
There was a time when park districts consisted of maintaining picnic shelters and playgrounds. But progressive park programs have evolved into more expansive roles.
Today they’re conservators of green space, participating in the purchase of easements, for example, that make it worth property owners’ while to hold on to their farms and wilderness areas.
They’re stewards and guardians of waterways.
They’re rejuvenators of downtowns like Dayton’s that have rivers running through them.
They’re organizers of nature, environmental and entertainment programming for everyone from kids to seniors.
They’re professional managers of places that are best operated not by cities or counties, but by public organizations that have a singular focus on protecting nature and making it accessible.
They’re partners in communities’ economic development efforts by creating and marketing amenities that attract talented workers and their families, making them feel connected to a place.
MetroParks is doing all these things and more. The current Metro Parkways catalog of events for three months runs 51 pages. Yes, there’s some duplication, but if you can’t find at least three or four activities that you’d like to participate in, or that you think are valuable, you’re awfully difficult to interest in the world around you.
The Dayton community’s interest in its parks is not stagnant. The number of people riding MetroParks’ new mountain biking trail, backpacking on its hiking trails, taking kayaking classes and then showing up on the river and attending festivals at RiverScape is hard to measure with accuracy. But if you’ve been to these places, you know the facilities and amenities are appreciated.
Though MetroParks sites are by no means just for the young, today they’re especially important to mobile young professionals who have choices about where they can live and will choose where to stay based, in part, on the sorts of opportunities for fun they have after work.
The levy is a bargain. On a purely financial basis, many voters probably already have gotten their tax money back in enjoyment, but, if not, check out www.metroparks.org.http://www.metroparks.org/
The myriad choices you’ll see will surprise and overwhelm you — and they’ll convince you the levy is an investment.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: 2009 endorsements, Editorials, Elections, Ellen Belcher, Montgomery County, Sports and Recreation
Editorial: Issue 3 is a stacked deck; casinos set own taxes
2009 ELECTIONS
If you’re confused about where Ohio is headed on allowing casinos, don’t feel badly. You aren’t alone.
Here is the important thing to keep straight when you vote Nov. 3: Even if you would like to gamble in the state, Issue 3 is a bad deal.
It is a constitutional amendment that would allow one casino in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo. The proposal was written by and for the very developers who would own the casinos, down to the details of what tax rates they’d pay.
Wouldn’t you love to decide your own taxes?
Not shockingly, the deal is sweet. The casinos would pay 33 percent of gross revenue in taxes. Pennsylvania’s rate is 55 percent; Illinois’ is 50 percent; Indiana’s, 35 percent; Michigan’s is 19 percent.
The casinos would also pay one-time $50 million license fees, but other states have charged $250 million to $500 million.
The self-dealing isn’t just brazen; it’s shameless.
Two outfits stand to gain under the amendment:
Penn National Gaming and Dan Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers.
In other states, gaming businesses have had to compete by submitting bids to operate casinos. Penn National’s and Mr. Gilbert’s plan is to award themselves a monopoly and skip any competition.
The possibility of having a monopoly — and paying so little in taxes and fees — is how Penn National and Mr. Gilbert can afford to spend so much money in their campaign to fool voters about their initiative.
Their pitch is all about creating jobs — 34,000, they contend. But don’t be snookered. Nineteen thousand of those are construction jobs that would be temporary and would go away once the casinos were built. Many of the remaining other positions would be low paying, even part-time, hospitality jobs.
If Ohio wanted to give two specific businesses the sweetheart tax deal Penn National and Mr. Gilbert have cooked up, it wouldn’t give it to companies that would contribute so little in the way of meaningful job development.
Meanwhile, make no mistake about it: Gambling opportunities are so ubiquitous that people are not going to be flocking from outside of Ohio to play blackjack here. The state would capture some money it’s losing when Ohioans gamble in other states, but there won’t be any huge infusion of spending from outsiders.
The tax revenue from the casinos would be divvied up in the following proportions:
• 51 percent to county governments, according to population • 34 percent to schools, according to student population • 5 percent to host cities • 3 percent to a casino regulatory commission • 3 percent to support Ohio’s horse racing tracks • 2 percent to support treatment for problem gamblers • 2 percent to pay for law enforcement training.
Two observations:
Here we go again with proponents of gambling trying to use schools to line their own pockets. If the casinos are allowed, they’d raise about $200 million for schools. But the state spends $6.5 billion on K-12 education each year. The gambling money would be a drop in the bucket.
Giving law enforcement a cut of the money is a transparent effort to buy the Fraternal Order of Police’s support, a move that sadly worked.
Right now, the polls show Issue 3 passing. Many people seem to have decided that Ohio, though it has defeated four previous gambling measures, needs to join the crowd and capture some of the money that gamblers will spend somewhere.
The problem with that logic is that it overlooks the fact that allowing gambling comes with social costs and costs for governments and local communities. Issue 3 would let two companies run off with the biggest part of the profits, and leave Ohio paying expensive bills.
Issue 3 isn’t a gamble. It’s a rip-off.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: 2009 endorsements
Editorial: State can afford Issue 1, bonus to veterans
2009 ELECTIONS
Issue 1 on the November ballot would give a little money to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including the Gulf War of 1991.
Specifically, war-zone veterans would be eligible for up to $1,000, depending on how long they served ($100 for each month). Veterans of other places would get half as much. Families of war fatalities would get a $5,000 death benefit.
The issue would authorize up to $200 million in funding, financed by the sale of bonds. That’s equal to less than 1 percent of the money the state spends in a year.
The idea of the state offering a bonus has never been controversial since then-state Treasurer Richard Cordray made it in 2007, after hearing from troops that other states have such bonuses.
After all, Ohio has offered bonuses to veterans of other wars. Some observers have noted that those wars typically had a lot of draftees, whereas the recent ones have been fought by people who volunteered for, at least, reserve status.
Most people probably don’t see that distinction as important. So it hasn’t been important to the politicians. That’s just as well.
Many of the “volunteers” haven’t chosen a military career, or even a military stint, but have only made a decision about how to make financial ends meet, only to find their lives disrupted and jeopardized by more than one call-up.
The only real controversy in Columbus has been about how to pay for these bonuses. Basically, some lawmakers wanted to take the money out of regular operating revenues, rather than float bonds. That way, there would be no interest costs.
When the issue first arose, the only operating funds the Republicans could point to was the state’s rainy-day fund. Gov. Ted Strickland did not want to spend that money, saying that it might be needed for a rainy day. That decision looks pretty good now, given the ensuing budgetary monsoons.
Going the bond route has one advantage that isn’t often noted: It involves a decision by the voters of Ohio to reward the veterans. It’s more a people-to-people thing, not a politicians-to-people thing.
The politicians, of course, can take credit for putting the measure before voters. Not shockingly, that vote was overwhelming — after the governor had vetoed the attack on the rainy day fund.
At this stage, there’s no point in debating how to do this. If the bonus is a good idea at all, the time has come to act. So many veterans are already back. Once the measure is passed, delays will be inevitable in getting people their money. Ideally, Ohio should get to the point where veterans receive their money almost as soon as they return.
As for interest costs, again, the time to act is now, while interest rates are low.
One way or another, Ohio can afford this gesture to those who have gone into harm’s way for their country while so many of us have been completely unaffected by the long wars.
Caring for and rewarding veterans has always been understood as a federal responsibility, for obvious reasons. But nobody has ever said that states and voters can’t show appreciation, too.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: 2009 endorsements, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics, Wright Patterson Air Force Base
Martin Gottlieb: Leitzell, McLin did most of what they could in debate
2009 ELECTIONS
Debates are Rorschach tests for viewers. What you take away depends a lot on what you bring.
Well, bringing the particular baggage of a political animal who has been watching one candidate — the challenger — for a month and the other for years, my reaction to the Dayton mayoral debate was that both candidates did about as well as they could have hoped to.
Gary Leitzell still had to cross the first hurdle of a first-time, unknown candidate: to show that he’s not a joke. He did that, presenting himself better than I’ve seen, standing up to an incumbent and not being blown off the stage.
He did give the other side some future lines of attack, but he didn’t make the audience laugh at the wrong times or squirm in embarrassment for him.
Mayor Rhine McLin, who, despite a lifetime in and around politics, doesn’t relish this sort of political combat, had one overriding job: to make clear that she and the city commission have not been sitting on their hands for the past four or eight years as bad things have happened.
She did it. She had lists — perhaps too many — of programs that are under way, of efforts being made to counteract the national tides at work against Ohio and cities.
If the candidates had engaged in some give-and-take, her opponent might have said that somebody listening to her might get the impression that things are going fine in Dayton. That wasn’t her point, of course, but her enthusiasm came close to suggesting that.
At one point early on, she had a moment that brought to mind a certain vice presidential candidate of the recent past: stringing together phrases without an apparent sentence. But she quickly recovered with a couple of quite strong answers. Not the most polished politician in her use of the language, she did communicate.
Both the candidates managed to keep talking even when they couldn’t offer a direct answer to the question at hand. That’s a basic job requirement.
Leitzell said some things that would typically be considered impolitic:
• His home-schooled daughter would be bored in the Dayton public schools.
• Crime in Dayton is typically of a petty sort and, sure, you could avoid it by moving to the suburbs, but that would cost you a lot more. (He seemed to be settling for high crime as a reasonable trade-off for cheap housing.)
• The problem with the Dayton public schools is not the students, teachers or administrators, but the parents. (It’s a variation on a point that even Barack Obama makes. But making it even as you introduce yourself to those parents in their capacity as voters is tricky.)
These are the kinds of things that an experienced or trained candidate would be less likely to say. But perhaps some people will give Leitzell some credit for speaking his mind forthrightly.
Less forgivably, he speculated — as he has before — that Dayton’s business regulations date back to the 1950s or 1960s, when a few big businesses ran things and didn’t want any competition. There’s no excuse for a person in his role speculating. His job is to know, if he’s going to raise the subject.
Still, he had some good lines (“First in Flight” has taken on a whole new meaning for Dayton.) He pounced on some obvious weaknesses in the city’s record. And he presented a respectable alternative for a newcomer.
His specific policy ideas — selling city services to nearby communities, for example — seem unlikely to bring people to his side. But they’re enough to justify some people in saying a respectable alternative is at hand, if they are so inclined.
(Leitzell has wisely modified his proposal on regionalism, saying “baby steps” are needed, backing off the city-county merger he seemed to be calling for earlier.)
Typically, debates are seen as an opportunity for the challenger, but only a potential pitfall for the favored incumbent. But the Democrats behind McLin are hoping the debate will help to convince their people that there’s an actual race going on, and that they have to get to the polls.
The race had such a low profile until now that the Wednesday debate might almost be considered the beginning. Now come the mailings and the charges and countercharges. It could get unpleasant. Awakening potential voters sometimes entails (over)dramatizing a threat.
Debates like this are often criticized for being too controlled or having too little give-and-take. But, as often happens, this debate could turn out to have been the highlight of the campaign season.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics
