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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 > 23
Friday, October 23, 2009
Kevin Riley: Site selectors tell the good, bad about us
NCR’s decision to move its headquarters to Georgia bruised Dayton’s collective ego. Beyond the anger over losing the jobs and a business that began here and literally revolutionized commerce, the company hurt our pride. Its leaders all but said that Dayton is small-time and doesn’t meet the needs of a high-tech, global company.
How does our region stack up in the world of site selection, the process by which companies decide where to put their operations? Like our competitors, Dayton has advantages, possibilities and opportunities — and limitations.
There are legions of consultants and companies that help companies select sites, although not every company turns to these specialists. Pretty much every decision is handled differently, each having its own wrinkles and peculiar considerations.
Because of the NCR experience, I’ve been asking some consultants, site developers and one regional company’s decision-makers to shed light on how these choices get made. None of the folks I talked to was involved or had information about NCR’s move; all spoke generally about the process.
Some things to know:
• Headquarters moves like NCR’s are rare, although they get lots of attention when they happen because they’re so traumatic for individual communities and even to whole states.
• Companies are more likely to move “back office” functions, create a call center, build a manufacturing site or locate a warehouse away from the headquarters than to pick up and move the corporate offices.
• Sometimes a community (or a state) will know it’s being considered, but not always, especially during the first cut.
• Sometimes companies go through a thorough, objective process that analyzes data about a region. (Large, publicly held companies are more likely to do this.) Other companies resort to a more informal process that establishes the first cut based on perhaps the CEO’s preference.
• Personal relationships can matter.
• Expansion or consolidation in a place where a company already has operations is almost always easier than wooing a new business or its headquarters.
• As the process moves along, communities often will be pitted against each other in an effort to get incentives such as tax breaks, grants and government support.
Sometimes this help is important, sometimes not. But the “tone” and speed of a community’s response matters.
What do site selectors see in Dayton?
We have advantages: an impressive collection of high-quality colleges and a central location served by a good transportation system.
Several consultants mentioned Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the region’s aerospace companies, although we need to keep marketing that advantage.
On the down side: we are an unlikely location for a large company’s headquarters. Unless, of course, that company “grows up” here.
Large, publicly traded companies view their headquarters as power and knowledge centers. They tend to be located in big cities with international cachet and big airports. Companies also want easy access to consultant pools and Wall Street analysts. That’s not us. But we are the kind of place that a lot of companies would consider if they are looking to expand and need an old-fashioned Midwestern work ethic, a place with established infrastructure or lots of clean water.
Also, the high-tech work at Wright-Patt is a huge opportunity to attract researchers and scholars who create intellectual synergy that’s important to businesses.
We’re seen by site selectors as a second- or third-tier, mature city transitioning from a traditional manufacturing economy. Our region offers an easy and high-quality lifestyle. But because we’re similar in that regard to so many Midwestern cities, a low cost of living and easy commutes don’t differentiate us in a site selector’s mind.
So what kind of company might be interested?
For sure, the ones that already have a presence here.
One consultant also mentioned that a foreign company looking to expand its manufacturing to the United States would be a good prospect for a region like Dayton. It would be a big fish in a small pond and get lets of support and attention, similar to the story of Honda in Ohio.
That’s more like the kind of story we have to work to tell.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Kevin Riley, Local Business
Martin Gottlieb: Twin pediatricians case sets mind to whirring
All by itself, the story of Dr. Mark Blankenburg of Hamilton is a stunner, at least to his community.
Now in his early 50s, he has spent his career serving Hamilton as a pediatrician, only to be discovered to be an abuser of boys. He was convicted this month on 16 charges relating to having sex with underage male patients and paying them with money and drugs to keep them quiet.
It was a heck of a trial. The handful of alleged victims nearly all had credibility problems. One is in prison, perhaps for the rest of his life, for almost killing a police officer. Others admitted to getting illicit drugs from the doctor and to having sustained a relationship with him after the first sex act.
But the jury apparently had difficulty giving credence to defense arguments, including that the reason Blankenburg gave out money ($250,000 in one case) and drugs was that he was being extorted with the threat of exposure for things he had never done.
The trial — which I didn’t personally attend — was a lesson in how certain young psyches disintegrate. A boy might be shaken to his core by the first unwanted sexual experience, but he’d become hooked on the money and the drugs, and come back to the doctor for more. Disturbing stuff.
And yet, we haven’t gotten to the real stunner yet: The doctor has a twin, also a doctor, also a pediatrician, but in Fairfield, rather than Hamilton. They apparently shared the hobby of photographing high school sporting events. And the brother is charged with the same kinds of crimes, minus the drug angle. Specifically, he faces 22 counts and a trial in April.
The prosecutors had wanted to try the brothers in the same trial, because the charges overlap, involving some of the same victims. But the courts decided that jurors could be confused by the similar appearance of the two defendants and other factors.
The case raises fascinating questions about the origins of evil deeds, if the second brother is convicted. If two men with the same genes can live eerily similar lives, even to the point of a pattern of committing eerily similar sexual crimes, the notion that they are under the control of an awfully strong compulsion is stronger than if there’s just one perp. One has to wonder if they weren’t somehow destined to do what they did.
That point is not made here with an eye on punishment in these cases. Obviously, the accused have to be judged and punished according to the law.
But, with an eye on the future and how to avoid these kinds of horrors, the role of compulsion — of an internal force driving a person — has to be understood.
Of course, one pair of cases doesn’t prove much. In truth, if two people with the same genes act the same way, that doesn’t mean that genes are the reason, if they’ve also had the same experiences. Maybe the experiences are driving the situation. (Even in that case, though, the compulsions might be just as strong.)
Stephen T. Holmes, co-author of “Sex Crimes: Patterns and Behavior,” a 2008 textbook, says he suspects that experience is the crucial factor uniting the brothers, not biology, if, indeed, they’re guilty of very similar crimes. He says he can’t say what experiences they had, or where.
Studies show that if one identical twin has a pattern of criminal behavior, there’s a 60 percent chance the other will, too. For fraternal twins, the figure is 30 percent. (Holmes is quick to point out that these numbers don’t suggest for a second that twins are particularly given to crime. They certainly aren’t.)
Twins who commit crimes don’t necessarily commit the same crimes. Holmes says he has never seen anything remotely like the Blankenburg case, as charged.
There’s a new book called “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How they Shape Our Lives,” by Nicholas A Christakis and James H. Fowler. You might have heard about its point: if the people in your circle are overweight, for example, you are more likely to be overweight. People reinforce each other.
In the same way, two brothers going in the same direction might reinforce each other. Soon, one has to guess, there’ll be a book about the Blankenburg case itself.
Pending whatever enlightenment that might offer, here’s an exercise that has set a lot of minds whirring over the years:
Imagine that you were separated at birth from your identical twin and grew up in a different environment. Then ponder which of your characteristics seem to you so ingrained in your makeup that you suspect your twin would share them.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Health Care, Martin Gottlieb, Suburban Communities
Editorial: Even if casinos are called for, Issue 3 isn’t
2009 ELECTIONS
Whenever there’s a gambling issue on the ballot, discussion turns, as it should, of course, to the specifics of the plan at hand.
In the case of Issue 3 on the Nov. 3 ballot, the plan collapses in appeal upon inspection. It is designed to give specific companies what they want: the casinos they want; the sites they want; the tax rates they want; you name it.
This is an utterly preposterous way for a state to do business, a preposterous way for Ohio to enter the realm of casino gambling, even if one supports casino gambling.
But what about casino gambling itself?
What about the big picture? Is a state better off to have four casinos than none?
The case for casinos these days starts with the fact that other nearby states have casinos. This results in Ohioans spending their money elsewhere, while no one is bringing this kind of money to Ohio.
One seldom hears this downside of putting casinos in Ohio: If casinos are even more prevalent — more convenient — more people will gamble. And people who already gamble will gamble more. Nobody can seriously dispute either assertion. The honest advocates of casinos don’t even try.
Not only would more people gamble, but more people who shouldn’t gamble would gamble. That is, more people who have a gambling problem. Resisting a temptation to drive to Indiana is one thing. Resisting a drive downtown is another.
To expand gambling opportunities is to make a conscious decision to add to society’s social problems, to weaken families, to undermine more lives — whatever alleged good a casino might also do.
The most common rebuttal to that point is that a free society has to put adults in charge of their own lives. Nobody, after all, will force anybody to gamble. People ought to have the option. Adults who can control their impulses should not have their freedom infringed upon because some other people — a minority — can’t.
This is an argument that must be taken seriously. Virtually all Americans have embraced the call to individual freedom about one controversy or another: guns, speech, alcohol, pornography, tobacco. Sometimes it prevails. Sometimes it doesn’t. (Drugs, prostitution.)
In some areas, the possibility of banning enticement to self-destructive behavior by adults is never taken seriously. (Sugar, fast food.)
With regard to gambling, society has taken what might be called a middle ground. Some forms of gambling are legal and/or prevalent, and others aren’t. State lotteries are everywhere (wherein governments not only allow gambling, but encourage it). Racetracks are all over Ohio. Internet gambling proliferates. Private poker games are common. Nonprofits use gambling to raise money. And, of course, many states have casinos.
The result is a virtual absence of restraint on the right of highly motivated gamblers to gamble.
So the strength of what might be called the libertarian case for casinos in Ohio — that adults ought to be free to waste their own money — is minimal. People have that freedom.
If, as society seems to have decided, a balance is to be struck between the good and bad effects of gambling, then all logic points to the need for considering the specifics of any proposal.
That is, the decision is made that, for some reason, nearby casinos should be added to the mix — a dubious notion itself — then sharp attention must fall on the specifics, on how to allow for casinos.
At that point, surely all reasonable people can agree that the way to do it is to allow for a casino (or a certain number) under certain regulations (including state-set tax rates), and then allowing for bids, for competition among developers. The best way is obviously not to allow certain developers to put their own proposals into the state’s constitution.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics, Sports and Recreation
