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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 > 2010 > February > 14
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Editorial: Two-track Manhattan Project plan makes sense
Local history activists have agreed to house a display about Dayton’s role in the Manhattan Project at Carillon Historical Park, along with other local World War II history. This is a good step forward.
It beats depending on the National Park Service — which has been asked to play a role. And it serves Daytonians, by consolidating more local history in one place, by telling a story that should be told, by preserving what can be and needs to be preserved.
But, as preservationists understand, this decision doesn’t address a bigger issue that has been percolating for a few years:
What can be done to preserve the two remaining local Manhattan Project sites? And can Dayton’s role in that historic event be turned into a community asset?
After a three-year study, the National Park Service has decided it doesn’t want a multi-state, multi-site national park devoted to the Manhattan Project. That was the legendary, highly secretive program that first harnessed nuclear energy — for bombs to end World War II.
Park officials want a site only at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
That’s understandable. Los Alamos is where J. Robert Oppenheimer — later, incredibly, to lose his security clearance — harnessed the brain power of a group of people who constituted the scientific equivalent of the American Founding Fathers for sheer talent. And who were engaged in an equally monumental, historic task.
The thing is, though, that story is well-known. People who don’t know it have access to it, via books, documentaries and the movies.
But the Manhattan Project actually took place in many other places, places whose stories are far less known: Oak Ridge, Tenn., Hanford, Wash., Chicago, New York and, in fact, Dayton. By getting involved beyond Los Alamos, the park service could add something to the nation’s knowledge of its history.
But the park service has decided it would be too expensive, mainly because of security issues at Hanford and Oak Ridge, which are still engaged in defense work.
The park service report — still preliminary, pending public input from around the country — reads as though the service wants to avoid expenses that it really thinks should be borne by the Department of Energy, which runs Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Hanford.
The expense issue doesn’t really arise in Dayton. Here it’s a matter of reclaiming and reusing two buildings.
One is not far from the Wright-Dunbar attractions and is owned by the Dayton public schools. The other is on East Third Street downtown, and is privately owned.
Tony Sculimbrene, executive director of the Dayton Aviation Heritage Alliance, still hopes the park service might be told by Congress to enlarge its vision. Much could depend on how people at Hanford and Oak Ridge respond to the feasibility study.
He hopes park officials will at least designate the two buildings as part of a park. That wouldn’t automatically make them sites inviting visitors. It wouldn’t cost the park service serious money. But it would be a force against the buildings’ destruction.
Mr. Sculimbrene notes the existence of a certain skepticism, even in local circles, about the feasibility of attracting many tourists to possible displays at the two sites. But he says the situation reminds him of 1981, when people were skeptical about turning the site of the old Wright brothers bicycle store into an attraction.
However the long-term future might be imagined, the short-term course the community is on makes sense: Do what can be done locally to preserve and communicate a fascinating and important part of local and national history; play out the bid for federal participation, rather than accept a first-draft rejection; and keep all options open.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Local History, Martin Gottlieb
Editorial: NCR’s loss still can be Dayton’s gain
When NCR announced last June that it was moving its headquarters to suburban Atlanta, a lot of Daytonians wanted to believe that CEO Bill Nuti was underestimating — to his and his company’s peril — how wedded NCR employees are to Dayton.
Even if Dayton didn’t grow on him, a large number of his employees really do like living here, we said to ourselves.
Eight months later, that attachment can actually be documented.
A few weeks after NCR dropped its bomb, the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce and Sinclair Community College, among others, hooked up to create a Web site called ChooseDayton.com.
It was designed to link NCR people who hoped to stay in the community with employers who are hiring. (It has since been opened to non-NCR employees, too.)
At the time NCR said it was leaving, it had 1,200 or so employees here. Since August, 636 NCR employees have registered at ChooseDayton.com.
It’s possible that every last one of those individuals wasn’t offered a position in Duluth, Ga., and needs a job. (NCR won’t say how many employees were asked to move.)
But that’s highly unlikely. It’s a good bet that some simply chose not to leave and that others are keeping their options open as the company is slowly shutting its doors here.
Even if NCR’s move is about downsizing, as well as putting down new roots, no one can look at the numbers and not think about NCR’s potential — and real — loss of talent.
Meanwhile, NCR has allowed Montgomery County Job and Family Services to survey employees about their plans and interests. (The county needs certain information to document to the federal government how many people might need services once they’re out of work; the county could be eligible for re-training grants and whatnot.)
That data, too, is revealing. More than three-quarters of the 426 people who responded — a full third of the headquarters count — have worked for NCR for more than 10 years; an amazing 51 percent have been with the company more than 20 years.
Almost 60 percent were earning between $50,000 and $100,000 annually; not quite a quarter earned $100,000 or more.
More than half — 52 percent — live in a two-income household, and slightly more than 60 percent wanted information about financial aid for education and training.
Connect all this data and you have a picture of a sizeable number of the people at NCR:
They are well-educated (42 percent had bachelor’s degrees; 19 percent master’s degrees or higher). They are loyal employees, with local ties, not necessarily in a position to easily pick up and go.
These are individuals whom local employers should be hoping to snap up.
Too bad it’s impossible to say how many people have actually been helped by ChooseDayton.com. The chamber hasn’t been tracking how many connections have been fostered, though it says it will keep those records going forward.
Some people think the Web site can become an important space to promote Dayton and for employers looking for talent in the area. They say it shouldn’t go away when NCR finally does.
For it to be helpful to the community, the tech people have more work to do. If, for example, you don’t know about the site and its name, it’s hard to find. Moreover, there’s no mention of the word “jobs” on the home page, which is pretty important to the people the site is trying to attract.
So far, NCR has told the state that 644 of its people have either been laid off, accepted a position in Georgia, retired or declined a spot at the new headquarters.
That means there could be up to 600 more individuals who possibly can be persuaded to keep Dayton their home — if they can just land a job.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Local Business
