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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 > June > 08
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Editorial: Lawmakers taking orders from casinos
Ohio is not off to a confidence-inducing start with casino gambling.
Last week the legislature was deciding — at 3 a.m. — rules that will apply to the state’s four soon-to-be-built casinos. Lawmakers had missed a midnight June 3 deadline to make start-up rules for casinos going up in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo.
If this is how the gaming industry is going to be regulated, the good times are going to roll for enterprises that make money when their customers lose.
Take the business of disclosure:
If a state is serious about regulating gaming, there has to be disclosure about who stands to profit. The public is entitled to know this sort of information, but disclosure also keeps lawmakers and regulators honest. If ownership information is private, what’s to prevent, say, lawmakers or regulators from creating rules that make their friends rich?
Initially, the plan was to require disclosure of anyone who had more than a 5 percent interest in the casinos. Then there was talk about making the threshold 3 percent for Dan Gilbert’s privately-held Cleveland and Cincinnati casinos, and 5 percent for Penn National’s two casinos.
A publicly traded company, Penn National is subject to accounting and disclosure checks and balances through the Securities and Exchange Commission that don’t apply to Mr. Gilbert’s operation.
Sen. Timothy J. Grendell, R-Chesterland, argued that that wasn’t enough and pushed for a 1 percent cut-off. Gaming representatives said that was ridiculous for Penn because its stock is constantly being traded, and no one could keep up with the record-keeping.
Sen. Grendell, until Tuesday when he was contacted by a journalist, thought he had prevailed in getting a 1 percent limit for Rock Ventures, which is run by Mr. Gilbert, the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He misunderstood the rules in the final legislation.
Sen. Grendell is not alone in being confused. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said he refused to vote for the bill because the middle-of-the-night changes were flying so fast.
Bob Tenenbaum, a spokesman for the casino interests, said the industry had no position on what the disclosure limits should be. That wasn’t the message lawmakers got. Sen. Husted scoffed at his contention.
And if the industry didn’t object, how is it that the 1 percent proposal isn’t the law?
Ordinary people should be able to count on good-government rules being the norm. They shouldn’t have to worry that the public interest isn’t being protected. It’s hard to fathom how transparency and public disclosure aren’t important, especially in an operation that asks customers (and the public) to trust them not to steal anybody blind.
Plenty of states have gone ahead of Ohio in allowing gambling. Their experience can prevent mistakes from happening here. But making decisions on the fly, at the behest of the people being regulated, just invites scandal and embarrassment.
Surely, lawmakers know that they aren’t going to get the best advice from people who are eager to roll right over them.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Ohio government, Ohio politics
Editorial: Dayton has to get blacks to take test
When civil service tests were adopted, the idea wasn’t to find the best test-takers and put them in every kind of government job, including in the police and fire departments. Tests were seen as the way to eliminate politics in hiring, a way of preventing an elected official from rewarding his supporters with jobs and securing re-election by putting them to work in the next campaign, lest they lose their jobs. The idea was to undo the old political “machines,” while making sure that qualified people were hired.
In recent years, there’s been debate about civil service tests and whether they prevent integrating certain work forces.
In a city like Dayton, where minority representation on the police force has hovered in or near single-digit percentages even as the city has become about half black, a lot of people have concluded the city would be better off with more minorities. But finding qualified applicants has been difficult.
There are lots of factors, including competition with other cities to hire minorities and the now-eliminated residency requirement. Moreover, there isn’t a strong tradition of blacks serving on the force, what with the relationships between minorities and law enforcement being historically strained not just in Dayton, but in a lot of places.
Sometimes young people who seem to have the makings of a good officer do apply, only to find that the test is a hurdle.
Most recently, the U.S. Justice Department has forced Dayton to throw out a test because the percentage of minorities passing didn’t equal 80 percent of the percentage of whites passing. That was a rule-of-thumb the feds were using at the time, in a complicated legal environment. Courts have kept changing the rules on what’s permissible.
To some people, any change that’s designed to make police departments look a little more like the communities they serve is an objectionable exercise in lowering standards. That view is fed by a recent decision by Dayton’s civil service authorities to refuse to declare what score is needed to pass the police test until the tests are graded.
Because of these suspicions — and to ensure the quality of police and fire services — the city must make doubly sure that it gets qualified minorities to apply. City Commissioner Dean Lovelace, among others, has been meeting with local black leaders to discuss recruiting qualified people and preparing them for the test. That kind of effort has to be energetic.
With a test scheduled for November, two factors suggest that this is the time for the city to make progress on the long-held goal of diversifying the police department. For one, this will be the first test since the city’s residency requirement was eliminated. (The Ohio Supreme Court said the state could pass a law forbidding cities from having residency rules.) Perhaps that will make the task a little easier.
Also, the city is facing the retirement of about 40 officers. That presents an opportunity, especially for a shrinking city that hasn’t been hiring.
Nobody really believes a test is the be-all-and-end-all measure of what a candidate can do. But nobody can fail to see the dangers of lowering hiring standards in safety forces, either in police or fire. Dayton has to find a way to reconcile legitimate concerns. And now is the best time to do it.
Permalink | Comments (41) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Civil Rights, Law Enforcement and Public Safety
