Badin vs. Fredericktown
Miamisburg graduation 2012
Valley View vs. Greenville
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.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > August > 27
Friday, August 27, 2010
Kevin Riley: Coalition right to expand focus beyond WPAFB
The Dayton Development Coalition turned heads recently when it acknowledged it was launching its own initiative to keep companies in the Dayton region.
This “retention and expansion” effort, for which the coalition is aggressively raising money, comes in the aftermath of NCR’s departure, but it’s been talked about for years. Some might say “It’s about time” — and they are right.
But there’s something bigger going on here, too.
The coalition is finally asserting itself as the region’s primary economic development group. For some time now, it has had the lead on matters involving Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It, for example, rallied the community and helped win big victories for the region during the Base Realignment and Closure process.
But even as the organization’s reputation has grown because of that effort, and even though the region’s top business leaders have thrown their support behind it, the coalition has been satisfied to mostly focus on Wright-Patterson. Its leaders have been adamantly reluctant to take on other economic development roles.
That has to change. Supporting Wright-Patterson, while absolutely crucial to the Dayton region, is not alone an economic development plan. And while not without its problems and baggage from some blunders, the coalition is the best group to lead economic development initiatives.
To serve in this role, the coalition has to change some things. Specifically, there has been tension for years between the coalition and the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. The chamber is best positioned as an organization to help its small- and medium-sized business members, providing services to them that they struggle to buy (such as health insurance) or consulting with them. It’s also an important advocate and “voice” for small firms, but it really can’t lead economic development and, at the same time, provide members what they want.
The coalition needs the chamber’s buy-in.
Some other issues the coalition must address:
• Its operating style. Privately, other agencies, government officials and business people complain about the coalition’s approach. Routine communication is lacking. The focus on Wright-Patt and the fact that the coalition has hired former military people give it a command-and-control style. Also, the board needs a public official or two.
• Lack of trust. Downtown advocates aren’t convinced that the coalition looks out for the region’s central city. Suburban officials and county officials feel they get shortchanged. Somehow, the coalition has to convince folks that it will be sensitive to their needs while leading the bigger regional effort. (And critics need to understand that the coalition has to work for a greater good.)
The coalition can’t fix everything. For instance, it can’t be expected to solve the region’s historical problems with multiple cities and counties fighting about where companies will locate.
When it announced its recent retention and expansion initiative, not everyone was overjoyed. That’s because the City of Dayton has an “R&E” program, as does the Downtown Dayton Partnership and Montgomery County. So they wanted to know if the coalition is trying to take them over or duplicate their efforts.
But even these potential critics know that they’re focused on their niches, not the region at large. Someone has to be watching the broad landscape. When, for instance, the law firm of WilmerHale looked at bringing jobs to the region, it was shown options, including downtown. It ultimately picked Research Park in Kettering. That was a win for the wider community, even if Kettering got 185 jobs and downtown didn’t.
If the Dayton region is to have a bright economic future, there has to be high-quality leadership to get us there. The Dayton Development Coalition can provide that leadership.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Economy, Kevin Riley, Local Business
TweetEditorial: Teachable moment about Ohio history has sad lessons
The decision by a state legislative committee to put a statue of Thomas Edison — not the Wright brothers — in the U.S. Capitol is not the harshest blow to Dayton since the flood.
After all, just a few months ago, almost nobody knew that states even put statues of their stars in Washington.
Taking the real blows here were reason, factualness and the English language.
The committee put out a press release headlined, “Statuary Committee Recommends the People’s Choice: Thomas Edison for Statuary Hall.”
The people’s choice? This is a reference to the fact that 14,833 of “the people” picked Mr. Edison when all Ohioans were presented with a choice of 10 finalists. The Wright brothers came in second, with 13,815.
Ohio has about 11 million people, counting children, who were allowed to vote. Mr. Edison got little more than one thousandth of one percent of them.
Obviously, the real choice of “the people” was for the committee to do its own work: research the lives of the possible picks and choose one. Offered a chance to participate, the people said “No thanks,” not “Edison.”
Letting people vote was fine. But the committee rightly made clear from the get-go that it would not necessarily be bound by the outcome.
And yet state Rep. Richard Adams, R-Troy, who didn’t let Dayton-area ties prevent him from voting for Mr. Edison, said before the vote, “If you can’t go along with the vote of the people, then perhaps you shouldn’t even have had them vote.”
But if he wasn’t willing to exercise any judgment of his own, then perhaps he shouldn’t have accepted assignment to the committee. The committee made a big to-do about how it was going all over the state and hearing everybody so as to make the best decision. What was that all about? Photo ops?
The strange definition of “people’s choice” was not the week’s only assault on English. Committee Chairman Mark Wagoner said of Mr. Edison, “Not only was he the people’s choice, but his Ohio-grown ingenuity, intelligence and entrepreneurial spirit are worthy traits that….”
“Ohio-grown?” The boy left at 7.
Mr. Edison certainly did get engaged in science at a young age — his teens. If the statue is about where his admirable characteristics come from, maybe Michigan should put him in Washington. To say his traits were “Ohio-grown” is roughly like saying Wilbur Wright’s ingenuity was Indiana-grown. After all, he didn’t leave that state until he was 3.
Sen. Wagoner’s district includes the Edison birthplace. Unlike Rep. Adams, he did right by his district. Then he said what he had to say to justify it.
One might leave the matter at that. But when the statue issue arose, it was widely seen as a “teachable moment,” a fun way to engage young people in Ohio history. (That, by the way, was the best case for the public vote, in which, for the record, the Wrights carried the students.)
But here we have the adults on the committee refusing to learn their history, such as the fairly central fact that some finalists were actually Ohioans and some weren’t.
Then the students got the lesson that if they ever find themselves in a bind and have to explain their way out of it, they shouldn’t worry about what words actually mean. Just make them mean whatever you want.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Local History, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio government
TweetEditorial: Controversy over ‘mosque’ built on lies
So how long do you think this slug fest about the “mosque” near Ground Zero can go on?
The politicians have irritated people with their opinions on the issue, for not having an opinion and for fudging or retracting their utterances. All the while, radio and television talk shows have had a field day.
Who knew you could have the same ill-informed discussion so many times.
The truth — that the project isn’t a mosque, that it isn’t literally at Ground Zero, that the couple who are behind it are anything but terrorist-loving people, to cite a few facts — is not setting anybody free.
The plan to build an Islamic cultural center — more akin to a YMCA than a house of worship, though there will be a prayer room — has been on the drawing boards since last year.
But it only became controversial after a blogger and a columnist for the New York Post decided that turning a former Burlington Coat Factory into a “mosque” was an affront to the people who died on Sept. 11.
A religious group’s redevelopment project for a dilapidated building that had been damaged by debris falling from the sky on 9/11 became a bonanza for those who find demonizing others good for their careers.
Does it matter in Dayton or Ohio? Certainly if you’re Muslim it does. But others, too, are banging their heads.
Anyone who believes we’re not at war with Islam, but with terrorists; anyone who treasures religious freedom; anyone who despises shameless stereotyping is appalled by the national conversation that’s been going on.
Then there is also the matter of West Chester’s John Boehner, the leader of the House Republicans who wants to dethrone Nancy Pelosi and be the next speaker of the House. He’s helped make it national Republican orthodoxy to oppose the New York City project.
Feeling compelled to respond to President Barack Obama’s support of the cultural center (which the president quickly and cowardly tempered), Rep. Boehner called the plan “troubling.”
“The fact that someone has the right to do something doesn’t necessarily make it the right thing to do,” read his statement. “That is the essence of tolerance, peace and understanding. This is not an issue of law, whether religious freedom or local zoning. This is a basic issue of respect for a tragic moment in our history.”
Rep. Boehner’s district is home to one of Ohio’s largest mosques, which is in West Chester and clearly visible from I-75. Though he’s been invited, he’s never visited, according to Dr. Inayat Malik, the president of the education council at the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati.
Dr. Malik, a Cincinnati urologist, says what he hears critics of the New York Islamic center saying is that Muslims are “not part of the American landscape or that you shouldn’t be.” He’s particularly saddened by the argument that the center shouldn’t be built near Ground Zero “out of respect for the victims.”
Sept. 11th made victims of Muslim-Americans, too, he said. They have been vilified because of the terrorist attacks, their religion was hijacked by extremists, not to mention that Muslims died when the planes were flown into the Twin Towers. To suggest that building the project is insensitive is to suggest Muslims who are American are something less.
The organizers behind the cultural center have been under a microscope because of the controversy, and they’ve shown incredible tolerance and patience in the face of shocking bigotry.
If they had a sinister side, the world would now know. Instead, what’s come out is that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, have long done important interfaith work in New York and been passionate advocates for this country abroad (done first at the behest of the Bush and then the Obama administration).
Can we be done with this ugliness?
Permalink | Comments (40) | Post your comment | Categories: Civil Rights, Editorials, Ellen Belcher, National Politics, Religion and Faith, terrorism
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