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Parties unite to promote thriving Third Frontier

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By William Hershey, Staff Writer 9:59 PM Saturday, December 26, 2009

The new year’s coming, just in time for Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and the Republicans squabbling with him to make a joint resolution:

We promise to gargle, spit out the poison and not say nasty stuff about each other until May 5, the day after  the May 4  primary election.

There’s a reason for the goodwill, even in an election year.

It’s because political life can be tough on Ohio’s Third Frontier.

There’s strength in unity and likely defeat without it.

The Third Frontier is the state’s high-tech research and economic development program. Most everybody around thinks it does good things. According to a new report, it created or retained 48,000 jobs through June 30 at an average annual salary of $67,087, a sliver of hope in the continuing grayness of Ohio’s economic slump.

It’s been good for the Dayton area, too.

About $120 million in grants have been awarded to area projects.

Strickland and House Speaker Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, want to put a $1 billion, five-year bond proposal on the May ballot to renew and expand the Third Frontier. The deadline for legislators to approve putting it on the ballot is Feb. 3.

Voters in 2005 approved a bond issue that included $500 million for the program. Including money from other sources, the commitment reached $1.6 billion, but some money was diverted, and the total dipped slightly to about $1.35 billion.

The program doesn’t expire until 2012, but Strickland and Budish have said May is the best time to go to the voters to avoid a funding interruption.

If Strickland and legislators want voters to approve borrowing big chunks of money — which is what a bond issue does — they need a united front.

While the Third Frontier now gets lots of cheers, it wasn’t always that way. The program was Republican Gov. Bob Taft’s idea. The first effort in 2003 to win voter approval for issuing $500 million in bonds was a Taft production. It flopped, losing 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent against no well-funded opposition.

To win passage of $500 million in bonds for the Third Frontier in 2005, Taft and legislators of both parties joined forces, and enlisted former Democratic U.S. Sen. John Glenn, the astronaut and war hero, as chairman of a bipartisan campaign.

The bonds for the Third Frontier were just part of a $2 billion ballot proposal that also included renewal of a popular public works program and bonds to prepare sites for business and industrial expansion.

The issue passed, 54 percent to 46 percent.

This year, Republicans are wary that Strickland, facing re-election, would use a Third Frontier campaign to promote himself.

“Give me a break,” Strickland said in a year-end interview. He always credits Taft with creating the program, he said.

“The fact is, to my knowledge, the support for the Third Frontier is so broadly based and so strongly supported, that I think it would be a failure on the part of the legislature not to move forward expeditiously,” said Strickland.

Putting a proposal on the ballot requires 60 votes in the 99-member House, which means at least seven Republicans would have to go along if all 53 Democrats support it.

In the Senate, it takes 20 votes. That means eight of 21 Republicans would have to agree if all 12 Democrats are on board.

Senate President Bill Harris, R-Ashland, now says he’s willing to work toward a May ballot issue. The discussion has started, although it’s not clear that there’s agreement that the dollar amount should be as high as $1 billion.

Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said he’d prefer $500 million, but agrees with Strickland, sort of, on the program’s value.

“Ted Strickland’s best new idea is Bob Taft’s old one,” Husted said.

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