WHO IS PLAYING POLITICS WITH SOLVING OHIO'S BUDGET PROBLEM?

It is about a year away before Ohio approaches the onset of a vigorous gubernatorial contest. But the groundwork is now being laid.

The fight?

Between Governor Strickland and the GOP leadership in the Ohio General Assembly.

Dennis Willard of the Akron Beacon Journal wrote an intriguing pieces in yesterday's edition (GOP offer to Governor a good deal) in which he sets up the relative positions of the governor/the GOP.

All the governor has to do is agree to a vote by the people. Strickland does not even have to sign-off on the ballot initiative in the formal sense of "sign-off." But he refuses so far.

Why would a governor who in 2006 postured as "a man of the people" want to circumvent the voters?

Could it be that the numbers (seen above) put the issue in grave doubt of passage? Certainly, the governor will be out front campaigning for the issue. Wouldn't this mean that if the issue is once again resoundingly defeated that Strickland fears a carryover to his 2010 re-election bid?

Looking at the Stark County numbers on Issue 6 (2008 election), in a close race - voter recollection of Strickland being strongly for a gambling issue in 2009 might be enough to tip the Stark vote to the Republican candidate in the 2010 gubernatorial race.

A few days ago, the SCPR recalls seeing a newspaper report whereby Strickland accuses the GOP legislative leadership as playing politics. Undoubtedly, they are. But so is Strickland.

At least in the GOP version, the voters have a say.

A strange place for "a man of the people" to be?

DISCUSSION: CAN BOCCIERI PULL IT OFF? BRING HIGH TECH TO THE 16TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

The Canton Repository yesterday reported on 16th District Congressman John Boccieri's airplane ride with President Obama on the president's recent trip to Columbus produced heartening news for all district constituents, but in particular for Stark Countians.

As readers of the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) know, The Report is highly enthusiastic about getting Stark County on a high speed rail towards becoming Ohio's center for alternative energies (promoted vigorously by Stark County Commissioner Todd Bosley) and high tech which is all ready underway at Stark State College of Technology (SSCT) in fuel cell research and product development.

The specific part of the Boccieri encounter with Obama as reported by Repository reporter Edd Pritchard that should jump out at Boccieri constituents is this:

Obama wants to see clean coal technology developed into a functional option within 10 years and is interested in investments in other alternative energy programs. Boccieri said the district already has a good start with alternative energy, citing the fuel-cell program at Stark State College of Technology, bio mass research in Wayne County and work in Medina County to develop hybrid plug-in batteries.

The 16th District is “so primed to be a benefactor with these new investments,” Boccieri said, noting the different research programs. It’s exciting to see how diversified energy can help the country grow, Boccieri said.

The Report believes that national, state, county officials and the SSCT Board of Trustees ought to take a looks at restructuring the mission of SSCT.

SSCT President John O'Donnell has articulated a goal of Stark State playing a key role in elevating the overall educational level of Stark Countians in terms of having associate degrees. Such is a worthy objective. However, it is not making "the highest and best use" of Stark's technical education infrastructure.

O'Donnell's goal should not be jettisoned, but re-arranged whereby the Kent Stark campus is converted into a community college with post two year degree connections to The University of Akron and Kent State University for motivated associate degree grantees to obtain their bachelors.

Back to Stark State.

Congressman Boccieri, the Stark County commissioners, the Stark County delegation to the Ohio General Assembly, Ohio Board of Regents chairman Eric Fingerhut and Governor Strickland have a grand opportunity with Stark State and its fuel cell program high tech base to use that effort as a building block to refashion SSCT into a high level Ohio technical university.

Programs of research and development that ought to be considered as additions include "cell engineering," "tissue engineering," and "robotics." These, according to Juan Enriquez (the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project), says that cell engineering, tissue engineering and robotics are the leading edge of 21st century ways to reboot an economy. (See the accompany video clip below in which Enriquez is shown making this very point at a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference)

How will 16th Congressional voters assess the quality of John Boccier's work in Congress come November, 2010?

The Report believes it is whether or not he "seizes the day" on the opportunity he identifies in the Pritchard piece as currently existing as in no other time.

But he cannot and should not do it on his own. Boccieri needs to be the catalytic force to bring together all the stakeholders identified above plus others that undoubtedly are to be identified.

A huge stakeholder not identified above is the city of Canton. Were moves to be made to make SSCT a premier Ohio technical university, Canton will have to be revamped as a much high grade cultural center for the super-tech types that would be coming to Stark County. The mayor and all city officials as well as Stark County officials should start reading now Richard Florida's collection of books (CLICK HERE FOR A LIST OF HIS BOOKS) on what and how Canton or any other city that is bent on reinventing itself needs to proceed.

You would think that a certain mayor who prides himself on his New York University Stern School of Business masters degree and who is mayor of a major Ohio City has already read these books. If he has, it isn't evident in his thinking. If he hasn't he should get on with it.

Here is a video clip of Enquiez (for the full presentation CLICK HERE):

MAIER WINS APPOINTMENT TO OHIO NURSING BOARD AS CONSUMER REPRESENTATIVE: DOES THIS SURPRISE ANYONE?

Yesterday, Stark County Democratic Party chairman Johnnie A. Maier, Jr., was appointed by Governor Ted Strickland as a board member on the Ohio Board of Nursing.

This appointment is surprising to the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report). Not Maier getting appointed. The governor is highly appreciative to Maier for being the first county party chairman to endorse Strickland when he ran for governor (see embed video below). Only that it was to the Board of Nursing.

Double the surprise. Consumer representative? The Report has never fancied Maier as a devotee to consumer rights. As Gomer Pyle used to say: "gosh, golly, gee!

DISCUSSION: STARK COUNTY CITIES & THE COUNTY ITSELF PARCEL OUT OUR MONEY. WHERE'S THE ACCOUNTING?

A question that every Stark Countian ought to have on his or her mind?

What are taxpaying Stark Countians, Cantonians, North Cantonians, Massillonians and Allianceites getting for their economic development money?

Yesterday, the Alliance Review ran an outstanding AP wire piece which critiques how government accounts for our tax dollars in the area of economic development.

When the STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) visited with Democrat Mayor Francis Cicchinelli a few months ago, he decried the absolute need to ante up taxpayer money as a precondition to even begin discussions with companies about expanding in or relocating to Massillon. Cicchinelli doesn't like this reality, but a reality it is. Being kind, one would call this an "entitlement attitude," but to be brutally honest about this corporate economic development reality would be to term it: "we have you over a barrel and we are going to put the screws to you - grin and bear it."

A couple of days ago, The Report e-mailed Commissioner Todd Bosley an asked him whether or not Stark County could account better than Ohio does. No answer as of the writing of this piece. But The Report will be patient, with the storm and all.

The Report turns attention to Ohio House 50th District candidate Republican Todd Snitchler on this "reality." Here's a guy who has unbridled faith in the goodness of corporations and their "PR organizations" to wit: Stark County's local chambers of commerce and, of course, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

As far as The Report is concerned, Snitchler's fascination with the chambers has more to do with his deficient ability to think of new approaches to get at solving severe Stark County and Ohio economic problems than anything else. The chamber of commerce thing is a cover for his inadequacies to think outside-the-box. He is so utterly unoriginal in thought that he needs the chambers to have any economic program whatsoever, notwithstanding Ohioans' clear understanding that the Ohio Chamber of Commerce has been and continues to be a failed key player in solving Ohio's economic problems.

By his own account, his own Lake Development Foundation is floundering. How's that? Snitchler says on a video published by The Report (prior article) that the foundation has no money.

With ties like his, it is not likely that Stark Countians can count on him to push for greater accountability in the slipshod relationship between government and the corporate world on the matter of economic development.

Snitchler's only consolation in his race is that his opponent, Democrat Celeste DeHoff, is even more anemic on this front. All she has to do, if elected, will be to call on former state representative Johnnie A. Maier, Jr., (now clerk of courts in Massillon and chair of the Stark County Democratic Party and her chief sponsor) for direction. We all remember what a "giant of a legislator" he was in the Ohio House, don't we?

There is a growing citizen suspicion that taxpayers are getting worked over by companies who are working a system they invented and who are insulated from public scrutiny by bumbling government officials or those who are in the hip pocket of corporate interests.

We have "No Child Left Behind" to document achievement/non-achievement as a check on educators. But what to we have to measure how state and local governments are "investing" taxpayer dollars and whether or not recipient companies are producing according to their promises.

Ohio, for its part, in The Review piece admits that it has no way to tell whether or not the 200, 000 promised jobs over the past 10 years have materialized for the $1.7 billion in tax breaks, et cetera.

How about this for a laugh (to the lament of the taxpaying public)? Ohio is going after Skybus which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. What genius in the Ohio Department of Development (Lee Fisher?) helped this company with taxpayer money? A company which was offering $10 fares (a terrific business model). Gee, maybe it would have been prudent to require the company to post a bond with the state of Ohio?

All Ohio has is a fragmented, case-by-case, way to track. And currently, it is obvious that the fragmentation reduces to some Department of Development bureaucrat scrambling to come up with a scintilla of data to satisfy an inquiring newspaper reporter for the moment.

And remember, in January, 2006 Governor Strickland, in his Inaugural address, promised government accountability as well as personal accountability. Now, according to the AP report, in the light of big deficits that Ohio is currently running - there's a question: Is there money for devising a tracking system that will provide the promised accountability.

Returning, for a moment, to Todd Snitchler and his chamber friends. Next we will hear how requiring corporate accountability and requiring them to return taxpayer money for promises unkept will hurt Ohio's and Stark County's ability to compete.

The question: (Republican or Democrat) Will Ohioans, Stark Countians, Cantonians, North Cantonians, Massillonians, and Allianceites ever get accountability from our government executives? From beneficiary-corporate executives?

DISCUSSION: WHICH ISSUE WILL PROVIDE THE MARGIN OF VICTORY IN THE 16TH? IMMIGRATION?

It will be if Steve Salvi of the Ohio Jobs and Justice PAC (OJJPAC) has his way.

Salvi is working hard to raise the profile of immigration as a deciding issue in congressional, Ohio House and Senate races across the state.

So far J. Kirk Schuring's main issue in his battle to win the 16th Congressional District seat over John Boccieri has been to harp on Boccieri being a carpetbagger candidate.

The STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) still believes that his race is Boccieri's to lose because voters across the nation, including Ohio, are looking for Democrats to support. However, this is a highly competitive race.

If Salvi is successful, the Schuring campaign is positioned to piggyback on his effort. Why? Because Schuring signed on as a sponsor of Senate Bill 260; Boccieri has not. One has to wonder why not?

Could it be because his chief political sponsor, Governor Ted Strickland is, apparently, against the bill? Strickland is quoted in a recent AP report as being concerned about the fruition of patchwork of state laws trying to deal with immigration.

What level of importance do you attach to bills like S.B. 260? Is support of this bill a key issue to you in deciding which candidate you will vote for in November?

DISCUSSION: THE PERFECT FIT?

Of course, Democrat Governor Ted Strickland is obligated to support Democratic candidate Celeste DeHoff who is Tuscarawas Township trustee and Stark County Democratic Party chairman Johnnie A. Maier, Jr.'s protege.

But wouldn't it make more sense for Ohio if he were to take a page out of the book of Democratic U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and do what's best for the state (in this instance) over his political party?

Since the Ohio Chamber of Commerce has a huge stake in the success of the Strickland administration plan, doesn't it stand to reason that Strickland would want a solid chamber of commerce guy in the Ohio House to support his economic development efforts - the one one issue in Ohio these days?

Todd Snitchler, the Republican candidate for the Ohio House (50th) has vastly superior chamber of commerce credentials over the Democrat candidate Celeste DeHoff. He's a past president of the Lake Chamber of Commerce and currently president of the Lake Development Corporation which has a very strong association with area chambers of commerce.

The STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) recalls a recent presentation that Snitchler made to the Uniontown Business Association (the non-political, political event it was), outlining how he went to the Massillon Chamber of Commerce for advice on setting up the Lake Development Corporation.

It is somewhat mystifying to The Report why Strickland has turned to the Ohio Chamber.

Hasn't the Ohio Chamber of Commerce had a large role with the Ohio Republican Party (which some say are joined at the hip) in constructing economic development plans over the past 20 years? Haven't those 20 years been a economic disaster for Ohio? Is the Strickland administration so bereft of new ideas that it has to turn to the "old idea" machine?

The saying is: "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten."

Apparently, the Strickland administration has dipped, once again, into the reservoir of stale ideas that haven't worked.

Ohioans and Stark Countians can only hope that Strickland gets lucky and pulls a rabbit out of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce hat.

Who better, The Report asks, to help Strickland than chamber devotee Todd Snitchler? Who does Strickland care more about - the future of state of Ohio or the success of a Democratic candidate for the Ohio House?

What choice do you think he should make?