We can now add the Beacon Journal's editorial page editor Mike Douglas to critics of UA President Scott Scarborough's bleak performance since his sceptered arrival from Toledo University. For many months, Douglas offered his readers a virtual politically correct touch-and go job rating.
Not this time. From the tone of the Douglas piece, the prez has fallen more deeply into the mire of a badly scripted promise to ease the school's $60 million debt.
Moreover, for the first time, the question appeared from a top row of the ivory
tower of whether Scarborough is professionally fit to manage the school. Douglas wrote, in what can ony be a desperate shot across the bow:
''Is Scarborough, for all the promising ambition for the university, the right person to get the school there? Jonathan Pavloff, the chairman of the university board of trustees, describes the president as possessing the 'precise talents' for the job. Actually that isn't clear..."
Since the new Maestro took over the university with the sound of silence from the cowering trustees, it's been one thing after another as he ignored critics and insisted that only those who don't understand his format for change are now complaining. He was the model of the right way, some of it even shaped by his deeply religious Texas background that has referenced church people as the ones who stooped to pick up trash.
His campus culture was to be one of discipline, discipline, discipline - an "organization engaged in disciplined thought and action." He even initiated a new uniformed Corps of Cadets as a campus role model. Meantime, he became embroiled in a badly executed name change for the school, which soured more people than he cared to acknowledge.
Throughout the upheaveal on the campus, he seemed to be conducting the thunderous Ride of the Valkyries as a lilting Strauss waltz.
Things are finally catching up. From Douglas to mega-philanthropist Eileen Burg to the UA Women's Committee to the AAUP and to those of us who questioned his muddled game plan, the clock is ticking faster. At least we are having more reason to hope .
I once worked for an editor who defended an unpopular decision by shrugging that if you want to make an omelet, you have to break an egg.. In the editor's case, his own egg was finally broken as he headed out the door.
Showing posts with label Beacon Journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beacon Journal. Show all posts
Monday, November 2, 2015
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
UA becoming a company campus
You would think that a new regime that claims strategic academic advances would have at least considered the adage "Look before you leap".
By now we can conclude that University of Akron President Scott Scarborough and his meek servants on the Board of Trustees didn't. And so, the school's reputation and credibility are in free fall.
Scarborough arrived with a spotty resume from the University of Toledo last year with a merit badge for wanting to get things done quickly. He had tried to sell his grand plan to the Toledo faculty and failed. I remain puzzled over why the UA Trustees chose to not only hire him but also to grant him an unchallenged and a richly rewarded command post to carry out his scheme to change the university's name (now , he says, abandoned). The price of renovating his home at nearly three times the original estimate was particularly troubling for a school insisting it was flat broke. And what parent couldn't react sharply to a contractual perk that his daughter could someday attend any school in Ohio at no charge?
There have been other retreats from his initiatives along the way that exposed hasty efforts to "rebrand" UA into a tech center. Today's mail brought to us a flier from the University of Akron, tagged Ohio's Polytechnic University - not a comforting fit for UA's music school's programs, do you think?
In the past year there have been too many reports of Scarborough's shredding of some of the school's departments to cut into the school's debt. Add the odd administrative mistakes bobbing like apples in the pool of new executives too highly paid to be making them. There have been too many bulging contracts for questionable new programs.
On Sunday, a deeply researched report in the Beacon Journal included a startling statement for those of us who have fallen into the trap of linking UA with a $60 million debt.
"UA," reporter Rick Armon wrote, "doesn't have an annual $60 million deficit or shortfall".
That's what UA Chief Financial Officer Nathan Mortimer told him. The explanation was too complicated for this column.
Still, Scarborough found his comfort zone in the well-paid executives he brought to the campus, morphing UA into a company school. That includes a hire who had once functioned in David Brennan's parallel $1 billion taxpayer funded universe of White Hat Management's charter schools.
Under Brennan's command, Todd Rickel, UA's new vice provost and dean of College of Applied Science and Technology, made it known that he was an "education futurist" as White Hat's "Chief Learning Officer." What could go wrong?
Inasmuch as White Hat's charters are tanking with awful grades (as they did under Rickel on Brennan's payroll) you might wonder what he's doing at UA with a $295,000 salary anyway.
Brennan has long boastfully considered himself a "futurist" and years ago invited me to a private breakfast where the speaker predicted the total demise of universities.
Folks, this whole rebranding idea is going nowhere as it stumbles over its own flubs. Right now it's a high-priced game of academic silly putty. Guess who's picking up the tab.
By now we can conclude that University of Akron President Scott Scarborough and his meek servants on the Board of Trustees didn't. And so, the school's reputation and credibility are in free fall.
Scarborough arrived with a spotty resume from the University of Toledo last year with a merit badge for wanting to get things done quickly. He had tried to sell his grand plan to the Toledo faculty and failed. I remain puzzled over why the UA Trustees chose to not only hire him but also to grant him an unchallenged and a richly rewarded command post to carry out his scheme to change the university's name (now , he says, abandoned). The price of renovating his home at nearly three times the original estimate was particularly troubling for a school insisting it was flat broke. And what parent couldn't react sharply to a contractual perk that his daughter could someday attend any school in Ohio at no charge?
There have been other retreats from his initiatives along the way that exposed hasty efforts to "rebrand" UA into a tech center. Today's mail brought to us a flier from the University of Akron, tagged Ohio's Polytechnic University - not a comforting fit for UA's music school's programs, do you think?
In the past year there have been too many reports of Scarborough's shredding of some of the school's departments to cut into the school's debt. Add the odd administrative mistakes bobbing like apples in the pool of new executives too highly paid to be making them. There have been too many bulging contracts for questionable new programs.
On Sunday, a deeply researched report in the Beacon Journal included a startling statement for those of us who have fallen into the trap of linking UA with a $60 million debt.
"UA," reporter Rick Armon wrote, "doesn't have an annual $60 million deficit or shortfall".
That's what UA Chief Financial Officer Nathan Mortimer told him. The explanation was too complicated for this column.
Still, Scarborough found his comfort zone in the well-paid executives he brought to the campus, morphing UA into a company school. That includes a hire who had once functioned in David Brennan's parallel $1 billion taxpayer funded universe of White Hat Management's charter schools.
Under Brennan's command, Todd Rickel, UA's new vice provost and dean of College of Applied Science and Technology, made it known that he was an "education futurist" as White Hat's "Chief Learning Officer." What could go wrong?
Inasmuch as White Hat's charters are tanking with awful grades (as they did under Rickel on Brennan's payroll) you might wonder what he's doing at UA with a $295,000 salary anyway.
Brennan has long boastfully considered himself a "futurist" and years ago invited me to a private breakfast where the speaker predicted the total demise of universities.
Folks, this whole rebranding idea is going nowhere as it stumbles over its own flubs. Right now it's a high-priced game of academic silly putty. Guess who's picking up the tab.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Mayor Plusquellic: a worthy choice for an 8th term
Has an entire generation passed since Don Plusquellic was first elected as Akron's mayor? Remarkably, it has. But who's counting? For the record, it happened in 1987 and has been happening ever since to the chagrin of his political foes as he surely plans to seek an 8th term this year.
Although the teetering maxim is that familiarity breeds contempt, in Plusquellic's case it has made him more secure in a high-risk job that can only create some enemies along the way. From potholes to hiring policies, from snow plows to budgets, from whispering campaigns to failed recall efforts, an urban mayor's lot, like the policeman's in the H.M.S. Pinafore, is not a happy one on many days.
He has been called a bully, sometimes deservedly earned because of his short temper and reputation as a single-minded visionary. But what his opponents have never quite accepted is that someone who is looking at an 8th term has repeatedly won convincing support from voters who have found a lot to admire about their mayor.
And why not? The simple answer: enlightened stability. Cities can only survive as livable places if they offer a reasonable amount of continuing day to day guarantees of what is best for their citizens. Not an easy challenge. But Akron has stood out in a disheveled modern urban environment thanks to Plusquellic's steady hand. Veteran Plain Dealer poliltical columnist Brent Larkin aptly put it this way:
Adams has fairly well planted himself in the dark corner for judicial decisions and it's likely to go on, at great expense to the city's taxpayers for the foreseeable future. As you know, federal judgeships are cushy lifetime political jobs.
Finally, any doubts that Plusquellic, at 65, will go for the gold again have little standing on the streets or among Democratic Party officials. When asked whether the mayor will be back on the ballot this year, Party Chairman Jeff Fusco doesn't hesitate: "I'm confident that he will be."
On the other side, Arshinkoff says he will again challenge the mayor , telling the BJ that it will be some yet-unamed person.
Does the pool include former mayor Roy Ray?
I
Although the teetering maxim is that familiarity breeds contempt, in Plusquellic's case it has made him more secure in a high-risk job that can only create some enemies along the way. From potholes to hiring policies, from snow plows to budgets, from whispering campaigns to failed recall efforts, an urban mayor's lot, like the policeman's in the H.M.S. Pinafore, is not a happy one on many days.
He has been called a bully, sometimes deservedly earned because of his short temper and reputation as a single-minded visionary. But what his opponents have never quite accepted is that someone who is looking at an 8th term has repeatedly won convincing support from voters who have found a lot to admire about their mayor.
And why not? The simple answer: enlightened stability. Cities can only survive as livable places if they offer a reasonable amount of continuing day to day guarantees of what is best for their citizens. Not an easy challenge. But Akron has stood out in a disheveled modern urban environment thanks to Plusquellic's steady hand. Veteran Plain Dealer poliltical columnist Brent Larkin aptly put it this way:
"Plusquellic is as ferocious and passionate a defender of his hometown as any mayor I've ever encountered. Even some of his most outspoken detractors - not an especially small group - admit to harboring private fears about the city's future when he is no longer mayor."Detractors? The mayor (read:the city) has had his hands full fending off the assaults on his policies by Federal Judge John Adams, a beneficiary of the mayor's biggest critic through the years, the frustrated and frustrating Republican chairman, Alex Arshinkoff. Time and again Adams has slammed down the mayor's programs, only to be criticized for his decisions by higher courts. (The Beacon Journal accused Adams of an "absence of reason" and "mean spirit". That's a start.)
Adams has fairly well planted himself in the dark corner for judicial decisions and it's likely to go on, at great expense to the city's taxpayers for the foreseeable future. As you know, federal judgeships are cushy lifetime political jobs.
Finally, any doubts that Plusquellic, at 65, will go for the gold again have little standing on the streets or among Democratic Party officials. When asked whether the mayor will be back on the ballot this year, Party Chairman Jeff Fusco doesn't hesitate: "I'm confident that he will be."
On the other side, Arshinkoff says he will again challenge the mayor , telling the BJ that it will be some yet-unamed person.
Does the pool include former mayor Roy Ray?
I
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Do some political parties age better than others?
Former Gov. Ted Strickland's decision to challenge Sen. Rob Portman, Republican "commonsense conservative," as he sees it, has drawn mostly yawns from Ohio's media stallions who argue it is a dramatic sign of the Democratic Party's pathetic lack of youth and energy. (Strickland is 73).
I would agree that the party needs a younger profile. But for the articles and editorial pages to fret over the Democrats' creaking bones is a rare sign of Ohio's Republican-leaning newspapers to fret over the general welfare of the "other party".
Young or old, it usually doesn't make that much difference who shows up on the state ballot as a Democrat. Don't take my word for it. If age is a factor, here are some engaging figures from the 2014 vote:
Of the five state offices on the ballot, only one posted a Republican younger than his opponent , Treasurer Josh Mandel, 37, big deal(!), who was younger than his opponent Connie Pillich, a lively and competent 54.
In the other four, Republicans were the greybeards - none more pronounced than the attorney general contest that pitted Republican incumbent Mike DeWine, at 68 against Democrat David Pepper, 43!
As long as these many years that I've followed DeWine's career, I've never figured out how he maintains his Rasputin-like grip on editorial writers leading them to such contradictory endorsements. The Plain Dealer produced not a single negative word about Pepper, a Cincinnati lawyer who had ably served as a county commissioner and city councilman. The PD however, did go on distressfully about the lengthy downside of DeWine's tenure as the state's top lawyer, from questionable awards of state contracts to other matters that led him "astray'' by "insulting Ohio's voters for refusing" to debate Pepper.
So what will it be? Sayeth the lords of the Cleveland newspaper world:
"DeWine is a work in progress. But his flaws and blind spots are more than outweighed by his energetic and effective advocacy on behalf of all Ohioans on a range of issue" thus earning him a approval for a second term.
A work in progress at 68? Better hurry.
The PD lined up six of its opinion writers to record the event. Elizabeth Sullivan, the opinion director of the Northeast Ohio Media Group, expressed her sorrow over the old folks party thusly: Strickland's return is "another sorry statement about the dearth of viable Democratic candidates for a statewide run..."
Then, my old paper, the Beacon Journal, concluded that although DeWine "has stumbled at times" the record also showed that he ''has been a much better attorney general than Pepper allows" and deserves a second term.
Jarring, too, is DeWine's active agenda that has been at odds with the paper's position on several major issues dominating everyone's lives, from the Affordable Care Act to abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
With the yawners, I guess, it depends what party is creakily on the ballot.
So for the Dems, would it improve their chances if they sent in a teenage candidate for an endorsement interview? You might grow old waiting for a reply.
I would agree that the party needs a younger profile. But for the articles and editorial pages to fret over the Democrats' creaking bones is a rare sign of Ohio's Republican-leaning newspapers to fret over the general welfare of the "other party".
Young or old, it usually doesn't make that much difference who shows up on the state ballot as a Democrat. Don't take my word for it. If age is a factor, here are some engaging figures from the 2014 vote:
Of the five state offices on the ballot, only one posted a Republican younger than his opponent , Treasurer Josh Mandel, 37, big deal(!), who was younger than his opponent Connie Pillich, a lively and competent 54.
In the other four, Republicans were the greybeards - none more pronounced than the attorney general contest that pitted Republican incumbent Mike DeWine, at 68 against Democrat David Pepper, 43!
As long as these many years that I've followed DeWine's career, I've never figured out how he maintains his Rasputin-like grip on editorial writers leading them to such contradictory endorsements. The Plain Dealer produced not a single negative word about Pepper, a Cincinnati lawyer who had ably served as a county commissioner and city councilman. The PD however, did go on distressfully about the lengthy downside of DeWine's tenure as the state's top lawyer, from questionable awards of state contracts to other matters that led him "astray'' by "insulting Ohio's voters for refusing" to debate Pepper.
So what will it be? Sayeth the lords of the Cleveland newspaper world:
"DeWine is a work in progress. But his flaws and blind spots are more than outweighed by his energetic and effective advocacy on behalf of all Ohioans on a range of issue" thus earning him a approval for a second term.
A work in progress at 68? Better hurry.
The PD lined up six of its opinion writers to record the event. Elizabeth Sullivan, the opinion director of the Northeast Ohio Media Group, expressed her sorrow over the old folks party thusly: Strickland's return is "another sorry statement about the dearth of viable Democratic candidates for a statewide run..."
Then, my old paper, the Beacon Journal, concluded that although DeWine "has stumbled at times" the record also showed that he ''has been a much better attorney general than Pepper allows" and deserves a second term.
Jarring, too, is DeWine's active agenda that has been at odds with the paper's position on several major issues dominating everyone's lives, from the Affordable Care Act to abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
With the yawners, I guess, it depends what party is creakily on the ballot.
So for the Dems, would it improve their chances if they sent in a teenage candidate for an endorsement interview? You might grow old waiting for a reply.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
IN ABJ: SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND
When I glanced at the front page of my Beacon Journal this morning over coffee, it quickly became apparent that the paper's editors decided to ignore the biggest story across the country's media: the grand jury decision in the chokehold case. But we did get one more column about the Browns' quarterback controversy (Choosing Hoyer all about Manziel) . And still one more story, again with photos, on the sports page, where it belonged. (Faith put in Hoyer). But must be fair: I found the story on Page 4. I'll begin on that page the next time.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
What's that? She's too busy to answer a question?
The closing days of the election madness concluded with a stark reminder that those who play for your votes may be too busy to answer a few important questons. The Republican state ticket, from Gov. Kasich down, waved off any effort to bring them into the consciousness of the voter (excluding the Betty Crocker type TV ads fashioned to sweeten your palate).
A survey by NewsOutlet/Beacon Journal, a collaborative operation, on whether charter school assets belong to the private owners or to the public that paid for them, enjoyed only partial success. .
Rep. Marilyn Slaby, a Summit County Republican challenged by Democrat Tim Crawford, was among the majority of Republicans who didn't respond. She said she was too busy to answer the question. She said what?
The reluctance of some politicians to step up on a question about charter schools can be traced to the fact that they are well maintained in the White Hat Management charter kingdom of its founder, David Brennan. As we all know, he's a major GOP political financier who leaves no legislative vote that would affect his enterprises unguarded.
And it works! The state has channeled more than $900 million into charter schools, nearly $775 million to the Brennan domain. The Plain Dealer reported that Brennan has "poured more than $4 million into the coffers of Republican candidates in Ohio during the last decade."
You won't need a calculator to see that $775 million for a $4 million investment is a damn good return.
Not that these schools have served as a White Hat cure for the ills of the public school system. There are loads of dropouts from the charters - more than the number of students who showed up on a average day. Indeed, there is nothing in any of the studies that would confirm charter success.
And, of course, the state's generous charter funding has to come from somewhere. Yep. Stretched-out public education, which could stand a few more dollars in its budgets.
But for now, the prophetic words of Simon Cameron, Abe Lincoln's Secretary of War, are very much current today:
"An honest politician is one who , when he is bought, will stay bought.".
A survey by NewsOutlet/Beacon Journal, a collaborative operation, on whether charter school assets belong to the private owners or to the public that paid for them, enjoyed only partial success. .
Rep. Marilyn Slaby, a Summit County Republican challenged by Democrat Tim Crawford, was among the majority of Republicans who didn't respond. She said she was too busy to answer the question. She said what?
The reluctance of some politicians to step up on a question about charter schools can be traced to the fact that they are well maintained in the White Hat Management charter kingdom of its founder, David Brennan. As we all know, he's a major GOP political financier who leaves no legislative vote that would affect his enterprises unguarded.
And it works! The state has channeled more than $900 million into charter schools, nearly $775 million to the Brennan domain. The Plain Dealer reported that Brennan has "poured more than $4 million into the coffers of Republican candidates in Ohio during the last decade."
You won't need a calculator to see that $775 million for a $4 million investment is a damn good return.
Not that these schools have served as a White Hat cure for the ills of the public school system. There are loads of dropouts from the charters - more than the number of students who showed up on a average day. Indeed, there is nothing in any of the studies that would confirm charter success.
And, of course, the state's generous charter funding has to come from somewhere. Yep. Stretched-out public education, which could stand a few more dollars in its budgets.
But for now, the prophetic words of Simon Cameron, Abe Lincoln's Secretary of War, are very much current today:
"An honest politician is one who , when he is bought, will stay bought.".
Thursday, October 16, 2014
The PD's home run for Nina Turner over Husted
Re-Posted from Plunderbund
Even in these shrinking days before the November election there are still a few surprises left in the media world. I refer to the Plain Dealer's full-page endorsement of
Democrat Nina Turner over her Republican opponent, Secretary of
State Jon Husted. The paper's statement was more than an act of altruism for a hometown candidate, although her residency in Cuyahoga County couldn't hurt.
No, Turner is an aggressive, extremely savvy state senator - the kind of spirited person you would want to have on your side in any confrontation with the enemy. In a state buttoned down by a Republican dynasty, she represents a healthy start toward the political equilibrium that the state so desperately needs.The issue that the PD recognized but eludes the Beacon Journal's editorial page is what I've called the Husted Hustle for his tactics of talking one game plan while executing another. For too long he's been a leader in stirring the GOP witch's brew with a Boy Scout's honor to make voting easier and eliminate (non-existent) cheating. Amazing how many of Husted's media cheerleaders have bought into that notion at the expense of their own credibility.
But the PD knows something about the demographics of Cuyahoga County, whose population is nearly one-third African American. It is obviously aware that Husted's mythical protection of every voter's rights is at the expense of the minorities. Two federal courts have ruled his scheme unconstitutional despite the Ivory Towers who were inexplicably offended by their decisions.
As the PD asserted:
"Husted, 47, strongly defends his decision on early, in-person voting as stemming from a 'bipartisan' consensus of the state's election professionals. But the state's chief election officer must protect all Ohioans' voting rights and not narrow those rights unequally. Under Husted, those rights have frayed, including through his directives to restrict hours and days for early in-person voting an to deny local boards the right to set their own hours."
By now Cleveland has had plenty of experience with the wreckage of past elections, from the purchase by elections officials of voting machines that didn't work, to tabulating errors to the general torture of citizens trying to vote. This time it wants to begin with a clean slate in Columbus and not an illusionist. Hometowner Turner's spirited attention to the system's inglorious flaws as proposed by Husted was convincing.
Come to think of it, maybe the PD's choice wasn't surprising after all.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Must read: Dyer's sizzling series on Angley
Shall we all raise a glass to Beacon Journal reporter Bob Dyer for his sizzling X-rated series exposing Ernest Angley, the cultist tactile preacher with a fascination for hands-on (HEAL! for God's sake) salvation, leeches and the size of...um...penises.?
Angley, slicked coal-black wig and all, has been the mega-star attraction for 20 years at Grace Cathedral, the huge saucer shaped man-made hillock in Cuyahoga Falls with an unfinished tower that was to serve as the modern version of Jacob's ladder topped with a restaurant.
What is it about televangelists who claim to render unto God what is God's and to themselves what is royally theirs? Several teleministries, as enriched as they were, have seen their leaders dismissed in sex-related scandals. Jimmy Swaggert comes to mind. And there was Jim Bakker, whose significant other ended up in full unclothed view of Playboy scanners. There have been others of more recent vintage.
Bakker is a narrative worthy of a how-to manual. He recently returned to public scrutiny for his venture in "End of the World Biscuits" - and please don't think I'm kidding. He is asking TV viewers to prepare themselves for the Apocalypse by laying in survival kits that include heavy clothing for sunless days.
Maybe he and Angley can crack a deal that would sell the critical end-of-days foodstuffs at the top of that tower. With this preacher, as Bob Dyer has forcefully reminded us, anything is possible.
,
Angley, slicked coal-black wig and all, has been the mega-star attraction for 20 years at Grace Cathedral, the huge saucer shaped man-made hillock in Cuyahoga Falls with an unfinished tower that was to serve as the modern version of Jacob's ladder topped with a restaurant.
What is it about televangelists who claim to render unto God what is God's and to themselves what is royally theirs? Several teleministries, as enriched as they were, have seen their leaders dismissed in sex-related scandals. Jimmy Swaggert comes to mind. And there was Jim Bakker, whose significant other ended up in full unclothed view of Playboy scanners. There have been others of more recent vintage.
Bakker is a narrative worthy of a how-to manual. He recently returned to public scrutiny for his venture in "End of the World Biscuits" - and please don't think I'm kidding. He is asking TV viewers to prepare themselves for the Apocalypse by laying in survival kits that include heavy clothing for sunless days.
Maybe he and Angley can crack a deal that would sell the critical end-of-days foodstuffs at the top of that tower. With this preacher, as Bob Dyer has forcefully reminded us, anything is possible.
,
Monday, October 13, 2014
Ohio newspapers launch their creative endorsements
re-posted from Plunderbund
It's been a dreary election season, folks. No debates that invited the public to see the contestants going at it eye-to-eye. No gubernatorial contest. Gov. Kasich shoveling soil in his confident high definition mode as though he were needlessly digging up more campaign cash. The media in Cleveland, Akron and Columbus tacking, as always, to Republican candidates. Inventive endorsements that pardon their choices for glaring flaws. Not a good election season all around.
A prime exhibit was the odd word salad in which the Beacon Journal endorsed Republican Ohio House member Anthony DeVitis over his Democratic opponent, Paula Prentice, a veteran Summit County Council member.
The paper opined that although the "editorial page agrees more often on policy matters" with Prentice, it believed that DeVitis was a moderate (which he isn't) who might be able to influence the nutty Republican hoof-beaters in the legislature on key issues. Fat chance. The R's are mired so deeply under water that one could not reach them in a bathysphere. You'd think that people who write editorials would know that by now.
Then there is the bewitching stuff that both the Beacon Journal and Plain Dealer conjured up to make nice for Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine, a deeply entrenched social conservative on all counts. Not that they agree with him on such matters as women's issues, same-sex marriage, abortion, charter schools and such. Nor spending taxpayer money charging off to other states to join those who share his gospel.
I've written several times that when you think of Mike DeWine, you think of his version of warm and fuzzy goodness. But it does work in editorial offices and on the stump even when he's scandalizing the idea of the Affordable Care Act with promises to get rid of it.
The disconnect between the attorney general's active policies and the papers' own year-round gospel does make the friendly editorialists uncomfortable and forces them to concede that Mike is a million-dollar pay-to-play artist. A recent example is the word that he replaced a veteran debt collection agency with one that literally walked into his office with the seal of approval of Summit County GOP boss Alex Arshinkoff, a former DeWine payroller, and walked out with a lucrative contract.
And what did the BJ say about Mike's widely reported cookie jar schemes?
"No question, DeWine has stumbled at times," the editorial noted. "He talked about a system for bringing transparency and accountability to awarding contracts, only to find himself struggling to explain a local episode that carried the odor of pay to play."
Odor? That alone would have qualified DeWine's Democratic opponent, David Pepper,whom the paper credited with running a "pointed, vigorous and worthy [!] campaign.
The PD pattered over the same problem
These papers have a lot of transparency after they sit down to make endorsements. You have to have quite a problem as a Republican to lose their support. Sadly, creative writing is one of their few remaining claims to relevance.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Post-game reviews; Browns lose more than a game
Quickly, to update my earlier piece on the media hype of the Browns' QB crisis:
The reviews of the Monday night snore were distinctly flavored with the acidity of a lovers' quarrel. The Beacon Journal headlined "QB hopefuls don't impress'' and the story reaffirmed it by describing the historic performance as "perhaps the biggest dud since the Y2K Scare".
The Plain Dealer took a meaningless more humane course by calling for a reader poll on whether Brian Hoyer or Johnny Middle-Finger Football Manziel should be the starter. (One fan proposed dressing Tim Tebow for the next game! You can understand the desperation.)
But shouldn't some of the red faces be shared by the media for the electrified buildup of the QB gold rush that asked us each day which guy should start? Unfortunately, the Browns didn't play on Broadway Monday night, where bad reviews can close a show in an instant. .
They are left, instead, with Hoyer and Manziel, for better or worse and the show must go on.
The reviews of the Monday night snore were distinctly flavored with the acidity of a lovers' quarrel. The Beacon Journal headlined "QB hopefuls don't impress'' and the story reaffirmed it by describing the historic performance as "perhaps the biggest dud since the Y2K Scare".
The Plain Dealer took a meaningless more humane course by calling for a reader poll on whether Brian Hoyer or Johnny Middle-Finger Football Manziel should be the starter. (One fan proposed dressing Tim Tebow for the next game! You can understand the desperation.)
But shouldn't some of the red faces be shared by the media for the electrified buildup of the QB gold rush that asked us each day which guy should start? Unfortunately, the Browns didn't play on Broadway Monday night, where bad reviews can close a show in an instant. .
They are left, instead, with Hoyer and Manziel, for better or worse and the show must go on.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
With Husted challenged, BJ's Douglas to the rescue
Secretary of State Jon Husted has been flitting around the state in search of a safe harbor for his besieged voting "reforms", and he couldn't have found a more hospitable port than Mike Douglas' Sunday column in the Beacon Journal. In a piece that asks teasingly "How hard is it to vote in Ohio?' the BJ editorial page editor solemnly went on and on to cast Husted as the Wizard of Oz in cleaning up an election system that has been victimized by long lines, shfting polling places, shortened voting hours and - I pause - the Zombie cheaters. Douglas concludes that it isn't that hard to vote. Problem solved.
Indeed, that has been Husted's rallying cry as he seeks reelection against a fiery Democratic opponent, Sen. Nina Turner. The secretary prides himself in creating a new culture that makes it "easier to vote and harder to cheat". On Sunday, Douglas oddly bought into the argument that is being scorned by some other newspapers as well as ordinary folks like you and me. (A columnist in the Toledo Blade booed the Husted Hustle (my noun ) in a piece headlined ''Why Ohio's GOP is strangling voters' access to the polls."
On that point, I think I know why. It's the grand design by the Republican deep thinkers that emerged at the start of the Obama era as the party nervously sought ways to resist voting trends that threatened its survival forever. (Years earlier, a Republican county chairman expressed hope that it would rain on Election Day to lower the turnout in certain politically unfriendly urban precincts.)
The Republicans decided the whole idea could be sold as a Boy Scout effort to eliminate wholesale voter fraud. When none surfaced in studies, they turned to other ploys.
Besides piling voter turnout on voter turnout that he compared favorably with Husted's efforts, Douglas also lashed the New York Times - which is really too big to fail - for an editorial that accused the Ohio GOP of rigging the election system to hurt the Democrats. After a couple of Republican officials unwisely said the so-called reforms were intended to help Mitt Romney, I can only respond: Well?
Rather than deal with the numbers, I prefer to look at the nefarious ways that Husted and the hoofbeat Republican legislature have carried out their game plan. The victims of two losses in presidential elections, they have been frantically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I am cynical enough to dismiss voter turnouts in past elections as the sole measure of the merit of Husted's handiwork. I prefer to look at the wide pool of the carefully nurtured Republican efforts to close some doors in urban polling places. Shorter voting hours, the elimination (now restored) of Golden Week for same-day registration and voting, Republican attempts to bar universities from issuing residency IDs, and, the measure that would make it quite difficult for a third party to appear on the ballot. It's not a playbook that inspires confidence in the party's moves to purify the vote.
You might want to know, too, that Republican Sen.Frank LaRose from Akron's back yard sponsored the measure to end Golden Week.
The issue has generated a suit by the ACLU, League of Women Voters and NAACP. And not so incidentally, a federal judge in Cincinnati has ordered Husted to restore the early voting hours of the three days leading to the election.
Wherever you land on this, I believe this much is certain: Husted will be a key figure in one of the state's liveliest issues up to Election Day. It has already cut to the quick the folks who will be most deeply affected. You know who they are, even if Husted's side won't tell you.
Indeed, that has been Husted's rallying cry as he seeks reelection against a fiery Democratic opponent, Sen. Nina Turner. The secretary prides himself in creating a new culture that makes it "easier to vote and harder to cheat". On Sunday, Douglas oddly bought into the argument that is being scorned by some other newspapers as well as ordinary folks like you and me. (A columnist in the Toledo Blade booed the Husted Hustle (my noun ) in a piece headlined ''Why Ohio's GOP is strangling voters' access to the polls."
On that point, I think I know why. It's the grand design by the Republican deep thinkers that emerged at the start of the Obama era as the party nervously sought ways to resist voting trends that threatened its survival forever. (Years earlier, a Republican county chairman expressed hope that it would rain on Election Day to lower the turnout in certain politically unfriendly urban precincts.)
The Republicans decided the whole idea could be sold as a Boy Scout effort to eliminate wholesale voter fraud. When none surfaced in studies, they turned to other ploys.
Besides piling voter turnout on voter turnout that he compared favorably with Husted's efforts, Douglas also lashed the New York Times - which is really too big to fail - for an editorial that accused the Ohio GOP of rigging the election system to hurt the Democrats. After a couple of Republican officials unwisely said the so-called reforms were intended to help Mitt Romney, I can only respond: Well?
Rather than deal with the numbers, I prefer to look at the nefarious ways that Husted and the hoofbeat Republican legislature have carried out their game plan. The victims of two losses in presidential elections, they have been frantically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I am cynical enough to dismiss voter turnouts in past elections as the sole measure of the merit of Husted's handiwork. I prefer to look at the wide pool of the carefully nurtured Republican efforts to close some doors in urban polling places. Shorter voting hours, the elimination (now restored) of Golden Week for same-day registration and voting, Republican attempts to bar universities from issuing residency IDs, and, the measure that would make it quite difficult for a third party to appear on the ballot. It's not a playbook that inspires confidence in the party's moves to purify the vote.
You might want to know, too, that Republican Sen.Frank LaRose from Akron's back yard sponsored the measure to end Golden Week.
The issue has generated a suit by the ACLU, League of Women Voters and NAACP. And not so incidentally, a federal judge in Cincinnati has ordered Husted to restore the early voting hours of the three days leading to the election.
Wherever you land on this, I believe this much is certain: Husted will be a key figure in one of the state's liveliest issues up to Election Day. It has already cut to the quick the folks who will be most deeply affected. You know who they are, even if Husted's side won't tell you.
Friday, March 14, 2014
BJ cutting closer to the bone
The report that the Beacon Journal is eliminating six more news positions through buyouts and/or layoffs prompted a larger context of how the paper is cutting its staff still closer to the bone. From former BJ staffer John Olesky, current editor of the BJ Retirees blog, comes a dramatic tale of newsroom shrinkage.
Olesky writes,
As a personal note, I can sympathize. As the paper's former metropolitan editor with a mature staff at peak levels, I still felt short-handed at times, particularly because of illnesses or vacations. At that time, my responsibility included a two-member Columbus bureau and the paper's bureau in Washington - neither of which exist today.
It is also troubling to see the BYj relying more on "special to the Beacon Journal" stringers and from other Ohio newspapers. Yes, the wireless hi-tech times have caught up with the paper, as sad as that might be. And it also means that the microscopic coverage of government, large and small, is finished at the point of no return.
It will be missed. Terribly so.
Olesky writes,
"The BJ laid off 25 % of its newsroom staff - more than 40 people - in 2006. In 2008 the BJ lost about 350 combined years of experience in one day. The math...tells me that the BJ has gone from more than 160 to, after the next cut, barely more than 60.
"That's about a 63% reduction in staff. Those left at the BJ, as talented as they are, can hardly be expected to provide the same output as they did with 100 departed brethren."The company is offering a year's severance to those who accept buyouts. However, one reporter told me that even though she may opt for the buyout, she's not certain it would be accepted because the decision would be made by high-ups.
As a personal note, I can sympathize. As the paper's former metropolitan editor with a mature staff at peak levels, I still felt short-handed at times, particularly because of illnesses or vacations. At that time, my responsibility included a two-member Columbus bureau and the paper's bureau in Washington - neither of which exist today.
It is also troubling to see the BYj relying more on "special to the Beacon Journal" stringers and from other Ohio newspapers. Yes, the wireless hi-tech times have caught up with the paper, as sad as that might be. And it also means that the microscopic coverage of government, large and small, is finished at the point of no return.
It will be missed. Terribly so.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Major disclosure: I will be a Republican!
OK! That's it! I'm heading down to the Summit Count Board of Elections to register as a Republican. (Which will finally satisfy my late father and let him rest in peace.)
I've been tinkering with the idea ever since they started paying GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff $10,000 a month to be a University of Akron lobbyist. And after Bryan Williams (Alex's heir-apparent as chairman?) landed on the county Board of Elections following his resignation as a board member of the State Department of Education under fire for a conflict of interest. After all, I have to eat, too.
But the decisive point in driving me into the land of the enemy was the announcement that Don Robart, the recently defeated ex-mayor of Cuyahoga Falls, has been hired as the "eyes and ears" of Secretary of State Jon Husted to keep book on several Northern Ohio counties for an annual fee of $40,000. As you can see, conservative distaste for public spending doesn't include the immediate family.
Well, folks. As one who has not had a regular pay check since I left the sagging newspaper world in the late 1990s, you should not ask why I am so sour about certain people returning to the inglorious public trough for jobs that don't require much heavy lifting.
Robart told the Beacon Journal that he hasn't ruled out running for elective office again. If so, I would be interested in the eyes-and-ears job. After all, as they say, the legs go first.
I've been tinkering with the idea ever since they started paying GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff $10,000 a month to be a University of Akron lobbyist. And after Bryan Williams (Alex's heir-apparent as chairman?) landed on the county Board of Elections following his resignation as a board member of the State Department of Education under fire for a conflict of interest. After all, I have to eat, too.But the decisive point in driving me into the land of the enemy was the announcement that Don Robart, the recently defeated ex-mayor of Cuyahoga Falls, has been hired as the "eyes and ears" of Secretary of State Jon Husted to keep book on several Northern Ohio counties for an annual fee of $40,000. As you can see, conservative distaste for public spending doesn't include the immediate family.
Well, folks. As one who has not had a regular pay check since I left the sagging newspaper world in the late 1990s, you should not ask why I am so sour about certain people returning to the inglorious public trough for jobs that don't require much heavy lifting.
Robart told the Beacon Journal that he hasn't ruled out running for elective office again. If so, I would be interested in the eyes-and-ears job. After all, as they say, the legs go first.
Monday, February 10, 2014
When a Christian school dips into a lot of public money
If scowling at religious retailing gives you a sense of anxiety, you can stop reading this post right now. You won't find anything in it to comfort you.
Having given you fair warning, I want to review the solid reporting of Carol Biliczky in the Beacon Journal that led the reader to a small religion-based private school in Circleville that is doing quite well, thank you, as the state fills the school's collection plates with public dollars. Its formal name, Ohio Christian University, befits its enterprising spirit in selling its sectarian product to students in public high schools with considerable help from the state treasury.
Not only that, the school's president, Mark Smith, has what is essentially a room with a view as a member of the Ohio Department of Education board, where he is joined by C. Todd Jones, a lobbyist for OCU as well as some 50 private Ohio colleges. Smith, Biliczky wrote, is no stranger to politics. He runs Ohio Faith & Freedom, which strongly supported Mitt Romney in 2012. (Freedom to do what?)
Remember folks: We're talking about a state board that presumably oversees public education policy while Smith and Jones look after their own interests back at the private schools. (There used to be a third one: Bryan Williams, who, alas, resigned recently after his efforts as a lobbyist for a non-union contractor group that also owned a charter school.)
OCU's links to the public money are really quite simple. Public school students can enroll in OCU's classes, either on line or by other means and receive high school or college credit. As Biliczky wrote:
As with many of the charter schools that are siphoning money from public education, OCU profits leaped to $27.8 million in 2012 from $10.7 million three years earlier. What's more, Biliczky wrote, its enrollment jumped from 380 students seven years ago to 3,800 today.
As Plunderbund reported, in the 2012-13 school year, charter schools received more than $829 million in taxpayer money to educate about 116,000 children, or $7,144.86 per child. At the same time, local public school districts received $5.5 billion to educate the remaining 1.7 million children., or only $3,125.30 per student.
The private religious (read: conservative) thrust into public education in Ohio has Governor Kasich's fingerprints all over it. He has packed the state board of education with appointments of charter-friendly operatives. That helps explain the fierce boldness of such special - and costly - ventures in the state today in supping at the public education table.
But even though state law forbids such use of public funds, it seems the governor believes it's the Christian thing to do.
Having given you fair warning, I want to review the solid reporting of Carol Biliczky in the Beacon Journal that led the reader to a small religion-based private school in Circleville that is doing quite well, thank you, as the state fills the school's collection plates with public dollars. Its formal name, Ohio Christian University, befits its enterprising spirit in selling its sectarian product to students in public high schools with considerable help from the state treasury.
Not only that, the school's president, Mark Smith, has what is essentially a room with a view as a member of the Ohio Department of Education board, where he is joined by C. Todd Jones, a lobbyist for OCU as well as some 50 private Ohio colleges. Smith, Biliczky wrote, is no stranger to politics. He runs Ohio Faith & Freedom, which strongly supported Mitt Romney in 2012. (Freedom to do what?)
Remember folks: We're talking about a state board that presumably oversees public education policy while Smith and Jones look after their own interests back at the private schools. (There used to be a third one: Bryan Williams, who, alas, resigned recently after his efforts as a lobbyist for a non-union contractor group that also owned a charter school.)
OCU's links to the public money are really quite simple. Public school students can enroll in OCU's classes, either on line or by other means and receive high school or college credit. As Biliczky wrote:
"The 30 general education courses in Ohio Christian University's Trailblazers Academy have many strong Christian themes, according to course descriptions on the university's website.
""General Psychology', for example, "will reflect a holistic Christ-centered biblically integrated education in the Wesleyan tradition. 'Western Civilization II' will help students develop a Christian worldview of history."
As with many of the charter schools that are siphoning money from public education, OCU profits leaped to $27.8 million in 2012 from $10.7 million three years earlier. What's more, Biliczky wrote, its enrollment jumped from 380 students seven years ago to 3,800 today.
As Plunderbund reported, in the 2012-13 school year, charter schools received more than $829 million in taxpayer money to educate about 116,000 children, or $7,144.86 per child. At the same time, local public school districts received $5.5 billion to educate the remaining 1.7 million children., or only $3,125.30 per student.
The private religious (read: conservative) thrust into public education in Ohio has Governor Kasich's fingerprints all over it. He has packed the state board of education with appointments of charter-friendly operatives. That helps explain the fierce boldness of such special - and costly - ventures in the state today in supping at the public education table.
But even though state law forbids such use of public funds, it seems the governor believes it's the Christian thing to do.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
BJ sees need for transparency that's already transparent
The Beacon Journal today took gentle editorial note of the "potential" conflict of interest on the State Board of Education by observing that it reinforced the "need for board transparency in such dealings".
Hold it right there? If there are in fact such dealings, and they were fully exposed by the paper's own reporting, so much for the potential, right?
If you read Doug Livingston's piercingly telling reports on how some board members are registered lobbyists for their own private school clients, there shouldn't be any doubt by now that the public interest is not their primary mission.
In this raw corruption of public education service, the spotlight has turned to Bryan C. Williams, the Akron Republican who lobbies for the non-union Central Ohio Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc., which operates the newly chartered Ohio Construction Academy. Its tax-supported mission is apprenticeship. It has a modest enrollment and operates outside of the oversight of public accountability.
One paragraph in Livingston's piece should awaken the BJ's editorial board of the problem that exists down in Columbus:
Seems transparent enough to me.
The board's majority, strongly influenced by charter school advocates, is making policy for public education. "There's no way to remedy that," one source close to the scene told me. "They have the votes."
Regardless of the editorial writer's version, I don't see any reason to regret my impolite call for Williams to resign so he can spend even more time with his client.
Hold it right there? If there are in fact such dealings, and they were fully exposed by the paper's own reporting, so much for the potential, right?
If you read Doug Livingston's piercingly telling reports on how some board members are registered lobbyists for their own private school clients, there shouldn't be any doubt by now that the public interest is not their primary mission.
In this raw corruption of public education service, the spotlight has turned to Bryan C. Williams, the Akron Republican who lobbies for the non-union Central Ohio Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc., which operates the newly chartered Ohio Construction Academy. Its tax-supported mission is apprenticeship. It has a modest enrollment and operates outside of the oversight of public accountability.
One paragraph in Livingston's piece should awaken the BJ's editorial board of the problem that exists down in Columbus:
"Ohio Construction Academy has a strong connection in Bryan Williams, who sits on the state school board while lobbying for the builders and contractors, known as ABC. Records show that he has advocated this year for favorable laws, funding and regulation advantageous to his organization at the time he also sits in an elected position on the board, which enacts regulations governing career programs and charter schools." (Italics mine)
Seems transparent enough to me.
The board's majority, strongly influenced by charter school advocates, is making policy for public education. "There's no way to remedy that," one source close to the scene told me. "They have the votes."
Regardless of the editorial writer's version, I don't see any reason to regret my impolite call for Williams to resign so he can spend even more time with his client.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Post- election stuff from the other side of the universe
POST-ELECTION DEBRIS:
In an interview with WKSU's M.L. Schultze, Republican Don Robart, who was defeated as Cuyahoga Falls mayor in Tuesday's election, seemed quite puzzled why some of us placed him in the Tea Party's grasp, saying:
* * * * *
Are we witnessing the end of days? I sensed that the human race may be preparing to cash it all in after reading Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's learned explanation in the Beacon Journal of why voters were in a mood to throw out a lot of incumbents. "I think they're (voters) fed up with politicians," the combative Republican county boss opined. "They don't see an end to the bickering and the fighting." Based on local experiences, I think I might know how we can begin to turn that around, Alex. But why bicker?
* * * * *
Throughout election night, NBC's Chuck Todd continued to remind the viewers that President Obama's approval ratings had fallen to a new low without once noting that Obama is barred by law from seeking a third term. So for any non-candidate, such ratings are little more than table talk. Iconic Ronald Reagan's disapproval rating (Gallup) rose to 56 pct. in January 1983 - one point higher than Obama's 55 pct. in August 2011. We won't even mention that George W.Bush's highest disapproval rating led all other presidents with 71 pct. in October, 2008. So to Chuck Todd, I ask: What's the point?
* * * * *
Finally, the Ohio Republican Party was out the morning-after with stunningly breaking (and overcooked) news. Blared State GOP chairman Matt Borges: Obamacare was a disaster and Democrats "will be held accountable in 2014." Ummmmm....Careful, Matt, that you don't peak too soon under that barn-and-silo logo on your party's official media releases.
In an interview with WKSU's M.L. Schultze, Republican Don Robart, who was defeated as Cuyahoga Falls mayor in Tuesday's election, seemed quite puzzled why some of us placed him in the Tea Party's grasp, saying:
"I think they're (sic) calling me the darling of the Tea Party was quite an exaggeration. For the most part I don't even hardly know those people..."For someone who doesn't hardly know ''those people", it does seem fair to ask how he could have excitedly praised the Tea Party throng at their rally in his city as the "moral, fiscal and social conscience of America?" Who knew?
* * * * *
Are we witnessing the end of days? I sensed that the human race may be preparing to cash it all in after reading Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's learned explanation in the Beacon Journal of why voters were in a mood to throw out a lot of incumbents. "I think they're (voters) fed up with politicians," the combative Republican county boss opined. "They don't see an end to the bickering and the fighting." Based on local experiences, I think I might know how we can begin to turn that around, Alex. But why bicker?
* * * * *
Throughout election night, NBC's Chuck Todd continued to remind the viewers that President Obama's approval ratings had fallen to a new low without once noting that Obama is barred by law from seeking a third term. So for any non-candidate, such ratings are little more than table talk. Iconic Ronald Reagan's disapproval rating (Gallup) rose to 56 pct. in January 1983 - one point higher than Obama's 55 pct. in August 2011. We won't even mention that George W.Bush's highest disapproval rating led all other presidents with 71 pct. in October, 2008. So to Chuck Todd, I ask: What's the point?
* * * * *
Finally, the Ohio Republican Party was out the morning-after with stunningly breaking (and overcooked) news. Blared State GOP chairman Matt Borges: Obamacare was a disaster and Democrats "will be held accountable in 2014." Ummmmm....Careful, Matt, that you don't peak too soon under that barn-and-silo logo on your party's official media releases.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
For Mayor Robart, federal money is only good for what it's good for
Excuse me. But didn't the headline above Mike Douglas' column in today's Beacon Journal say Gov. Kasich "is against federal spending until he's for it"?
Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against criticism of the governor. But in this instance of the old for-and-against sequence...Well....
On the very same page there was another reference to the BJ's endorsement of Cuyahoga Falls Tea Party associate Don Robart, the mayor. As you well know, the Tea Party and others on the ding-a-ling hard right hate all things federal with a kind of anarchical spirit. The BJ editorials haven't been hesitant about saying so.
So excuse me, again. A few days ago, the Falls News-Press, the mayor's hometown weekly, also endorsed Robart, mentioning among other assets his eagerness to get federal money for some of his programs, which the paper referred to as "exciting".
So given Robart's record over the years, can we now say that he was FOR federal money before he was FOR more federal money?
Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against criticism of the governor. But in this instance of the old for-and-against sequence...Well....
On the very same page there was another reference to the BJ's endorsement of Cuyahoga Falls Tea Party associate Don Robart, the mayor. As you well know, the Tea Party and others on the ding-a-ling hard right hate all things federal with a kind of anarchical spirit. The BJ editorials haven't been hesitant about saying so.
So excuse me, again. A few days ago, the Falls News-Press, the mayor's hometown weekly, also endorsed Robart, mentioning among other assets his eagerness to get federal money for some of his programs, which the paper referred to as "exciting".
So given Robart's record over the years, can we now say that he was FOR federal money before he was FOR more federal money?
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Arshinkoff to drop the nuclear TV ad bomb in Falls mayoral race
Is Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff ready to drop the nuclear Cleveland TV ad bomb on Tuesday's mayoral race in Cuyahoga Falls? A Republican source tells me he is a little surprised that the boss hasn't spent more to prop up Tea Party mayor Don Robart and has saved the cash for the final week end assault on Democrats in several races that will doubtless include radio bursts.
There must be some anxiety in the Robart camp over polls showing he is in a tight race with Democrat Don Walters, the president of Falls City Council. You may recall that Robart, now in his 27th year in the mayor's office, ran unopposed four years ago.
Robart continued his mystical hold on the local media this year with odd endorsements from both the Beacon Journal and Cuyahoga Falls News Press, a weekly. We say mystical because, as we've written, the mayor has never aspired to the BJ's goal of regional cooperation. In fact, Robart has no bipartisan ties with Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and has preferred to administer a municipal island in the county.
As for the News Press, it complimented Robart for an "exciting vision for the the city's future."
Some of that, oddly, will depend on federal dollars, scorned by the hard right, to pay for the excitement. (I tire of reporting that I attended a Tea Party Rescue America Tax Day rally in the Falls in which he welcomed the throng as the social, moral and fiscal conscience of America. Right. They also help shut down the government, as we have since witnessed.
As the Falls Press noted in its endorsement, "He also hopes to use federal money to upgrade vacant homes, secure federal funds to improve the streetscape from Chestnut Boulevard south to the city limits and work with the schools to possibly increase the city income tax to help pay for construction of a new high school/middle school campus." (Lord. New taxes? More excitement!)
By the way, let the record show that the BJ editorial writers never had anything good to say about Arshinkoff's often unruly political hijinks - the same party financier who is said to be preparing the nuclear TV bomb.
As for me, why can't I dismiss the fact that Robart played his socially conservative card by successfully opposing a discounted family rate at the Natatorium to a gay couple, one of whom was a wounded Iraqi veteran who wanted to rehab at the Nat?
Personal note: We moved out of the Falls 14 years ago. As we grew older, we couldn't take the excitement.
There must be some anxiety in the Robart camp over polls showing he is in a tight race with Democrat Don Walters, the president of Falls City Council. You may recall that Robart, now in his 27th year in the mayor's office, ran unopposed four years ago.
Robart continued his mystical hold on the local media this year with odd endorsements from both the Beacon Journal and Cuyahoga Falls News Press, a weekly. We say mystical because, as we've written, the mayor has never aspired to the BJ's goal of regional cooperation. In fact, Robart has no bipartisan ties with Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and has preferred to administer a municipal island in the county.
As for the News Press, it complimented Robart for an "exciting vision for the the city's future."
Some of that, oddly, will depend on federal dollars, scorned by the hard right, to pay for the excitement. (I tire of reporting that I attended a Tea Party Rescue America Tax Day rally in the Falls in which he welcomed the throng as the social, moral and fiscal conscience of America. Right. They also help shut down the government, as we have since witnessed.
As the Falls Press noted in its endorsement, "He also hopes to use federal money to upgrade vacant homes, secure federal funds to improve the streetscape from Chestnut Boulevard south to the city limits and work with the schools to possibly increase the city income tax to help pay for construction of a new high school/middle school campus." (Lord. New taxes? More excitement!)
By the way, let the record show that the BJ editorial writers never had anything good to say about Arshinkoff's often unruly political hijinks - the same party financier who is said to be preparing the nuclear TV bomb.
As for me, why can't I dismiss the fact that Robart played his socially conservative card by successfully opposing a discounted family rate at the Natatorium to a gay couple, one of whom was a wounded Iraqi veteran who wanted to rehab at the Nat?
Personal note: We moved out of the Falls 14 years ago. As we grew older, we couldn't take the excitement.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Three not a crowd when OSU moves $50 million to a venture capitalist
Let us begin the week in Beautiful Ohio with a squinty look at the academic/political complex that is the pride of Gov. Kasich. While public universities genuflect to the governor and legislature in hopes of squeezing out a few more public dollars for their campuses, Ohio State University and a private venture capital fund have worked out an investment scheme - private! - that has been exposed by a couple of Plain Dealer reporters.
But only partly exposed because the major players in the deal aren't talking - enforced silence that Kasich honed from his days with the defunct Lehman Brothers.
Such ideas were seeded when Kasich replaced the state development department with a new office with the seductive name of JobsOhio, a merger of two prized words in the governor's lexicon. To protect the agency's virginity, it was guaranteed total secrecy in its stated workaday world of creating new jobs in the Buckeye marketplace.
So now we are told that OSU has invested $50 million in the secret venture capital fund run by Mark Kvamme, who had directed JobsOhio until a a year ago when he left to create his very own private fund. A close friend of Kasich, Kvamme isn't talking about the deal. Nor is recently retired OSU president E.Gordon Gee, who surely knows a lot more about it as the widely reputed Wizard of Oz.
And where will the invested money eventually land? Only the privileged insiders to the flow know. And given OSU's iconic position in the state's academic universe, it appears no one will find out soon.
As the PD's Brent Larkin observed in a Sunday column, OSU has long nurtured a bad habit of keeping blemished episodes under the radar. He described the lastest stone-walling on major transfers of public money, as is this one, as an exercise in obfuscation".
Meanwhile, Mike Douglas called it "coziness" in Sunday's Beacon Journal but more gently dampened concern by describing Kvamme as a credentialed operative with success in his past who "may prove to be a winner" in this instance.
Kasich, Gee, Kvamme. Connecting the dots can raise dark suspicions. Coziness? While we're waiting for transparency, it looks more like crony capitalism under a rock in the governor's office.
But only partly exposed because the major players in the deal aren't talking - enforced silence that Kasich honed from his days with the defunct Lehman Brothers.
Such ideas were seeded when Kasich replaced the state development department with a new office with the seductive name of JobsOhio, a merger of two prized words in the governor's lexicon. To protect the agency's virginity, it was guaranteed total secrecy in its stated workaday world of creating new jobs in the Buckeye marketplace.
So now we are told that OSU has invested $50 million in the secret venture capital fund run by Mark Kvamme, who had directed JobsOhio until a a year ago when he left to create his very own private fund. A close friend of Kasich, Kvamme isn't talking about the deal. Nor is recently retired OSU president E.Gordon Gee, who surely knows a lot more about it as the widely reputed Wizard of Oz.
And where will the invested money eventually land? Only the privileged insiders to the flow know. And given OSU's iconic position in the state's academic universe, it appears no one will find out soon.
As the PD's Brent Larkin observed in a Sunday column, OSU has long nurtured a bad habit of keeping blemished episodes under the radar. He described the lastest stone-walling on major transfers of public money, as is this one, as an exercise in obfuscation".
Meanwhile, Mike Douglas called it "coziness" in Sunday's Beacon Journal but more gently dampened concern by describing Kvamme as a credentialed operative with success in his past who "may prove to be a winner" in this instance.
Kasich, Gee, Kvamme. Connecting the dots can raise dark suspicions. Coziness? While we're waiting for transparency, it looks more like crony capitalism under a rock in the governor's office.
Monday, October 21, 2013
That's one way to explain no GOP council seats
In our continuing effort to alert you to the crackling insights shaping today's political dialogue, we refer you to a comment by Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff to the Beacon Journal to explain the absence of a single member of his party on Akron City Council. Asked why the GOP hasn't elected a Republican to a ward seat for 15 years - nor an at-large seat for 46 years - the chairman for many of those shutout years told reporter Stephanie Warsmith that it's largely about demographics.
"It is very difficult for us even to compete in the African-American sections of the city," he said. (Does this refer to the more upscale Ward 8?)
The problem is the ongoing effort by the party's deep thinkers in Ohio and other states to circumvent or shrink the African-American vote with various ploys that haven't worked. Years ago Arshinkoff talked about how the party was making an effort to expand its base to include minorities. Didn't happen. Not even close. Think the word didn't reach the aforementioned sections of town that black voters aren't on the party's A-list?
* * * * *
Heavens! Sarah's back. Hasn't lost a syllable in her chirping indignation that she isn't provided her very own limo to important Republican events. So there she was, so full of her Palinesque Tea Party self on Fox, repeating the charges against the Obama administration, including a rehashed reference to Benghazi. She's now expanded her oratorical ramble to include Republican Mitch McConnell. She wants to turn him into a loser in next year's election. That much, she knows something about , having lost in 2008 despite accompanying a war hero at the top of the ticket. Somebody ought to talk to her about also being available for weddings and wakes to liven up things.
* * * * *
Finally, speaking of absurdities,you can always find something bizarre about the Sean Hannity Show. In his armored panzer assaults on Obamacare, he brought in a panel to tug at your heartstrings over what each guest must suffer from health care reforms. Turns out to be sort of a stunt, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Salon reporter Eric Stern decided to contact the guests and found a lack of awareness in each. One worried guest told him that he had to cut back his staff to four because of new costs. You'd think Hannity would have intervened with a touch of reality by noting Obamacare does not apply to employers with fewer than 50 workers. Others noted that the new insurance rates would cost them much more. But Stern checked each and learned that it simply wasn't true.
Stern concluded: "I don't doubt that these six individuals believe that Obamacare is a disaster; but none of them had even visited an insurance exchange."
But, of course, we're talking about a la-la Hannity event, aren't we? .
* * * * *
That is a small portion of the week that was - and will be again this week.
"It is very difficult for us even to compete in the African-American sections of the city," he said. (Does this refer to the more upscale Ward 8?)
The problem is the ongoing effort by the party's deep thinkers in Ohio and other states to circumvent or shrink the African-American vote with various ploys that haven't worked. Years ago Arshinkoff talked about how the party was making an effort to expand its base to include minorities. Didn't happen. Not even close. Think the word didn't reach the aforementioned sections of town that black voters aren't on the party's A-list?
* * * * *
Heavens! Sarah's back. Hasn't lost a syllable in her chirping indignation that she isn't provided her very own limo to important Republican events. So there she was, so full of her Palinesque Tea Party self on Fox, repeating the charges against the Obama administration, including a rehashed reference to Benghazi. She's now expanded her oratorical ramble to include Republican Mitch McConnell. She wants to turn him into a loser in next year's election. That much, she knows something about , having lost in 2008 despite accompanying a war hero at the top of the ticket. Somebody ought to talk to her about also being available for weddings and wakes to liven up things.
* * * * *
Finally, speaking of absurdities,you can always find something bizarre about the Sean Hannity Show. In his armored panzer assaults on Obamacare, he brought in a panel to tug at your heartstrings over what each guest must suffer from health care reforms. Turns out to be sort of a stunt, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Salon reporter Eric Stern decided to contact the guests and found a lack of awareness in each. One worried guest told him that he had to cut back his staff to four because of new costs. You'd think Hannity would have intervened with a touch of reality by noting Obamacare does not apply to employers with fewer than 50 workers. Others noted that the new insurance rates would cost them much more. But Stern checked each and learned that it simply wasn't true.
Stern concluded: "I don't doubt that these six individuals believe that Obamacare is a disaster; but none of them had even visited an insurance exchange."
But, of course, we're talking about a la-la Hannity event, aren't we? .
* * * * *
That is a small portion of the week that was - and will be again this week.
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