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Ohio Issue 2

To authorize the state to issue bonds to continue the clean Ohio program for environmental revitalization and conservation; to adopt section 2q of article viii of the constitution of the state OF OHIO

Summary Prepared by League of Women Voters:

This ballot issue proposes a constitutional amendment that would add to funding for The Clean Ohio Program. The amendment is identical to the bond issue passed by the voters in 2000 and will provide the state with the authority to issue an additional $400 million of bonds. These bonds could be used for the benefit of both governmental and non-governmental entities.

Conservation: Up to $200 million in bonds could be issued for conservation purposes such as preservation of natural areas and farmlands, provision of recreation facilities, and natural resource management projects. Repayment of these bonds would be a general obligation of the state backed by the taxing power of the state.

Revitalization: Up to $200 million in bonds could be issued for revitalization purposes such as environmental cleanup of publicly or privately owned lands. Repayment of these bonds would be secured by specific state revenues such as receipts from liquor taxes.

Limitations: The proposed amendment limits the amount that could be borrowed in any one fiscal year for either conservation or revitalization purposes to no more than $50 million. In addition, the state can borrow amounts which were authorized but not issued in prior fiscal years.

Reissuance: After a bond is repaid, another can be issued as long as the total amount outstanding does not exceed $200 million for that type of bond.

Debt Service Expense: The Legislative Services Commission estimates that issuing $400 million of obligations could increase the state’s annual debt service expense by up to $40 million. The Ohio Office of Budget and Management calculated that principle and interest payable in 2008 for all of the bonds already issued by Ohio is $1,231,640,023. This bonding authority must be approved by the voters because the Ohio constitution does not permit an appropriation being made for a period longer than two years.

Arguments For Issue 1

1. Bond monies could be used to improve drinking water and help keep rivers and streams clean.
2. Preserve and protect wildlife and farmland, and expand outdoor recreational opportunities for Ohioans.
3. Bond monies could be used to reduce the number of polluted industrial sites and clean up brown fields.
4. Revitalization of public and private lands could stimulate economic development in urban areas and increase private investment in Ohio

Arguments Against Issue 1

1. Tax monies will be diverted to paying principle and interest, and this may limit the availability of state revenue for other state programs.
2. This authority is not time-limited and permits new bonds to be reissued after the retirement of the original bonds without further vote of the people.
3. Proceeds from the sale of the publicly funded bonds may be used to benefit private entities.

Kalin’s Viewpoint

On the face of it, this seems like a no-brainer to vote yes. Who doesn’t love the environment. Who doesn’t like clean water? Let’s see how this sausage is made.

Once again, I don’t condone changing the State Constitution. In this case it would be changed because current laws only allow for an appropriation of 2 years before it will be reviewed and voted on again by our representatives in Columbus. Well folks, this is oversight. If passed, this issue would allow $1.5 Billion of debt obligation to be reissued over and over again without a way to pull the plug.

Actually, the only way to reverse this is would be a statewide referendum. As I discussed with Issue #1, the time to gather signatures would be cut by 65 days if issue #1 passes. And I also stated that “only highly funded movements will have a chance to propose petitions and referendums.”

Who could have the money to put up a well financed fight if this law is fought by petition in the future? Again I quote from above: “Up to $200 million in bonds could be issued for revitalization purposes such as environmental cleanup of publicly or privately owned lands.” Yes, PRIVATELY owned land. I can’t remember any time in my life that giving politicians $200 million to dole out to whomever they wish was a good idea. Removing the appropriations process and locking it into the constitution is cutting our own throat.

At least I find some humor in the issue. How will this be repayed? Fines gathered from polluter seems like a good start, but that’s our big money buddys. Let tax drunks! “Receipts from liquor taxes to repay these bonds” that will just be reissued again. Sounds like a drunk came up with that.

I believe that as citizens of Ohio, we have a collective responsibility to care for our land, air and water. We use our government to set regulations, enforce them and clean up the messes, but that is not what Issue #2 does.

Posted 12 October 2008 † Kalin § State of Ohio ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Has Mark Provenza Resigned Yet?

If no, why not?

Posted 12 October 2008 † Roman § Culture of Corruption § dots ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Guest Blogger: David Szabo: LYB Walk of Fame

Lorain Youth Baseball
Laser Engraved Brick Walk of Fame

David Szabo II, President
Lorain Youth Baseball
PO Box 262
Lorain, Ohio 44052
440-288-4054

October 8, 2008

Dear Friends:

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Szabo II, and I am the new President of Lorain Youth Baseball. We are embarking on a new and exciting era for Lorain Youth Baseball. We are a non-profit organization and it is our sole responsibility to raise funds for Lorain Youth Baseball. We rely heavily on fundraisers and donations to keep Lorain Youth Baseball alive and well for the players and their families.

This year Lorain Youth Baseball is creating a “Walk of Fame”. We are currently selling laser engraved bricks to create the “Walk of Fame”. We are inviting you to take part in this fundraiser.

For each donation of $80.00, one 4” x 8”, brick inscribed with name of your choice will be placed in the Lorain Youth Baseball Walk of Fame at Campana Park. The limit is 3 lines per brick 14 characters per line. For example, this brick would be for past and present players and would include the player’s name, jersey number, and team and years played.

We also have a Family Brick available. For each donation of $125.00, one 4” x 8”, brick inscribed with the family name of your choice will be placed in the Lorain Youth Baseball Walk of Fame at Campana Park. The limit is 3 lines per brick 14 characters per line. For example, this brick would include “The Szabo Family, David, Melanie Megan, Jenna and Jacob, 2008”

The bricks will be placed on a first come first placed basis. The Executive Board of Lorain Youth Baseball reserves the right to refuse wording they deem not appropriate for the Walk of Fame site.

Please submit payment by check or money order made payable to Lorain Youth Baseball and please indicate in the memo “Walk of Fame”. The payments can be sent to: Lorain Youth Baseball, PO Box 262. Lorain, Ohio 44052.

Additional order forms are also available online at www.lorainyouthbaseball.com.

Thank you,
David Szabo II, President
Lorain Youth Baseball
440-288-4054
lfire78@gmail.com

Posted 12 October 2008 † scott bakalar § Announcements § Campana Park § Guest Blogger ‡ Comments (10) ° Tagged: , ,

Ohio Issue 1

To amend Sections 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1g of Article II of the Constitution of the State of Ohio The proposed amendment would:

1. Require that a citizen-initiated statewide ballot issue be considered at the next general election if petitions are filed 125 days before the election.
2. Establish deadlines for boards of elections to determine the validity of citizen-initiated petitions.
3. Standardize the process for legal challenges to citizen-initiated petitions by giving the Ohio Supreme Court jurisdiction to consider these cases and establishing expedited deadlines for the Court to make decisions.

Summary Prepared by League of Women Voters:

This proposed constitutional amendment seeks to make the petition filing deadlines earlier for statewide ballot issues. Currently, the deadlines are 90 days before the election for statewide initiative petitions (laws and constitutional amendments proposed by citizens) and 60 days for statewide referendums (citizen-initiated votes to repeal new laws).

The amendment would change these deadlines to 125 days for both. The proposal adds deadlines for public officials to act on the petitions. It requires the secretary of state to determine whether there are enough valid signatures on a petition by the 105th day before the election. Challenges must be filed in the Ohio Supreme Court not later than 95 days prior to the election. The Ohio Supreme Court must make its decision not later than 85 days prior to the election. If necessary,

10 additional days shall be allowed for the filing of additional signatures. The secretary of state shall check the additional signatures not later than 65 days before the election. Any challenges must be filed in the Ohio Supreme Court not later than 55 days before the election, and the court must rule on any challenges not later than 45 days before the election. If no ruling is made, the petition and signatures shall be presumed to be sufficient. The proposed amendment would give the Ohio Supreme Court sole authority to consider these cases. Currently lower courts may hear these challenges.

Arguments For Issue 1

1. The earlier deadlines will allow more time to determine the validity of the petition and the signatures. This should reduce the number of invalid issues that appear on ballots and reduce voter confusion.
2. If deadlines are met, absentee voters and election-day voters will know which issues were supported by sufficient valid petitions.
3. The process should be more efficient because the amendment provides for specific deadlines for each step of the process.
4. Having the Ohio Supreme Court as the sole arbiter of challenges expedites the process.

Arguments Against Issue 1

1. The revised deadlines may still not allow time to print correct ballots.
2. The revised deadlines decrease the time for each step of the review and may be difficult to meet.
3. The earlier deadlines for referenda may result in long delays for voter consideration of challenged laws because laws challenged by the referendum process are suspended until approved by voters. Challengers have 90 days after a law is passed to file a referendum petition. Because this may not be completed before the filing deadline for ballot issues, a vote on the challenged law may be postponed until the following general election.
4. As sole arbiter of challenges, the Ohio Supreme Court will not have the benefit of a record from lower courts.

Kalin’s Viewpoint

1. As a general rule, I don’t condone changing the State Constitution and this is no exception. These rules can come about through regular legislation.
2. Requiring only the highest court to hear any legal issues is a misuse of resources. The process can handled properly by the lower court.
3. Petitions and referendums are an important tools of the citizens. It is difficult enough to gather signatures as it it. By eliminating up to 65 days, it will remove grassroots organizations from the process and only highly funded movements will have a chance to propose petitions and referendums.
4. Any invalid issues can still be ruled on after printed on ballots or after the election.

The only advantage this amendment has is eliminating invalid issues from being offered for a vote. The negatives far outweigh the minor positive on this issue and I will be voting NO!

Posted 11 October 2008 † Kalin § State of Ohio ‡ Comments (5) ° Tagged: , ,

FRAUD FROM AN ACORN

Any one concerned about the integrity of our electoral system — especially here in Ohio — should be outraged by this:

CLEVELAND - A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

“Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they’ll give me a dollar to sign up,” said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

“The ACORN people are everywhere, looking to sign people up. I tell them I am already registered. The girl said, ‘You are?’ I say, ‘Yup,’ and then they say, ‘Can you just sign up again?’ ” he said.

ACORN — Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – appears to be engaged in systematic nation-wide vote fraud, from Nevada:

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada state authorities are raiding the Las Vegas headquarters of an organization that works to get low-income people to vote. A Nevada secretary of state’s office spokesman said Tuesday that investigators are looking for evidence of voter fraud at the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

To Michigan and Pennsylvania:

In the swing state of Michigan, Oakland County election officials found more than 33,000 duplicate registrations, about two-thirds of new applications since August. In some cases, the same name was registered scores of times and in different jurisdictions, and ACORN canvassers submitted most of those applications.

“There would be as many as 10 applications from the same person … and they have 10 different signatures,” said Joe Rozell, elections director for Oakland County, part of the Detroit metropolitan area. “It seems like the majority of the questionable applications are coming from that organization,” referring to ACORN.

New Mexico officials said they forwarded fraudulent voter registrations involving ACORN to the U.S. Department of Justice, which would neither confirm nor deny a voting rights investigation of the group.

In Pennsylvania, a must-win state for Mr. Obama, Philadelphia voter registration administrator Bob Lee said the state attorney general has been alerted to more than 800 applications with false addresses - all of them submitted by ACORN.

To Missouri: 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

“I don’t even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy,” Davis said. “We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don’t exist, people who have driver’s license numbers that won’t verify or Social Security numbers that won’t verify. Some have no address at all.”

The Obama campaign is closely allied with ACORN and has funneled big bucks into ACORN’s fraudulent voter registration efforts:

Federal Election Commission reports show ACORN-affiliated Citizens Services Inc. got $832,598 from the Obama campaign for get-out-the-vote work during the primaries.Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign distanced itself Thursday from its $800,000 payment linked to the liberal ACORN organization, which is under investigation in several states where it is suspected of filing fraudulent voter registrations.

Indeed, Obama has a long history of working with ACORN as explained by an ACORN leader in Chicago:

“Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won. Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them).

Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for STate Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends.”

Not surprisingly, the Obama campaign also stands to gain the most from ACORN’s vote fraud:

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) - The surge in new voters that helped propel Barack Obama to his party’s presidential nomination is carrying over to the general election—9 million newly registered voters who are overwhelmingly Democratic and could add up to a big victory on Election Day.

If they show up.

In states where registration is recorded by party, including eight key states that could decide the election, voters have signed up Democratic in the past six months by a margin of nearly 4-to-1.

Some change.

UPDATE:  I know that Obama is relying on the youth vote, but this is ridiculous:

O’jahnae Smith is ready and registered to vote this November.

There’s only one problem: She’s 7 years old.

The Connecticut girl is 11 years too young - and nobody in her family knows how she ended up on a voter registration form submitted by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

ACORN is engaged in systematic vote fraud and should be prosecuted as a criminal organization.

Posted 11 October 2008 † Bruce Batista § National Politics § Politics ‡ Comments (15) ° Tagged: , , ,

Modern Magic Money Mechanics

WPvideo 1.10

Posted 10 October 2008 † scott bakalar § Economy § Social Justice § Who Cares? ‡ Comments (14) ° Tagged: , ,

WoM Positivity Thread: Jet Express an Anchor for Good News!

For all the talk of Lorain becoming an intermodal transportation hub - kudos to Lorain’s Port Authority and Betty Sutton for paving the way to this reality.

Just add another bar/restaurant on the lake to support the tourists that will be using Lorain as a take-off point to the islands and we have a “game-changer” in place.

Get the folks from Beachwood and Solon to come here, eat here, dock their boats here, see the Harborwalk development and it will, visitor by visitor, change the perception outsiders have of Lorain.

And may I suggest the possibility of a partnership with Duluth and an expansion of the Great Lakes Aquarium?

Posted 09 October 2008 † Roman § Community Development § Downtown § Economy § Lorain § Lorain Port Authority ‡ Comments (37) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Guest Blogger: Cissy Mathis: New Government Seal

from the WoM mailbag and guest blogger Cissy Mathis:

New Government Seal

New Government Seal

Official Announcement:

The government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the government’s political stance.

A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re actually being screwed!

Damn, it just doesn’t get more accurate than that.

Posted 08 October 2008 † scott bakalar § Guest Blogger § Humor § Mailbag § National Politics ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged: ,

Papa Bear Complains, Lorain Mayor Stands Firm

Mayor Krasienko on LCCAA:

Kalo is battling foreclosure at one of his downtown shops, which Krasienko said the city knew about.

“We didn’t want it to appear that we were bailing him out in any way,” the mayor said. He added it didn’t appear that the deal benefited the city in any way [my emphasis].

LCCAA Executive Director William T. Locke declined to comment last night.

Some nuggets here. Firstly, Krasienko confirms this whole deal does not benefit Lorain. Why then, are we wasting time and resources on it? It seems clear the Mayor has his own reservations.

Secondly, head of Head Start (pretty heady, huh?), Billy Locke, remains mum. Why? Shouldn’t he be the strongest proponent of a deal that would purportedly benefit his agency? Is Mr. Locke’s ‘no comment’ an order or is it the silent commentary of dissent? Or both?

The glorious thing about all of this is that we are seeing a divergence in leadership between Mayor Krasienko and the Democratic Poobahs. I will share with you, dear reader, a conversation I had with a Democratic operative recently. This operative noted Mr. Giardini’s desire to position Ted Kalo in a run for Mayor of Lorain once Lonnie Craig dropped out of the Lorain game and bolted to greener pastures at Tri-C. Mr. Giardini’s stumbling block - Tony Krasienko, someone who truly desires a Better Lorain, had already announced his candidacy for Mayor. I present this, not as journalistic fact, but as a report of a conversation I had with a source I cannot identify. Tony Krasienko is becoming his own leader. Though Tony K. is not independent of Democratic party influence, he knows he can independently influence the debate.

Now, let’s move to Papa Bear’s letter to Tom Skoch. Again, I will offer my kudos to Mr. Skoch for writing about this and bringing meaning to the word ‘journalism’ in Lorain.

The first obvious omission to me is that Mr. Giardini makes no mention of the notion of the reality of the LCCAA deal - Lorain’s Democratic Party head is negotiating with a county agency on behalf of a private business matter for Lorain County’s Democratic County Commissioner. Apparently, Papa Bear doesn’t sweat the small stuff, like conflict of interest or whether something really benefits Lorain or not.

Second, the City of Lorain is not “bailing out” Ted Kalo because he already has a buyer for his building.

Another obvious omission. Who is the buyer?

I have not asked the city for anything. I merely said to the city I would consider buying the building if it could be fixed at a reasonable cost.

Yet another incongruence. Mr. Giardini states he has not asked the city for anything, yet in the very next sentence he says he might buy the building but asks the city to investigate the cost of fixing it, or perhaps even asks that the city fix it.

Meanwhile, guys like Ted and myself and my partners have kept this part of downtown occupied and thriving.

The only things thriving downtown are cronyism and back-room deals. Lorain needs to attract outside investors, much like Johnstown, Pennsylvania has. Attracting these outside investors can only be done with a plan and with good infrastructure not with political underhandedness.

Posted 07 October 2008 † Roman § City Council § Culture of Corruption § Downtown § Lorain § Lorain Politics § Opinion § Rip Off Lorain § commentary ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Crumblin’ Down

Papa Bear:

Finally, there is no deal for my law firm to move into the LCCAA building because that building has no elevator; it has a crumbling foundation and is too big for my small firm.

And this is the building that our fine city wants to take over the mortgage for and become the landlord of?

Oi.

I need a Punkin Ale.

Posted 07 October 2008 † Roman § City Council § Culture of Corruption § Lorain Politics § dots ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,