Who do you want as the next Governor of Ohio?

[crb]

Your first sentence is absolutely correct.

He has to cherry pick the facts tend to get in the way!

[Disclaimer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/kasich-walker-tributes-public_n_858041.html

WASHINGTON -- Ohio Gov. John Kasich ® and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ® have decided to pay tribute to state workers.

In Ohio, Kasich declared this week "Public Service Appreciation Week" on Monday. The same day, Walker announced a new public employee "recognition" program in Wisconsin. Given their high-profile battles with unions and state employees, plenty of people in the two states are wondering whether the olive branches are some kind of joke.

When "honoring Ohio's thousands of public employees," Kasich asked his fellow Ohioans to "reflect on all that our public employees do in our communities, and thank them for the invaluable work they do each day." During his first four months in office, Kasich has made rolling back the collective bargaining rights of public workers a centerpiece of his administration's agenda.

In response to the declaration, Ohio House Minority Leader Armond Budish (D) said in a statement that he had to "check my calendar" to make sure it wasn't April Fool's Day. He continued: "Do you thank teachers and firefighters for the invaluable work before or after you slash their wages and benefits?"

Right from the state website: http://governor.ohio.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ImaRbf52Dhg%3d&tabid=70

KASICH THANKS PUBLIC EMPLOYEES FOR THEIR SERVICE

Issues Proclamation in Honor of Public Service Appreciation Week

COLUMBUS – Today Gov. John R. Kasich issued a proclamation honoring May 1-7 as Public Service Appreciation Week, honoring Ohio’s thousands of public employees. Gov. Kasich made the following statement thanking Ohio’s public servants for their work:

“Public employees are community leaders and our neighbors who work every day to ensure that our state and local communities effectively provide essential services. Public employees make it possible for us to enjoy basic freedoms and rights we may too often overlook. They protect us, care for our most vulnerable, teach our children, and maintain our infrastructure to aid commerce and economic development throughout Ohio. This week I ask all Ohioans to reflect on all that our public employees do in our communities, and thank them for the invaluable work they do each day,” said Kasich.

The irony is thick here.

[Uncle Punk]

Tod,

Shame on the nursing home industry for trying to scare our senior citizens. Last week the Ohio Health Care Association began running a television ad that the AARP said "crosses the line" and utilized "half-truths and the emotions of the frailest."

It's no secret that the nursing home lobbyists have been able to flex their muscle for years. There is a better way.

Governor John Kasich has proposed giving more choices to our seniors who want to stay at home rather than in a nursing home. They can have better care, preserve their dignity and save taxpayers money, all at the same time.

Governor Kasich's bold reforms for seniors have been lauded all across the state. Here are just a few examples:

Akron Beacon Journal: Ohio senators now must stand firm with the governor in facing down the nursing home lobby

Columbus Dispatch: Lawmakers Should Ignore Nursing-Home Efforts to Reverse Elder-Care Reform

AARP Ohio: Skilled Nursing Television Ads Cross the Line

The nursing homes' desperate, shameful tactics show how much they have to lose. Our seniors deserve better.

You can help. Contact your state senator here and let them know you support the administration's reforms which will allow more seniors to stay at home and save tax dollars for all Ohioans.

Sincerely,

Kasich Taylor for Ohio Team

[Disclaimer]

Ohio’s for-profit charter schools make great businesses, crappy educators

http://www.plunderbund.com/2011/04/03/ohios-for-profit-charter-schools-make-great-businesses-crappy-educators/

^^^---- pertains to Kasich's budget plan.

[Uncle Punk]

Tod,

Many of you have been asking how you can help keep SB 5 law.

Here's your opportunity to join us in restoring fairness to Ohio's taxpayers.

Please visit BetterOhio.org to learn the facts about our efforts to reform collective bargaining and give local governments the tools they need to get spending under control in these tough times.

We are proposing common sense reforms. For example, we are asking that government employees simply contribute at least 15% of their health care costs. Private sector workers currently pay as much as 31% on average toward their own health care.

It's hard to argue with that.

Please ask your friends and family to visit BetterOhio.org so they can learn the truth about our common sense reforms.

Together, we will Build a Better Ohio.

Sincerely,

John Kasich

Governor of Ohio

You can also find Building a Better Ohio on Facebook and Twitter below:

[Disclaimer]

Rep. Matt Lundy, Gov. Kasich at odds over info release

http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2011/06/17/rep-matt-lundy-gov-kasich-at-odds-over-info-release/

Oversimplified Summary: Kasich doesn't want to answer a FOI request because it's too arduous and irrelevant, and it was only asked for to play political games.

Lundy says those records (especially the emails) are supposed to be open for review and this is just another indication of lack of transparency by Kasich.

Lundy said Kasich’s denial is an excuse to keep the information secret and Kasich is purposefully misinterpreting the ruling.

Lundy said it’s part of a pattern of secrecy by Kasich that began when he tried to be inaugurated in private, refused to provide resumes of administration nominees and initially denied the release of three emails between Kasich and Ohio State University President Gordon Gee.

“It’s important to get clarification and to get clarification as quickly as possible so that this is not an abusive pattern by the administration or by others in local government,” Lundy said. “He wants government to operate in the dark. The public wants government to be transparent.”

Lundy’s request, which Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols called, “king of the dopiest requests we’ve ever gotten,” is voluminous.

Besides the emails, the request includes: one spreadsheet breaking down how budget cuts will affect each school district, estimated costs of possible lawsuits over the potential firings of older teachers, projected losses for future charter and voucher payments under new rules as well as lists of charter schools in academic emergency or that have closed, and a bibliography of research indicating how proposed reforms will improve student achievement.

[Tpoppa]

...would you rather vote for Isaac's Papa or JRMMiii?

[Uncle Punk]

Ohio is on the verge of a recovery.

• We can create jobs again.
  
• We can attract new businesses to our communities.
  
• We can put the best and brightest teachers in our schools.
  
• We can make our state a more affordable place to live and work.
  

Together, we can build a better Ohio, and it starts by returning fairness and flexibility to middle class taxpayers. That's why we've launched a statewide, grassroots campaign in support of the reasonable reforms of Senate Bill 5.

Ohio is not alone. All across the nation, a bipartisan effort is underway to rein-in the growing, unsustainable cost of government.

The reforms in Senate Bill 5 give our state and local governments the flexibility they need to balance budgets. By doing so, we can SAVE jobs and services and KEEP a maximum number of teachers, fire fighters, police officers and other essential workers on the job. But we need to reform our rigid, costly government union contracts first so that your tax dollars are being used efficiently.

Please take a moment to visit our website and learn more about this important campaign. More information will be available soon in the coming weeks, so please check back often.

We have a choice: Keep the same failed policies that have taken Ohio in the wrong direction or make the changes necessary to get our state back on a path to prosperity and job creation.

Are you with us?

- Building a Better Ohio Team

Paid for By Building a Better Ohio. J. Matthew Yuskewich, Treasurer.

4679 Winterset Drive, Columbus, OH 43220

Building a Better Ohio may accept corporate (for-profit and non-profit), political action committee, LLC, LPA, labor organization and personal donations in any amount. There are no contributions limits. Contributions to Building a Better Ohio are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes

[Disclaimer]

ACLU blasts Kasich prison sale plan

ELYRIA — Ohio’s first experience with private prisons in the 1990s in Youngstown was terrible, and history is repeating itself with Gov. John Kasich’s plan to sell off several prisons and juvenile facilities, according to a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

“Almost every state had a golden example of why privatization was a bad idea,” said communications director Mike Brickner, who referred to a private federal prison that eventually closed because it was not turning a profit.

“Within 14 months of it opening, we had 16 stabbings, two murders and six escapes - it got so bad the city of Youngstown had to sue the private prison company to do what it was supposed to do and secure the facility,” Brickner said.

“Eventually it closed down because it no longer made a profit,” he said. “Here we are 10, 15 years later and the same bad ideas are being discussed.”

About 40 people, mostly ACLU members and members of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, or OCSEA, union, attended a panel discussion on the topic Wednesday night at Lorain County Community College.

The state budget, which is expected to pass next week, calls for the sale of five prisons or youth facilities including Grafton Correctional Institution which is now state-owned and operated, and North Coast Correctional Treatment Center, which is state-owned and privately operated.

The move is expected to bring in $200 million in one-time money and save some $9.4 million a year because the private operator must show at least 5 percent of cost savings.

Also speaking on the panel was Zach Schiller, research director for Policy Matters Ohio, which funded a study that questioned the state’s funding analysis of whether North Coast and Lake Erie Correctional Institution actually saved the state the 5 percent they were supposed to.

“If there were savings, they were nothing like the savings that were required or estimated,” Schiller said.

Not only were cost estimates faulty, the state refuses to release information from the private prisons on such issues as staffing, saying it is a trade secret, Schiller said.

Also speaking on the panel was Tim Roberts of OCSEA who said the private prisons would engage in “cherrypicking or creaming” to get the easiest prisoners who don’t have medical problems. Cost comparisons can’t be done “if it’s not a fair playing field,” Roberts said.

Christine Link, the ACLU’s executive director, who moderated the discussion, said jobs at the private prison would pay $5 to $10 less an hour.

A family of four would be “probably eligible for food stamps and Medicaid,” Link said.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

[Disclaimer]

Since when did Kasich turn into a bleeding heart liberal pussy?

Gov. Kasich spares death row inmate

Murphy

COLUMBUS — Ohio Gov. John Kasich has spared a condemned inmate who

slashed a woman’s throat in a robbery, saying the prisoner’s horrific

childhood outweighed receiving a death sentence.

Kasich’s decision on Monday marked the fourth time since July that an Ohio execution has been postponed or called off.

Kasich followed the recommendation of the Ohio Parole Board, which

said last week Joseph Murphy should be sentenced to life without parole

instead.

The board cited Murphy’s childhood growing up in West Virginia in which he was beaten, starved and sexually abused.

Murphy was convicted of killing 72-year-old Ruth Predmore in Marion in 1987 in a robbery that netted her penny collection.

Nvm, I know the angle... one more prisoner for the private prisons to bilk money from the state for...

[ohiomike]

Just let Kasich keep on talking........and he'll talk himself out of the Governors mansion.

[C-bus]

Just let Kasich keep on talking........and he'll talk himself out of the Governors mansion.

Wrong

He chose not to live there so we can fund both houses (security and such ).

[ohiomike]

Wrong

He chose not to live there so we can fund both houses (security and such ).

You get my point, right?

[Uncle Punk]

Tod,

In five days, we will decide the future of our state.

I hope you can take a minute to read this excellent summary of Issue 2 by Kevin O'Brien, a columnist at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

Here's a quick preview:

"Issue 2 opponents have worked hard to make this election about emotion. They have also ignored the inconvenient certainty that the financial situations of localities across Ohio will necessitate layoffs, whether or not Issue 2 passes. They are quite prepared, though of course they will not say so, to resort to the time-honored union practice of "eating their young" when layoff time comes, so as to protect union leaders and other senior employees. That's why any talk of merit is anathema to them.

If they win Tuesday, it will be because a majority of Ohioans do not understand the seriousness of an impending fiscal crisis at all levels of government."

Let's make sure that doesn't happen. We've made so much progress this year, from eliminating an $8 billion budget shortfall without raising taxes to saving or creating 35,000 jobs. We can't afford to turn back now.

Please share this email with your Ohio friends and family, and encourage them to get out and vote YES on Issue 2 now by early ballot or in-person at Tuesday's election.

Together, we can build a better Ohio for this generation and the next.

Sincerely,

Mary

Mary Taylor

Ohio's Lieutenant Governor

P.S. Have you seen the long list of organizations that have endorsed a YES on Issue 2? Check it out here.

[Casper]

P.S. Have you seen the long list of organizations that have endorsed a YES on Issue 2? Check it out here.

Wow. Hadn't seen that. Pretty much every newspaper and chamber of commerce. Wow.

[jagr]

Wow is right. Journalists totally know how to fix Ohio. I mean some of them have Journalism degrees and everything. That's such a demanding core of classes I don't know how they did it. they must be übersmart! Oh and Chambers of Commerce are never political. They're totally about what's good for the people.

[mattm]

Wow is right. Journalists totally know how to fix Ohio. I mean some of them have Journalism degrees and everything. That's such a demanding core of classes I don't know how they did it. they must be übersmart! Oh and Chambers of Commerce are never political. They're totally about what's good for the people.

Quoted for truth... I especially like that bit about the chamber of commerce being 'totally about what's good for the people.'

[jagr]

I am a at least 20 hour a day.

[Uncle Punk]

Wow is right. Journalists totally know how to fix Ohio. I mean some of them have Journalism degrees and everything. That's such a demanding core of classes I don't know how they did it. they must be übersmart! Oh and Chambers of Commerce are never political. They're totally about what's good for the people.

So you're inferring that the police and firefighters know how to run and fix things? They seem to try to get traction out of saying that administrators can't make decisions on staffing numbers which lead to bottom line numbers. When times get tough you eliminate overhead, as important as the police and firefighters think they are they are overhead. If they continue to get the compensation packages that they currently are getting their numbers will diminish. They don't seem to care about that they got theirs and want to keep it. They are totally about what’s good for the people.

[jagr]

No. Not saying that at all. I will first say my issue with this issue is how it came into being. The governor basically eliminated anyone who had issue with his plan or wanted to discuss other approaches. I also love the ads saying gubment workers make 43% more than their private counterparts. My wife is a gubment worker and with the degrees she has would prolly make 43% MORE in the private sector. She believes in what she does and knows she makes a differance. Hence she stays gubment. Outlawing the unions isn't the answer here. It's about negotiating and being on the same page. My community has always given in to the unions. That's what needs to change. Its not the states responsibility to step in because city managers have no backbone. Conflict frightens them more than an unbalanced budget.

I will say as a manager myself state and city administrators have no idea how to lead and direct personnel. My wife routinely brings work home to complete unpaid while an 8 person support staff department reads books and eat all day as its accepted by their managers that they can refuse work. The lack of accountability and efficiency is truly sickening. These to me are the issues that need addressed.

So no UP I am not inferring what you say nor am I disputing it.

[jagr]

Crybabies.

Not gonna lie. I get aroused when I see adults cry.

[Uncle Punk]

Tod,

Though I would have preferred a different outcome tonight, the people of Ohio have spoken and I respect their decision.

I’m grateful to all the volunteers who helped in this effort. You were essential and your work is appreciated. It was also inspiring to meet so many people who share our vision of recreating the jobs-friendly climate Ohio needs.

In just 10 months, we’ve made significant progress towards getting Ohio back on track. We closed a record $8 billion shortfall while cutting taxes by $300 million, we improved Ohio’s credit outlook, we reformed Medicaid to control costs while improving services to the neediest, and we took job-creation efforts out of the hands of bureaucrats and entrusted them to private-sector experts that are already showing significant results. In fact, in 2011 alone Ohio has fostered more than 190 economic development projects that helped create or save more than 41,000 jobs and $2.4 billion in payroll, while generating $1.9 billion in new capital investments.

I’m proud of our progress, but more work is needed.

Despite tonight’s outcome, it doesn’t change the fact that Ohio's ability to create a jobs-friendly climate is impacted by local governments' ability to reduce their costs. Just as Ohio had to get its fiscal house in order—and make tough choices to do it—local governments must as well. Ohio must find innovative ways to help local governments provide good services and good value. According to the US Census, local government taxes increased 42 percent between 1999 and 2009, almost twice the rate of inflation. That’s an astonishing increase when, during the same period, Ohio lost more jobs than any other state except California and Michigan, population growth was flat, school test scores didn’t improve and personal income suffered. We can do better and we will.

Ohio’s problems developed over time because too many people cared more about popularity than about making the tough—and sometimes unpopular—choices Ohio needed. Folks should know by now that that’s not my way. We won’t get Ohio back on track in a day, but our lives and our work aren’t sprints, they’re marathons, and we strive for bigger rewards than the fleeting praise of the here and now.

We’ll keep moving forward, mindful of the lessons we learn, and we’ll restore the greatness of our state. I’m grateful for the chance to work with the people of Ohio on this mission. Together we can do it.

Sincerely,

John

John Kasich

Governor of Ohio

</SPAN>

[Disclaimer]

Didn't know where to park this, so I'll just put it here.

Ohio goes way back to recover welfare overpayments

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/ohio-goes-way-back-to-recover-welfare-overpayments-1.245794

...now just waiting for it to be reposted in it's own thread by someone else...

[Uncle Punk]

Tod,

I was in Toledo yesterday to join Chrysler in announcing the creation of 1,100 new jobs. Afterwards, I visited Republic Steel in Lorain for another announcement of 449 new jobs.

Ohio is beginning to win again, but we've got more work to do.

Since I was sworn in as governor in January, we have created or saved over 42,000 jobs.

That’s 42,000 stronger families and together we can all be proud about this news.

But we must keep up the momentum and we need your help to get the word out about these victories. Please forward this email to 5 friends or family and let them know that Ohio is on the road to recovery.

Thanks for all that you’re doing.

John

John Kasich

Governor of Ohio

[Uncle Punk]

Tod,

58,396 - That’s how many jobs we’ve created this year or saved from going to other states or disappearing altogether. That is over 58,000 stronger Ohio families.

We’re beginning to see real momentum in our efforts to fix our great state.

The Plain Dealer noted, “In that light, the Kasich administration seems to have done a good job in its first 11 months of being aggressive when it needed to be — economic development professionals say they are impressed with the new speed of decision-making — and of demanding solid, early returns on public investment.” Read more here.

Also recently in the Dispatch, “The recent good news confirms that Ohio’s manufacturing infrastructure and its strong work force are attractive to companies looking to expand. The Dispatch hopes to see state officials continue to build on those assets with strategic incentives and smart salesmanship.” Read more here.

Please stay active and share your ideas with us. Together, we are bringing jobs back, fixing our schools and saving our great state.

Sincerely,

John

John Kasich

Governor of Ohio

P.S. You can click here to watch a short video to learn more about how we’re working with businesses to create jobs.