End corporate welfare

On Wednesday, I went to the city commission meeting to speak against handing over tax dollars to a private corporation. As usual, I was working with somewhat faulty information that I’d received from the “Dayton Daily news” in that the money was being approved by the City Commission, but was actually ED/GE funds which are [...]

The city charter is very specific- the Dayton City Commission is to meet once a week to conduct the cities business. It’s also specific about missing 5 consecutive meetings and it’s time to replace a commissioner- but as we all know, the only thing that’s sacred in the charter is that you need 500 signatures [...]

Our country was founded on the principle that “all men are created equal.” Yet our local elected leaders seem to think it’s good government to redistribute our tax dollars from the poor to the wealthy while rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. To summarize, Heidelberg Distributing is moving its HQ and at least 270 [...]

Ohio raised the minimum wage 15¢ an hour to a whopping $7.85 per hour for 2013. Making minimum wage gives you annual earnings of $16,328 — a $340 increase. Tipped employees will receive a minimum wage of $3.93 plus tips. Employees younger than 16 must be paid no less than the federal minimum wage, which [...]

Possibly in response to the article I posted yesterday, IRG makes an announcement of a tenant. The Emery/UPS facility at Dayton International Airport is over a million square feet. In their first big “success” we have IRG renting 15% of the space to a local firm, not involved in aviation, and getting tax breaks to [...]

If you wonder why Dayton doesn’t have as many police officers as it used to, or firefighters, or recreation centers- it’s because we’ve been so busy doing “economic development” and “job creation” to the effect that fewer people want to live in neighborhoods considered unsafe, and plummeting property values as people move to where they [...]

Most of the taxpayers in Montgomery County couldn’t tell you how many ice rinks there are in the county. But I can. 2 at Harra arena, Winterland and the Arena. Privately owned. 1 at Kettering Recreation Center. Publicly owned. 1 at South Metro. Privately owned. 3/4 of one at Riverscape. Publicly owned 1 in Randy [...]

In today’s Dayton Daily News we get to read about the “land bank” and how the city is wiping the debts off some sites that they’ve decided were over-encumbered by tax debt and making them available for development: The targeted properties include: • The former Dayton Electro Plate Inc., 1030 Valley Street; • Rita Construction, [...]

The “American dream” is that this is a land of opportunity. America is supposed to be the magical place where anyone can work their way up from poverty to the presidency, or at least that’s what we’ve believed. Recent studies found that our country is now far from that. Americans enjoy less economic mobility than [...]

From the very first time I ran for office, I believed that government should stick to doing things that only government should do: provide universal services and amenities to the community it serves. Police, fire, roads, parks, water and sewer are great starting points. Some things aren’t so black and white: trash collection, golf courses [...]